Matrix Games Forums

 Forums  Register  Login  Photo Gallery  Member List  Search  Calendars  FAQ 

My Profile  Inbox  Address Book  My Subscription  My Forums  Log Out

Hitler's Generals & Admirals......

 
View related threads: (in this forum | in all forums)

Logged in as: Guest
Users viewing this topic: none
  Printable Version
All Forums >> [New Releases from Matrix Games] >> Gary Grigsby's War in the East Series >> Hitler's Generals & Admirals...... Page: [1] 2   next >   >>
Login
Message << Older Topic   Newer Topic >>
Hitler's Generals & Admirals...... - 9/11/2011 10:50:37 PM   
Footslogger


Posts: 1232
Joined: 10/9/2008
From: Washington USA
Status: offline 		I heard once that von Bock hated Nazis...were there more?

< Message edited by Footslogger -- 9/11/2011 10:53:26 PM >
Post #: 1
RE: Hitler's Generals & Admirals...... - 9/11/2011 11:18:28 PM   
elxaime

 

Posts: 304
Joined: 11/3/2004
Status: offline 		I would take post-war assessments of which German officers were, or were not, anti-Nazi with a huge grain of rock salt. Once the regime fell, people scrambled to say they were always against the Nazis. If they were captured by the Russians, some would also claim to have secretly been devoted Communists. But when Hitler was riding high many of these same folks at the very least kept their mouths shut. There are exceptions of course, since anti-Hitler plotting in the German Army never really ended and this included periods when things seemed to be going well.

We also need to separate out anti-Nazi feeling from the general power rivalry that was going on. Some of the July 1944 plotters, such as the Police Commandant of Paris, were virulent anti-Semites. But they hated the SS supplanting the traditional role of the army. Or they felt the war was lost and Hitler needed to be overthrown to avoid complete catastrophe. Sepp Dietrich, one of the top SS commanders, was allegedly among the latter. There were also some anti-Hitler German officers who were also complicit in atrocities. It gets rather complicated.

The truth is even harder to determine since there was a great deal of post-war airbrushing by the Western Allies and Soviets. As the Cold War began, each camp had numbers of former Nazis in their custody who could be quite useful if "rehabilitated." For the West, this includes German rocket scientists like Werner Von Braun, who helped get the US space program off the ground despite the record of the V2 plants at Peenemunde running on slave labor (with his knowledge and alleged acquiesence). You can still see Von Braun's name on the credits of old Walt Disney productions on space travel. The Soviets used ex-Nazis as well.

(in reply to Footslogger)
Post #: 2
RE: Hitler's Generals & Admirals...... - 9/11/2011 11:29:02 PM   
janh

 

Posts: 1216
Joined: 6/12/2007
Status: offline 		A number of officers in the Wehrmacht, but also Luftwaffe.  Though over many, like Udet, Galland, Dönitz, Mannstein and even Rommel there later was dispute as to how far "hating", or "disagreeing" went.  As with so many things, it is easy to oversimplify, and even the most opposed may have had points they agreed with.  Or some followers points they didn't. Even some Waffen-SS officers, including Hausser, are reported to have disagreed with Nazi ideology, though probably this disagreement didn't go that far. I recall having read that Hausser, while in command of II. SS Pz.-Kps., countermanded Hitler's "acceptance of" (or order of) war crimes against surrendering russians, officially putting a stop to it -- yet in the end he did not really put an end to it by failing to punish subordinates who knew that they'd come through with it, or weren't to be stopped from the vicious revenge circle anyway.
Whether they were Nazi's and either "just held" or "pretended to hold" this opinion, or whether they in fact lived it, is much harder to distinguish from whether they were war criminals, or not (of which there surely were also such without weird ideology).  Fortunately the Allies took great care to sort this out at Nuernberg and not to miss the right ones.

(in reply to Footslogger)
Post #: 3
RE: Hitler's Generals & Admirals...... - 9/12/2011 12:02:41 AM   
Footslogger


Posts: 1232
Joined: 10/9/2008
From: Washington USA
Status: offline 		Who was the first to plot agianst Hitler, that we know of? And what did Hitler do with him?

