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This is BOUND to irk some, OH well

Discussion in 'WWII General' started by Mortman2004, Aug 15, 2008.

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  1. dgmitchell

    dgmitchell Ace

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    Mike -- I agree with Lippert's point. You are not embracing an ideology. You admire and respect Japanese technology, it seems, but you are not touting the merit of Imperial Japan, per se. For example, I suspect that you would have a hard time suggesting any positives with respect to the Japanese army that so brutally tore through Nanking or which tormented and tortured so many American and Allied soldiers during the Bataan Death March.

    If we reduce the attitudes expressed on these boards to their core elements, your comments are really directed toward military/naval hardware which, very arguably, was superior to any other technology that was then available. You are not expressing a devotion to the people who used the hardware or to their ideology. When you praise the hardware, you are not suggesting a moral allegiance to the people who use the hardware. That is an important distinction. I suggest that you do not really love the IJN, just the vessels and technology that the IJN used during the War (but you would know best).
     
  2. mikebatzel

    mikebatzel Dreadnaught

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    or the use of gas, bayonetting living chinese for practice, the use of Korean sex slaves. the list is endless, but yes you are correct in that assumption

    Well dg, when you put it that way, yes. Since the military is an extension of politics by force, That would be a better way of stating that.
     
  3. dd09999

    dd09999 Member

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    That being said, in Japan and Germany there was a lot of brain washing going on. So the government can mold and change ethics around to meet their needs. It happened in the US to a degree about the Japanese. It's hard to kill someone if you think they are human just like you.
     
  4. dgmitchell

    dgmitchell Ace

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    Very true, but that only explains behaviour -- it does not excuse it or justify it. More importantly, it only serves to emphasize the evil of the institution -- whether government, corporation or otherwise -- that has to brainwash the population to coerce behaviour that would otherwise be morally repugnant to the population. In the case of Japan, the brainwashing went beyond a focused attempt to breed ruthless/fearless warriors. It went instead to the level of inculcating, over decades, in the Japanese people a repugnant cultural bias that allowed -- almost mandated -- the Japanese people to commit regular and unimaginable atrocities against other races during the War. I am sure that those soldiers believed that they were acting in a morally superior way when they acted so barbarously but they were still morally bankrupt, despite their belief to the contrary.

    To circle this back to the original post, when an individual lionizes a morally bankrupt group -- as a whole -- the individual is taking a morally bankrupt stand. I believe that that was the issue that Mortman made in starting this thread -- how can anyone take the side of the moral barbarism? I agree and support his premise, just as I agree that we can still find individual examples of Germans or Japanese who may have acted with a moral conscience during the War. That said, those examples are exceptions which prove the rule and which bring us back to the original query? How can anyone embrace the culture of the morally bankrupt actor in a conflict?

    Were the Allied powers and all of their soldiers perfect? No. Far from it in many cases. But putting aside all cultural bias, the Allies were far and away morally superior to the Axis.
     
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  5. brndirt1

    brndirt1 Saddle Tramp

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    "mikebatzel" you will surely enjoy this site in this case. Devoted to the IJN:

    Nihon Kaigun
     
  6. mikebatzel

    mikebatzel Dreadnaught

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    Yep, It's on the top of my favorites. I spend way to much time scouring through the TROM's
     
  7. Lippert

    Lippert Member

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    Let me reiterate what a few people have already said... nice choice for a thread Mortman. It has been really interesting to hear the opinions of others on this matter.
     
  8. Totenkopf

    Totenkopf אוּרִיאֵל

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    Indeed this is a good thread. it has cleared up some things too I hope.
     
  9. Devilsadvocate

    Devilsadvocate Ace

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    I too, have been reading the posts in this thread with some interest and now I'd like to add a few comments, perhaps not entirely germane to the original post, but relevant to some other comments offered here.


    I agree that every belligerent government in WW II used propaganda to heighten it's soldier's dislike of the enemy's combatants, and to some extent the entire population of enemy countries. In the case of the Japanese, however, it wasn't very difficult to paint them as inhumane monsters. The Japanese government and military carried out a deliberate policy of ruthless and inhumane treatment of both enemy combatants and civilians in order to intimidate and demoralize the western democracies. In fact, the US government sometimes had a difficult time restraining it's soldiers in their conduct towards Japanese military personnel, not because of propaganda, but because of the Japanese behavior over a period of years prior to WW II.


    It's difficult for me to understand someone "loving" or being highly impressed by the IJN's "technology" when it was, in fact, rather dated and inferior by the beginning of the Pacific War. The one exception was, of course, the Type 93 torpedo, in which the Japanese had invested a great deal of money and effort to develop. It was undoubted superior to almost any other navy's torpedo technology, but for all that it was simply WW I technology developed to an extreme degree, and proved ineffective once the USN reverted to the type of naval warfare which it had planned for many years to pursue against the Japanese.

    Arguably, the IJN's night fighting tactical doctrine and training was superior during the first year of the war, but it's material technology was , with the single exception of torpedoes, inferior. It's ships were , on the average, almost ten years older than the ships of the USN. It's communications, command and control technology was frozen in the early 1930's. The IJN's carriers were less capable than those of the USN. Even the supposedly "superior" Zero proved to be thw wrong kind of aircraft with which to fight the war.

