Who was better: Patton or Rommel
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EricGuitarJames
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RE: Who was better: Patton or Rommel
Coming from someone who believes in ignoring historical facts ahead of half-cocked theories propagated by chequebooks journalists that's a bit rich[:D]
It's Just a Ride!
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IronDuke_slith
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RE: Who was better: Patton or Rommel
ORIGINAL: Von Rom
Erich von Manstein
For the most part, Manstein achieved most of his successes against inferior troop quality in the west and in Russia:
Successes:
* in 1938, took part in the German take-over of the Sudetenland as the Chief of Staff to General von Leeb
* On February 1st of 1940, he received the command of 38th Infantry Corps to invade France
* June 22nd to 26th, von Manstein advanced over 320km, while capturing bridges across Duna River yet failed to capture the city of Leningrad.
* he secured the Crimea and eventually took Sevastopol
********************************
However, Manstein's failures were of a greater consequence to Germany's strategic position:
FAILURES:
* August of 1942, von Manstein was once again in charge of forces attacking the city of Leningrad and FAILED to capture it.
* In November, 1942 Erich von Manstein received the command of newly formed Army Group Don, which was made up of Hoth's 4th Panzer Army, Paulus's 6th Army (entirely trapped in Stalingrad) and 3rd Romanian Army. He was ordered to relieve the 6th Army and 4th Panzer Army trapped in the city of Stalingrad. Von Manstein started his attack on December 12th and by 24th was within 50km from "Fortress Stalingrad", when his advance was halted and he was forced into 200km long retreat, which continued until February of 1943. He FAILED again.
* von Manstein's Army Group South FAILED in its attack at Kursk in 1943.
* After the unsuccessful outcome of the Operation "Citadel" (July/August of 1943), Erich von Manstein was driven into a long RETREAT by the Russian counteroffensive.
* In late January, 1944 Manstein was forced to RETREAT further westwards by the new Soviet offensive.
* On March 30th of 1944, Erich von Manstein was dismissed by Adolf Hitler.
Since this isn't about Patton (at least not directly) I felt able to step in and correct some errors
* In November, 1942 Erich von Manstein received the command of newly formed Army Group Don, which was made up of Hoth's 4th Panzer Army, Paulus's 6th Army (entirely trapped in Stalingrad) and 3rd Romanian Army. He was ordered to relieve the 6th Army and 4th Panzer Army trapped in the city of Stalingrad. Von Manstein started his attack on December 12th and by 24th was within 50km from "Fortress Stalingrad", when his advance was halted and he was forced into 200km long retreat, which continued until February of 1943. He FAILED again.
Do you have a source to back this opinion up, or is this your reading of the facts as you understand them?
The reason I ask is that I know of no one else who thinks Manstein's performance at this time was poor. He essentially had three separate tasks.
* Stabilise the southern front that had been ruptured wide open by the encirclement of Stalingrad.
* Ensure the extraction of Army Group A from the Caucasus.
* Open a supply route to 6th Army and elements of 4th PanzerArmee and elements of the Rumanian VI Corp in Stalingrad.
He managed two, when in many people's opinions, he had no right to manage any. The counteroffensive which ended in the famous victory at Kharkov was quite brilliant. Manstein had to persuade Hitler to allow him to try it, then anticipate Soviet intentions (as they weren't going to sit still whilst he manoeuvred his forces) decide which sectors to strip bare in his search for mobile forces to attack with, and then finally decide in which sectors he was going to hold firm and in which he was going to allow the Soviets to continue their drive. He created the circumstances for the counterattack. I think it stands as an example of what superior German mobility and Command and control might have done had it been allowed more elasticity in it's defensive operations at a time when the Wehrmacht was up to the job.
Stalingrad was a failure, but I'm not convinced it was ever on. The attack to Stalingrad did succeed in preventing further Soviet assaults further north at a time when the Southern sector would not have withstood them. I think throughout the campaign he retained the initiative in a situation where he had no right to maintain it. To simply say "He didn't save 6th Army so he failed", is rather like claiming the RAF lost the battle of Britain because they couldn't prevent German bombing of London.
On March 30th of 1944, Erich von Manstein was dismissed by Adolf Hitler.
Indeed he was. For suggesting Hitler should give him operational control of all forces on the Eastern front. It sounds like a good idea to me, so why this is a criticism escapes me.
von Manstein's Army Group South FAILED in its attack at Kursk in 1943.
Hitler actually called it off, when the Alies landed in Sicily. Manstein's Army group were nearing their objectives, having inflicted huge losses on the Soviet forces. The operation was essentially a failure because the other pincer of the trap had only penetrated about four miles (if memory serves) on the northern flank. Therefore, had he continued, there was no prospect of success, because Manstein's men were not the only ones involved.
June 22nd to 26th, von Manstein advanced over 320km, while capturing bridges across Duna River yet failed to capture the city of Leningrad.
He was part of Leeb's Army Group North. Why is it his fault if the Army Group fails to achieve it's objectives? He was merely a Corp Commander. Above him was the PanzerGruppe Commander and above him Leeb, it seems strange to single out a Corp Commander and blame him for everything (unless you have an agenda).
Regards,
IronDuke
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EricGuitarJames
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RE: Who was better: Patton or Rommel
ORIGINAL: Von Rom
ORIGINAL: EricGuitarJames
I'm quite aware of Farago's work thank you very much. I'm sure, like Charles Whiting, he has excellent credentials for writing history, .........and film screenplays, ........and books on conspiracy theories. Strange though that an eminent historian like AJP Taylor had never heard of him, even in 1973[:D]
Ya, know I thought we were going to able to have a decent discussion about this issue.
When will I ever learn [8|]
And you wonder why I have ignored posts in the past.
So please don't let the facts or common sense stand in the way of what you believe. . .
Stick your head back into the sand and go back to reading Whiting. . .
Why would I want to read any more of Whiting? I find your fiction far more entertaining[:D]
It's Just a Ride!
RE: Who was better: Patton or Rommel
ORIGINAL: IronDuke
ORIGINAL: Von Rom
Erich von Manstein
For the most part, Manstein achieved most of his successes against inferior troop quality in the west and in Russia:
Successes:
* in 1938, took part in the German take-over of the Sudetenland as the Chief of Staff to General von Leeb
* On February 1st of 1940, he received the command of 38th Infantry Corps to invade France
* June 22nd to 26th, von Manstein advanced over 320km, while capturing bridges across Duna River yet failed to capture the city of Leningrad.