< Message edited by Footslogger -- 9/12/2011 12:47:46 AM >

(in reply to janh)
Post #: 4
RE: Hitler's Generals & Admirals...... - 9/12/2011 2:33:50 AM   
Don77

 

Posts: 94
Joined: 5/29/2011
Status: offline 		The first was a lawyer - who nearly got Hitler's fascist violence banned as ciminal, almost ending Hitlers career for the second time (as did occur in the Munich Putsch). The shame was the loss of German legal independance. See ''The Man who crossed Hitelr'.
'In 1931, not all that long before the Nazis came to power, the title character of The Man Who Crossed Hitler, a baptized Jewish lawyer called Hans Litten seized a chance to get Hitler into court and, by quoting his own violent writings at him, to debunk his current pretence of being a man of peace. Hitler would have been caught out if the judge had not caved in. http://gh.oxfordjournals.org/content/28/4/590.extract

(in reply to Footslogger)
Post #: 5
RE: Hitler's Generals & Admirals...... - 9/12/2011 4:16:12 PM   
lastdingo

 

Posts: 110
Joined: 7/31/2006
Status: offline 		Most old officers were national-conservatives or religious-conservatives instead of true nazis. Nazis were a handful of big figures (wartime heroes and such), some opportunists and a great mass of lower class losers. The old elites believed that nazis were useful idiots till they realised the nazis had thought the same of them and proved to be right.

Many high-ranking officers moved closer to nazis in part because of corruption; Hitler gave lots of gifts to high-ranking loyal generals - much money, great cars, sometimes even aristocratic villas with huge agricultural estates.
Plus the nazis achieved what the moderate governments had not achieved in their more friendly foreign policy; rearmament and grabbing of many at least partially German-speaking territories.

(in reply to Don77)
Post #: 6
RE: Hitler's Generals & Admirals...... - 9/12/2011 4:25:37 PM   
Theng

 

Posts: 259
Joined: 12/13/2002
Status: offline 		General Beck was the first high level dissenter as Chief of the General Staff. He refused to create the military plans to annex Austria and Czechoslovakia. After resigning his position on August 18, 1938, he helped organize the resistance against Hitler. He help plan two aborted assassination plans in 1943 and was supposed to become head of state if Hitler would have been killed on July 20, 1944. Instead Beck died that day.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Beck

_____________________________

Molon Labe!

(in reply to lastdingo)
Post #: 7
RE: Hitler's Generals & Admirals...... - 9/12/2011 6:58:46 PM   
warspite1


Posts: 41353
Joined: 2/2/2008
From: England
Status: offline 		I would agree with elxaime that post WWII the world and his wife declared they always hated Hitler blah blah. However, that said, who of us would have been brave enough to have done something about Hitler, knowing what it would mean for us and our families if caught.

I heard a quote once that tried to answer the question of why a modern, educated nation like Germany allowed "Hitler and the Nazis" to happen. The answer was that there were 5% evil Germans, 5% good (and brave) Germans and 90% who just went along with the flow. I think that is true of people and countries generally.

As for those with impeccable credentials at being anti-Nazi? Well Beck was one, and so, most certainly, was Admiral Canaris .

_____________________________

England expects that every man will do his duty. Horatio Nelson October 1805



(in reply to Footslogger)
Post #: 8
RE: Hitler's Generals & Admirals...... - 9/12/2011 7:18:20 PM   
Gargoil

 

Posts: 389
Joined: 1/6/2008
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: warspite1
I heard a quote once that tried to answer the question of why a modern, educated nation like Germany allowed "Hitler and the Nazis" to happen. The answer was that there were 5% evil Germans, 5% good (and brave) Germans and 90% who just went along with the flow. I think that is true of people and countries generally.


+1

Unfortunately, extremist, being a very small fraction of the population, but have inordinate power well beyond there numbers.

Currently, terrorists are the best example of this.

(in reply to warspite1)
Post #: 9
RE: Hitler's Generals & Admirals...... - 9/12/2011 7:31:26 PM   
janh

 

