Who supports who?

Actually, this is another myth perpetrated by Lidell-Hart: "Hitler screwed everything". Well, first of all, Hitler acted a great deal with back of his close advisors and the OKW's consent. Second, Hitler's tactical and strategic impressions in more than one occasion during the course of the war worked very well, even if they misarably failed the next year: e.g. the stand order in winter saved Army Group 'Centre' in 1941, but the same ordered doomed the VI Army at Stalingrad. The 'fortresses' strategy stopped the Red Army in 1943 and doomed it on 44. But we could say that the 'Bohemian Corporal' had a much better strategic vision than the heroic field marshal of Africa…

 

I agree.You do have a good point there.

 

In terms of tactical vision, Hitler showed some promise. It was Hitler who envisioned the glider attack on Eben Emael...

I think he just went a bit bonkers along the road to war...


Apologies for my highly simplistic view of Hitlers character but I think Eddid Izzard said it best when he said...

"That Adolf Hitler... He was a mad, mass-murdering F**k-head... What a cad!"

 

I think it's fair to say that Rommel was for Germany, as with all Germans - Hitler helped bring Germany back from the brink. Nothing in Rommel's affinity for his ruler suggests that Rommel supported his racial policies. I still won't prescribe to the idea that "everyone" supported Nazism or knew about the holocaust. Granted that one of the major precepts of Nazism is prosecution of the jews - again, that doesn't suggest that every German supported it. It’s that kind of wholesale indictment of a people that led to the holocaust in the first place. I don’t think Germans deserve the same prejudice.

 

This makes some sense, but what the Germans said about the Jews —which is a very sunjective term, since it's not a race, not a people, not even an homogeneous religious group— had no actual basis. The nazification of Germany is factual, which involves deep and very extended consent and colaboration of most of the country, no matter if there were some exceptions like Stauffenberg or Sophie and Hans Scholl…

 

I wish AndyW was here....

 

He'd pretty much say the same than me. Then would make a sarcastic-acid remark about Friedrich changing his opinions radically from a couple years ago…

 

That's why I wish he was here...

 

lol

 

The point is though that they didn't actually have the technology did they? They had the ideas sure, they may have got them to work in the not too distant future, however they were still pipe dreams.

And as for the 'all Germans were Nazis' issue, well, I do not believe all Germans offered wholehearted support for Hitler, however many offered what could be termed 'tassit support'. That is to say they many not have supported them but they did not fight back. German soldiers may have been ordinary people and in their situation we would probably do the same as they did, however through their actions they supported an evil regieme. And please, none of this 'they had no choice' stuff, you always have a choice, even if one option is death.

Then again, as I said, I doubt I would have done any differently.

 

But for a supreme commander you don't need a good tactician , don't we? That's what captains and majors are for, I s'ppose.

Like the Billy Joel's song goes "I love you just the way you are"

Something I'd like to see would be the missing interview in Liddel-Hart's in "The Other Side of the Hill": Hitler's In my view, LH was very much taken in by the charm of the "Great Men" he interviewed. I suppose Hitler would have had a caustic opinion about a few. And Hitler's review of v.Manstein's "Lost Victories" would have been interesting too. But being the cad he was, he deprived us of this opportunity

The point is though that they didn't actually have the technology did they? They had the ideas sure, they may have got them to work in the not too distant future, however they were still pipe dreams.</font>[/QUOTE]Being a practising airmodeller, I can doodle any kind of pretty designs on a restaurant's table paper towel, but that does not mean anything at all about their praticality.

Case study: the He 177, an actual project, not a paper one. Pretty and futuristic lines, but in practice an technically impossible can of worms, mostly due to the unproven engine combination. The same with the rest. Unproven technologies which would take years to mature, and time was something not on Germany's side.

Case Study 2, another actual project, the Me163. Heck, this thing either physically melted it's pilot or break it's spine on landing. These were the Reich Dreams!

In the meantime the Allies were churning out sensible, workmanlike, magnificent warplanes like the B-17, B-24, B-29, A-26, P-51, P-47, Lancaster, Halifax, Spitfire, Tempest, Il-2, etc etc just to name a few in no specific order at all.

[ 03. July 2004, 12:25 PM: Message edited by: Za Rodina ]

 

The trouble with trying to cast the German army in a good light after 60 years, is this; any argument is immediately shot down in flames, Why? because they, without exception, supported Hitler in everything he did.