* he secured the Crimea and eventually took Sevastopol
********************************
However, Manstein's failures were of a greater consequence to Germany's strategic position:
FAILURES:
* August of 1942, von Manstein was once again in charge of forces attacking the city of Leningrad and FAILED to capture it.
* In November, 1942 Erich von Manstein received the command of newly formed Army Group Don, which was made up of Hoth's 4th Panzer Army, Paulus's 6th Army (entirely trapped in Stalingrad) and 3rd Romanian Army. He was ordered to relieve the 6th Army and 4th Panzer Army trapped in the city of Stalingrad. Von Manstein started his attack on December 12th and by 24th was within 50km from "Fortress Stalingrad", when his advance was halted and he was forced into 200km long retreat, which continued until February of 1943. He FAILED again.
* von Manstein's Army Group South FAILED in its attack at Kursk in 1943.
* After the unsuccessful outcome of the Operation "Citadel" (July/August of 1943), Erich von Manstein was driven into a long RETREAT by the Russian counteroffensive.
* In late January, 1944 Manstein was forced to RETREAT further westwards by the new Soviet offensive.
* On March 30th of 1944, Erich von Manstein was dismissed by Adolf Hitler.
[Snipped for space]
Regards,
IronDuke
Von Manstein:
1) He instituted mass starvation of Soviet civilians - he was sentenced to 18 years in prison.
2) He failed to take Leningrad twice
3) He failed to relieve Stalingrad
4) He failed at kursk
5) And he failed to stem the Soviet counterattacks.
6) He was dismissed in 1944.
Most of von Manstein's claim to fame has been victories against inferior and poor opposition, such as in Poland, France and the USSR.
At least when Patton entered cities, towns and villages, he was welcomed as a liberator and as a hero.
But von Manstein ended his career as a war criminal. . . [;)]
RE: Who was better: Patton or Rommel
ORIGINAL: EricGuitarJames
ORIGINAL: Von Rom
ORIGINAL: EricGuitarJames
I'm quite aware of Farago's work thank you very much. I'm sure, like Charles Whiting, he has excellent credentials for writing history, .........and film screenplays, ........and books on conspiracy theories. Strange though that an eminent historian like AJP Taylor had never heard of him, even in 1973[:D]
Ya, know I thought we were going to able to have a decent discussion about this issue.
When will I ever learn [8|]
And you wonder why I have ignored posts in the past.
So please don't let the facts or common sense stand in the way of what you believe. . .
Stick your head back into the sand and go back to reading Whiting. . .
Why would I want to read any more of Whiting? I find your fiction far more entertaining[:D]
This "discussion" with you has deteriorated right where I expected it to go, based on your past comments.
So, I am just going to ignore your posts.
RE: Who was better: Patton or Rommel
For the interested reader, here are the comments of the attorney who travelled to Argentina to witness the documents Farago obtained from the Argentine Secret Police about Bormann:
The New York Book Review
Volume 22, Number 2 · February 20, 1975
Letter
THE BOREMANN DOCUMENTS
By Joel H. Weinberg
In response to Bormann's Last Gasp (November 14, 1974)
To the Editors:
The review of Ladislas Farago's "Aftermath" by H. R. Trevor-Roper, published in your issue dated November 14, 1974, has just come to my attention. I am responding to the part of Prof. Trevor-Roper's criticism in which he questioned the authenticity of Mr. Farago's documentation.
I am a New York attorney familiar with the rules of evidence. When in September 1972, Mr. Farago succeeded in obtaining certain documents from the files of the Argentine Secret Services, presenting apparently conclusive proof that former Reichsleiter Martin Bormann had managed to escape to and settle in Argentina, he immediately called upon me to join him in Buenos Aires to aid him in the authentication of the documents, and in his efforts to establish "beyond a reasonable doubt" that the documents were authoritative and authentic.
I arrived in Buenos Aires on September 14, 1972, and proceeded with the execution of my commission as an attorney, conducting a professional investigation into the origins and authenticity of the Bormann documents. In this endeavor I was aided in Buenos Aires by Mr. Stewart Steven, then Foreign Editor of the Daily Express, who had flown from London also at Mr. Farago's invitation to assist him in the authentication of the documents; by three distinguished Argentinian attorneys, Dr. Jaime Joaquin Rodriguez, Dr. Guillermo Macia Ray and the last Dr. Silvio Frondizi of Buenos Aires; and by Dr. Horacio A. Perillo, a practicing attorney in Buenos Aires, formerly legal aid to President Arturo Frondizi.
I personally interrogated several of the special agents whose names were mentioned in or whose signatures appeared on the documents, including Inspector Hector Rodriguez Morguado of Coordination Federal and Commissioner Alejandro Rafaelo of Policia Federal, and ascertained that the documents in Mr. Farago's possession bearing on the Bormann case were, indeed, genuine, and originated as claimed at the Seguridad Federal, formerly known as Coordination Federal, the central archives of the Argentine Secret Service Establishment.
Based upon my investigation and my questioning of the parties concerned in the acquisition of the documents, I have no hesitation to state that the classifed documents on which the Bormann part of "Aftermath" is based are genuine and authentic, true copies of the originals on file at the agency until recently called Seguridad Federal in Buenos Aires. Prof. Trevor-Roper's opinion in this matter, I submit, is based on sheer assumptions in the ignorance of the facts, stemming from his regrettable failure to properly investigate the case before expressing his doubts.
Joel H. Weinberg
New York City
The New York Book Review
Volume 22, Number 2 · February 20, 1975
Letter
THE BOREMANN DOCUMENTS
By Joel H. Weinberg
In response to Bormann's Last Gasp (November 14, 1974)
To the Editors:
The review of Ladislas Farago's "Aftermath" by H. R. Trevor-Roper, published in your issue dated November 14, 1974, has just come to my attention. I am responding to the part of Prof. Trevor-Roper's criticism in which he questioned the authenticity of Mr. Farago's documentation.
I am a New York attorney familiar with the rules of evidence. When in September 1972, Mr. Farago succeeded in obtaining certain documents from the files of the Argentine Secret Services, presenting apparently conclusive proof that former Reichsleiter Martin Bormann had managed to escape to and settle in Argentina, he immediately called upon me to join him in Buenos Aires to aid him in the authentication of the documents, and in his efforts to establish "beyond a reasonable doubt" that the documents were authoritative and authentic.
