OT: The Longest Day Movie.

[Footslogger]

After seeing the movie, I have a couple of questions. First, it seems that some of the German Generals believed in God. Did Hilter believe in God? Second, what happend after Hitler awoke from his nap? Third, did the movie portriat the Germans as they were?

Thats it.

[warspite1]

Re your first point, Hitler, Himmler and co most certainly did not believe in god and the plan was to "deal with the church" as soon as the war had been won......

[Fänrik Stål]

The Germans were good Christians like pretty much everyone else in Europe at that time. Hitler invoked both God and Jesus in his speeches many times. Whether this translates to a belief in God or if it was simply cynical manipulation of the masses, is hard to know. He never officially renounced Catholicism AFAIK. In the late stages of the war it seems certain he believed in a "divine providence" which would save Germany at the crucial moment, just as he believed his hero Frederick the Great had been saved during the Seven Years war, when the future of Prussia seemed as bleak as that of Germany in '44-'45. As for wanting to "deal with the church" it's my understanding that the plan was to replace it with a warped form of Christianity, more in line with the Nazi ideology and of course totally subservient to the Nazi state. It's clear that Hitler and Himmler had very different ideas about these issues. Himmler favoured a return to pagan beliefs akin to old Norse and Germanic religions.

What happened after Hitler awoke from his nap? I don't remember exactly, but he kept insisting the main landing would take place in the Calais area for some time, and refused to release the troops stationed there for use in Normandy.

As for portraying the Germans as they were, I don't know. Probably fairly realistic though. It's one of the better war movies about WW2 I've seen.

[mmarquo]

"Gott mit uns" was engraved on Wehrmacht belt buckles [:-]

[Fänrik Stål]

ORIGINAL: Marquo

"Gott mit uns" was engraved on Wehrmacht belt buckles [:-]

Yes, but that doesn't say anything about Hitler's personal beliefs. [;)]

[Commanderski]

I haven't seen that movie in quite some time. But I remember reading in one of the books on the Eastern Front that the Germans had Chaplains.

[Fishbed]

There is a great representation of the thing (the chaplain, the engraved buckle thing) in the Vilsmaier's Stalingrad that was mentioned in the War Movies topic next door. The Gott mit uns stuff in the Wehrmacht was a tradition carried over from Prussian belt buckles though, maybe through all the Reichswehr era, and was not necessarily something done by the Nazis on purpose.

[Fänrik Stål]

ORIGINAL: Fishbed

There is a great representation of the thing (the chaplain, the engraved buckle thing) in the Vilsmaier's Stalingrad that was mentioned in the War Movies topic next door. The Gott mit uns stuff in the Wehrmacht was a tradition carried over from Prussian belt buckles though, maybe through all the Reichswehr era, and was not necessarily something done by the Nazis on purpose.

This is contradicted by the fact that the belt buckles also had a big Swastika on them.

[Fishbed]

Hum sorry, I probably didn't make myself clear on that one: what I meant is not that the Nazi didn't chose to keep the mention of "gott mit uns". I meant that this practice clearly was not their original making, but rather something they decided to keep alive from past generations of Prussian/German military usage (they did keep it, yes, but it's not something like "hey let's add God on the buckles from now on cuz an empty space is so duuuull"). Sorry, the "on purpose" thing doesn't sound very clear there (I rather meant something like "for this purpose").

Be sure that I don't believe that they were dumb enough to go through the remake of the basic Reichswehr uniform issue, and not see what was on the back of the buckle [;)]

[danlongman]

Ha Ha Ha
I read on some site on the internet (so it must be true) that most of the Nazi hierarchy
was secretly top leaders of the Societ of Jesus......aka THE JESUITS one of the forces behind
THE SPANISH INQISITION!!!! and of course no one expects....
Methinks the site was called One Evil.
Anyway they was mostly Jesuits and carrying out some kinda eternal plot or something.
We only thought it didn't work out because it is apparently still hard at work on global evil.
cheers