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and lived in Berlin before the wall came down...
i do.
i do.
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northernlad5 said:
As I said - the most vile nation in human history.
How difficult is it to agree or disagree with the above?
On 10th May, 1933, 40,000 Berliners attended the public burning of 25,000 books on the Opernplatz. Later that year in November, a national referendum showed that 95% of the population agreed with Nazi policies - even although it was obvious that rights and freedoms were being drastically eroded.
There is absolutely no doubt that the German nation adopted Nazism to the full, and enjoyed the "benefits" it bestowed on the vast majority while the good years lasted.
As I said - the most vile nation in human history.
How difficult is it to agree or disagree with the above?
On 10th May, 1933, 40,000 Berliners attended the public burning of 25,000 books on the Opernplatz. Later that year in November, a national referendum showed that 95% of the population agreed with Nazi policies - even although it was obvious that rights and freedoms were being drastically eroded.
There is absolutely no doubt that the German nation adopted Nazism to the full, and enjoyed the "benefits" it bestowed on the vast majority while the good years lasted.
Sensative I know,but screeming has not mentioned (or I've missed it) which nation his father actually betrayed:-
Poland, Czechoslovakia, Lithuania etc.
Why did he not return after the war?
To my mind those in country's the Germans invaded & betrayed their own country & collaborated with the Nazi's were even worse than the Nazi's themselves (if that’s possible).
I watched a documentary about Lithuania I think it was,where the Nazi's told local collaborates that they would not intervene in violence or killing of Jews. Local Nazi enthusiasts gathered as many Jews as they could find, & marched them to the town square where they took them one by one & beat them to death with hammers, the incident was filmed by a German cameraman & no doubt too horrific to ever be shown,but still images did appear in the doc.
I am in normal circumstances totally against the death penalty,but the exception is Nazi's & particularly collaborates who should have been sent back to their country of origin & shot or hung.
Poland, Czechoslovakia, Lithuania etc.
Why did he not return after the war?
To my mind those in country's the Germans invaded & betrayed their own country & collaborated with the Nazi's were even worse than the Nazi's themselves (if that’s possible).
I watched a documentary about Lithuania I think it was,where the Nazi's told local collaborates that they would not intervene in violence or killing of Jews. Local Nazi enthusiasts gathered as many Jews as they could find, & marched them to the town square where they took them one by one & beat them to death with hammers, the incident was filmed by a German cameraman & no doubt too horrific to ever be shown,but still images did appear in the doc.
I am in normal circumstances totally against the death penalty,but the exception is Nazi's & particularly collaborates who should have been sent back to their country of origin & shot or hung.
'Defying Hitler' by Sebastian Haeffner a beautiful read.
Real-life memoir of the love affair between a German law graduate and a Jewish girl. Painfully descriptive account of the Nazi menace that snowballed around them as they struggled to keep their relationship secret.
Real-life memoir of the love affair between a German law graduate and a Jewish girl. Painfully descriptive account of the Nazi menace that snowballed around them as they struggled to keep their relationship secret.
screaming said his father was Ukranian, northernlad5.
None of us can influence where we were/are born or who or what our parents were/are.
I'd like to know if screaming would have such a benign attitude if his dad had been a Ukranian Jew who'd escaped to this country with tales of his whole family being raped/tortured/murdered. That's not to say I haven't found his contributions interesting.
None of us can influence where we were/are born or who or what our parents were/are.
I'd like to know if screaming would have such a benign attitude if his dad had been a Ukranian Jew who'd escaped to this country with tales of his whole family being raped/tortured/murdered. That's not to say I haven't found his contributions interesting.
In countries such as Lithuania,the killing of jews was related to getting revenge against the former communist regime.
Alias sure they burned books. They were honest about what they didn't like. Now they just prevent books from being published. Anything that's not politically correct just doesn't see the light of day.
Alias to compare the Luftwaffe with the incredible policy of total destruction by Bomber Command is ludicous.
NorthernLad let me ask you this. You opposed the Iraq war. I assume you didn't believe the tale about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction.Wasn't true. In the 30s Churchill ran a campaign that Hitler had bombers ready to attack London.Wasn't true. Maybe you would have gone on a hunger strike to stop WW2!!
Alias sure they burned books. They were honest about what they didn't like. Now they just prevent books from being published. Anything that's not politically correct just doesn't see the light of day.
Alias to compare the Luftwaffe with the incredible policy of total destruction by Bomber Command is ludicous.
NorthernLad let me ask you this. You opposed the Iraq war. I assume you didn't believe the tale about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction.Wasn't true. In the 30s Churchill ran a campaign that Hitler had bombers ready to attack London.Wasn't true. Maybe you would have gone on a hunger strike to stop WW2!!
Its ironic that those of Slavic origin were viewed by the Nazi's as subhuman and just as they used Jews to do their dirty work (Sonderkommando) at Auschwitz & other death camps before disposing of them every three months. They would have eventually got rid of all non Aryan accomplices to fulfill their deranged notions of racial purity.
Had it been my father I would have totally disowned him and my mother who must have known he was not German but quite incredibly decided to fight for the Nazi's and betray not just his own people but humanity as a whole. Screeming needs to come to terms with what his father was and stop making excuses for him.
TKDM,
It was well known long before WW2 the Nazi's warped idea's of racial purity even before they took power (Mein Kampf) & what they did in power to maintain it. Their rearmament &
and actions before they invaded Chechoslovakia should have been enough for Britain, France & the US to declare war on the basis Germany had broken the Versailles Treaty.
So on the contrary if ever a war was justified it was too destroy Nazi Germany.
Had it been my father I would have totally disowned him and my mother who must have known he was not German but quite incredibly decided to fight for the Nazi's and betray not just his own people but humanity as a whole. Screeming needs to come to terms with what his father was and stop making excuses for him.
TKDM,
It was well known long before WW2 the Nazi's warped idea's of racial purity even before they took power (Mein Kampf) & what they did in power to maintain it. Their rearmament &
and actions before they invaded Chechoslovakia should have been enough for Britain, France & the US to declare war on the basis Germany had broken the Versailles Treaty.
So on the contrary if ever a war was justified it was too destroy Nazi Germany.
He was a Ukrainian. He didn't have a fkn country to return to. His home, near L'wiw, had been part of Poland pre-War and was part of the USSR post-War.
As I said, his parents had already been shot by Russians in 1939 because they owned the land they farmed. He joined the German army to avoid a Czech coal mine. He deserted. He fought Germans and Russians as a guerilla. He rejoined to get weapons. He deserted again to surrender. Can you understand why he didn't go home to be shot?
It was complicated, the same as it was for millions of others.
Thankfully we live in a country now where anyone feeble enough to demand people he's never met should be shot or hanged is kept away from the armoury.
As I said, his parents had already been shot by Russians in 1939 because they owned the land they farmed. He joined the German army to avoid a Czech coal mine. He deserted. He fought Germans and Russians as a guerilla. He rejoined to get weapons. He deserted again to surrender. Can you understand why he didn't go home to be shot?
It was complicated, the same as it was for millions of others.
Thankfully we live in a country now where anyone feeble enough to demand people he's never met should be shot or hanged is kept away from the armoury.
screamers- you talk a lot of sense. i like reading your posts. Are you on twitter yet? would love to talk nonsense on there when the cricket is on. 
Alias to compare the Luftwaffe with the incredible policy of total destruction by Bomber Command is ludicous.
I didn't compare exactly, but your ignorance is astounding. Durango, Guernica, Rotterdam, Warsaw, Stalingrad, Coventry, London, Clydebank etc etc etc.
The invasion of the USSR was the most brutal of it's kind in history, with the intention of starving the whole population in order to feed Germans.