    I would suggest that anyone who believes that the IJN enjoyed generally superior technology at any time during the Pacific war should read through the reports written by the USN Technical Mission which investigated Japanese Naval technology post war. They can be accessed at this site;

    REPORTS OF THE U.S. NAVAL TECHNICAL MISSION TO JAPAN
     
  10. Mortman2004

    Mortman2004 Dishonorably Discharged

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    Good point Devil.... but the same could be said for the Germans.... The germens are considered supermen and Oh so romantic teutonic knights fighting against bolsivism...UTTER CRAP btw
     
  11. Za Rodinu

    Za Rodinu Aquila non capit muscas

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    Whaaaat? How can you say that about geniuses who created planes like this?
    [​IMG]
     
  12. Lippert

    Lippert Member

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    Just make sure you don't give the map to Marcus.

    (yes I'm aware its a different movie)
     
  13. Mortman2004

    Mortman2004 Dishonorably Discharged

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    Actually jack norththrope came up witht he flying wing design Lol Nice try
     
  14. Martin Bull

    Martin Bull Acting Wg. Cdr

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    That's not strictly correct - Hugo Junkers patented the concept of a tail-less aircraft in 1910 and his WW1 design work was interrupted by the Allied Control Commission.

    Northrop certainly pursued the idea during the 1930s, at exactly the same time as Alexander Lippisch and the Horten brothers were working on designs in Germany. The Hortens were first to get their concept into the air ( in 1933 ) with Northrop a year or two behind.....
     
  15. Devilsadvocate

    Devilsadvocate Ace

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    No argument there! German military technology was spotty, some good, some badly outdated, frequently overly complex, difficult to mass produce, and unreliable. But, Oh my God, what uniforms! They looked like something dreamed up by a Hollywood costume designer. If the Germans had spent half the effort on logistics and production, that they put into snazzy uniforms, the Allies would have been in big trouble, LOL!

    The poor Japanese had to make do with uniforms that resembled surplus potato sacks, and that look certainly wasn't improved by the distinct lack of flashy military decorations. No wonder the Germans are worshiped as "supermen", while the Japanese whose enlisted personnel, man for man, were better soldiers are dismissed as suicidally fanatical losers.

    It's my opinion, for what it's worth, that the answer to your original question is that immature minds are easily impressed by romantic myths and superficial accomplishments. That's why children aren't allowed to vote.
     
  16. Totenkopf

    Totenkopf אוּרִיאֵל

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    UTTER CRAP? Well maybe you should stop posting that stereotype over and over.

    Im sorry, but I am very sick of people typing this all the time. For all the time that I have been on this forum; I have seen a tiny bit of Nazi lovers but not ONCE have ANY of them went on about how they are Supermen all you are doing by saying that is keeping Nazi propoganda alive and fresh by repeating that all the time. Do you remember what I had posted about people who admire something looked upon with the same stereotypes as those that they admire? Well you are doing that right now Mortman.
     
  17. skunk works

    skunk works Ace

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    This iss a joke, zo remember to zing it in 2/4 time.....

    The only lyrics I could find for the....

    "I was not a Nazi Polka"

    Wetmachine: Wetmachine
     
  18. von Rundstedt

    von Rundstedt Dishonorably Discharged

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    I thought i would like to pass on an experience i had in America about four years ago that might be relative to this.

    I had just finished a three month contract at a summer camp in Maryland and had to go to Washington DC to pick up my passport, anyway i met a beautiful German girl and we clicked.

    We spent alot of time going around the sites, so we passed the Holocaust Museum and i said we should go in and have a look, well she spat on the ground and said **** them, i was stunned, i asked why, she said to me that many of her friends became Neo-Nazis because that they were sick and tired of having to bear the continual guilt of what happened through WW2, especially the Holocaust.

    I asked what did she mean by that, she said that as long as they keep opening new Holocaust memorials that the world has yet to forgive the Germans for what they did, the younger generation are sick and tires of paying the price of what hapenned in the 1930's and 1940's.

    I for the first time got an insight into the mind of a Neo-Nazi. It made me wonder why does Generation X and Y of Germany have to carry the burden of guilt with in regards to the Holocaust, they are resentful of that and you wonder why with all the info they still flock to organization such as the Neo-Nazis, i can't blame the girl for her political beliefs.

    v.R
     
  19. Mortman2004

    Mortman2004 Dishonorably Discharged

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    6 millions Jews, Poles gypsies, the mentally ill, homosexuals not to mention the war casualties on all sides. is pretty hard to get over... and HELL yes THE world needs to be reminded AD nauseum about this.... SO WE NEVER EVER forget and SO WE DONT EVER ALLOW this to HAPPEN.... I dont give a damm how they feel the younger german generation as long as they DONT EVER FORGET...

    Oh yes they talk about how SWEET theyre kit was... hell one dudes thought SEPP DIETRICH was the best commander in WW2.. I believe he said Sepp was not too bright but a good tough brawler and loyal like a germen shephard... WHO BTW killled over 100 POWS at MALMEDY AS COUNTLESS OTHER atrocities he committed in Russia... which earned him the nickname THE BLOWTORCH... pull your head out of your fourth point of contact and learn your history...

    And personally Id love to get some of those neo nazi PUNKS alone ins a room with me for 15 minutes... IM not a politically correct person and I have been known to whip a mans ASS in real life offline... I rank them right up theyre with those idiots here in america that run around hiding behind SHEETS the KLU KLUX KLAN....THE BLACK PANTHERS ARENT REAL HIGH ON MY LIST EITHER... I HAVE zero tolerence for idiots like this ZERO and if your gonna gloss over history fine... but dont expect me to sit Idly beside while ya do it.
     
  20. Mortman2004

    Mortman2004 Dishonorably Discharged

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    Oh and martin OK OK i was wrong about jack Northrop LOL Man you do know your stuff... I stand corrected.
     
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