Not one German stood up against him,.Indeed it can be said that they all went along with what he did, no matter how vile. Hoping, no doubt, to collect some of the reflected glory from the great Leader..

I still recall the adulation,the hero worship and the idolisation of this mad, evil. lump of dog crap!

The massed cheering crowds that turned out to welcome the chief that defeated the enemy, there was no restraint.

Then you may say, what about the bomb plot? yes, Fine, it is quite wonderful what can be achieved when you are trying to escape from the massive death and destruction that is about to fall on your head, with a resounding and devastating THUMP! Come on, be realistic. The Germany army fawned over Hitler. In my opinion the German soldier fought and died for the total defeat of the Countries of the World. IT was OK in the "GOOD TIMES" when they were winning. Then there was no restrictions on the horrors he could commit.
Sapper.

 

Think Sapper hit the nail on the head there...


Not too mention the best ever description Hitler...

Perfect!

 

It is a simple fact, the soldiers of the German army fought for Hitler. Say what you like, yeah, by the end they were fighting for their very lives but up until the point at which they started to loose they were fighting proudly for the Fuhrer. As Sapper said, sure, there was a bomb plot but it wasn't because Hitler was an evil dictator was it? More to the point it was about 11 years too late...

 

I have read about several small anti-war / anti-Hitler movements in Germany that existed from the late 30's. Several involved small groups or even just several individuals that opposed him. These groups were very low key (well, they did have some degree of self-preservation in mind) and usually operated by doing things like publishing "alternate" versions of a real newspaper, using flyers or posters to get their message across.
So to say not one German stood up against him would be over reaching. Most Germans did not, and to varying degrees supported Hitler with an obvious majority doing so enthueastically (sp).

 

Personally I think that the unconditional surrender term and Morgenthau plan prolonged the war. I don´t mean that they should have made peace with Hitler or Himmler but I do think they could have stopped the war maybe even in 1943 after a successful coup in Germany.Now they gave the weapons to Hitler and Göbbels how to keep on fighting.Then again I cannot say if they had considered that only destroying Germany to pieces could satisfy them after all that had happened (?)

 

As I said, the nazis didn't rape Germany. Germany fell in-love with the nazis and got involved in a very passionate and masochist romance with them all the way to late 1944, when Germany was in worse shape than if she would have been raped…

 

Power of propaganda, and tribalism, works wonders and make bloody fools of the most sensible of men.

But there can be no excuse for the horrors that the German army inflicted on the innocents of the Countries they invaded..

What nobody can get away from when assessing the German army, is that they invaded peaceful countries and slaughtered and tortured.

How can you say good things about the Army? they were invaders, Not on! no one made them invade all the countries that came under the crushing Nazi heel. WHY! WHY? only because they were arrogant and cruel,they wanted everything other countries had for themselves.

It is no surprise they called their people the Master Race in those far off days, for they beleived they were the Masters.....

Some one, fortunately, put them in their place. Just think what Europe would look like now under the heel of the Nazi's?

If the young men had not given their precious lives for our way of life? Bless them and save them! For it is you younger people... that would now be paying the price for not belonging to the German army, and the "Master Race"

God forebid that they ever got to Britain, It is not nice to see your females put into brothels for the pleasure of the Master Race. Or to see the men folk transported to the Fatherland to be worked to death for the good of the German army and people. No? believe it! Believe it!.

I am not exagerating, that is what was in store...and a great deal worse. For if nothing else, I am a realist.
Sapper

 

Well said, Sapper!

I strongly suggest you guys to read T. L. Jarman's "Rise and fall of Nazi Germany". At least the first three chapters, in which the author analyses a very usual question: "Why such a civilised —perhaps the most civilised— and wise people could become Nazi Germany?" There's no doubt that Germans had the best social levels —at least before WWI—, the best education system, the best technology and science and the best culture —specially after WWI. Then why did they become such monsters?

Because in their qualities were their flaws and their doom. Thanks to History Germany was an infertile ground for democracy. Hundreds of years of political, economical and territorial inestability had led them to autoritarism. Within all German culture there was German megalomania: Prussian militarism, discipline and order. The wonderful music of Wagner, the philosophy of Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Goethe, etc. all tended to the same thing: phraise Germanism and the superiority of Germans, along the deification of leaders and of war.

Very good read.

 

Talkin of NAzi revisionism, I was looking for articles on Soviet combat effectiveness the other nite and Google threw up Stormfront forum...

Now there is a bunch of people who are not only revising history, they are re-writing it...

Very scary experience...