Go away and learn.
I didn't compare exactly, but your ignorance is astounding. Durango, Guernica, Rotterdam, Warsaw, Stalingrad, Coventry, London, Clydebank etc etc etc.
The invasion of the USSR was the most brutal of it's kind in history, with the intention of starving the whole population in order to feed Germans.
Go away and learn.
I forgot: where else on earth would book burning have attracted a crowd of 40,000 people? Ever wondered what the books were, and why they were burned?
In the 30s Churchill ran a campaign that Hitler had bombers ready to attack London.Wasn't true
What campaign?
So the blitz was carried out by phantom bombers? Your name isn't Goebbels by any chance, is it?
What campaign?
So the blitz was carried out by phantom bombers? Your name isn't Goebbels by any chance, is it?
In answer to the first question - no.
There's still a well of hatred throughout Europe stemming, not from The Holocaust, but from the German motif of marching in to people's town centres demanding money with menaces. I have visited many of the military cemeteries in Western Europe, of all nationalities, and done so pretty much guilt free. Having hosted German students in the past, I know they don't feel the same - in fact some talked of a sense of relief when they went as "undiscovered" Germans.
Much of this thread has been centred on WW2 and Hitler's rather unpleasant methods and manner. I'm with the historians who feel our whole view of 20th Century European History is flawed. The standard view sees the century dominated by two World wars with the epicentre in Europe. Instead we should view it as one minor war between the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Serbia, and one World War with a 20yr hiatus. Everything, including the eventual emergence of Hitler is rooted in the ill-thought out super-power alliances of the early years of the 1900s. It will be interesting, as we approach the 100yr anniversary of the start of the war how governments and the media view the events leading up to the start of the 1914-18 war. Great Britain for example - as late as may 1914 senior politicians and military figures were exchanging messages predicting war on the continent but convinced that Britain could sit it out and watch the mayhem from afar. There was little anti-German sentiment knocking around.
There's still a well of hatred throughout Europe stemming, not from The Holocaust, but from the German motif of marching in to people's town centres demanding money with menaces. I have visited many of the military cemeteries in Western Europe, of all nationalities, and done so pretty much guilt free. Having hosted German students in the past, I know they don't feel the same - in fact some talked of a sense of relief when they went as "undiscovered" Germans.
Much of this thread has been centred on WW2 and Hitler's rather unpleasant methods and manner. I'm with the historians who feel our whole view of 20th Century European History is flawed. The standard view sees the century dominated by two World wars with the epicentre in Europe. Instead we should view it as one minor war between the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Serbia, and one World War with a 20yr hiatus. Everything, including the eventual emergence of Hitler is rooted in the ill-thought out super-power alliances of the early years of the 1900s. It will be interesting, as we approach the 100yr anniversary of the start of the war how governments and the media view the events leading up to the start of the 1914-18 war. Great Britain for example - as late as may 1914 senior politicians and military figures were exchanging messages predicting war on the continent but convinced that Britain could sit it out and watch the mayhem from afar. There was little anti-German sentiment knocking around.
reading these posts some stand out as intelligent, insightful,considerate,interesting,thoughtful and kind...
and no they were not by me!!....Good stuff sfbtw.
and no they were not by me!!....Good stuff sfbtw.
To be fair Screaming didn't need to bring his father into the debate & why he did so I don't quite understand. I can understand his Irish hating grandfather to an extent – he thought Ireland was a part of Britain unfortunately he didn't find out till he got there that the oirish had other ideas - and they say we are thick!
Had I been in Screaming's position, at some point I would have had to make sure my fathers story could be verified. The murder of his grandparents by the Red Army simply because they were farm owners doesn't ring true.
L'wow or Lviv as it is now called (The city Screaming s grand parents lived near) was indeed occupied by the Red Army under the Molotov - Ribbentrop Pact on the 22 Sept 1939.
According to Screaming's account of his fathers story, his grandparents were shot simply for being farm/land owners after the city capitulated some time during 22 Sept & 1 Jan 1940. Considering the Red Army occupied half of Poland there must have been millions of land owning Poles including Jews, and even the Red Army would have had their work cut out to murder them all during a ten week period & leave no evidence. They would of course have had their land confiscated & perhaps even have been moved /resettled somewhere else as did happen but there is no record of mass murders in Lviv during the period 22 Sept – 1 Jan 1940.
There is however a record of Soviet NKVD massacres after the Germans attacked the Soviets that took place in Lviv. 22 June – 28 June. 1941.
Wikipedia:-
Lviv (Lwów): the massacres in this city began immediately after German attack, on June 22 and continued until June 28. The NKVD executed several thousand inmates in a number of provisional prisons. Among the common methods of extermination were shooting the prisoners in their cells, killing them with grenades thrown into the cells or starving them to death in the cellars. Some were simply bayoneted to death. It is estimated that over 4000 people were murdered that way, while the number of survivors is estimated at ca. 270. The slaughter was briefly terminated when local Ukrainian uprising forced the NKVD to retreat, but then it returned.
And also mass murders by the Ukrainian Militia's with the backing of the Nazi's:-
Ukrainian nationalists, organized as a militia, and the civilian population were allowed to take revenge on the "Jews and the Bolsheviks" and indulged in several mass killings in Lviv and the surrounding region, which resulted in the deaths estimated at between 4,000 and 10,000 Jews (see: Lviv pogroms). The Germans during the occupation of the city committed numerous other atrocities including the killing of Polish university professors.
On 30 June 1941 Yaroslav Stetsko proclaimed in Lviv the Government of an independent Ukrainian state allied with Nazi Germany.
Didn't Screamings father claim to be Ukrainian?
Didn't he flee when the Red Army pushed back the German army?
There is a Holocaust memorial to the Jewish victims of the Ukrainian Militia's & their Nazi superiors in Israel,but strangely none to the Jewish land owners that Screamings father claimed were murdered along with his own parents by the Soviets some 18 months earlier.
Sorry, but all the evidence suggests that Screamings father was a Ukrainian nationalist militia man and fleed with the Nazi's as the Red Army pushed them back through Poland & into Germany. The part about his parents being shot by the Soviets simply for being land owners between 22 Sept 1939 & 1 Jan 1940 a work of fiction – but then he would say that wouldn't he!
Had I been in Screaming's position, at some point I would have had to make sure my fathers story could be verified. The murder of his grandparents by the Red Army simply because they were farm owners doesn't ring true.
L'wow or Lviv as it is now called (The city Screaming s grand parents lived near) was indeed occupied by the Red Army under the Molotov - Ribbentrop Pact on the 22 Sept 1939.
According to Screaming's account of his fathers story, his grandparents were shot simply for being farm/land owners after the city capitulated some time during 22 Sept & 1 Jan 1940. Considering the Red Army occupied half of Poland there must have been millions of land owning Poles including Jews, and even the Red Army would have had their work cut out to murder them all during a ten week period & leave no evidence. They would of course have had their land confiscated & perhaps even have been moved /resettled somewhere else as did happen but there is no record of mass murders in Lviv during the period 22 Sept – 1 Jan 1940.
There is however a record of Soviet NKVD massacres after the Germans attacked the Soviets that took place in Lviv. 22 June – 28 June. 1941.
Wikipedia:-
Lviv (Lwów): the massacres in this city began immediately after German attack, on June 22 and continued until June 28. The NKVD executed several thousand inmates in a number of provisional prisons. Among the common methods of extermination were shooting the prisoners in their cells, killing them with grenades thrown into the cells or starving them to death in the cellars. Some were simply bayoneted to death. It is estimated that over 4000 people were murdered that way, while the number of survivors is estimated at ca. 270. The slaughter was briefly terminated when local Ukrainian uprising forced the NKVD to retreat, but then it returned.
