RE: Read the superb Germany and the Second World War

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RE: Read the superb Germany and the Second World War - 6/18/2009 6:17:18 PM

Endsieg

Posts: 92
Joined: 2/9/2004
From: North Atlantic Treaty Organization
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quote:

Which Germans would you describe as heroes?
Regards,
ID

-The night fighter pilots who shot down Lancasters as they were industriously firebombing women and children.
-the sailors who evacuated women and children from the Baltic ports in '45
-the individuals who pulled women and children out of burning buildings in Dresden Feb '45
I could go on....

(in reply to IronDuke_slith)

Post #: 61

RE: Read the superb Germany and the Second World War - 6/18/2009 10:37:40 PM

IronDuke_slith

Posts: 1595
Joined: 6/30/2002
From: Manchester, UK
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Endsieg

quote:

Which Germans would you describe as heroes?
Regards,
ID

-The night fighter pilots who shot down Lancasters as they were industriously firebombing women and children.
-the sailors who evacuated women and children from the Baltic ports in '45
-the individuals who pulled women and children out of burning buildings in Dresden Feb '45
I could go on....

It was this that was at the heart of my question of what defined a hero? The sheer number of senior decorations handed out to the Wehrmacht and waffen SS indicate that right throughout these organisations, superior fighters of exceptional courage abounded.

However you dress it up, though, such courage often came with exceptional brutality and always served a political purpose that has had no equal in terms of its evil and savagery. Bartov and, more recently, Megargee have outlined as much.

However, the real point is surely that each of these individuals was attempting to prolong a political system that was gassing people by the trainload several times a day.

As for "industriously firebombing women and children", given the sheer dislocating and paralysing effects of the Allied bomber offensive on the Reich, it essentially comes down to what you are prepared to countenance (at the time or retrospectively) to bring an end to Belsen, Auschwitz-Birkenau etc etc etc.

It isn't that I support firebombing civilians, it is that I detest more the rounding up, brutalising and systematic massacre of millions of other Civilians, and therefore accept firebombing as a necessary evil.

Regards,
IronDuke

_____________________________

(in reply to Endsieg)

Post #: 62

RE: Read the superb Germany and the Second World War - 6/19/2009 1:49:32 AM

SS Hauptsturmfuhrer

Posts: 358
Joined: 10/26/2008
Status: offline

We've all heard that we should hate all the Germans and retyping it over & over doesn't teach us anything new.� Better, try reading about what really happened.� Do a Google search on 'Einsatz Groups' and you can learn about how secret police were carrying out the genocidal nazi policies against Jews and others while the regular Wehrmacht and Waffen SS (very different from SS Einsatz) fought the war without even knowing about death camps and other nasty things going on.� Most Wehrmacht and SS were against the killing of innocent Jews and the only policing orders they had were to ferret out communist political commissars and partisans.� The early Leibstandarte members did commit some atrocities and that is because they were made of about 3000 fanatical nazi people at that time, but as the war went on, casualites were replaced and the military expanded so the percentage of real nazies in the SS and army likely was under 1%.� Don't hate millions of brave soldiers because of what a secret police organization was doing. That's like hating all Americans for what the CIA does.

Before you have a massive knee jerk reaction and type up a long lecture on why I'm wrong, do some reading.� Google is easy to use.� Read about Einsatz Groups.� Well researched books are also good.

_____________________________

Korsun Pocket

(in reply to IronDuke_slith)

Post #: 63

RE: Read the superb Germany and the Second World War - 6/20/2009 10:11:47 PM

Endsieg

Posts: 92
Joined: 2/9/2004
From: North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: IronDuke

Endsieg

quote:

ORIGINAL:

quote:

Which Germans would you describe as heroes?
Regards,
ID

-The night fighter pilots who shot down Lancasters as they were industriously firebombing women and children.
-the sailors who evacuated women and children from the Baltic ports in '45
-the individuals who pulled women and children out of burning buildings in Dresden Feb '45
I could go on....

However, the real point is surely that each of these individuals was attempting to prolong a political system that was gassing people by the trainload several times a day.

with all due respect ID, but surely each of these individual Germans was not soldiering on to keep gas chambers running, even if some of them knew about it. Even you dont think that is true.

quote:

ORIGINAL: IronDuke
As for "industriously firebombing women and children", given the sheer dislocating and paralysing effects of the Allied bomber offensive on the Reich, it essentially comes down to what you are prepared to countenance (at the time or retrospectively) to bring an end to Belsen, Auschwitz-Birkenau etc etc etc.

the British night firebombing of german cities was never intended to stop the killing at the death-camps, it was more like "hey we got these Lancasters, too precious to use during daylight over the Ruhr, why not use them to burn the murderous sods at night, .....well at least their women and children"

ID, we miss you at maddog, Lassie come home!