I arrived in Buenos Aires on September 14, 1972, and proceeded with the execution of my commission as an attorney, conducting a professional investigation into the origins and authenticity of the Bormann documents. In this endeavor I was aided in Buenos Aires by Mr. Stewart Steven, then Foreign Editor of the Daily Express, who had flown from London also at Mr. Farago's invitation to assist him in the authentication of the documents; by three distinguished Argentinian attorneys, Dr. Jaime Joaquin Rodriguez, Dr. Guillermo Macia Ray and the last Dr. Silvio Frondizi of Buenos Aires; and by Dr. Horacio A. Perillo, a practicing attorney in Buenos Aires, formerly legal aid to President Arturo Frondizi.
I personally interrogated several of the special agents whose names were mentioned in or whose signatures appeared on the documents, including Inspector Hector Rodriguez Morguado of Coordination Federal and Commissioner Alejandro Rafaelo of Policia Federal, and ascertained that the documents in Mr. Farago's possession bearing on the Bormann case were, indeed, genuine, and originated as claimed at the Seguridad Federal, formerly known as Coordination Federal, the central archives of the Argentine Secret Service Establishment.
Based upon my investigation and my questioning of the parties concerned in the acquisition of the documents, I have no hesitation to state that the classifed documents on which the Bormann part of "Aftermath" is based are genuine and authentic, true copies of the originals on file at the agency until recently called Seguridad Federal in Buenos Aires. Prof. Trevor-Roper's opinion in this matter, I submit, is based on sheer assumptions in the ignorance of the facts, stemming from his regrettable failure to properly investigate the case before expressing his doubts.
Joel H. Weinberg
New York City
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IronDuke_slith
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RE: Who was better: Patton or Rommel
ORIGINAL: Von Rom
ORIGINAL: IronDuke
ORIGINAL: EricGuitarJames
So the sainted Wiesenthal is a forensic scientist too then[X(] And as for the London Daily Express, don't make me laugh!
What's making me smile, is that it seems Farago writes fiction about NAZIs on the side, if this Bormann stuff is anything to go by. Reams of material in the Patton thread were flung headlong at Mr Whiting for this very reason. Oh, the irony of it all...
The Bormann thing illustrates how conspiracy theory develops. There was no body which means that all sorts of fantasy becomes possible. Beevor gives quite a concise account of the escape attempts. He states Axmann split off from Bormann and Stumpfegger but was forced to retrace his steps, and came across the two bodies. Ian Kershaw states they committed suicide, stating they were found in 1972 and that dental and pathological examination proved who they were almost beyond doubt. Since I'm not aware of anyone tracing Stumpfegger after the war, either, and we have an eye witness who placed the bodies at the spot they were found, I think it's pretty conclusive.
Blaschke was Hitler's dentist and I don't have a problem with his memory. I suspect he wouldn't have had thousands of patients. He'd have had Hitler (and possibly) a select list of leading NAZIs (was he Bormann's dentist, or did he merely claim to see the records?). I think he looked after Eva Braun's teeth. If he'd had thousands of patients, then fair enough, but to have just a handful, doesn't give me problems if a qualified dentist is recognising them again years later. I don't take Wiesenthal's opinion as evidence. Unless he can be shopwn to have examined it closely and been a qualified forensic scientist or anthropologist or whatever, then I don't buy it. How can we?
Robin Cross relates that the bodies were found with glass remains in their mouth, apparently the remains of cyanide capsules. I think this confirms it if true as when you add it to everything else, the identification seems pretty solid.
All in all, I think the Bormann thing is just a good story. I think I'll write to Mr Whiting and suggest he writes his next novel about Bormann, detailing how he persuaded a lookalike of similiar height (with similiar looking teeth to boot) to commit suicide in his stead before escaping a City full of Russians, evading capture by the Allies and boarding the Reich's last loyal U-Boat to South America together with the looted gold bullion from around Europe.
Regards,
IronDuke
Heheh
Yup nothing like critical reading, eh, ID? [;)]
You read a brief snippet from a website, and you swallowed everything hook, line and sinker. . .
You, too, believe that a dentist can identify 30 year old dentures from records he saw 30 years ago FROM MEMORY. [8|]
Man, you guys are a salesman's dream come true. . .
BTW, I have a bridge I want to sell you. . .
I am amazed at what you will swallow when it suits your purpose.
When I was a child I believed in the Tooth Fairy - but then I wised up. . .
Did any of you ever stop to think that the West German Gov't rushed this "identification" to close the book on Bormann? That they would accept anything to sweep it under the carpet? Especially, if Bormann's cronies living in exile and in Germany placed pressure on key officials to close the case?
Please tell me you aren't this naive. . .
Oh dear...
Heheh
Yup nothing like critical reading, eh, ID? [;)]
You read a brief snippet from a website, and you swallowed everything hook, line and sinker. . .
What website? Are you making up straw man arguments of mine to knock down? The three works I referred to above are:
Anthony Beevor:[i] Berlin: The Downfall 1945[/i]
Robin Cross: Fallen Eagle
Ian Kershaw: Hitler: Nemesis 1936-1945.
Beevor is very well respected; Kershaw's biography of Hitler is the current standard text (a mighty fine historical work it is too); Cross has a good number of respected works on WWII military history under his belt. If you are saying I am naive, then it is these works you should be criticising. Instead, you erroneously suggest I have gotten it all from a website. Do you think people can not see this? Why do you do this?
You, too, believe that a dentist can identify 30 year old dentures from records he saw 30 years ago FROM MEMORY. [8|]
I am happy to accept it as corroborating evidence from a Dentist who had only a handful of clients 30 years before. I am happy to accept it as corroborating evidence when we have a witness who saw the Corpse minutes after death; a corpse subsequently dug up in the correct spot; a forensic examination of the remains that showed they matched Bormann's; the remains of cyanide capsules in the mouth when we know that a number of capsules were floating about the bunker at this time. What more do you need?
You mentioned Mossad earlier. Their record over the years, albeit bloody, has been very good. Do you honestly believe that if an investigative reporter could track Bormann down, that they couldn't? Why was there no snatch operation as there was with Eichmann?
Man, you guys are a salesman's dream come true. . .
BTW, I have a bridge I want to sell you. . .
I am amazed at what you will swallow when it suits your purpose.
When I was a child I believed in the Tooth Fairy - but then I wised up. . .
I won't validate this sort of stuff by replying.