And also mass murders by the Ukrainian Militia's with the backing of the Nazi's:-
Ukrainian nationalists, organized as a militia, and the civilian population were allowed to take revenge on the "Jews and the Bolsheviks" and indulged in several mass killings in Lviv and the surrounding region, which resulted in the deaths estimated at between 4,000 and 10,000 Jews (see: Lviv pogroms). The Germans during the occupation of the city committed numerous other atrocities including the killing of Polish university professors.
On 30 June 1941 Yaroslav Stetsko proclaimed in Lviv the Government of an independent Ukrainian state allied with Nazi Germany.
Didn't Screamings father claim to be Ukrainian?
Didn't he flee when the Red Army pushed back the German army?
There is a Holocaust memorial to the Jewish victims of the Ukrainian Militia's & their Nazi superiors in Israel,but strangely none to the Jewish land owners that Screamings father claimed were murdered along with his own parents by the Soviets some 18 months earlier.
Sorry, but all the evidence suggests that Screamings father was a Ukrainian nationalist militia man and fleed with the Nazi's as the Red Army pushed them back through Poland & into Germany. The part about his parents being shot by the Soviets simply for being land owners between 22 Sept 1939 & 1 Jan 1940 a work of fiction – but then he would say that wouldn't he!
Alias if you didn't know that Churchill was spruiking that then you need to do some research. When war was declared people walked around London wearing gas masks. Only problem was Germany had no bombers that could reach London from Germany. Churchill knew that but why let the facts get in the way of a good scare campaign?! Even if they had the range there's no way it would have happened at that stage. Hitler was not too keen on war with Britain.
Good research, northernlad5.
But ... You say:
According to Screaming's account of his fathers story, his grandparents were shot simply for being farm/land owners after the city capitulated some time during 22 Sept & 1 Jan 1940.
No I didn't. I said:
My old man was Ukrainian. He welcomed the Germans in 1939 as liberators from Polish occupation. When Hitler handed western Ukraine over to Stalin, he escaped, though his parents were shot. (They owned their own land.)
1939 was the date of the invasion. I didn't state any date for his parents' execution, partly to keep the posts to the point and readable and mostly because I don't know one. Perhaps it was one of those from 1941 you found in wikipedia. I have no idea and I'll never know, as he's been dead for years and I wouldn't be interrogating him for precise dates even if he weren't.
I brought my family into the story because they're all examples, in different ways, of how the continual warfare and disruption all over Europe in the first half of the 20th century left the average person everywhere, not just in Germany, doing and saying and believing the most extreme things.
Most of our generation in this country is fortunate enough to have lived lives of peace and prosperity unimaginable to our parents and/or grandparents. Under these circumstances most of us, including Germans in my experience of working there, have turned out to be cheerful, tolerant and civilized.
But ... You say:
According to Screaming's account of his fathers story, his grandparents were shot simply for being farm/land owners after the city capitulated some time during 22 Sept & 1 Jan 1940.
No I didn't. I said:
My old man was Ukrainian. He welcomed the Germans in 1939 as liberators from Polish occupation. When Hitler handed western Ukraine over to Stalin, he escaped, though his parents were shot. (They owned their own land.)
1939 was the date of the invasion. I didn't state any date for his parents' execution, partly to keep the posts to the point and readable and mostly because I don't know one. Perhaps it was one of those from 1941 you found in wikipedia. I have no idea and I'll never know, as he's been dead for years and I wouldn't be interrogating him for precise dates even if he weren't.
I brought my family into the story because they're all examples, in different ways, of how the continual warfare and disruption all over Europe in the first half of the 20th century left the average person everywhere, not just in Germany, doing and saying and believing the most extreme things.
Most of our generation in this country is fortunate enough to have lived lives of peace and prosperity unimaginable to our parents and/or grandparents. Under these circumstances most of us, including Germans in my experience of working there, have turned out to be cheerful, tolerant and civilized.
doubleagent • March 3, 2013 4:38 AM GMT
When war was declared people walked around London wearing gas masks.
Hardly.
Gas masks were issued in 1938-39. People were told they should carry them in case of gas attack. Since poison gas had been used in 1914-18, it's not an unreasonable precaution. Poisonous gas could have been delivered in many ways should the Germans have opted for it.
Churchill wasn't above a bit of propaganda and subterfuge but the gas masks issue is the equivalent of wearing a hard hat on a building site today. You probably won't need it but you'd be daft not to have one. In fact, it's less than the equivalent of a gas mask. People wear hard hats, they didn't wear the masks.
When war was declared people walked around London wearing gas masks.
Hardly.
Gas masks were issued in 1938-39. People were told they should carry them in case of gas attack. Since poison gas had been used in 1914-18, it's not an unreasonable precaution. Poisonous gas could have been delivered in many ways should the Germans have opted for it.
Churchill wasn't above a bit of propaganda and subterfuge but the gas masks issue is the equivalent of wearing a hard hat on a building site today. You probably won't need it but you'd be daft not to have one. In fact, it's less than the equivalent of a gas mask. People wear hard hats, they didn't wear the masks.
That should have read "less than the equivalent of a hard hat".
It's so difficult to cut out the benefit of hindsight when judging the past.
The consensus in the 1930s was that a future war would see whole civilizations immediately decimated by fleets of bombers, and policy was governed by this. The apocalyptic book Command Of The Air by Giulio Douhet was widely read and believed. The destruction of Guernica must have seemed to confirm its predictions.
"A British Cabinet planning document in 1938 predicted that, if war with Germany broke out, 35% of British homes would be hit by bombs in the first three weeks." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bombing
"The estimate of Britain's Committee of Imperial Defence was that the initial bombing attacks on London would continue for 60 days, kill 600,000 and maim well over 1 million people. In response to this thousands of papier mache coffins were stockpiled and, with a nicely bureaucratic sense of priorities, 1 million burial forms had already been issued." Blitzkrieg, Len Deighton
The consensus in the 1930s was that a future war would see whole civilizations immediately decimated by fleets of bombers, and policy was governed by this. The apocalyptic book Command Of The Air by Giulio Douhet was widely read and believed. The destruction of Guernica must have seemed to confirm its predictions.
"A British Cabinet planning document in 1938 predicted that, if war with Germany broke out, 35% of British homes would be hit by bombs in the first three weeks." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bombing
"The estimate of Britain's Committee of Imperial Defence was that the initial bombing attacks on London would continue for 60 days, kill 600,000 and maim well over 1 million people. In response to this thousands of papier mache coffins were stockpiled and, with a nicely bureaucratic sense of priorities, 1 million burial forms had already been issued." Blitzkrieg, Len Deighton
I agree with sfbtw, particularly this comment: But it wasn't because being born between Cologne and Koenigsberg made a person "vicious & nasty" as you put it. It could have been anyone. It could have been you or me.
It comes down to the nature v nurture argument. If we had been born into this culture we would likely have held the same views, or be coerced into holding those views. The bulk UK citizens share a common culture, schooled with the same national curriculum, watch the same TV programmes and read the same books and newspapers. The very views we express now are the result of such a common culture, not despite it.
Now imagine ourselves having been born in a different country and a different culture. What would our views of world affairs be?
It comes down to the nature v nurture argument. If we had been born into this culture we would likely have held the same views, or be coerced into holding those views. The bulk UK citizens share a common culture, schooled with the same national curriculum, watch the same TV programmes and read the same books and newspapers. The very views we express now are the result of such a common culture, not despite it.