Posts: 1216
Joined: 6/12/2007
Status: offline 		It come down as to what you define the core-identifiers for being nazis, what makes them distinguishable and different from the conservatives of the 20-30's, or the royalists and prussians before.  Ideological beliefs were surely one core part of it, and clearly the most negative in retrospect.  Yet Hitler and his party also did a lot between 1933 and 1939 to win sympathies even with those, who did otherwise oppose or not care about the ideology that lastly just accelerated his undoing like nothing else.  At his beginnings, Germany was very demoralized, economically-broken nation of hurt national pride, high unemployment that was faced with basically not settle-able reparations after WWI (the Versaille treaty).  He basically restored the national pride by neutering the Versailles treaties, re-annexing former German territory, and reestablishing a real Army as well as economical measures (building all the "autobahnen", already with future in mind) that lowered unemployment and recovered the living standards.  Surely until 1940, even with those who did not agree with his aggressive politics or his ideological ideas, this must have scored sympathies, and I suppose anyone who would have been in that situation in Germany would probably have respected him for that -- for bad or worse.  The treaty of Versailles and its consequences basically only made his rise possible, and anything he did initially could hardly go wrong. The Marshall Plan after WW2 had learned from that.

One has also to keep in mind that for most Germans before 1940, his ideological ideas appeared to be at large rhetoric and appreared to lead to no more than detention of Jews and other minorities, much like the detention of Japanese in the US later.  Only after the murdering of these victims started out at the large scale (i.e. between the occupation of the foreign territories in late 1939 and the time after the "Wannsee conference" in early 42), the majority of the Germans must have realized that he meant to live his ideology.  So the whole question is surely quite complex, and not so easy as to divide between black and white.


< Message edited by janh -- 9/12/2011 7:47:03 PM >

(in reply to warspite1)
Post #: 10
RE: Hitler's Generals & Admirals...... - 9/12/2011 9:25:31 PM   
cherryfunk

 

Posts: 97
Joined: 8/18/2011
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: warspite1
As for those with impeccable credentials at being anti-Nazi? Well Beck was one, and so, most certainly, was Admiral Canaris .

Canaris was a true hero -- one of the few higher ups who put his life on the line from the start.


(in reply to warspite1)
Post #: 11
RE: Hitler's Generals & Admirals...... - 9/13/2011 2:50:47 AM   
Footslogger


Posts: 1232
Joined: 10/9/2008
From: Washington USA
Status: offline 		Anyone heard of Dietrich BonHoeffer?

(in reply to cherryfunk)
Post #: 12
RE: Hitler's Generals & Admirals...... - 9/13/2011 3:04:28 AM   
WingedIncubus


Posts: 512
Joined: 10/3/2007
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: warspite1
I heard a quote once that tried to answer the question of why a modern, educated nation like Germany allowed "Hitler and the Nazis" to happen. The answer was that there were 5% evil Germans, 5% good (and brave) Germans and 90% who just went along with the flow. I think that is true of people and countries generally.



Bullshit, that whitewashes 90% of Germans, most of them who were readily supporting Hitler when he was invading and winning left and right and willfully ignoring that Jewish, Commie, and Homosexual neighbors were disappearing without a trace. When Moscow and London were poised to fall, who opposed Hitler aside the rabid anti-Nazis?

It's easy to oppose a nasty, tyrannical regime when it's failing, it's another to oppose it when it's at its zenith and winning it all.

We'd all like to believe we would do different, like we are better or more progressive than our forefathers, but had we been Germans in the 1930s we'd been Nazi supporters (if Aryan, we know what would happened to the Jewish ones among us), or at least proud German nationalists happy to shame France and England as they had shamed us. I won't believe even one of us here would have really resisted Hitler and the Nazis like the White Rose did (and lose their head for it, literally, under the blade of the Fallbeil). Some of us would have happily gone kill Reds and Partisans on the Eastern Front (and die horribly) or die by the lot in iron coffins in the Atlantic. We have the chance of having the benefit of hindsight, and lucky to be born in a time when serving a nasty, monstrous, evil regime wasn't thrusted upon our throat.

Besides, Milgram's Experiment showed that the "5% psychopaths doing all the nasties" belief, which was rampant in the fifties and sixties, is in fact false, as the protocol was created solely to see if that particular idea was true or not.

< Message edited by Drakken -- 9/13/2011 3:25:50 AM >

(in reply to warspite1)
Post #: 13
RE: Hitler's Generals & Admirals...... - 9/13/2011 3:20:27 AM   
WingedIncubus


Posts: 512
Joined: 10/3/2007
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Footslogger

Anyone heard of Dietrich BonHoeffer?


A man who opposed Hitler with all his heart because he saw the Evil, and died a Martyr for it.