Did any of you ever stop to think that the West German Gov't rushed this "identification" to close the book on Bormann? That they would accept anything to sweep it under the carpet? Especially, if Bormann's cronies living in exile and in Germany placed pressure on key officials to close the case?
What gets me is why we are the naive ones? Consider what you have to believe to believe what you do about Bormann?
1. Artur Axmann lied when he said he saw Bormann's Corpse.
2. Both Bormann and Stumpfegger subsequently evaded capture in one of the most dangerous cities in the world at that time.
3. A body was found (or deliberately placed?) at the right spot for the builders to find which either
A: was somebody else's who just happened to have similiar dimensions to Bormann or
B: was deliberately left to cover Bormann's tracks meaning someone found a corpse that closely resembled Bormann's and placed it there.
4. A Dentist (who had only a handful of people's teeth to remember) lied or misidentified the teeth.
5. A Pathologist falsified his evidence.
6. The remains of a glass phial of cyanide were placed into the mouth before the bodies were buried. Or, the two bodies left to be identified as Bormann's were killed using this peculiar suicide method. (This is most revealing. If you wanted to cover up that this wasn't Bormann, in a city covered with trigger happy Russians, you could have done anything to the corpses to hinder identification, and not had to get the Pathologist and Dentist in on the conspiracy (the fewer people in on the conspiracy the less likely it is to be discovered).
7. Bormann subsequently made it to South America.
8. Bormann subsequently evaded capture by Mossad and Wiesenthal but didn't evade capture by a crusading Journalist.
Now, all I have to do is believe that Axmann (the eye witness) told the truth. I also only have to believe that the body identified by Pathology (ignore the Dentist if you don't like him) as being Bormann's, discovered in the spot where the eye witness said Bormann fell, was in fact Bormann. This is not a huge leap. I have an eye witness who places the body at the scene, a body found at the scene, and a forensic identification of the body from the scene as Bormann. This is the sort of evidence that stands up in a court of law, yet here I am dismissed as being naive for believing it.
Oh the irony....
Regards,
IronDuke
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Error in 0
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RE: Who was better: Patton or Rommel
When did Borman allegdy die in Argentina?
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IronDuke_slith
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RE: Who was better: Patton or Rommel
ORIGINAL: Von Rom
ORIGINAL: IronDuke
ORIGINAL: Von Rom
Erich von Manstein
For the most part, Manstein achieved most of his successes against inferior troop quality in the west and in Russia:
Successes:
* in 1938, took part in the German take-over of the Sudetenland as the Chief of Staff to General von Leeb
* On February 1st of 1940, he received the command of 38th Infantry Corps to invade France
* June 22nd to 26th, von Manstein advanced over 320km, while capturing bridges across Duna River yet failed to capture the city of Leningrad.
* he secured the Crimea and eventually took Sevastopol
********************************
However, Manstein's failures were of a greater consequence to Germany's strategic position:
FAILURES:
* August of 1942, von Manstein was once again in charge of forces attacking the city of Leningrad and FAILED to capture it.
* In November, 1942 Erich von Manstein received the command of newly formed Army Group Don, which was made up of Hoth's 4th Panzer Army, Paulus's 6th Army (entirely trapped in Stalingrad) and 3rd Romanian Army. He was ordered to relieve the 6th Army and 4th Panzer Army trapped in the city of Stalingrad. Von Manstein started his attack on December 12th and by 24th was within 50km from "Fortress Stalingrad", when his advance was halted and he was forced into 200km long retreat, which continued until February of 1943. He FAILED again.
* von Manstein's Army Group South FAILED in its attack at Kursk in 1943.
* After the unsuccessful outcome of the Operation "Citadel" (July/August of 1943), Erich von Manstein was driven into a long RETREAT by the Russian counteroffensive.
* In late January, 1944 Manstein was forced to RETREAT further westwards by the new Soviet offensive.
* On March 30th of 1944, Erich von Manstein was dismissed by Adolf Hitler.
[Snipped for space]
Regards,
IronDuke
Von Manstein:
1) He instituted mass starvation of Soviet civilians - he was sentenced to 18 years in prison.
2) He failed to take Leningrad twice
3) He failed to relieve Stalingrad
4) He failed at kursk
5) And he failed to stem the Soviet counterattacks.
6) He was dismissed in 1944.
Most of von Manstein's claim to fame has been victories against inferior and poor opposition, such as in Poland, France and the USSR.
At least when Patton entered cities, towns and villages, he was welcomed as a liberator and as a hero.
But von Manstein ended his career as a war criminal. . . [;)]
This is the sort of thing that sullies your reputation. No context, just this. We criticise Patton for his failure to take Metz quickly, and you give us page after page of context to try and show there was no way he could have done this. You then post this, editing out my page after page of context, and think it is okay.
Oh the irony of it all...
Regards,
IronDuke
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IronDuke_slith
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RE: Who was better: Patton or Rommel
Not forgetting (very revealing this.....)
I also gave a point by point rebuttal of your remarks, discussing the points you made in detail, referring to the operations and battles in question. You ignored everything I said and simply restated your rather basic and contextless points. I'm presuming this is because you don't actually know much detail about the operations, and are merely criticising Manstein from a position of ignorance of his career on the eastern front.
Others will decide if I am right. However, it is where these threads go downhill. Surely, you would rush to provide the context if I said:
Patton was a poor General because:
He took five days to drive through three poor German Divisions to Bastogne
He invaded a huge chunk of Sicily that was strategically pointless
He failed to capture many Germans in his drive for the West wall
He took ages and thousands of casualties to capture Metz.
However, when your statements of this type are challenged with the context, you ignore it and carry on as if nothing has been said or provided. How can this be fair?
Regards,
IronDuke
I also gave a point by point rebuttal of your remarks, discussing the points you made in detail, referring to the operations and battles in question. You ignored everything I said and simply restated your rather basic and contextless points. I'm presuming this is because you don't actually know much detail about the operations, and are merely criticising Manstein from a position of ignorance of his career on the eastern front.
Others will decide if I am right. However, it is where these threads go downhill. Surely, you would rush to provide the context if I said:
Patton was a poor General because:
He took five days to drive through three poor German Divisions to Bastogne
He invaded a huge chunk of Sicily that was strategically pointless
He failed to capture many Germans in his drive for the West wall
He took ages and thousands of casualties to capture Metz.
However, when your statements of this type are challenged with the context, you ignore it and carry on as if nothing has been said or provided. How can this be fair?