(in reply to IronDuke_slith)

Post #: 64

RE: Read the superb Germany and the Second World War - 6/21/2009 12:24:20 AM

IronDuke_slith

Posts: 1595
Joined: 6/30/2002
From: Manchester, UK
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: SS Hauptsturmfuhrer

We've all heard that we should hate all the Germans and retyping it over & over doesn't teach us anything new.

I don't hate Germans.

quote:

Better, try reading about what really happened.

Hmmm....

quote:

Do a Google search on 'Einsatz Groups' and you can learn about how secret police were carrying out the genocidal nazi policies against Jews and others while the regular Wehrmacht and Waffen SS (very different from SS Einsatz) fought the war without even knowing about death camps and other nasty things going on.

Your earlier comment about reading what happened was something of a hostage to fortune.

What you're espousing here was really the stock view a couple of decades ago. It doesn't hold much water these days.

Certainly in the east, the Army were very complicit in what went on. Try this paragraph from the very recent

War of annihilation - Combat and genpocide on the eastern front 1941.

quote:

In order to ensure their victory, the Generals also helped lay the plans for Hitler's vision of an exterminationist war. Later they would claim that the SS were solely responsible for the crimes in the east, but in fact the Military's role was crucial. At the most basic level, the crimes could never have taken place if the Wehrmacht had not conquered the ground, but the General's culpability extends well beyond that fact. They encouraged their soldiers in an attitude that placed little or no value on the life of Soviet Civilians; in fact they ordered their men to use the harshest conceivable means to establish German dominance. They planned for the deliberate starvation of millions of people and for forced labour by millions more. they laid the groundwork for the fatal neglect of Soviet prisoners of war. and they played a key role in planning for the elimination of the Communist Leadership and intelligentsia including those in uniform, as well as anyone who resisted German rule.

Many went further. Read this order handed out to 6th Army by General von Reichenau in October 1941.

quote:

The most important goal of the campaign against the Jewish-Bolshevik system is the complete crushing of the instruments of power and the eradication of the asiatic influence in the European cultural sphere.

In this connection, there also exists tasks for the troops that extend beyond the traditional one dimensial soldierly identity. In the east, the soldieris not only a fighter according to the rules of warfare, but also the carrier of an inexorable racial idea and the avenger of all the bestialities that were inflicted upon the German and related races.

therefore thesoldier miust have full understanding of the necessity for the harsh but just punishment of the Jewish sub humans. It has the broader objective of nipping in the bud any uprisings in the rear, which experience shows to have been instigated by Jews.

Italics mine to highlight the common euphemism. Hitler loved this order, and ordered it passed on to all commands. Rundstedt passed it on to his other Armies without being told to. Even Manstein passed it on, adding a flourish of his own: "The Jewish bolshevik system must be eradicated once and for all".

Megargee also gives the evidence for direct Wehrmacht involvement. A couple of examples.

The Wehrmacht Commander in Belorussia reported shooting 10,431 prisoners (out of 10,940 taken) who had been captured during combat with Partisans. His own losses in taking these 11000 prisoners were 2 dead and 5 wounded.

The Commander also commented:

quote:

Jews: ...Because they are still making common cause with the Communists and Partisans, the complete eradication of these foreign elements is being carried out.

Italics mine. These are Wehrmacht death squads.

Indeed, Einsatgruppe A reported in December 1941 that the Wehrmacht had shot 19000 Jews in their sector. There were other reports as well. Throughout all of this, Megargee makes the point that it was Wehrmacht troops cordoning off killing sites and transporting prisoners to Einsatgruppe jurisdiction. Not to mention helping to billet and feed them, restock them with ammunition and on occasion (as at Kaunas) Wehrmacht units watched as the killings took place.

The Einsatzgruppe had good relations with the Army units in their respective sectors and simply could not have operated without Wehrmacht neutrality or in many cases co-operation.

Megargee makes the point that on the ground the situation was complicated and a good deaL of the Wehrmacht would have been uncomfortable with what was going on but the idea the entire Army walked through the 1941 campaign without any idea or complicity in what was happening is a nonsense.

quote:

Most Wehrmacht and SS were against the killing of innocent Jews and the only policing orders they had were to ferret out communist political commissars and partisans.

Evidence? I've never seen any sort of polling evidence and the facts on the ground show the Wehrmacht at many levels had a fair idea what was happening.

quote:

The early Leibstandarte members did commit some atrocities and that is because they were made of about 3000 fanatical nazi people at that time, but as the war went on, casualites were replaced and the military expanded so the percentage of real nazies in the SS and army likely was under 1%.