Now imagine ourselves having been born in a different country and a different culture. What would our views of world affairs be?
doubleagent
03 Mar 13 04:38
Joined:
23 May 05
| Topic/replies: 4,947 | Blogger: doubleagent's blog
Alias if you didn't know that Churchill was spruiking that then you need to do some research. When war was declared people walked around London wearing gas masks. Only problem was Germany had no bombers that could reach London from Germany. Churchill knew that but why let the facts get in the way of a good scare campaign?! Even if they had the range there's no way it would have happened at that stage. Hitler was not too keen on war with Britain.
..................................................................
I've been doing "research" for umpteen years now. Without arguing a silly point, Churchill issued lots of warnings about Hitler and Nazi Germany. Are you saying he was wrong? History proves he was dead right about German intentions.
"Hitler was not too keen on war with Britain". So why invade Poland after the ultimatum delivered by Britain and France? He provoked, effectively declaring war on us. All this after getting away with the Sudetenland takeover. Not too keen? Why invade Czechoslovakia, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, France, Denmark, Norway etc etc? Were we just really beastly to those poor, misunderstood Nazis, in your opinion? I don't know what age you are or what your background is, but if anyone requires to "research", it's YOU.
03 Mar 13 04:38
Joined:
23 May 05
| Topic/replies: 4,947 | Blogger: doubleagent's blog
Alias if you didn't know that Churchill was spruiking that then you need to do some research. When war was declared people walked around London wearing gas masks. Only problem was Germany had no bombers that could reach London from Germany. Churchill knew that but why let the facts get in the way of a good scare campaign?! Even if they had the range there's no way it would have happened at that stage. Hitler was not too keen on war with Britain.
..................................................................
I've been doing "research" for umpteen years now. Without arguing a silly point, Churchill issued lots of warnings about Hitler and Nazi Germany. Are you saying he was wrong? History proves he was dead right about German intentions.
"Hitler was not too keen on war with Britain". So why invade Poland after the ultimatum delivered by Britain and France? He provoked, effectively declaring war on us. All this after getting away with the Sudetenland takeover. Not too keen? Why invade Czechoslovakia, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, France, Denmark, Norway etc etc? Were we just really beastly to those poor, misunderstood Nazis, in your opinion? I don't know what age you are or what your background is, but if anyone requires to "research", it's YOU.
i went to see is Berlin wall last year to see what the fuss was about .
it was ruined ,someone had knocked it down
it was ruined ,someone had knocked it down
By the way doubleagent, regardless of your claim, the Nazis had plenty of bombers that could reach Britain from France and the low countries, which is exactly what they did. This after a few practise runs in Spain of course, in the preceding few years.
Its true the Italians also allowed a Fascist dictator Mussolini, to take power but they did not engage in genocide or build gas chambers there, or in Franco's Spain, although massacre's did take place against socialists/trade unionists but for political reasons and again no gas chambers.
So that leaves Germany the only modern nation to first decide to murder an entire race (and other undesirables) & then gleefully engage in using the latest industrial technology to achieve that end. And no other nation would have gone along with Hitlers insane notions of Aryan racial purity.
Something about the German mentality & need for ultimate efficiency.
So that leaves Germany the only modern nation to first decide to murder an entire race (and other undesirables) & then gleefully engage in using the latest industrial technology to achieve that end. And no other nation would have gone along with Hitlers insane notions of Aryan racial purity.
Something about the German mentality & need for ultimate efficiency.
Something about the German mentality & need for ultimate efficiency.
Do you believe that mentality is still prevalent in Germany today? In what generations?
Do you believe that mentality is still prevalent in Germany today? In what generations?
"Do you believe that mentality is still prevalent in Germany today? In what generations?"
Yes!...and in all generations.
I watched a German speaking film a few years ago (can't remember what it was called) about a class of recent German students. A new teacher arrived and taught them about the Hitler era. To which they all said “That could never happen now!”.
He then embarked on an experiment unbeknown to them of turning them into Nazi's, first by getting them to all wear T shirts, then with a slogan on them, gradually he became a cult figure, and eventually had them doing what ever he said without question . Finally he turned them into Nazi's without them realising. In the end he came clean & explained what he had done. Most were shocked & disappointed but mainly because it was over, except for one pupil who for the first time felt he had fitted in and couldn't accept going back to 'normal'. The film ended after the disturbed pupil blamed another for not showing enough enthusiasm & went and shot him.
Yes!...and in all generations.
I watched a German speaking film a few years ago (can't remember what it was called) about a class of recent German students. A new teacher arrived and taught them about the Hitler era. To which they all said “That could never happen now!”.
He then embarked on an experiment unbeknown to them of turning them into Nazi's, first by getting them to all wear T shirts, then with a slogan on them, gradually he became a cult figure, and eventually had them doing what ever he said without question . Finally he turned them into Nazi's without them realising. In the end he came clean & explained what he had done. Most were shocked & disappointed but mainly because it was over, except for one pupil who for the first time felt he had fitted in and couldn't accept going back to 'normal'. The film ended after the disturbed pupil blamed another for not showing enough enthusiasm & went and shot him.
Call me stupid, but isn't that film instructing people to be aware of social manipulation to prevent becoming a murdering Nazi?
gross generalisation of de geermans, St Pauli fans outraged 
Mr.Angry,
No doubt! And some students in any country would have been taken in, but not all of them, & with nothing like the same degree of enthusiasm or the same zeal for efficency.
No doubt! And some students in any country would have been taken in, but not all of them, & with nothing like the same degree of enthusiasm or the same zeal for efficency.
I think the truth is somewhere between the two of you Alias and doubleagent.
No, Hitler didn't want a war with Britain because he knew it was fraught with difficulty and in his belief in 1939, unnecessary in terms of German expansionism. There is a lot of evidence that right up to the invasion of Poland he believed the West wouldn't fight. They'd walked away from Czechoslovakia, why should Poland be any different? On the other hand Churchill was one of the few leading military and political figures in this country who saw the war with Germany was coming and inevitable, and advocated fighting it.
On the bombing issue, Germany didn't have France as a base until 1940. The gas masks were dished out much earlier than that. But it didn't require an aeroplane to deliver poisonous gas to areas of high population.
The Western war from Hitler and Co's viewpoint was more a treadmill that they couldn't get off once they'd got on it, fed by poverty and a sense of injustice going back to 1918. It wasn't the ideological war stemming from National Socialism laid out in Mein Kampf and fought in the East - two very different ball games played in two very different ways.
No, Hitler didn't want a war with Britain because he knew it was fraught with difficulty and in his belief in 1939, unnecessary in terms of German expansionism. There is a lot of evidence that right up to the invasion of Poland he believed the West wouldn't fight. They'd walked away from Czechoslovakia, why should Poland be any different? On the other hand Churchill was one of the few leading military and political figures in this country who saw the war with Germany was coming and inevitable, and advocated fighting it.
On the bombing issue, Germany didn't have France as a base until 1940. The gas masks were dished out much earlier than that. But it didn't require an aeroplane to deliver poisonous gas to areas of high population.
The Western war from Hitler and Co's viewpoint was more a treadmill that they couldn't get off once they'd got on it, fed by poverty and a sense of injustice going back to 1918. It wasn't the ideological war stemming from National Socialism laid out in Mein Kampf and fought in the East - two very different ball games played in two very different ways.
As someone earlier pointed out, hindsight is a wonderful thing.
.http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/03/magazine_enl_1064218142/html/1.stm
.http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/03/magazine_enl_1064218142/html/1.stm
still believe Hitler wanted us to join him against the commies
The Western war from Hitler and Co's viewpoint was more a treadmill that they couldn't get off once they'd got on it, fed by poverty and a sense of injustice going back to 1918. It wasn't the ideological war stemming from National Socialism laid out in Mein Kampf and fought in the East - two very different ball games played in two very different ways.