Regards,
IronDuke
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EricGuitarJames
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RE: Who was better: Patton or Rommel
This "discussion" with you has deteriorated right where I expected it to go, based on your past comments.
So, I am just going to ignore your posts.
What again[:D]
I think it's very funny that you choose to ignore posts that you don't like by claiming that they are ignorant and therefore 'unworthy' of your august attention[&o][:D]
It's Just a Ride!
RE: Who was better: Patton or Rommel
ORIGINAL: IronDuke
[Snipped for space]
Regards,
IronDuke
You also have a large group of very powerful individuals (former Nazis) living abroad and in Germany, who have an interest to ensure that Bormann's death "occurs" in Berlin; they are protecting their "leader".
They will also go out of their way to try to discredit anyone trying to ferret out both Bormann's existence as well as where all the Nazi loot was taken.
Remember that this is about far more than just the existence of Bormann; it is also (to a greater extent) about the existence of tens of thousands of Nazis who fled to other countries with billions of dollars, and the network they have setup since the end of WWII.
It is also about the Vatican, which aided the escape of thousands of these wanted Nazis.
Naziism did NOT die with the Third Reich.
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EricGuitarJames
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RE: Who was better: Patton or Rommel
This just gets funnier and funnier. Von Rom, you missed your calling in life. You should have been a comedien[:D]
It's Just a Ride!
RE: Who was better: Patton or Rommel
AFTERMATH
Ladislas Farago.
Avon (Hearst Corporation, N.Y. 1974)
Page 101. "Martin Bormann, and other escapees like him, escaped to Argentina in 1948, having sailed from Genoa with false documents issued by the Vatican."
Page 241. "Around 1947, the department of the Vatican's Secretariate of State helped displaced persons UNDER THE DIRECTION OF MONSIGNOR JOSE MONTINI, WHOSE ASSISTANT WAS AN ARGENTINIAN PRIEST, NAMED SILVA." Silva was the link to Martin Bormann.
OSS: THE SECRET HISTORY OF AMERICA'S FIRST CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
R. Harris Smith, University of California Press.
MSGR. Biovanni Montini organized an intelligence pipeline that ran from the Vatican mission in Tokyo to the Vatican itself, to the Irish embassy in Rome. Messages were sent by OSS agents. Montini went on to become Pope Paul VI.
Ladislas Farago.
Avon (Hearst Corporation, N.Y. 1974)
Page 101. "Martin Bormann, and other escapees like him, escaped to Argentina in 1948, having sailed from Genoa with false documents issued by the Vatican."
Page 241. "Around 1947, the department of the Vatican's Secretariate of State helped displaced persons UNDER THE DIRECTION OF MONSIGNOR JOSE MONTINI, WHOSE ASSISTANT WAS AN ARGENTINIAN PRIEST, NAMED SILVA." Silva was the link to Martin Bormann.
OSS: THE SECRET HISTORY OF AMERICA'S FIRST CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
R. Harris Smith, University of California Press.
MSGR. Biovanni Montini organized an intelligence pipeline that ran from the Vatican mission in Tokyo to the Vatican itself, to the Irish embassy in Rome. Messages were sent by OSS agents. Montini went on to become Pope Paul VI.
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EricGuitarJames
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RE: Who was better: Patton or Rommel
You've got to say one thing for Farago, he certainly has a fertile imagination.
It's Just a Ride!
RE: Who was better: Patton or Rommel
ORIGINAL: EricGuitarJames
You've got to say one thing for Farago, he certainly has a fertile imagination.
Now you're just being a pest.
Now go back to reading your comic books.
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RE: Who was better: Patton or Rommel
A Nazi's Trail Leads to Gold -- Looted From Jews? -- In Brazil
By DIANA JEAN SCHEMO
SAO PAULO, Brazil -- Albert Blume died 14 years ago, an outcast and a mystery to his relatives, buried in a poor man's grave. As odd as his life was his legacy -- a $4 million fortune in luxury watches, rings, gold bars and gold teeth for which an aging aunt has been battling in court since his death.
The case might have ended unnoticed this year, with a court-appointed executor finally handing over the treasure to Blume's aunt, Margarida Blume. Instead, it has caught the attention of Brazil's first commission to investigate Nazi war criminals who fled here with looted Jewish property, as well as those who helped them flee.
Rabbi Marvin Hier, head of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, said the Blume case "appears to be the first concrete discovery of a perpetrator's account, which is where we believe the lion's share of the Jewish wealth was hidden."
Suddenly the bizarre details and contradictions in Blume's life are kindling interest among Brazilians in a chapter of their past that once seemed remote, irrelevant or taboo -- a South American counterpart to the scandal over Swiss banks that swallowed Jewish assets.
Theories about Blume's treasure abound, but for now they are only theories.
Some say that Blume, who lived out his life as a pawnbroker, fled to Brazil to escape Nazi persecution of homosexuals and that the gold was merely collateral for loans.
But Rabbi Henry Sobel, the chief rabbi of Brazil, who heads the Brazilian commission, and others contend that Blume never owned the fortune. More likely, they say, this German-born member of the Nazi Party was sent to Brazil in 1938 as a spy and was later used as a conduit for stolen gold that now lies in a bank vault in his name. They believe that Blume was holding it for a similarly named war criminal in Argentina, whose Nuremberg death sentence was commuted in 1951.
By raising these questions, the investigating commission is challenging Brazilians to color in the pages of an era that has only been outlined until now -- the history of Operation Odessa, a German plan devised in the final days of World War II to smuggle senior Nazis to South America.
The commission is reporting on stolen masterpieces, like a $1 million Madonna by Raphael that came here, and on dormant accounts opened by Nazis who fled here that are worth $15 million. One result, after decades of public indifference, is a belated national assessment of how Odessa worked and why South Americans allowed it to work so well.
If the "final solution" was the industrialized murder of European Jewry, the looting of the dead was no less systematic.
From August 1942 to late 1944, the Nazi SS organized scores of shipments -- of currency, jewelry and gold teeth -- from death camps to the Reichsbank in Berlin, the journalist Ladislas Farago wrote in his 1974 book, "Aftermath: Martin Bormann and the Fourth Reich" (Simon & Schuster). At one point, he wrote, some 30 clerks were needed to sort and repackage the valuables.
With defeat imminent, senior German officials began hiding looted property in foreign accounts as part of a vast operation that the Allies code-named Safe Haven. Some of that money helped finance Odessa, an underground railroad for Nazi officials who were fleeing Germany and expected arrest.