(in reply to Footslogger)
Post #: 14
RE: Hitler's Generals & Admirals...... - 9/13/2011 5:52:32 AM   
warspite1


Posts: 41353
Joined: 2/2/2008
From: England
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Drakken

quote:

ORIGINAL: warspite1
I heard a quote once that tried to answer the question of why a modern, educated nation like Germany allowed "Hitler and the Nazis" to happen. The answer was that there were 5% evil Germans, 5% good (and brave) Germans and 90% who just went along with the flow. I think that is true of people and countries generally.



Bullshit, that whitewashes 90% of Germans, most of them who were readily supporting Hitler when he was invading and winning left and right and willfully ignoring that Jewish, Commie, and Homosexual neighbors were disappearing without a trace. When Moscow and London were poised to fall, who opposed Hitler aside the rabid anti-Nazis?

It's easy to oppose a nasty, tyrannical regime when it's failing, it's another to oppose it when it's at its zenith and winning it all.

We'd all like to believe we would do different, like we are better or more progressive than our forefathers, but had we been Germans in the 1930s we'd been Nazi supporters (if Aryan, we know what would happened to the Jewish ones among us), or at least proud German nationalists happy to shame France and England as they had shamed us. I won't believe even one of us here would have really resisted Hitler and the Nazis like the White Rose did (and lose their head for it, literally, under the blade of the Fallbeil). Some of us would have happily gone kill Reds and Partisans on the Eastern Front (and die horribly) or die by the lot in iron coffins in the Atlantic. We have the chance of having the benefit of hindsight, and lucky to be born in a time when serving a nasty, monstrous, evil regime wasn't thrusted upon our throat.

Besides, Milgram's Experiment showed that the "5% psychopaths doing all the nasties" belief, which was rampant in the fifties and sixties, is in fact false, as the protocol was created solely to see if that particular idea was true or not.

Warspite1

Drakken, you began your response stating my post was BS and then proceeded to largely support what I said in your response!

My post was not an attempt to whitewash 90% of the German population for WWII, that is a ridiculous statement.

As Burke (Irish politican from the 18th century) said, "all you need for evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing". The point is, and you yourself repeated my question; how difficult is it to actively oppose a government in power - and such an evil one as the Nazis?

Of course within the 90% there were many shades of grey, but for all of the Germans in that category, whatever their individual motivation or persuasion, they were not going to take on Hitler and the Nazi regime, and therefore went along with it. But are you trying to say that ANY German who wore a uniform in 1939-45 was a rabid Nazi? THAT would be BS. You are not allowing for the fact that many Germans were just doing as they were told - they put on a uniform to serve their country. To what extent they agreed with all Nazi policies would be different for each individual.

My post whitewashes NOTHING, it just points out an obvious fact; life is more complicated than Black and White......


< Message edited by warspite1 -- 9/13/2011 6:11:06 AM >

_____________________________

England expects that every man will do his duty. Horatio Nelson October 1805



(in reply to WingedIncubus)
Post #: 15
RE: Hitler's Generals & Admirals...... - 9/13/2011 5:55:13 AM   
warspite1


Posts: 41353
Joined: 2/2/2008
From: England
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Drakken

quote:

ORIGINAL: warspite1
I heard a quote once that tried to answer the question of why a modern, educated nation like Germany allowed "Hitler and the Nazis" to happen. The answer was that there were 5% evil Germans, 5% good (and brave) Germans and 90% who just went along with the flow. I think that is true of people and countries generally.



It's easy to oppose a nasty, tyrannical regime when it's failing

Warspite1

Really? - No Drakken it's easy once said regime has fallen.

_____________________________

England expects that every man will do his duty. Horatio Nelson October 1805



(in reply to WingedIncubus)
Post #: 16
RE: Hitler's Generals & Admirals...... - 9/13/2011 6:24:41 AM   
KenchiSulla


Posts: 2948
Joined: 10/22/2008
From: the Netherlands
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: warspite1


quote:

ORIGINAL: Drakken

quote:

ORIGINAL: warspite1
I heard a quote once that tried to answer the question of why a modern, educated nation like Germany allowed "Hitler and the Nazis" to happen. The answer was that there were 5% evil Germans, 5% good (and brave) Germans and 90% who just went along with the flow. I think that is true of people and countries generally.



It's easy to oppose a nasty, tyrannical regime when it's failing

Warspite1

Really? - No Drakken it's easy once said regime has fallen.


That "failing" regime killed a lot of people last 6 months of the war....