Pandorica, Hitler knew that the further he went, the more definite and inevitable a war with Britain was, and ANY war is surely a treadmill. Germany was eating up resources at a remarkable rate, their own and those of others, and there had to be no end to the expansion.
Because the Germans suffered a "sense of injustice", it didn't give them licence to kill - and kill and kill and kill. As for the war in the east, that was a blunder of epic proportions. Trying to supply a huge, modern, mechanized army across vast distances on poor roads and for much of the time in temperatures well below zero, was supplying a very valuable hostage to fortune.
...........................................................................
wit-ham
03 Mar 13 17:36
Joined:
01 Aug 03
| Topic/replies: 4,487 | Blogger: wit-ham's blog
still believe Hitler wanted us to join him against the commies
Sorry wit-ham, but that's not an entirely original thought.
Pandorica, Hitler knew that the further he went, the more definite and inevitable a war with Britain was, and ANY war is surely a treadmill. Germany was eating up resources at a remarkable rate, their own and those of others, and there had to be no end to the expansion.
Because the Germans suffered a "sense of injustice", it didn't give them licence to kill - and kill and kill and kill. As for the war in the east, that was a blunder of epic proportions. Trying to supply a huge, modern, mechanized army across vast distances on poor roads and for much of the time in temperatures well below zero, was supplying a very valuable hostage to fortune.
...........................................................................
wit-ham
03 Mar 13 17:36
Joined:
01 Aug 03
| Topic/replies: 4,487 | Blogger: wit-ham's blog
still believe Hitler wanted us to join him against the commies
Sorry wit-ham, but that's not an entirely original thought.
They are seething on the streets of Hamburg, brendanuk1.
wit-ham
03 Mar 13 17:36
Joined:
01 Aug 03
| Topic/replies: 4,487 | Blogger: wit-ham's blog
still believe Hitler wanted us to join him against the commies
Sorry wit-ham, but that's not an entirely original thought.
you will get nothing original from me
03 Mar 13 17:36
Joined:
01 Aug 03
| Topic/replies: 4,487 | Blogger: wit-ham's blog
still believe Hitler wanted us to join him against the commies
Sorry wit-ham, but that's not an entirely original thought.
you will get nothing original from me
Ummmm, I didn't say that it gave the Germans a licence to do anything Alias, merely pointing out the situation as was.
What is a mistake is to view WW2 in isolation and paint the Germans as the 'baddies'. What happened to that nation in terms of social breakdown and the rise of the lunatic right had its roots very firmly in 1918. 1918 had its roots, obviously, in 1914-17. And the start of that particular European conflict had its roots in Super-Power alliances, the First Moroccan Crisis, and even earlier in French society, with the Dreyfuss Affair.
What is a mistake is to view WW2 in isolation and paint the Germans as the 'baddies'. What happened to that nation in terms of social breakdown and the rise of the lunatic right had its roots very firmly in 1918. 1918 had its roots, obviously, in 1914-17. And the start of that particular European conflict had its roots in Super-Power alliances, the First Moroccan Crisis, and even earlier in French society, with the Dreyfuss Affair.
Cause and effect, of course Pandorica. Nevertheless, Hitler & Co produced the most brutal, poisoned, corrupt regime in the history of modern civilisation, and no amount of persuasion will make me believe that it was all down to 1914-18, Versailles, social breakdown etc. Sometimes blame is right.
OK, but it was down to exactly what you don't want to put it down to. Blame all you like; the people involved are thankfully long gone. It's just that doing that doesn't move anyone further forward in terms of understanding history.
Each to their own but I find it more useful in terms of understanding the world today to look beyond the kind of blame game where a whole country is in the dock for ever.
For what its worth I think the bloke with the most to answer for in terms of European conflict in the 20th Century isn't Hitler. His name would probably go unrecognised by the vast majority of Europeans but his hand pulled the trigger in 1914- Helmuth von Moltke.
Each to their own but I find it more useful in terms of understanding the world today to look beyond the kind of blame game where a whole country is in the dock for ever.
For what its worth I think the bloke with the most to answer for in terms of European conflict in the 20th Century isn't Hitler. His name would probably go unrecognised by the vast majority of Europeans but his hand pulled the trigger in 1914- Helmuth von Moltke.
Maybe our ideas of the concept of blame are the problem.
The thing is, Hitler's war wasn't just about territory or resources, it broke new ground in being about genocide of various groups of perceived "inferior" peoples. The Nazis very nearly swept Europe of Jews, and had a stated intention of enslaving the whole Polish nation, after having murdered all academics, teachers, etc. Then there was the programme to starve to death the population of all of the conquered areas of Russia, freeing up land for German lebensraum as well as providing millions of acres of arable land for the feeding of the Reich. I could go on, and younger generations really have no idea. The inherent evil of the Nazi regime requires more explanation than the unfairness (or otherwise) of Versailles, or the privations of the Weimar republic.
The thing is, Hitler's war wasn't just about territory or resources, it broke new ground in being about genocide of various groups of perceived "inferior" peoples. The Nazis very nearly swept Europe of Jews, and had a stated intention of enslaving the whole Polish nation, after having murdered all academics, teachers, etc. Then there was the programme to starve to death the population of all of the conquered areas of Russia, freeing up land for German lebensraum as well as providing millions of acres of arable land for the feeding of the Reich. I could go on, and younger generations really have no idea. The inherent evil of the Nazi regime requires more explanation than the unfairness (or otherwise) of Versailles, or the privations of the Weimar republic.
Good posts both Alias and Pandorica, IMO. My ancestors, well about a quarter of them, are from Germany. It troubles me what they did (not my ancestors, they'd fled to the States long before), but I do think the horror for us lies a lot in how like us both the criminals and victims were. The atrocity was on an enormous...and if you like...eficient scale, but in terms of mans inhumanity to man I don't think it's worse necessarily than other atrocities, like Rwanda. Just seeing well-educated white people killing other well-educated white people seems more shocking. I don't think Germans are at all like that today, but we should always be wary of people spreading the bile that Hitler did.
"it broke new ground in being about genocide of various groups of perceived "inferior" peoples."
The war wasn't about genocide or eradication of the groups of society that the Nazis had a problem with. The war was about perceived injustice, resources and land.
You seem to me to be confusing motivation with opportunism.
The war wasn't about genocide or eradication of the groups of society that the Nazis had a problem with. The war was about perceived injustice, resources and land.
You seem to me to be confusing motivation with opportunism.
I cant be bothered to read the whole thread, but did it by any chance turn into a debate about nazi germany?
In the East, later in the war, came the hatred and distrust of the Slavic people and of the communist regime in Russia. If the war in total had been about that then Hitler would have struck eastwards first, and found it much more difficult to take the German people with him.
No - more about whether their public services are better than ours Rob.
how did Hitler turn Germany into what was probably the second most powerful country in the world
or was it that others did not want to fight?
or was it that others did not want to fight?
In the East, later in the war, came the hatred and distrust of the Slavic people and of the communist regime in Russia. If the war in total had been about that then Hitler would have struck eastwards first, and found it much more difficult to take the German people with him.
NO. The USSR was always on the menu, but it took time and building strength and resources. The non aggression pact with Stalin was a sham and lulled the Russians in order to gain time. Of course Hitler DID strike east first, invading Poland in 1939, which of course triggered the war for France and Britain. Russia was invaded in the summer of '41, about 20 months after the taking of Poland. Are you saying that it wasn't planned all along, that it was an afterthought? Hitler planned the lebensraum programme, designed to provide for his people. I suggest you read Stalingrad, by Antony Beevor, or a similar history.