Their escape routes crossed Spain, Portugal and Italy, with Argentina the most frequent destination. Hier says they received help from within the International Red Cross, which gave travel documents to fleeing Nazis, and from within the Vatican, where Bishop Alois Hudal gave shelter and false travel papers and passports.
In Argentina, President Juan Domingo Peron was openly sympathetic and only too ready to accept Nazi gold. Kim Gordon Bates, a spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva, said the Red Cross did not knowingly help Nazis escape justice. "We assist people in need," Bates said. "We don't establish the bona fides of people who come to us for help."
In the past, the Vatican has maintained that Hudal and his boss, Msgr. Giovanni Battista Montini -- later Pope Paul VI -- acted out of Christian charity.
Asked whether the pope at the time, Pius XII, had known of Hudal's role, the Rev. Ciro Benedettini, deputy spokesman for the Vatican, said in a telephone interview, "Generally the Vatican leaves this problem to the historians, because much time has passed and it's difficult to say what happened."
Arriving in South America, the fugitives relied on Nazi networks built up throughout the continent before and during the war, said Stanley Hilton, author of "Hitler's Secret War in South America" (Ballantine, 1977).
Among the fugitives was Klaus Barbie, the Gestapo chief nicknamed the Butcher of Lyons, who lived openly in Bolivia for years until he was finally extradited in 1983 for trial in France.
In Brazil, Dr. Josef Mengele -- the "Angel of Death" who selected victims for the gas chambers at Auschwitz and conducted medical experiments on humans -- picked up his scalpel again, performing illegal abortions without anesthesia in the state of Parana. Though he used an alias, the Brazilian secret police knew of his past for 11 years before his death in 1979, the Brazilian press reported in the 1980s.
In Chile, successive governments refused to extradite Walter Rauff, who was responsible for the mobile gas vans that killed 97,000 Jews in Eastern Europe. In Brazil, courts turned down a West German request for Gustav Franz Wagner, second-in-command at the Sobibor death camp, in 1979.
Only now are Brazilians bringing to light official complicity in helping the Nazis, said Maria Tucci Carneiro, author of "Anti-Semitism in the Vargas Era (1930-1945)."
Despite the interest overseas, which peaked with Adolf Eichmann's kidnapping from Argentina in 1960 for trial in Jerusalem, textbooks here never addressed government policies that allowed known Nazis to enter Brazil while barring Jewish refugees, she said. "It was taboo."
But with recent worldwide revelations of assets stolen from Jews, which led to the creation of the Brazilian commission, that is changing.
"In 1989 and 1992," said Otavio Costa, managing editor of Manchete, the magazine that revived the questions that first surfaced in 1989 surrounding Blume's estate, "there was nothing similar happening in the rest of the world that this was a part of. Right now, it's the opposite."
Marcelo Ponte, managing editor of Jornal do Brasil, a Rio daily, said the interest was more on the level of soap opera. "The Blume story has an element of mystery that fascinates people, that awakens their curiosity," he said. He pointed out that this is a country where crimes typically go unpunished thanks to connections or bribes and there remains a tendency to view war criminals as just a variation on that theme.
At the same time, the Brazilian commission, with the help of the World Jewish Congress, has identified 14 dormant Nazi accounts worth $15 million, and it has taken testimony from Brazil's Holocaust survivors about their losses.
But its most intriguing inquiries involve Blume and the panel's efforts to determine whether the fortune he left behind came from victims of the Holocaust.
A lawyer for the Blume family, Fernando Simas, said there was no way to prove where the contents of the vault came from, though he acknowledged that they included gold teeth and fillings.
"I don't know how to explain them, but how can someone prove they belonged to the mouth of a Jew 50 years ago?" said Simas, who is married to a cousin of Blume.
The Manchete article described Blume as a key figure in Operation Odessa, relying heavily on research by Ben Abraham, a Holocaust survivor and historian.
In an interview, Abraham said that among Blume's papers -- copies of which were passed to him by a journalist several years ago -- were identity documents and Gestapo promotions belonging to a Col. Walter Blume, who was sentenced at Nuremberg to hang for killing Jews in Eastern Europe.
Because Albert Blume's way of life appeared miserly, Abraham reasoned that the fortune must not have been his to spend. He contends that Blume came to Brazil as a spy and later helped resettle Nazis.
Sobel, working independently of Abraham, said he recently received two volumes of diaries that he was told had belonged to Blume. In one, the author wrote that he had received money from a colleague in Germany, for which he would serve as guardian.
Hier said Walter Blume commanded Unit 7-A of Einsatzgruppe B. The Einsatzgruppen followed the German Army into the Soviet Union, killing hundreds of thousands of Jews and Communist officials, often in mass slayings like the one at Babi Yar in Ukraine.
Testifying at Nuremberg, Colonel Blume said he had killed 200 civilians; the judge estimated 1,000. In Lithuania, Colonel Blume ordered the destruction of the ghetto at Vilnius, a celebrated center of Jewish learning and life.
Colonel Blume's 1948 death sentence was commuted in 1951 to 25 years and was reduced further by German judges in 1955. After release, he is believed to have gone to Buenos Aires, Argentina. It is not known whether he is still alive.
As for Albert Blume, he was a remote figure even to his relatives, said Ricardo Penteado, a court-assigned executor who is ferreting through family records to determine Blume's legal heir. They disapproved of his homosexuality and had broken ties with him.
Penteado said papers in the vault showed that Blume joined the Nazi Party in 1933 but was reprimanded two years later for not being an active enough member and expelled in 1936. In 1938 he came to Brazil to work for E. Schlemm & Co., a concern that acted as an agent for German companies trading in Brazil.
Penteado said he doubted that Albert Blume had had any ties to Nazism in Brazil. The gold dental work, he said, could have been collateral for Blume, a pawnbroker, although there are no records showing that he lent money for teeth. Nor were gold bars unusual. "Anybody can buy gold bullion," he said.
Penteado said he did not know when, or why, Albert Blume began using the nickname "Willi," a seemingly odd choice, since his family tree shows a brother by that name. Or why, after he had been expelled from the party, Blume still signed his letters "Heil Hitler."
Margarida Blume, 95, who stands to inherit the wealth, has remained largely cloistered in a modest home in Santa Catarina. She reportedly asserted that she had seen Blume only once, but said, "I do not believe my nephew was a Nazi."