Again, I'm forced to ask for evidence. the Army was drawn from society, and a third of voters in 1933 had voted for the NAZI Party. The Army was a more conservative and right wing organisation than most and would have expected to have been more to the right as a result.

As for...

quote:

as the war went on, casualites were replaced and the military expanded so the percentage of real nazies in the SS and army likely was under 1%.

I disagree. Wars are fought by the young. The floods of replacements in 1939-45 would generally have spent their teenage years in the Hitler Youth, membership of which was compulsory after 1936. An 18 year old replacement in 1941 would have spent at least five years hearing how Jews and slavs were subhuman. Throw him into a fight for his life amidst the most terrible carnage imaginable and I think it isn't surprising how many Soviet civilians were killed during WWII.

quote:

Don't hate millions of brave soldiers because of what a secret police organization was doing. That's like hating all Americans for what the CIA does.

No it isn't. Hate doesn't come into it. It's all about historical truth, and not buying the post war myths.

quote:

Before you have a massive knee jerk reaction and type up a long lecture on why I'm wrong, do some reading. Google is easy to use. Read about Einsatz Groups. Well researched books are also good.

Such as?

I'd recommend Omar Bartov and the aforementioned Megargee. There is also a recent book called "Tapping Hitler's Generals" by a German historian who studied the transcripts of conversations German Generals had in private whilst prisoners of war.

Ian Kershaw writes in the foreword: "This edition also makes clear that knowledge of atrocities on the grand scale in Eastern Europe was extensive amongst Germany's military elite, even those who found themselves in British captivity long before the end of the war."

What would you recommend?

Regards,
IronDuke

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(in reply to SS Hauptsturmfuhrer)

Post #: 65

RE: Read the superb Germany and the Second World War - 6/21/2009 12:38:40 AM

IronDuke_slith

Posts: 1595
Joined: 6/30/2002
From: Manchester, UK
Status: offline

quote:

However, the real point is surely that each of these individuals was attempting to prolong a political system that was gassing people by the trainload several times a day.

quote:

with all due respect ID, but surely each of these individual Germans was not soldiering on to keep gas chambers running, even if some of them knew about it. Even you dont think that is true.

No, all of them weren't, probably only a minority were, but then the practical effect of all that soldering on was the same whatever the reason they did it.

quote:

ORIGINAL: IronDuke
As for "industriously firebombing women and children", given the sheer dislocating and paralysing effects of the Allied bomber offensive on the Reich, it essentially comes down to what you are prepared to countenance (at the time or retrospectively) to bring an end to Belsen, Auschwitz-Birkenau etc etc etc.

quote:

the British night firebombing of german cities was never intended to stop the killing at the death-camps, it was more like "hey we got these Lancasters, too precious to use during daylight over the Ruhr, why not use them to burn the murderous sods at night, .....well at least their women and children"

No it wasn't. The point of the bombing was to...

1. Tie down German Forces (There were for example some 55000 AA pieces defending the Reich together with a million combatants manning them and supporting the Luftwaffe at the end etc.) What practical effect would 50000 88mm weapons have had on the eastern front together with several hundred fighters and another few divisions? May not have saved the Germans but it would have increased the butcher's bill for the Red Army considerably.

2. Dislocate German production. German industrial output rose during the bombing, but that was because the Germans actually started to work round the clock (three shifts rather than one) and rationalise production and intrioduce modern production methods. The increases would have been far higher but for the bombing. The Germans lost much output re-siting factories, and much material building underground factories etc.

3. Paralyse the German communications net. By the end of the war, many German factories had car parks full of tanks that couldn't be shifted to the front because the railways were one big bomb crater. Other factories had ceased production because the railways couldn't move the resources and parts from their current locations to the production centres.

4. Kill or make homeless German workers.

I think the bombing campaign had a sizeable part to play in Allied victory.

quote:

ID, we miss you at maddog, Lassie come home!

I don't recall an Einsieg at Mad Cows. I seem to recall NATO was based in Holland. Are you he? If not, what was your forum name?

Regards,
ID

_____________________________

(in reply to Endsieg)

Post #: 66

RE: Read the superb Germany and the Second World War - 6/21/2009 12:51:00 AM

EUBanana

Posts: 4552
Joined: 9/30/2003
From: Little England
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Endsieg
it was more like "hey we got these Lancasters, too precious to use during daylight over the Ruhr, why not use them to burn the murderous sods at night, .....well at least their women and children"

"I ask you: Do you want total war? If necessary, do you want a war more total and radical than anything that we can even yet imagine?"

Careful what you wish for eh?