NO. The USSR was always on the menu, but it took time and building strength and resources. The non aggression pact with Stalin was a sham and lulled the Russians in order to gain time. Of course Hitler DID strike east first, invading Poland in 1939, which of course triggered the war for France and Britain. Russia was invaded in the summer of '41, about 20 months after the taking of Poland. Are you saying that it wasn't planned all along, that it was an afterthought? Hitler planned the lebensraum programme, designed to provide for his people. I suggest you read Stalingrad, by Antony Beevor, or a similar history.
how did Hitler turn Germany into what was probably the second most powerful country in the world
wit-ham, around 1941/42, Nazi Germany may have been THE most powerful country, in a military sense. It was achieved by using millions of slave labourers from '39 onwards, along with further financial boosts from the stolen gold reserves from France, Holland, Belgium, Poland Czechoslovakia etc. Even Austria's reserves were taken. From all of the conquered lands, thousands of objects of art were also stolen.
wit-ham, around 1941/42, Nazi Germany may have been THE most powerful country, in a military sense. It was achieved by using millions of slave labourers from '39 onwards, along with further financial boosts from the stolen gold reserves from France, Holland, Belgium, Poland Czechoslovakia etc. Even Austria's reserves were taken. From all of the conquered lands, thousands of objects of art were also stolen.
The war wasn't about genocide or eradication of the groups of society that the Nazis had a problem with. The war was about perceived injustice, resources and land.
You seem to me to be confusing motivation with opportunism.
Yes it was about genocide. The injustices you mention were blamed on Jews, Communists, Gypsies, Freemasons etc. ALL were targets for eradication/murder. If it was simply injustice, why invade Denmark and Norway for example? They weren't to blame for Versailles. You are correct about the land however. The Nazis wanted everybody else's.
You seem to me to be confusing motivation with opportunism.
Yes it was about genocide. The injustices you mention were blamed on Jews, Communists, Gypsies, Freemasons etc. ALL were targets for eradication/murder. If it was simply injustice, why invade Denmark and Norway for example? They weren't to blame for Versailles. You are correct about the land however. The Nazis wanted everybody else's.
the capitalists thought hitler wasn't a bad idea to keep back the communist hoardes but lets not mention that eh??!!
NL the usual liberal assessment (who wasn't there) so how the fk do you know
etc
etc
for me it was a big land grab NAP
it was hitler's aim
followed up by his disarsterous (so called strategy) after 42 IE clinging on to impoosible parts of invaded territory the led to disasters for the army
but then fighting on two fronts(and more) started the decline as it has done for lots of deranged leaders!!!
it was hitler's aim
followed up by his disarsterous (so called strategy) after 42 IE clinging on to impoosible parts of invaded territory the led to disasters for the army
but then fighting on two fronts(and more) started the decline as it has done for lots of deranged leaders!!!
Germany invaded Norway after a phone tap revealed the French Prime Minister's discussion of Royal Navy plans to mine the waters of Norway. The Allies' idea was to close the ice-free route for shipping iron ore from Sweden to Germany. Then, as this should provoke a German reaction, British and French troops were to land in neutral Norway and march to the border with neutral Sweden. Needless to say, the Allies hadn't informed these neutral governments of their cunning plan, never mind asked permission to march over their territory.
It was a silly plan based on poor Allied intelligence - Germany had no great need of Swedish ore, with 40% of its steel production still going to civilian use at this time. And, of course, it underestimated the difficulty of actually fighting the Germans.
Nevertheless, the German high command was eager to have access to the North Atlantic ports of Norway and this was just the excuse they were looking for to convince Hitler to seize them.
A look at the map will explain why Germany marched into Denmark as a prelude to invading Norway. Denmark was odd. Even the Commmunist Party was allowed to continue there for a while, and when the locals were ordered to round up and hand over their Jewish population, the Danes, uniquely among the conquered countries refused. Nearly all the Jewish population was smuggled to safety in Sweden.
By the way, as a consequence of the the German invasion, the bulk of the Norwegian merchant fleet, one of the world's biggest, sailed to Britain. Without these extra ships and crew the losses of merchant shipping to U-boats may well have forced Britain to sue for peace.
So it all worked out in the end ...
It was a silly plan based on poor Allied intelligence - Germany had no great need of Swedish ore, with 40% of its steel production still going to civilian use at this time. And, of course, it underestimated the difficulty of actually fighting the Germans.
Nevertheless, the German high command was eager to have access to the North Atlantic ports of Norway and this was just the excuse they were looking for to convince Hitler to seize them.
A look at the map will explain why Germany marched into Denmark as a prelude to invading Norway. Denmark was odd. Even the Commmunist Party was allowed to continue there for a while, and when the locals were ordered to round up and hand over their Jewish population, the Danes, uniquely among the conquered countries refused. Nearly all the Jewish population was smuggled to safety in Sweden.
By the way, as a consequence of the the German invasion, the bulk of the Norwegian merchant fleet, one of the world's biggest, sailed to Britain. Without these extra ships and crew the losses of merchant shipping to U-boats may well have forced Britain to sue for peace.
So it all worked out in the end ...
ps
I wouldn't give the germans an inch
look what they are achieving after failing in several wars (not just ww1 and ww11)
the eu is the new german controlled europe ha ha
I wouldn't give the germans an inch
look what they are achieving after failing in several wars (not just ww1 and ww11)
the eu is the new german controlled europe ha ha
They've done very well since the Nazis were crushed and they adopted liberal policies it's true.
Moisok,
"NL the usual liberal assessment (who wasn't there) so how the fk do you know
etc"
Liberal assessment? - Of what exactly?
I wasn't where?
How do I know what?
If your going to attempt to write a critique, try to make sense and stop swearing, your not on the Politics Forum now!
"NL the usual liberal assessment (who wasn't there) so how the fk do you know
etc"
Liberal assessment? - Of what exactly?
I wasn't where?
How do I know what?
If your going to attempt to write a critique, try to make sense and stop swearing, your not on the Politics Forum now!
One or two quotes from summer 1940 after the fall of France:
Mahatma Gandhi writing in the newspaper Harijan on 22 June 1940:
"Germans of future generations will honour Herr Hitler as a genius, as a brave man, a matchless organizer and much more."
Meanwhile Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov, the hammer of the Fascists, summoned the German ambassador to convey "the warmest congratulations of the Soviet government on the splendid success of the German armed forces."
And top Muslim spiritual leader the Aga Khan promised to drink a bottle of champagne "when the Fuehrer sleeps in Windsor Castle", which is odd, as I thought alcohol was off the menu.
Later on, of course, there was that little paragraph in the Irish Press of 3 May 1945 which proved controversial. The paper reported that the Taoiseach and Minister for External Affairs, Éamon de Valera, accompanied by the Secretary of External Affairs, Joseph Walshe, ‘called on Dr Hempel, the German minister, last evening, to express his condolences’. The condolences were for Hitler who had committed suicide on 30 April.
_______________________________
What caused all these daft remarks? Perhaps some of these men weren't half as shrewd as they believed. Maybe when a man attains a position of leadership he acquires a certain sympathy for the firm sound of jackboots. Even Gandhi. Perhaps we in Britain forget that out history has left a lot of the world still viewing us in much the same way we view the German people.
But in my view it's just a question of time, place and a lack of hindsight.
It's rather like the way all the conquered populations of Europe bar the Danes either aided or did little to hinder the round-up of their Jewish populations. The Dutch, for instance, celebrate Anne Frank, while overlooking the fate of the rest of their Jewish population and the fact it was, of course, a Dutch informer who eventually betrayed her.