Penteado said he would recommend that the court grant Margarida Blume the fortune. If the commission believes that it came from Holocaust victims, he said, they will have to battle the Blume family in court to retrieve it.
"My job is not to worry about where this money came from," Penteado said, "but where it should go."
By DIANA JEAN SCHEMO
SAO PAULO, Brazil -- Albert Blume died 14 years ago, an outcast and a mystery to his relatives, buried in a poor man's grave. As odd as his life was his legacy -- a $4 million fortune in luxury watches, rings, gold bars and gold teeth for which an aging aunt has been battling in court since his death.
The case might have ended unnoticed this year, with a court-appointed executor finally handing over the treasure to Blume's aunt, Margarida Blume. Instead, it has caught the attention of Brazil's first commission to investigate Nazi war criminals who fled here with looted Jewish property, as well as those who helped them flee.
Rabbi Marvin Hier, head of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, said the Blume case "appears to be the first concrete discovery of a perpetrator's account, which is where we believe the lion's share of the Jewish wealth was hidden."
Suddenly the bizarre details and contradictions in Blume's life are kindling interest among Brazilians in a chapter of their past that once seemed remote, irrelevant or taboo -- a South American counterpart to the scandal over Swiss banks that swallowed Jewish assets.
Theories about Blume's treasure abound, but for now they are only theories.
Some say that Blume, who lived out his life as a pawnbroker, fled to Brazil to escape Nazi persecution of homosexuals and that the gold was merely collateral for loans.
But Rabbi Henry Sobel, the chief rabbi of Brazil, who heads the Brazilian commission, and others contend that Blume never owned the fortune. More likely, they say, this German-born member of the Nazi Party was sent to Brazil in 1938 as a spy and was later used as a conduit for stolen gold that now lies in a bank vault in his name. They believe that Blume was holding it for a similarly named war criminal in Argentina, whose Nuremberg death sentence was commuted in 1951.
By raising these questions, the investigating commission is challenging Brazilians to color in the pages of an era that has only been outlined until now -- the history of Operation Odessa, a German plan devised in the final days of World War II to smuggle senior Nazis to South America.
The commission is reporting on stolen masterpieces, like a $1 million Madonna by Raphael that came here, and on dormant accounts opened by Nazis who fled here that are worth $15 million. One result, after decades of public indifference, is a belated national assessment of how Odessa worked and why South Americans allowed it to work so well.
If the "final solution" was the industrialized murder of European Jewry, the looting of the dead was no less systematic.
From August 1942 to late 1944, the Nazi SS organized scores of shipments -- of currency, jewelry and gold teeth -- from death camps to the Reichsbank in Berlin, the journalist Ladislas Farago wrote in his 1974 book, "Aftermath: Martin Bormann and the Fourth Reich" (Simon & Schuster). At one point, he wrote, some 30 clerks were needed to sort and repackage the valuables.
With defeat imminent, senior German officials began hiding looted property in foreign accounts as part of a vast operation that the Allies code-named Safe Haven. Some of that money helped finance Odessa, an underground railroad for Nazi officials who were fleeing Germany and expected arrest.
Their escape routes crossed Spain, Portugal and Italy, with Argentina the most frequent destination. Hier says they received help from within the International Red Cross, which gave travel documents to fleeing Nazis, and from within the Vatican, where Bishop Alois Hudal gave shelter and false travel papers and passports.
In Argentina, President Juan Domingo Peron was openly sympathetic and only too ready to accept Nazi gold. Kim Gordon Bates, a spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva, said the Red Cross did not knowingly help Nazis escape justice. "We assist people in need," Bates said. "We don't establish the bona fides of people who come to us for help."
In the past, the Vatican has maintained that Hudal and his boss, Msgr. Giovanni Battista Montini -- later Pope Paul VI -- acted out of Christian charity.
Asked whether the pope at the time, Pius XII, had known of Hudal's role, the Rev. Ciro Benedettini, deputy spokesman for the Vatican, said in a telephone interview, "Generally the Vatican leaves this problem to the historians, because much time has passed and it's difficult to say what happened."
Arriving in South America, the fugitives relied on Nazi networks built up throughout the continent before and during the war, said Stanley Hilton, author of "Hitler's Secret War in South America" (Ballantine, 1977).
Among the fugitives was Klaus Barbie, the Gestapo chief nicknamed the Butcher of Lyons, who lived openly in Bolivia for years until he was finally extradited in 1983 for trial in France.
In Brazil, Dr. Josef Mengele -- the "Angel of Death" who selected victims for the gas chambers at Auschwitz and conducted medical experiments on humans -- picked up his scalpel again, performing illegal abortions without anesthesia in the state of Parana. Though he used an alias, the Brazilian secret police knew of his past for 11 years before his death in 1979, the Brazilian press reported in the 1980s.
In Chile, successive governments refused to extradite Walter Rauff, who was responsible for the mobile gas vans that killed 97,000 Jews in Eastern Europe. In Brazil, courts turned down a West German request for Gustav Franz Wagner, second-in-command at the Sobibor death camp, in 1979.
Only now are Brazilians bringing to light official complicity in helping the Nazis, said Maria Tucci Carneiro, author of "Anti-Semitism in the Vargas Era (1930-1945)."
Despite the interest overseas, which peaked with Adolf Eichmann's kidnapping from Argentina in 1960 for trial in Jerusalem, textbooks here never addressed government policies that allowed known Nazis to enter Brazil while barring Jewish refugees, she said. "It was taboo."
But with recent worldwide revelations of assets stolen from Jews, which led to the creation of the Brazilian commission, that is changing.
"In 1989 and 1992," said Otavio Costa, managing editor of Manchete, the magazine that revived the questions that first surfaced in 1989 surrounding Blume's estate, "there was nothing similar happening in the rest of the world that this was a part of. Right now, it's the opposite."
Marcelo Ponte, managing editor of Jornal do Brasil, a Rio daily, said the interest was more on the level of soap opera. "The Blume story has an element of mystery that fascinates people, that awakens their curiosity," he said. He pointed out that this is a country where crimes typically go unpunished thanks to connections or bribes and there remains a tendency to view war criminals as just a variation on that theme.
At the same time, the Brazilian commission, with the help of the World Jewish Congress, has identified 14 dormant Nazi accounts worth $15 million, and it has taken testimony from Brazil's Holocaust survivors about their losses.
But its most intriguing inquiries involve Blume and the panel's efforts to determine whether the fortune he left behind came from victims of the Holocaust.