_____________________________

(in reply to Endsieg)

Post #: 67

RE: Read the superb Germany and the Second World War - 6/21/2009 2:32:08 AM

Endsieg

Posts: 92
Joined: 2/9/2004
From: North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Status: offline

good one EUB....damn, your sig is too small, can hardly read it.
not a bad translation of a joe g quote, btw.
still, with all due respect to your mate ID's previous valid points, he started this discussion by asking which germans were heros. A few banal answers were suggested.
Some did hide jews for 4 years. Some did try to kill Hitler and were willing to die for it, and did. Some just spread pamphlets and were guillotined. I could go on....
ID seems to think a moral, mass mutiny of several million men should have occured, ...he's actually right....but there was no internet, no email, no Twitter and no CNN and no perspective, just naked fear.
hey ID put on your reading glasses and check out EUB's sig

(in reply to EUBanana)

Post #: 68

RE: Read the superb Germany and the Second World War - 6/21/2009 3:14:48 AM

SS Hauptsturmfuhrer

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Joined: 10/26/2008
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IronDuke, if you use stats of POWs killed to try and make the Germans look evil, then you should look beyond the bias of the propoganda you hear and look at the way all armies in WW2 handled POWs. Russia and the USA had the worst record for both killing and poor treatment of POWs. Russia tied up prisoners, removed clothes and cut them up for fun while drowning others in cesspools as early as the summer of 1941.

The USA was no better. Most SS were either shot out of hand or handed over to the french partisans for extermination. Every German town that showed any sign of resistance was approached by scared GIs who herded German civilians in front of them as a human shield, and then after taking prisoners, the POWs were repeated forced to view the collected American casualties all day until later being taken to a field or sidestreet where they were shot. German civilians reported finding executed German soldiers in the forests and fields outside of every town. The cruel treatment of civillians by US looters is also another grim topic. Eisenhower added to the grief of German POWs when he took away their POW status to avoid Geneva convention rules stating prisoners must be fed. Eisenhower ordered the arrest of all German military personnel going back to WW1 and had them all put into concentration camps with no cover and all personal belongings including food were burned. Many Germans died from exposure and starvation in those outdoor prisons and weren't even allowed to dig holes to get out of the rain. Then there are the British forced labor camps that went on long after WW2, the countless murders commited by the French...etc etc...

Can you really say the Wehrmacht is a bad army? Should we hate them? Then hate every army of WW2 to be fair. Read, learn what really happened... before retyping pages of the anti-German propoganda we've all heard all our lives. When I was a kid, I used to think the Germans were the badguys and the allies were good until I learned. Now I know there are no angels and devils.... just good and bad people on every side like there are still today.

_____________________________

Korsun Pocket

(in reply to Endsieg)

Post #: 69

RE: Read the superb Germany and the Second World War - 6/21/2009 3:26:22 AM

SS Hauptsturmfuhrer

Posts: 358
Joined: 10/26/2008
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quote:

I disagree. Wars are fought by the young. The floods of replacements in 1939-45 would generally have spent their teenage years in the Hitler Youth, membership of which was compulsory after 1936. An 18 year old replacement in 1941 would have spent at least five years hearing how Jews and slavs were subhuman. Throw him into a fight for his life amidst the most terrible carnage imaginable and I think it isn't surprising how many Soviet civilians were killed during WWII.

IronDuke, read about the Hitlerjugend. It only fought in Normandy for the first time in 1944, not on the Eastern front. They also had one of the best records for respecting both civilians and the enemy as they were careful not to shoot at allied ambulances which worked in full view of German lines. This is much unlike the German ambulances which had to be hidden in caves to avoid the rabid allied fighterbombers trying to kill every living thing whether soldier, civilian or animal.

I know someone will say the Hitlerjugend did this or that bad thing but there was a famous situation where some Canadian POWs were killed by SS and this was done by an angry member without orders and the postwar victors justice exploited the event to convict Kurt Meyer using false evidence trying to link him to the killing. Given this justice, all US commanders from officer to Eisenhower should have served life sentences. That is victors' justice.

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Post #: 70

RE: Read the superb Germany and the Second World War - 6/21/2009 5:24:01 AM

Charles2222

Posts: 3993
Joined: 3/12/2001
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quote:

Again, I'm forced to ask for evidence. the Army was drawn from society, and a third of voters in 1933 had voted for the NAZI Party. The Army was a more conservative and right wing organisation than most and would have expected to have been more to the right as a result.

Actually, both nazism and communism were elements of the left. Nazism may be considered more rightist of the two, simply because it got more credit for being militaristic and/or nationalistic. They were both types of socialism, something very far from a rightist mindset.