"In their preparations for the extermination of the Jews living in The Netherlands, the Germans could count on the assistance of the greater part of the Dutch administrative infrastructure. The occupiers had to employ only a relatively limited number of their own. Dutch policemen rounded up the families to be sent to their deaths in Eastern Europe. Trains of the Dutch railways staffed by Dutch employees transported the Jews to camps in The Netherlands which were transit points to Auschwitz, Sobibor, and other death camps." With respect to Dutch collaboration, Eichmann is quoted as saying 'The transports run so smoothly that it is a pleasure to see.'
http://www.jcpa.org/jl/vp412.htm
So do we add the Dutch to the Germans and Gandhi and de Valera on our list of people it's possible to condemn? Or do we accept that people in those times and circumstances everywhere, not just Germans, found themselves able to do and say things that ranged from the regrettable to the repulsive?
Mahatma Gandhi writing in the newspaper Harijan on 22 June 1940:
"Germans of future generations will honour Herr Hitler as a genius, as a brave man, a matchless organizer and much more."
Meanwhile Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov, the hammer of the Fascists, summoned the German ambassador to convey "the warmest congratulations of the Soviet government on the splendid success of the German armed forces."
And top Muslim spiritual leader the Aga Khan promised to drink a bottle of champagne "when the Fuehrer sleeps in Windsor Castle", which is odd, as I thought alcohol was off the menu.
Later on, of course, there was that little paragraph in the Irish Press of 3 May 1945 which proved controversial. The paper reported that the Taoiseach and Minister for External Affairs, Éamon de Valera, accompanied by the Secretary of External Affairs, Joseph Walshe, ‘called on Dr Hempel, the German minister, last evening, to express his condolences’. The condolences were for Hitler who had committed suicide on 30 April.
_______________________________
What caused all these daft remarks? Perhaps some of these men weren't half as shrewd as they believed. Maybe when a man attains a position of leadership he acquires a certain sympathy for the firm sound of jackboots. Even Gandhi. Perhaps we in Britain forget that out history has left a lot of the world still viewing us in much the same way we view the German people.
But in my view it's just a question of time, place and a lack of hindsight.
It's rather like the way all the conquered populations of Europe bar the Danes either aided or did little to hinder the round-up of their Jewish populations. The Dutch, for instance, celebrate Anne Frank, while overlooking the fate of the rest of their Jewish population and the fact it was, of course, a Dutch informer who eventually betrayed her.
"In their preparations for the extermination of the Jews living in The Netherlands, the Germans could count on the assistance of the greater part of the Dutch administrative infrastructure. The occupiers had to employ only a relatively limited number of their own. Dutch policemen rounded up the families to be sent to their deaths in Eastern Europe. Trains of the Dutch railways staffed by Dutch employees transported the Jews to camps in The Netherlands which were transit points to Auschwitz, Sobibor, and other death camps." With respect to Dutch collaboration, Eichmann is quoted as saying 'The transports run so smoothly that it is a pleasure to see.'
http://www.jcpa.org/jl/vp412.htm
So do we add the Dutch to the Germans and Gandhi and de Valera on our list of people it's possible to condemn? Or do we accept that people in those times and circumstances everywhere, not just Germans, found themselves able to do and say things that ranged from the regrettable to the repulsive?
ha ha you ignore what the germans have achieved without having to go to war - tried it twice but now getting their hegemony in europe by stealth
NL the last person to lecture on forum behaviour or common sense
particularly after the filth you have directed at me!! and still never answered any of the questions addressed to you by several forum members
NL the last person to lecture on forum behaviour or common sense
particularly after the filth you have directed at me!! and still never answered any of the questions addressed to you by several forum members
i see those nasty germans are getting racist about the romanians etc - terrible people ha ha!!!
screaming, in a word, expediency. Notwithstanding that de Valera was a duplicitous double dealer. And Molotov, who was also playing for time.
I mentioned Norway and Denmark in answer to Pandorica, since they had no direct hand in Versailles, such as Britain and France etc.
I remember posting on a thread a few years ago that pride in your place of birth was a bit daft, since said place of birth/nationality were mere accidents. I still wouldn't want to be German though, and can't understand anyone that would, who isn't.
I mentioned Norway and Denmark in answer to Pandorica, since they had no direct hand in Versailles, such as Britain and France etc.
I remember posting on a thread a few years ago that pride in your place of birth was a bit daft, since said place of birth/nationality were mere accidents. I still wouldn't want to be German though, and can't understand anyone that would, who isn't.
Germany had no great need of Swedish ore, with 40% of its steel production still going to civilian use at this time.
I recall reading that according to American sources, that 40% became invaluable to Germany's armaments industry, as did the 60% of ballbearings (vital in arms production) which were supplied by Swedish company SKF. Most of the other 40% were made in Germany by a subsidiary of SKF. Sorry I can't specify sources since I've read so much on WW2. Probably in some tome by Antony Beevor or Max Hastings.
I recall reading that according to American sources, that 40% became invaluable to Germany's armaments industry, as did the 60% of ballbearings (vital in arms production) which were supplied by Swedish company SKF. Most of the other 40% were made in Germany by a subsidiary of SKF. Sorry I can't specify sources since I've read so much on WW2. Probably in some tome by Antony Beevor or Max Hastings.
superb stuff from screamingfrombeneaththewaves
I agree with DFMS - his writing style is similar to that of recent scottish writer Rory Stewart, supplying storytelling details and leaving much of the interpretation to the reader, it could almost be the same person, except that it isn't of course. Like the quotes showing how people sucked up to the powerful in the early 1940s.
SFBTW,
Don't understand why your persisting in this, you seem to be trying to find excuses for the German People for first installing & then following Hitlers insane & murderess regime.
The Aga Khan's “I'm going to have an alcohol fueled p*** up!” so called comment is ridiculous as drinking alcohol is considered 'Haram' (forbidden) in Islam & also because at the time he was the first
rep from India to have become President of the League of Nations 1937 (India under British Rule).
Gandhi’s 'newspaper' quote??? - If he did make that remark it was no doubt to wind up the British and possibly to bring .Germany on side in his fight for independence.
As for the other comments – just dignitaries doing their usual diplomatic thing that they assume their
office demands. Of course the full horrors of Bergen/Belson etc etc. & the death camps in the east Auschwitz/Birkenau etc etc were not known & wouldn't be till after the Nuremberg War Trails Oct 1946.
You could have also mentioned that the King of Holland appeared with a yellow Star of David sewn onto his coat after the German invasion or that Malcolm X stated that he became an atheist on learning of Hitlers mass murder of the Jews & and that, - if there is a god, he for one would want nothing to do with him. It is though all totally irrelevant.
To me screaming seems to be looking for sympathy for his fathers actions & getting it from some quarters. Instead others like myself think he should be openly condemning what his father was a Ukrainian Fascist who if he didn't actually take part will have at least witnessed the mass murder of between 4000 & 10,000 Jews in the city of Lviv in 1942. Never mind the Bolsheviks they murdered.
He will have at least watched while lorrie loads of Jews arrived at a mass pit. Looked down to see the naked blood strewn bodies, with contorted facial expressions some still alive and twitching whilst a Nazi SS man went around with a small caliber pistol finishing them off. He will have seen the hundreds of new arrivals undress. Him & his mates will have formed a ring around the pit making sure there was no escape. He will have heard the screams, the cries, the begging for mercy but to no avail as men, women and children were lined up at the edge the rat tat tat of the machine gun or the volleys from the rifles as they were shot and fell into the corpse filled pit. When the Pitt got too full around the edges, the victims were ordered to make their way to the middle trudging over their blood splattered relatives,friends, neighbours. Entire family's, father's mother's with baby's in arms boys and little girls all stood naked in a huddle on top of piles of bodies waiting for the round of bullets they must have at least hoped would kill them outright. When the Nazi's ran out of bullets flame throwers were used – entire families staggering around in agony, their skin blackening as they burnt.
