Gary Grigsby’s War in the East: The German-Soviet War 1941-1945 is a turn-based World War II strategy game stretching across the entire Eastern Front. Gamers can engage in an epic campaign, including division-sized battles with realistic and historical terrain, weather, orders of battle, logistics and combat results.
The critically and fan-acclaimed Eastern Front mega-game Gary Grigsby’s War in the East just got bigger and better with Gary Grigsby’s War in the East: Don to the Danube! This expansion to the award-winning War in the East comes with a wide array of later war scenarios ranging from short but intense 6 turn bouts like the Battle for Kharkov (1942) to immense 37-turn engagements taking place across multiple nations like Drama on the Danube (Summer 1944 – Spring 1945).
ORIGINAL: cherryfunk
But that doesn't make Stalin's rule any better than Hitler.
Yes, actually, it does. Stalin allowed nations and cultures to continue to exist under his hegemony that Hitler sought to permanently eradicate from the face of the earth. Stalin sent hundreds of thousands of suspected political enemies into the work camps, Hitler sent millions of the 'racially inferior' into the gas chambers. The Soviet system sought to reshape human politics via indoctrination, the Nazi system to reshape humanity itself via genocide. Both were horrific systems, but one far more so than the other.
Looking at the pure numbers of crimes and murders committed by both, they were both comparably cruel people. And both had very absurd ideas. So in my opinion, neither one of them was any better than the other. As I said before, I am quite happy that the Western Allies occupied large parts of Germany before the Soviets made it. And luckily for the future development of Germany and ultimately the European Union, the Western Allies prevailed with their rebuilding and democratization efforts. Though highly speculative, I don't want to think of the way Europe might look today if the iron curtain had run a couple 100 miles further west.
I think the two of you mean different things when speaking about "nations" -- people and states? The Nazi plan was to turn some regions that sometime in history belonged to German, Prussian, or related territory, "back" into German provinces.
....
In that sense, they didn't really plan to eliminate nations, but rather to re-incorporate these "provinces" into the German Reich, thus forming again a Greater German Reich ("Großdeutsches Reich") -- quite similar to the Russians later incorporating Latvia etc. into theirs.
This is simply incorrect, unless you can tell us when Germany ruled all of Poland, the Baltic states, the Ukraine, Belorussia and European Russia itself. When was that exactly?
It may only have been for a very brief period but I would suggest looking up the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk that ended Russian involvement in WWI. It may not have covered all of the above areas, but did include a very large part of them.
ORIGINAL: cherryfunk
But that doesn't make Stalin's rule any better than Hitler.
Yes, actually, it does. Stalin allowed nations and cultures to continue to exist under his hegemony that Hitler sought to permanently eradicate from the face of the earth. Stalin sent hundreds of thousands of suspected political enemies into the work camps, Hitler sent millions of the 'racially inferior' into the gas chambers. The Soviet system sought to reshape human politics via indoctrination, the Nazi system to reshape humanity itself via genocide. Both were horrific systems, but one far more so than the other.
Looking at the pure numbers of crimes and murders committed by both, they were both comparably cruel people. And both had very absurd ideas. So in my opinion, neither one of them was any better than the other. As I said before, I am quite happy that the Western Allies occupied large parts of Germany before the Soviets made it. And luckily for the future development of Germany and ultimately the European Union, the Western Allies prevailed with their rebuilding and democratization efforts. Though highly speculative, I don't want to think of the way Europe might look today if the iron curtain had run a couple 100 miles further west.
Except I would wish the EU was what is was, as a collection of central states who could no longer afford war but instead prosper with each other.
I would now vote to leave the expanded EU. Its day is done for the UK.
Always disgusted to see how many fascists and crypto-fascists play this game, and easily fall for (neo-)nazi ideology and fairy tales. Let's hope they all are plainly ignorant and harmless...
Reminder: The novice studies tactics, the master studies logistics.