(in reply to SS Hauptsturmfuhrer)

Post #: 71

RE: Read the superb Germany and the Second World War - 6/22/2009 12:45:13 AM

IronDuke_slith

Posts: 1595
Joined: 6/30/2002
From: Manchester, UK
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: SS Hauptsturmfuhrer

IronDuke, if you use stats of POWs killed to try and make the Germans look evil, then you should look beyond the bias of the propoganda you hear and look at the way all armies in WW2 handled POWs.� Russia and the USA had the worst record for both killing and poor treatment of POWs.� Russia tied up prisoners, removed clothes and cut them up for fun while drowning others in cesspools as early as the summer of 1941.�

Well, the question wasn't a pissing contest. I never said the Germans were alone in their atrocities. However, telling me Russians were bad is not exactly the same thing as telling me the Wehrmacht were clean.

As for the Americans, I'd certainly be interested in any evidence you have of mistreatment. I recall significant numbers of German POWs died after the war as the allies struggled to cope with millions of sudden prisoners (who were so scared of Americans and their atrocities that they drove the width of Germany to surrender to Yanks rather than russians). What evidence do you have of Americans working German POWs to death in work camps or deliberately starving them to death, or shooting them en masse. Evidence that shows they trumped the German figure of 3 million dead Russian POWs in just a year or two?

quote:

The USA was no better. Most SS were either shot out of hand or handed over to the french partisans for extermination. Every German town that showed any sign of resistance was approached by scared GIs who herded German civilians in front of them as a human shield, and then after taking prisoners, the POWs were repeated forced to view the collected American casualties all day until later being taken to a field or sidestreet where they were shot.

Again, given the number of Waffen SS units that drove clean across Germany looking for someone named Chuck, Hank or Larry to surrender to, I'm inclined to question whether most were shot out of hand. I also haven't seen any evidence personally that suggested American troops herded German civilians in front of them when taking towns. What documentary evidence would you point me to with regards this?

quote:

German civilians reported finding executed German soldiers in the forests and fields outside of every town. The cruel treatment of civillians by US looters is also another grim topic. Eisenhower added to the grief of German POWs when he took away their POW status to avoid Geneva convention rules stating prisoners must be fed. Eisenhower ordered the arrest of all German military personnel going back to WW1 and had them all put into concentration camps with no cover and all personal belongings including food were burned. Many Germans died from exposure and starvation in those outdoor prisons and weren't even allowed to dig holes to get out of the rain. Then there are the British forced labor camps that went on long after WW2, the countless murders commited by the French...etc etc...

Again, I'm driven to ask for a peer reviewed historical work demonstrating this. I have seen some evidence suggesting things were worse in the French zone, but then I never thought this got to the level of Oradour. Murders, some rape, the French did take some revenge, but I haven't seen graves with thousands in etc. It is true to say that the Allies did a certain amount of looting and as I've already admitted, they were ill prepared for the millions of prisoners they took in the final days and that resulted in significant deaths, but there is a difference between deliberately starving and being unable to cope.

quote:

Can you really say the Wehrmacht is a bad army?

It depends on what "bad" actually means?

quote:

Should we hate them?

I don't think hate comes in to it. This is history.

quote:

Then hate every army of WW2 to be fair.

Well, it is hard to hate the British and American Armies when millions of French, Dutch and Belgian civilians owe them their liberty.

quote:

Read, learn what really happened... before retyping pages of the anti-German propoganda we've all heard all our lives.

I often get a bad feeling about certain threads when people use certain types of phrases. "Learn what really happened" is one of them. I have so far sourced two or three major historical works, including one by a German historian. Which historical works would you cite in your favour?

quote:

When I was a kid, I used to think the Germans were the badguys and the allies were good until I learned. Now I know
there are no angels and devils.... just good and bad people on every side like there are still today.

I disagree. I think few wars are as black and white as WWII. The WWII Germans invaded Poland and killed millions. They invaded Russia and killed 27 million. They conquered the rest of Europe and carted away every Jew they could find and murdered them. Men, women, children, no one was spared. They took a million from Hungary even when the war was lost. Some of the stuff that went on in the Balkans has to be read twice to be believed. They invented area bombing, enslaved millions to work them to death in factories, invented Einsatzgruppe, Ghettoes for Jews and euthanasia. They took millions of russian prisoners and worked or starved them to death. They experimented on children, industrialised killing on a scale never before witnessed, destroyed whole villages in reprisals and at the end tried to convince the world no one outside a few hundred Einsatgruppe and Totenkopf were responsible or even knew about it.

Does this excuse the Russians and the millions of post war rapes, prisoners killed in captivity etc? No. But then as I said earlier, this isn't a pissing contest. The Wehrmacht don't get a free pass because someone else was guilty of terrible excess as well.