_____________________________

AKA Cannonfodder

"It happened, therefore it can happen again: this is the core of what we have to say. It can happen, and it can happen everywhere.”
¯ Primo Levi, writer, holocaust survivor

(in reply to warspite1)
Post #: 17
RE: Hitler's Generals & Admirals...... - 9/13/2011 5:50:42 PM   
misesfan

 

Posts: 73
Joined: 3/15/2008
Status: offline 		I find it rather odd that people focus on the millions killed by Hitler but don't mention the tens of millions killed by Stalin. History, it seems, loves the winner.

Personally, I find both tyrants repugnant, as is war. I enjoy wargaming however - weird huh?

(in reply to KenchiSulla)
Post #: 18
RE: Hitler's Generals & Admirals...... - 9/13/2011 7:49:20 PM   
Captain


Posts: 78
Joined: 5/1/2006
Status: offline 		It has always been an open question the extent to which ordinary Germans participated in the Nazi crimes and whether it was a one-off thing.

Certainly the evidence shows that many more people were aware of the Holocaust than admitted after the war. You needed a huge organisation to manage/operate multiple extermination/slave labour camps, collect and round up all these people and ship them across europe.

Studies have also shown that Hitler was a hands-off, big-picture kind of manager who gave his subordinates wide latitude in implementing his policies. Cetainly he knew about and approved of the "Final solution", but he left the details to others. Yet there was no lack of zealous volunteers to carry out the Fuhrer's wishes. Their standard defence that they were "merely following orders" is very weak.

Contrast the German efficiency with what happened in Italy. Italy was Germany's main partner in WW2 and Mussolini tried to implement anti-jewish laws in Italy under pressure from Berlin, but they proved deeply unpopular. 80 % of Italy's jews survived the war (32,000 out of 40,000) and the 8,000 that were murdered were rounded up by the Germans after they invaded in 43.

_____________________________


(in reply to misesfan)
Post #: 19
RE: Hitler's Generals & Admirals...... - 9/13/2011 7:57:11 PM   
Horst Wessell

 

Posts: 9
Joined: 2/4/2011
From: Montana
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: cherryfunk


quote:

ORIGINAL: warspite1
As for those with impeccable credentials at being anti-Nazi? Well Beck was one, and so, most certainly, was Admiral Canaris .

Canaris was a true hero -- one of the few higher ups who put his life on the line from the start.



Think I'm gonna be sick...........

< Message edited by Horst Wessell -- 9/13/2011 7:58:28 PM >

_____________________________

No man is more hopelessly enslaved, than he who falsely believes he is free. Goethe

(in reply to cherryfunk)
Post #: 20
RE: Hitler's Generals & Admirals...... - 9/13/2011 8:18:46 PM   
Theng

 

Posts: 259
Joined: 12/13/2002
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Horst Wessell

quote:

ORIGINAL: cherryfunk


quote:

ORIGINAL: warspite1
As for those with impeccable credentials at being anti-Nazi? Well Beck was one, and so, most certainly, was Admiral Canaris .

Canaris was a true hero -- one of the few higher ups who put his life on the line from the start.



Think I'm gonna be sick...........

quote:


Think I'm gonna be sick...........

< Message edited by Horst Wessell -- 9/13/2011 2:58:28 PM >


I know. The small number of true German patriots that fought Hitler makes me sick too. There should have been more.

< Message edited by Xian -- 9/13/2011 8:22:07 PM >

_____________________________

Molon Labe!

(in reply to Horst Wessell)
Post #: 21
RE: Hitler's Generals & Admirals...... - 9/13/2011 8:24:44 PM   
KenchiSulla


Posts: 2948
Joined: 10/22/2008
From: the Netherlands
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Horst Wessell

quote:

ORIGINAL: cherryfunk


quote:

ORIGINAL: warspite1
As for those with impeccable credentials at being anti-Nazi? Well Beck was one, and so, most certainly, was Admiral Canaris .

Canaris was a true hero -- one of the few higher ups who put his life on the line from the start.



Think I'm gonna be sick...........


Don't you have a head to shave?


_____________________________

AKA Cannonfodder

"It happened, therefore it can happen again: this is the core of what we have to say. It can happen, and it can happen everywhere.”
¯ Primo Levi, writer, holocaust survivor

(in reply to Horst Wessell)
Post #: 22
RE: Hitler's Generals & Admirals...... - 9/13/2011 9:33:07 PM   
warspite1


Posts: 41353
Joined: 2/2/2008
From: England
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Captain

It has always been an open question the extent to which ordinary Germans participated in the Nazi crimes and whether it was a one-off thing.