I think the two of you mean different things when speaking about "nations" -- people and states? The Nazi plan was to turn some regions that sometime in history belonged to German, Prussian, or related territory, "back" into German provinces.
....
In that sense, they didn't really plan to eliminate nations, but rather to re-incorporate these "provinces" into the German Reich, thus forming again a Greater German Reich ("Großdeutsches Reich") -- quite similar to the Russians later incorporating Latvia etc. into theirs.
This is simply incorrect, unless you can tell us when Germany ruled all of Poland, the Baltic states, the Ukraine, Belorussia and European Russia itself. When was that exactly?
It may only have been for a very brief period but I would suggest looking up the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk that ended Russian involvement in WWI. It may not have covered all of the above areas, but did include a very large part of them.
So the fact that Ukraine and Belorussia were occupied for six months in 1918 means Germany had a right to re-occupy the area, loot it, massacre its people by the millions, crush its culture to extinction, colonize it, and rule it forever after? Is that what you're arguing?
I don't get the apologism for Nazism among wargamers -- we above all people should know what that regime represented, and what its intentions were after the 'endsieg'. No one is saying Stalinism was a good thing, but the fact that it defeated Nazism is a very good thing.
So the fact that Ukraine and Belorussia were occupied for six months in 1918 means Germany had a right to re-occupy the area, loot it, massacre its people by the millions, crush its culture to extinction, colonize it, and rule it forever after? Is that what you're arguing?
I don't get the apologism for Nazism among wargamers -- we above all people should know what that regime represented, and what its intentions were after the 'endsieg'. No one is saying Stalinism was a good thing, but the fact that it defeated Nazism is a very good thing.
You appear to be one of those people that always reads more into a sentence than is actually in it and it's funny how some people think that stating a historical fact turns you into a Nazi sympathiser.
My orginal answer was merely pointing out that there was a time in Germanys past where they had effectively occupied/controlled those areas, so with that, please point out to me where exactly in that sentence I was advocating Germanys inalianable right to occuppy that land in perpetuity?
Keep in mind that the Nazi claims stretched back to ancient times, funny as it seems. They even sent archeological teams on digs in the Ukraine to prove (through falsified records) that the Ostrogoths were there once upon a time...
Something else - Hitler's land grab was no different from the Kaiser's in WWI. Baltic States and the Ukraine were clearly to go to Germany by the provisions of Brest Litovsk, and in a way, Hitler's mentality, was forged on the short-lived expansion of Germany after the Russian collapse of 1917. Of course, here I'm talking in terms of the ground covered.
Aryanism also included other populations in its calculations - Nordic countries and the Netherlands were considered kindred spirits. So were the inhabitants of the Baltic States. Not to mention the Germans found all over Eastern Europe and the Balkans due to the medieval diaspora. At one point they even included the Greeks in the list (the Dorians were supposed to be proto-germans etc etc - a lot of ****)! So in essence there was no limit to their ambitions.
Yet despite all this, they also thought of themselves as the protectors of Islam - making friends with Albanians, Egyptians, Iraqis etc.
All the above points to one simple fact - Nazi ideology was muddled and waxed and waned with their successes. All those plans for the east were just wishful thinking and cooked up in the death troes of the war (1944 onwards). I would say that even Hitler was not even that a loony to come up with such absurdities - these were all the results of what today we call think tanks with no connection with reality whatsoever (funnily enough many think tanks nowadays have the same results - ie a lot of idiotic speculation without any basis except statistics - but that's another story and one that is unfolding around us - vide the EU). I mean let's face it - grab the Ukraine and the Russians were somehow expected to withdraw behind the Urals and not challenge German possesion of their formal lands? That's sheer fantasy! Problem is that the whole eastern strategy was not well thought out in the first place, let alone achievable. The whole system was rotten conceptually, ideologically and in practical terms.
