Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: dinsdale

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ORIGINAL: a19999577
<I have corrected some of your spelling mistakes, btw>

Good for you, hope it was an interesting task.

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Not quite. I am not comparing 1945 Hitler with Bush, I am comparing 1933-1938 Hitler's foreign policies with Bush only as far as their General's 'moral duty' to depose them is concerned. I insist that it is unfair to give German Generals the ability to foresee what was going to happen and thus hold them morally responsible for not preventing it.

So none of them read Mein Kampf, knew about the Nuremburg Laws, or knew of any attrocity carried out in Germany, Austria or The Sudentenland. Must have been a very lazy set of officers to be so unaware of their leader's grand design and the actions being carried out by their troops.

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Right now we can debate our heads off on whether Bush is going to lead this world into an age of Atomic 'terrorism' due to his warmongering policies, but we don't know he will, just as anyone in 1938 didn't know Hitler would lead the world into another World War.

No, no one was aware of the Z-plan, or had partaken in militarist expansion between 1936 and 1938 at all I'm sure the war came as a huge surprise to the German military, somehow less of a surprise than to Britain and France who began war preparations before the ink on Munich was dry.

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Sure, with the information available in 1938 or early 39 they could have argued that he would, but at the time it was mere speculation. ... Would it be fair of me to DEMAND Colin Powell lead a military insurrection against Bush in order to prevent what I speculate might happen?

It was most certainly more than mere speculation in 1938. If the scenario you propose today were as clear-cut as that, then it would be a duty of Powell et al to prevent it from happening.

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Heinz Guderian couldn't escape his context any more than Colin Powell can.

No, I suppose Guderian had no idea what would happen when war was threatened in 1938, how could he possibly forsee a war one year later.

Perhaps the findings of the Nuremburg Tribunal puts it better than I can

[referring to General Staff and High Command of the German Armed Forces] They have been responsible in large measure for the miseries and suffering that have fallen on millions of men, women and children. They have been a disgrace to the honourable profession of arms. Without their military guidance the aggressive ambitions of Hitler and his fellow Nazis would have been academic and sterile. Although they were not a group falling within the words of the Charter they were certainly a ruthless military caste. The contemporary German militarism flourished briefly with its recent ally, National Socialism, as well as or better than it had in the generations of the past

Apologies for my part in derailing the thread. I care nothing for what others may think of Bush, but whenever the comparison to Nazi Germany is made it cheapens the suffering of that regieme's victims, and the cost in lives to remove them from the earth.

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ORIGINAL: JallaTryne
There is a (some?) steps between a war and holocaust. Nobody here believe the German generals were surprised that the war broke, but that does not mean they understood how insane Hitler and the Naziz were.

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<SENSELESS RANT SNIPPED>

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ORIGINAL: dinsdale

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Not quite. I am not comparing 1945 Hitler with Bush, I am comparing 1933-1938 Hitler's foreign policies with Bush only as far as their General's 'moral duty' to depose them is concerned. I insist that it is unfair to give German Generals the ability to foresee what was going to happen and thus hold them morally responsible for not preventing it.

So none of them read Mein Kampf, knew about the Nuremburg Laws, or knew of any attrocity carried out in Germany, Austria or The Sudentenland. Must have been a very lazy set of officers to be so unaware of their leader's grand design and the actions being carried out by their troops.

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Right now we can debate our heads off on whether Bush is going to lead this world into an age of Atomic 'terrorism' due to his warmongering policies, but we don't know he will, just as anyone in 1938 didn't know Hitler would lead the world into another World War.

No, no one was aware of the Z-plan, or had partaken in militarist expansion between 1936 and 1938 at all I'm sure the war came as a huge surprise to the German military, somehow less of a surprise than to Britain and France who began war preparations before the ink on Munich was dry.

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Sure, with the information available in 1938 or early 39 they could have argued that he would, but at the time it was mere speculation. ... Would it be fair of me to DEMAND Colin Powell lead a military insurrection against Bush in order to prevent what I speculate might happen?

It was most certainly more than mere speculation in 1938. If the scenario you propose today were as clear-cut as that, then it would be a duty of Powell et al to prevent it from happening.

Apologies for my part in derailing the thread. I care nothing for what others may think of Bush, but whenever the comparison to Nazi Germany is made it cheapens the suffering of that regieme's victims, and the cost in lives to remove them from the earth.

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ORIGINAL: a19999577
I am pointing out that most German Generals [except, of course, Beck] had a more 'sensible' [at the time] reading of Hitler's future. His anti-communist and anti-semitic rhetoric was seen as posturing that wouldn't go much further. If they had been convinced of what was going to happen, then sure, hold them responsible, but talking about genocide and whole-scale war and war crimes in 1938 would, at the time, seem mostly alarmist exaggeration.

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As for 'comparing' the Nazis with anyone else being off-limits, I do realize that that is what people think now, but it is far from the way it has to be. I, as a historian, don't have anything off limits for dissection, and I don't need to say that Genghis Khan was a 'big, bad, meanie' when talking about his statesmanship.

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ORIGINAL: JallaTryne

Sensless rant? What did I say that was wrong? Was not the Iraqi war based on a lie? Has there been no torture of prisoners? I think it is rather that you are an american, and you feel I express hate towards your country.

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ORIGINAL: dinsdale

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ORIGINAL: JallaTryne

Sensless rant? What did I say that was wrong? Was not the Iraqi war based on a lie? Has there been no torture of prisoners? I think it is rather that you are an american, and you feel I express hate towards your country.

Yes senseless rant, much like your interuption of the thread about "allied" generals. In your rush to spout venom you were not even aware that the discussion centred on 1991.

In case you're unaware, I'm not American, and could not for one second care what you express for my country.

I suggest if you want to discuss these issues, find a venue for them, any discussion of modern politics usually results in a closed thread on this one, and I fail to see how your allegations are in any way pertinent to either Von Paulus, or the theoretical pre-war culpability of the German army.

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ORIGINAL: JallaTryne
If you Dinsdale think the german generals schould have got ridden of hitler prior -38, I dont believe you have a basic understanding of germany in these times.

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Also, as has been done here, we can point to similar situations elsewhere in history, past and maybe present. USA is not Nazi germany, but what they have done in order to start a war is worrying. Who knows what they can do in the future?

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ORIGINAL: dinsdale


I've dealt with this in replies to another poster. Obviously neither myself, nor the allied prosecutors at Nuremburg have a basic understanding of Germany in 1938. There was IIRC a plot on Hitlers life that year, perhaps by some uniquely enlightened beings? Several of them would resurface in 1944 and try again, did they have no grasp of life in Germany in 1938

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ORIGINAL: IronDuke
If memory serves, this was a lone gunman. He planted a bomb in the BurgerBraukellar timed to go off during one of Hitler's speeches the following week. The speech was a yearly event marking the Putsch I think (but don't quote me). Hitler left early (I think because one of his current foreign policy ventures was coming to the boil) and the bomb went off on time but didn't get him.

The NAZIs caught the Guy but didn't really know what to do with him. He lived in a concentration camp until 1945 when he was summarily executed as the liberation neared. I should be able to dig out better detail if you're interested.

Regards,
IronDuke