Certainly the evidence shows that many more people were aware of the Holocaust than admitted after the war. You needed a huge organisation to manage/operate multiple extermination/slave labour camps, collect and round up all these people and ship them across europe.

Studies have also shown that Hitler was a hands-off, big-picture kind of manager who gave his subordinates wide latitude in implementing his policies. Cetainly he knew about and approved of the "Final solution", but he left the details to others. Yet there was no lack of zealous volunteers to carry out the Fuhrer's wishes. Their standard defence that they were "merely following orders" is very weak.

Contrast the German efficiency with what happened in Italy. Italy was Germany's main partner in WW2 and Mussolini tried to implement anti-jewish laws in Italy under pressure from Berlin, but they proved deeply unpopular. 80 % of Italy's jews survived the war (32,000 out of 40,000) and the 8,000 that were murdered were rounded up by the Germans after they invaded in 43.
Warspite1

Doesn't this say more about the German character vs the Italian character generally, rather than the implication that the Germans are necessarily more evil?

Look at the Vichy French regime and the way they co-operated wholeheartedly with the deportation of the Jews.

I may be wrong, but I just can't believe that one nation of human beings is necessarily more violent/sadistic etc than another. It depends on a whole load of factors at the time surely?

_____________________________

England expects that every man will do his duty. Horatio Nelson October 1805



(in reply to Captain)
Post #: 23
RE: Hitler's Generals & Admirals...... - 9/13/2011 9:55:06 PM   
Captain


Posts: 78
Joined: 5/1/2006
Status: offline 		I would'nt say evil, people are motivated by personal interest. Germany was one of the most educated, cultured nation in 1932. Certainly anti-semitism was rampant in Europe and North-America in the 30s. But going from resentment towards Jews to thinking it's fine to gas millions of men, women and children is another thing altogether.

You would think that someone along the way would have said: "I think you are off your rocker Mein Fuhrer!"

The question has always been: Is this something that could happen anywhere, in any country, or was there something peculiar to German society at that time that allowed this to happen.

_____________________________


(in reply to warspite1)
Post #: 24
RE: Hitler's Generals & Admirals...... - 9/14/2011 1:34:40 AM   
cherryfunk

 

Posts: 97
Joined: 8/18/2011
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: pwieland

I find it rather odd that people focus on the millions killed by Hitler but don't mention the tens of millions killed by Stalin. History, it seems, loves the winner.

History doesn't love Stalin by any means. But which system represented a darker future for humanity? As bad as the Soviets were, we can all thank the stars that they won. The alternative would have been far worse.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go capture Leningrad.



< Message edited by cherryfunk -- 9/14/2011 1:39:20 AM >

(in reply to misesfan)
Post #: 25
RE: Hitler's Generals & Admirals...... - 9/15/2011 3:46:58 PM   
Cavalry Corp

 

Posts: 3107
Joined: 9/2/2003
From: Sampford Spiney Devon UK
Status: offline 		Yes thanks to the Soviets lucky star winning we could have had a nuke war ...

Part of the dropping of the bombs on Japan were to show the Soviets we had the bomb. Sorry but in my opinion the Soviets were the real enemy in Europe they were blunted by a very strong Germany that was the real luck ( and I am no fan of the Nazi system) for the western democracies. Stalin was disuaded from any immediate ambitions on the rest of Europe with the collapse of Germany by the bombs. I do not think Stalin was content with what he got and he would have taken it all if he could.

If in say by 42 there had not been a war in Eurpoe and Russia had attacked maybe we would have found all the Western countries of Europe in an alliance of convinience with Hitler however we felt about it - its just as bad as siding with Stalin if you look into the facts and figures. I think that we westerners find it an abomination which it was that a country like Germany could have carried out the crimes it did. But we could expect it of the Russians without issue and keep it under the carpet of forgotten history.

Sorry my opinions do not come out of text books written by victors.

Cav

(in reply to cherryfunk)
Post #: 26
RE: Hitler's Generals & Admirals...... - 9/16/2011 12:41:31 PM   
cherryfunk

 

Posts: 97
Joined: 8/18/2011
Status: offline
quote:

Stalin was disuaded from any immediate ambitions on the rest of Europe with the collapse of Germany by the bombs. I do not think Stalin was content with what he got and he would have taken it all if he could.