As for the Western Allies, they were children in comparison. There was no deliberate policy to exterminate, no post war occupation of liberated territory in France, Belgium and Holland, indeed so poor was their treatment of West Germans that thousands of east germans sought to suffer it as well before the wall came down.

Regards,
ID

_____________________________

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Post #: 72

RE: Read the superb Germany and the Second World War - 6/22/2009 1:00:53 AM

IronDuke_slith

Posts: 1595
Joined: 6/30/2002
From: Manchester, UK
Status: offline

quote:

I disagree. Wars are fought by the young. The floods of replacements in 1939-45 would generally have spent their teenage years in the Hitler Youth, membership of which was compulsory after 1936. An 18 year old replacement in 1941 would have spent at least five years hearing how Jews and slavs were subhuman. Throw him into a fight for his life amidst the most terrible carnage imaginable and I think it isn't surprising how many Soviet civilians were killed during WWII.

quote:

ORIGINAL: SS HauptsturmfuhrerIronDuke, read about the Hitlerjugend. It only fought in Normandy for the first time in 1944, not on the Eastern front.

It is at times like this that I fear well marshalled historical evidence is something of a waste of time. The HitlerJugend Division did indeed fight in Normandy, but all German youth were obliged to join the Hitler Youth from 1936. Only one division was raised under the name Hitler youth, but all Germans becoming old enough for Military service during World War II would have spent years in the Hitler Youth after 1936 if not before.

For the record, and FWIW, the HJ Division did fight in the east during the Balaton offensives (Operation "Spring Awakening" if I recall correctly).

quote:

They also had one of the best records for respecting both civilians and the enemy as they were careful not to shoot at allied ambulances which worked in full view of German lines. This is much unlike the German ambulances which had to be hidden in caves to avoid the rabid allied fighterbombers trying to kill every living thing whether soldier, civilian or animal.

Well, leaving aside the unsourced nature of this ode to the HJ, one is driven to think of Luftwaffe aircraft strafing French civilians in 1940 but I'm guessing that is Allied propoganda, right? The interdiction campaign of the Allied Fighterbomber fleet was one of the key factors in ultimate victory.

quote:

I know someone will say the Hitlerjugend did this or that bad thing but there was a famous situation where some Canadian POWs were killed by SS and this was done by an angry member without orders and the postwar victors justice exploited the event to convict Kurt Meyer using false evidence trying to link him to the killing. Given this justice, all US commanders from officer to Eisenhower should have served life sentences. That is victors' justice.

My regret at getting involved in this thread is beginning to know no bounds. Meyer's trial was for the deaths of eighteen Canadians in two separate incidents. Given the nature of the evidence, I'm unsure how you can be so sure the Allies were wrong and it was merely "angry" HJ who did it. That said, I don't think it really matters in the grand scheme of things with respect this argument. With all due respect to the gallant Canadians who lost their lives, my case against the Reich/Wehrmacht doesn't rest on how they died. Indeed, I didn't even bring it up.

Regards,
ID

< Message edited by IronDuke -- 6/22/2009 1:01:49 AM >

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Post #: 73

RE: Read the superb Germany and the Second World War - 6/22/2009 1:14:18 AM

IronDuke_slith

Posts: 1595
Joined: 6/30/2002
From: Manchester, UK
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Endsieg

good one EUB....damn, your sig is too small, can hardly read it.
not a bad translation of a joe g quote, btw.
still, with all due respect to your mate ID's previous valid points, he started this discussion by asking which germans were heros. A few banal answers were suggested.
Some did hide jews for 4 years. Some did try to kill Hitler and were willing to die for it, and did. Some just spread pamphlets and were guillotined. I could go on....

Yes, they did, but then exactly how many out of 90 million was this? Even the ones who tried to kill Hitler were (I suspect) less concerned about the outrages and more concerned at putting an end to a war that was threatening to consume Germany. The resistance movement was certainly less popular in 1940/1941 when everything was going swimmingly.

quote:

ID seems to think a moral, mass mutiny of several million men should have occured, ...he's actually right....but there was no internet, no email, no Twitter and no CNN and no perspective, just naked fear.

I actually don't expect anything. What's noticeable about the available diary evidence from the rank and file in Normandy in late july 1944 is the genuine disgust that the Army had tried to kill Hitler. Who should have done what is a separate issue. My main concern here is shutting down the myth that the wehrmacht and Waffen SS first learned of the holocaust, executions and general bloodletting in post war newspapers and books.

quote:

hey ID put on your reading glasses and check out EUB's sig

I did almost register when MCs shut down and most people shifted across. There were a couple of reasons why I didn't. I doubt I was actually missed, although I appreciate you being kind enough to sound as if I was.