Having said that, I think that in the end Hitler administered the slow poison which eventually killed off the Soviet Union. By actually making Stalin's worst nightmare come true - an invasion from the west - he forced Stalin and his successors to devote a lot of attention towards defence rather than development. Frankly, a superpower that produced 2000 tanks a year but could not produce enough tractors and trucks to increase its agricultural output, is not exactly a sane superpower. Remember that the first communist leaders feared not America per se, but Europe, which was a more immediate concern for them (especially since the bulk of Europeans showed their aversion to communism very early on). That mentality still permeated their thinking till the 1960's and they shifted little of their attention from Europe. They never shook off the fright they got in WWII and ended up trapped in their fears. Essentially, the effect of the sacrifices of millions who fought under the black banners or allied nations, paid off in the 1980's with the internal collapse of the Soviet Union.
So the fact that Ukraine and Belorussia were occupied for six months in 1918 means Germany had a right to re-occupy the area, loot it, massacre its people by the millions, crush its culture to extinction, colonize it, and rule it forever after? Is that what you're arguing?
I don't get the apologism for Nazism among wargamers -- we above all people should know what that regime represented, and what its intentions were after the 'endsieg'. No one is saying Stalinism was a good thing, but the fact that it defeated Nazism is a very good thing.
You appear to be one of those people that always reads more into a sentence than is actually in it and it's funny how some people think that stating a historical fact turns you into a Nazi sympathiser.
My orginal answer was merely pointing out that there was a time in Germanys past where they had effectively occupied/controlled those areas, so with that, please point out to me where exactly in that sentence I was advocating Germanys inalianable right to occuppy that land in perpetuity?
I apologize, I was out of line to imply that. However, German occupation in 1918 went only as far east as the Ukraine, and even then they installed a puppet government and at least paid lip service to Ukrainian independence. The Nazis, however, sought to conquer as far as the Urals and intended to colonize the area and liquidate any nationalist tendencies among the locale populations. Even the Baltic states, who would have happily joined the German cause and been staunch allies, were treated like so much plunder. So I'm not sure how you bringing up the treaty of Brest-Litovsk has any bearing on my point, really. The Kaiser and the Fuhrer had very different outlooks on German expansion.
You appear to be one of those people that always reads more into a sentence than is actually in it and it's funny how some people think that stating a historical fact turns you into a Nazi sympathiser.
My orginal answer was merely pointing out that there was a time in Germanys past where they had effectively occupied/controlled those areas, so with that, please point out to me where exactly in that sentence I was advocating Germanys inalianable right to occuppy that land in perpetuity?
I apologize, I was out of line to imply that. However, German occupation in 1918 went only as far east as the Ukraine, and even then they installed a puppet government and at least paid lip service to Ukrainian independence. The Nazis, however, sought to conquer as far as the Urals and intended to colonize the area and liquidate any nationalist tendencies among the locale populations. Even the Baltic states, who would have happily joined the German cause and been staunch allies, were treated like so much plunder. So I'm not sure how you bringing up the treaty of Brest-Litovsk has any bearing on my point, really. The Kaiser and the Fuhrer had very different outlooks on German expansion.
Something else - Hitler's land grab was no different from the Kaiser's in WWI.
Not really. Read up on Imperial Germany's occupation policies vs. those of the Third Reich -- one relied on local leaders and created national (if puppet) governments, the other murdered local leaders and sought to wipe said nations from the face of the earth.
If you're a Pole and your family is dying, does it really matter to you if the hand killing you is fascist or communist? You and your family are still dead. There's a reason the Polish fought for their freedom throughout the 70s and 80s.
"Venimus, vidimus, Deus vicit" John III Sobieski as he entered Vienna on 9/12/1683. "I came, I saw, God conquered."
He that has a mind to fight, let him fight, for now is the time. - Anacreon
It's a simple historical fact: Poland existed under Russian hegemony, it did not under German. The two occupations are not equivalent. Full stop.
I find it rather odd that people focus on the millions killed by Hitler but don't mention the tens of millions killed by Stalin. History, it seems, loves the winner.
Personally, I find both tyrants repugnant, as is war. I enjoy wargaming however - weird huh?