If you're really suggesting that only the atom bombs prevented Stalin from declaring war on the United States, British Empire, and their many allies, I think you need to go back to the history books. Stalin took all he could get, no doubt, but he was not about to, and was in no position to, wage a war of that scale.

quote:

I think that we westerners find it an abomination which it was that a country like Germany could have carried out the crimes it did. But we could expect it of the Russians without issue and keep it under the carpet of forgotten history.


This equivalence is easy to disprove. Look at Poland under Nazi occupation in 1939-1944 and under Russian occupation in 1944-1989. As heavy as the Soviet boot was, in no way did it approach the pathological and uniquely murderous brutality of the Nazi occupation. The Nazis sought to reshape Europe by eliminating entire nations and races, the Soviets sought to reshape Europe by eliminating political parties and free markets. Not even close to the same thing.



(in reply to Cavalry Corp)
Post #: 27
RE: Hitler's Generals & Admirals...... - 9/16/2011 1:58:40 PM   
janh

 

Posts: 1216
Joined: 6/12/2007
Status: offline 		I am not so sure whether Stalin and the Soviets were any better than Hilter and the Nazis. I don't want to image if anyone of both had prevailed in Europe, and could have exerted his will. It is just fortunate that things ended they way they did, and the Western Allies preserved freedom and many human lives afterwards.
Looking at raw number of murders and crimes committed, independent of whom either of both targeted, or planned to target beyond that, both have "achieved" unbelievable numbers of murders.  Davies, R. W., Mark Harrison, and Stephen Wheatcroft, (The Economic Transformation of the Soviet Union. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.) estimated a lower boundary of people murdered by Stalin and his regime at 10 Mio.  Not to mention any crimes aside from murder, i.e. deportation, gulags and work prisons, etc etc.  The only real difference between both I see is that Stalin was amongst the winners, and safely in power in Russia -- so no one could dare accusing him of his crimes, or even hold him responsible.  But history has caught up with him since his death, and at least his image isn't as shiny anymore.


< Message edited by janh -- 9/16/2011 1:59:33 PM >

(in reply to cherryfunk)
Post #: 28
RE: Hitler's Generals & Admirals...... - 9/16/2011 2:07:09 PM   
lastdingo

 

Posts: 110
Joined: 7/31/2006
Status: offline 		The Nazis did not want to eliminate nations, unless you call "Jewish" a nationality.The Western and Southern European nations were meant to become small powers (= no threat to Germany, too weak) and much of Eastern Europe was meant for a kind of Sparta society; Germans colonising it in fortress-like cities, indigenous people doing agriculture, forestry, mining and railroad operation. The other continents were largely uninteresting (aside from one decisive and kinda defensive war with America to settle whether America can turn things in Europe or not), although some bored Nazis thought about a possible colonial empire in sub-saharan Africa.

That's totally ugly, but not the same.


Funny thing: Few people think of Spartans/Lacedaimonians as despicable nazis...

(in reply to cherryfunk)
Post #: 29
RE: Hitler's Generals & Admirals...... - 9/16/2011 4:10:52 PM   
cherryfunk

 

Posts: 97
Joined: 8/18/2011
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: lastdingo

The Nazis did not want to eliminate nations, unless you call "Jewish" a nationality.

What was their plan for Poland? Were they going to bring it back at some point? How about Russia? Estonia? Latvia? Lithuania? Belorussia? Ukraine? The Czech nation? Serbia? Were any of these going to exist as political or national entities under Nazi rule?


(in reply to lastdingo)
Post #: 30
Page:   [1] 2   next >   >>
All Forums >> [New Releases from Matrix Games] >> Gary Grigsby's War in the East Series >> Hitler's Generals & Admirals...... Page: [1] 2   next >   >>
Jump to:





New Messages No New Messages
Hot Topic w/ New Messages Hot Topic w/o New Messages
Locked w/ New Messages Locked w/o New Messages
 Post New Thread
 Reply to Message
 Post New Poll
 Submit Vote
 Delete My Own Post
 Delete My Own Thread
 Rate Posts


Forum Software © ASPPlayground.NET Advanced Edition 2.4.5 ANSI

8.297