Regards,
ID

P.S. Who are you at MCs and MDs?

< Message edited by IronDuke -- 6/24/2009 12:56:42 AM >

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Post #: 74

RE: Read the superb Germany and the Second World War - 6/22/2009 1:19:29 AM

IronDuke_slith

Posts: 1595
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Charles_22

quote:

Again, I'm forced to ask for evidence. the Army was drawn from society, and a third of voters in 1933 had voted for the NAZI Party. The Army was a more conservative and right wing organisation than most and would have expected to have been more to the right as a result.

Actually, both nazism and communism were elements of the left. Nazism may be considered more rightist of the two, simply because it got more credit for being militaristic and/or nationalistic. They were both types of socialism, something very far from a rightist mindset.

Charles, with respect, I had this argument with a couple of right wing Republicans over at Mad Cows once or twice (a comment which in no way suggests you are (or are not) of a similiar nature, I have no idea). Their policy seemed to be to link Democrats, New Labour and Stalin, and then decide Hitler was a communist, generally on account of the fact the word Socialist was in the title. I never bought it, not least because of the economic policies the NAZI regime pursued and their attitude towards nationalism. That said, I propose to drop it here, as it is overtly political in nature and likely to get the thread closed down.

I respect your genuinely held opinion, and respectfully disagree.

Regards,
IronDuke

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Post #: 75

RE: Read the superb Germany and the Second World War - 6/22/2009 11:11:52 AM

EUBanana

Posts: 4552
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Endsieg

good one EUB....damn, your sig is too small, can hardly read it.
not a bad translation of a joe g quote, btw.
still, with all due respect to your mate ID's previous valid points, he started this discussion by asking which germans were heros. A few banal answers were suggested.
Some did hide jews for 4 years. Some did try to kill Hitler and were willing to die for it, and did. Some just spread pamphlets and were guillotined. I could go on....
ID seems to think a moral, mass mutiny of several million men should have occured, ...he's actually right....but there was no internet, no email, no Twitter and no CNN and no perspective, just naked fear.
hey ID put on your reading glasses and check out EUB's sig

Sure, I think I agree with this 100%.

I'm only commenting as I see the Dresden=War crime argument tentatively surfacing, and unsurprisingly this does kinda get my goat given my own home town was attacked by the Luftwaffe despite being of zero military or industrial importance - it was attacked solely for the crime of being considered pretty. Because Goering felt the need to smash something attractive. How petty is that? What legitimate aims were achieved by that? Given this sort of thing was going on you can understand They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind in a somewhat different light, to quote someone else responsible.

I don't blame Germans or even expect them to have thrown off the yoke - plenty tried, red stars went in the camps before Jews - and I don't glory in what happened when the Lancasters came, but damn. A bit less fingerpointing at the Allies is in order I think, and a bit more fingerpointing at the Nazis.

Actually FWIW I think Germans rock, and Berlin is my fave city so far in Europe. I thought Britain had exclusive rights to being the chip capital of Europe till I discovered the German Imbiss.

< Message edited by EUBanana -- 6/22/2009 11:16:00 AM >

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Post #: 76

RE: Read the superb Germany and the Second World War - 6/22/2009 11:12:32 PM

IronDuke_slith

Posts: 1595
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quote:

ORIGINAL: EUBanana

I'm only commenting as I see the Dresden=War crime argument tentatively surfacing, and unsurprisingly this does kinda get my goat given my own home town was attacked by the Luftwaffe despite being of zero military or industrial importance - it was attacked solely for the crime of being considered pretty.

Indeed. The only difference between what happened at London, Cologne, Dresden, Berlin and Hamburg was that the RAF could muster 1000 planes at a time and the Luftwaffe couldn't.

The Germans attempted to create a firestorm in December (29th?) 1940 in London and had some success, attacking when the Thames was at low tide to hinder the fire services. I think they attacked with less than 150 planes. Had they had a thousands, would they have left the other 850 at home?

British area bombing was merely an industrial sized upscaling of what the Germans had already attempted. It also undoubtedly shortened the war, which is my entire point. Anything that cut short the activty at Auschwitz by so much as 2 minutes was perfectly acceptable to use in my book.

In addition, the post war apologists for the Wehrmacht need to dig deeper. Was it an organisaiton made up entirely of criminals. Absolutely not. Was it whiter than white and only discovered the holocaust after the war watching documentaries about it on TV. Absolutely not. It was a very grey organisation.

Regards,
ID

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RE: Read the superb Germany and the Second World War - 6/23/2009 8:56:02 PM

ezzler

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Remind me never to argue against the IronDuke.
Especially if my argument is weak, my sources uncredited and my references slender.