A lawyer for the Blume family, Fernando Simas, said there was no way to prove where the contents of the vault came from, though he acknowledged that they included gold teeth and fillings.
"I don't know how to explain them, but how can someone prove they belonged to the mouth of a Jew 50 years ago?" said Simas, who is married to a cousin of Blume.
The Manchete article described Blume as a key figure in Operation Odessa, relying heavily on research by Ben Abraham, a Holocaust survivor and historian.
In an interview, Abraham said that among Blume's papers -- copies of which were passed to him by a journalist several years ago -- were identity documents and Gestapo promotions belonging to a Col. Walter Blume, who was sentenced at Nuremberg to hang for killing Jews in Eastern Europe.
Because Albert Blume's way of life appeared miserly, Abraham reasoned that the fortune must not have been his to spend. He contends that Blume came to Brazil as a spy and later helped resettle Nazis.
Sobel, working independently of Abraham, said he recently received two volumes of diaries that he was told had belonged to Blume. In one, the author wrote that he had received money from a colleague in Germany, for which he would serve as guardian.
Hier said Walter Blume commanded Unit 7-A of Einsatzgruppe B. The Einsatzgruppen followed the German Army into the Soviet Union, killing hundreds of thousands of Jews and Communist officials, often in mass slayings like the one at Babi Yar in Ukraine.
Testifying at Nuremberg, Colonel Blume said he had killed 200 civilians; the judge estimated 1,000. In Lithuania, Colonel Blume ordered the destruction of the ghetto at Vilnius, a celebrated center of Jewish learning and life.
Colonel Blume's 1948 death sentence was commuted in 1951 to 25 years and was reduced further by German judges in 1955. After release, he is believed to have gone to Buenos Aires, Argentina. It is not known whether he is still alive.
As for Albert Blume, he was a remote figure even to his relatives, said Ricardo Penteado, a court-assigned executor who is ferreting through family records to determine Blume's legal heir. They disapproved of his homosexuality and had broken ties with him.
Penteado said papers in the vault showed that Blume joined the Nazi Party in 1933 but was reprimanded two years later for not being an active enough member and expelled in 1936. In 1938 he came to Brazil to work for E. Schlemm & Co., a concern that acted as an agent for German companies trading in Brazil.
Penteado said he doubted that Albert Blume had had any ties to Nazism in Brazil. The gold dental work, he said, could have been collateral for Blume, a pawnbroker, although there are no records showing that he lent money for teeth. Nor were gold bars unusual. "Anybody can buy gold bullion," he said.
Penteado said he did not know when, or why, Albert Blume began using the nickname "Willi," a seemingly odd choice, since his family tree shows a brother by that name. Or why, after he had been expelled from the party, Blume still signed his letters "Heil Hitler."
Margarida Blume, 95, who stands to inherit the wealth, has remained largely cloistered in a modest home in Santa Catarina. She reportedly asserted that she had seen Blume only once, but said, "I do not believe my nephew was a Nazi."
Penteado said he would recommend that the court grant Margarida Blume the fortune. If the commission believes that it came from Holocaust victims, he said, they will have to battle the Blume family in court to retrieve it.
"My job is not to worry about where this money came from," Penteado said, "but where it should go."
-
EricGuitarJames
- Posts: 498
- Joined: Sun Feb 08, 2004 12:02 am
- Location: Not far enough away for some!
- Contact:
RE: Who was better: Patton or Rommel
I thought you said you were going to ignore my posts[:D].
Nice attachment, don't overuse it, I downloaded it too[;)]
Anyway, you can quit quoting Farrago (sic), I think you've shown how thoroughly discredited his 'theories' are. So where's Elvis?
Nice attachment, don't overuse it, I downloaded it too[;)]
Anyway, you can quit quoting Farrago (sic), I think you've shown how thoroughly discredited his 'theories' are. So where's Elvis?
It's Just a Ride!
-
IronDuke_slith
- Posts: 1385
- Joined: Sun Jun 30, 2002 4:00 pm
- Location: Manchester, UK
RE: Who was better: Patton or Rommel
ORIGINAL: Von Rom
ORIGINAL: IronDuke
[Snipped for space]
Regards,
IronDuke
You also have a large group of very powerful individuals (former Nazis) living abroad and in Germany, who have an interest to ensure that Bormann's death "occurs" in Berlin; they are protecting their "leader".
They will also go out of their way to try to discredit anyone trying to ferret out both Bormann's existence as well as where all the Nazi loot was taken.
Remember that this is about far more than just the existence of Bormann; it is also (to a greater extent) about the existence of tens of thousands of Nazis who fled to other countries with billions of dollars, and the network they have setup since the end of WWII.
It is also about the Vatican, which aided the escape of thousands of these wanted Nazis.
Naziism did NOT die with the Third Reich.
Who? Can you name them? I bet you can't, because ultimately, that's how conspiracies thrive. Lots of "ifs" and "possibles" but no hard fact.
Just look at the list of people we know didn't survive the end of the Third Reich. A number of middle ranking NAZIS did get away, or were never traced, but if there was such a well organised pipeline, how come Himmler, Hitler, Goebbels, Goring, Kaltenbrunner, Speer, Frank, Keitel, Jodl, Dietrich, Meyer, Peiper,
Streicher, and thousands of others failed to get out? What about Hoess, the Einsatzgruppen Commanders, the Waffen SS hierachy?
The highest ranking Officer I can think of off the top of my head was Eichmann (who Mossad found, kidnapped, tried and executed).
NAZISM did not die in 1945, but neither did it create some form of shadow state which has been pulling strings ever since. Communism did not die with the advent of GLASNOST either. Yes, there were plenty of NAZIs in German life after WWII, but that was because the number of card carrying members of the party and SS ran into millions, and you couldn't try them all, not when the cold war was erupting and we were finding a new reason to be friends with the West Germans. Rightly or wrongly, these men existed not to serve Odessa, but because it was no longer in Western Europe's interests to hunt them all down.
I am called naive. Oh, the irony....
Regards,
IronDuke
RE: Who was better: Patton or Rommel
ORIGINAL: EricGuitarJames
I thought you said you were going to ignore my posts[:D].
Nice attachment, don't overuse it, I downloaded it too[;)]
Anyway, you can quit quoting Farrago (sic), I think you've shown how thoroughly discredited his 'theories' are. So where's Elvis?
You are a very immature and silly person. . .
And people wonder why I don't respond to certain posts.
Good-bye. . .