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RE: Read the superb Germany and the Second World War - 6/23/2009 11:40:50 PM

105mm Howitzer

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Sorry dudes, but ID seems to have his stuff downpat. And btw, we seem to mention less the Nazi's pseudo brothers-in-arms, ( Italy) but they too were not willing to be caught by the Red Army. ( althought one witness' account of my knowing mentioned briefly that Russians had more pity on Italians, and generally spared them the usual tortures reserved to Germans)
ps: He wasn't run over by T-34's like some Wehrmacht types were ( so he claims)
Cheers
MC

pps: And what about those Japanese, heh?

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RE: Read the superb Germany and the Second World War - 6/25/2009 7:46:01 PM

pzpat

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On 6-22-09 IronDuke wrote "As for the Americans, I'd cetainly be interested in any evidence you have of mistreatment." A little late I found a passage in "Tigers in the Mud," a memoir by Otto Carius, in which he states at pp. 226-227 (Stackpole edition), "A few days later, by order of the Americans, the first inmates of the hospitalwere evacuated to a prison camp. . . . We were rounded up by the thousands on a playing field. That meant that hardly anyone had the opportunity to stretch out. There were no rations, even though our units had brought fully loaded trucks along. These were pushed over and the food burned! Even worse, not a drop of water was brought. . . . . A few days later, the recently amputated were brought to us, because the entire hospital had been ordered to be evacuated. Dressings were not furnished. We cut up our blankets to help our comrades as best we could. They died truly wretched deaths, and we had to watch them die without being able to help.
He then writes about seeing the Americans shoot and kill three prisoners who were just trying to go to the bathroom. After giving a cursory description of what the American guards did to their German prisoners after the war was over, he ends the subject by writing, "What actually happened in Remagen, Kreuznacht, Landau or even in the SS-camps or during the infamous Malmedy trials could give a few concentration camp guards some good tips." Hyperbole, I know.
And then Panzer Meyer writes in his memoir (Stackpole edition, p. 233) that the Germans had proof that the Canadians in Normandy had been ordered not to take prisoners, especially if they were "hindering operations." Nobody is clean. Just thought you might like to know that evidence is out there.

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RE: Read the superb Germany and the Second World War - 6/25/2009 11:43:54 PM

IronDuke_slith

Posts: 1595
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From: Manchester, UK
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quote:

ORIGINAL: pzpat

On 6-22-09�IronDuke wrote�"As for the Americans, I'd cetainly be interested in any evidence you have of mistreatment."� A little late I found a passage in "Tigers in the Mud," a memoir by Otto Carius, in which he states at pp. 226-227 (Stackpole edition), "A few days later, by order of the Americans, the first inmates of the hospitalwere evacuated to a prison camp. . . . We were rounded up by the thousands on a playing field.� That meant that hardly anyone�had the opportunity to stretch out.� There were no rations, even though our units had brought fully loaded trucks along.� These were pushed over and the food burned!� Even worse, not a drop of water was brought. . . . . A few days later, the recently amputated were brought to us, because the entire hospital had been ordered to be evacuated.� Dressings were not furnished.� We cut up our blankets to help our comrades as best we could.� They died truly wretched deaths, and we had to watch them die without being able to help.
�� He then writes about seeing the Americans shoot and kill three prisoners who were just trying to go to the bathroom.� After giving a cursory description of what the American guards did to their German prisoners after the war was over, he ends the subject by writing, "What actually happened in Remagen, Kreuznacht, Landau or even in the SS-camps or during the infamous Malmedy trials could give a few concentration camp guards some good tips."� Hyperbole, I know.
�� And then Panzer Meyer writes in his memoir (Stackpole edition, p. 233) that the Germans had proof that the Canadians in Normandy had been ordered not to take prisoners, especially if they were "hindering operations."� Nobody is clean.� Just thought you might like to know that evidence is out there.

Many thanks, I was genuinely interested in seeing what was out there. The phrase SS Camps suggests that he was imprisoned in an SS only (or mainly) POW camp. Is this the case? Carius and Meyer would need verifying as part of the post war Waffen SS = clean publicity campaign. I'm not exactly sure what would constitute "proof" in Meyer's situation, although again, it sounds as if the Canadians were being told to shoot men trying to surrender. This has been a battlefield problem since the dawn of time. How do you surrender to men whose blood lust is up, whose adrenalin is pumping, and whose best friend you just shot through the heart. It is some way from interrogating them and then executing them.

I suspect one of the problems that the SS had in the aftermath of the war was that everyone was hearing or seeing about what had been found at the newly liberated death camps staffed by SS Guards. This isn't offered as an excuse, merely a context.

Regards,
ID

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