Did this put 'screaming's' father off? Not at bit of it - he joined the Nazi's & was captured with them.
Screaming, - did you ever ask your father, what he thought would have happened had Hitler won the war?
Did he seriously think that the Nazi's would have given him an Ukrainian independent state?
Did he honestly think that after they had got rid of the Jews, Gypsy's, etc. It wouldn't have been the Ukrainian Slavs (your father & you – you look Slavic!) the Poles & Russians all of whom had been labeled "Untermenschen" ("sub-humans"), in Nazi racial ideological classification – the next to be made slaves, then shot or gassed to make way for German Aryan espansion?
Your claim that under the conditions any nation would have acted as the Germans ridiculous.
My parents were brought up in Ireland the newly formed Free State. Ireland was far poorer than Germany, more like Poland however my grandparents didn't own property, and will have no doubt been kids at the time of the Great Famine that killed millions. Most put that down to an act of God, some blamed our British rulers, some both. Ireland also had a strong Jewish community.
The Irish people didn't become fascists & blame the Jews. I remember my mother telling me of an incident reported on Radio Eireann - There where Fascists (Blue Shirts) during the thirties, but when a group started spouting anti Jewish propoganda as they handed out leaflets in O'Connell Street, a crowd assembled, listened for a while, laughed then attacked them lifting them up & throwing them into the River Liffy along with their leaflets.
Screaming you have obviously researched every aspect of WW2 in detail but seem remarkable quiete about what happened in Lviv. Did you ever go back after communism ended to do your own research from eye witnesses, who would still have been alive at the time & maybe some now?
If its sympathy & understanding for your fathers actions, as I've said, - you seem to have got it from some on here – satisfied?.
No your not are you?
And you never will be untill you accept, and come to terms with the fact that your father was a very evil man and condemn everything he was & stood for, cos till you do, you will always be "screaming beneath the waves of condemnation" from all fair thinking people around the world - your never going to find peace in trying to get sympathy for his actions/decisions.
Don't understand why your persisting in this, you seem to be trying to find excuses for the German People for first installing & then following Hitlers insane & murderess regime.
The Aga Khan's “I'm going to have an alcohol fueled p*** up!” so called comment is ridiculous as drinking alcohol is considered 'Haram' (forbidden) in Islam & also because at the time he was the first
rep from India to have become President of the League of Nations 1937 (India under British Rule).
Gandhi’s 'newspaper' quote??? - If he did make that remark it was no doubt to wind up the British and possibly to bring .Germany on side in his fight for independence.
As for the other comments – just dignitaries doing their usual diplomatic thing that they assume their
office demands. Of course the full horrors of Bergen/Belson etc etc. & the death camps in the east Auschwitz/Birkenau etc etc were not known & wouldn't be till after the Nuremberg War Trails Oct 1946.
You could have also mentioned that the King of Holland appeared with a yellow Star of David sewn onto his coat after the German invasion or that Malcolm X stated that he became an atheist on learning of Hitlers mass murder of the Jews & and that, - if there is a god, he for one would want nothing to do with him. It is though all totally irrelevant.
To me screaming seems to be looking for sympathy for his fathers actions & getting it from some quarters. Instead others like myself think he should be openly condemning what his father was a Ukrainian Fascist who if he didn't actually take part will have at least witnessed the mass murder of between 4000 & 10,000 Jews in the city of Lviv in 1942. Never mind the Bolsheviks they murdered.
He will have at least watched while lorrie loads of Jews arrived at a mass pit. Looked down to see the naked blood strewn bodies, with contorted facial expressions some still alive and twitching whilst a Nazi SS man went around with a small caliber pistol finishing them off. He will have seen the hundreds of new arrivals undress. Him & his mates will have formed a ring around the pit making sure there was no escape. He will have heard the screams, the cries, the begging for mercy but to no avail as men, women and children were lined up at the edge the rat tat tat of the machine gun or the volleys from the rifles as they were shot and fell into the corpse filled pit. When the Pitt got too full around the edges, the victims were ordered to make their way to the middle trudging over their blood splattered relatives,friends, neighbours. Entire family's, father's mother's with baby's in arms boys and little girls all stood naked in a huddle on top of piles of bodies waiting for the round of bullets they must have at least hoped would kill them outright. When the Nazi's ran out of bullets flame throwers were used – entire families staggering around in agony, their skin blackening as they burnt.
Did this put 'screaming's' father off? Not at bit of it - he joined the Nazi's & was captured with them.
Screaming, - did you ever ask your father, what he thought would have happened had Hitler won the war?
Did he seriously think that the Nazi's would have given him an Ukrainian independent state?
Did he honestly think that after they had got rid of the Jews, Gypsy's, etc. It wouldn't have been the Ukrainian Slavs (your father & you – you look Slavic!) the Poles & Russians all of whom had been labeled "Untermenschen" ("sub-humans"), in Nazi racial ideological classification – the next to be made slaves, then shot or gassed to make way for German Aryan espansion?
Your claim that under the conditions any nation would have acted as the Germans ridiculous.
My parents were brought up in Ireland the newly formed Free State. Ireland was far poorer than Germany, more like Poland however my grandparents didn't own property, and will have no doubt been kids at the time of the Great Famine that killed millions. Most put that down to an act of God, some blamed our British rulers, some both. Ireland also had a strong Jewish community.
The Irish people didn't become fascists & blame the Jews. I remember my mother telling me of an incident reported on Radio Eireann - There where Fascists (Blue Shirts) during the thirties, but when a group started spouting anti Jewish propoganda as they handed out leaflets in O'Connell Street, a crowd assembled, listened for a while, laughed then attacked them lifting them up & throwing them into the River Liffy along with their leaflets.
Screaming you have obviously researched every aspect of WW2 in detail but seem remarkable quiete about what happened in Lviv. Did you ever go back after communism ended to do your own research from eye witnesses, who would still have been alive at the time & maybe some now?
If its sympathy & understanding for your fathers actions, as I've said, - you seem to have got it from some on here – satisfied?.
No your not are you?
And you never will be untill you accept, and come to terms with the fact that your father was a very evil man and condemn everything he was & stood for, cos till you do, you will always be "screaming beneath the waves of condemnation" from all fair thinking people around the world - your never going to find peace in trying to get sympathy for his actions/decisions.
I must say I am glad I am not german - but if I was I would be rather proud of what post war germany has done and the huge influence they have over europe and other countries. They are also now seeing some financial issues and also immigration issues as problamatic. Not that you lot on here like to face it.
To be honest Alias - you write like you've read one version of history. No nuances at all. All a bit sterile and a let down.
screaming from beneaththewaves 28 Feb 13 20:49
Fair enough, Alias.
My old man was Ukrainian. He welcomed the Germans in 1939 as liberators from Polish occupation. When Hitler handed western Ukraine over to Stalin, he escaped, though his parents were shot. (They owned their own land.)
He had the choice of working in a Czech coal mine or joining the army. He chose the latter. He would not have survived the coal mine.
He deserted at the time of Stalingrad. He joined the Ukrainian resistance fighting both Russians and Germans. As the latter retreated, they recruited a division of these desperados with the offer of weapons, designating them armed SS to facilitate equipping them. My dad was among them. About the only story he ever told me of this time was of walking through a forest in Yugoslavia and seeing crucified corpses in German uniforms nailed to trees.
He surrendered to Commonwealth soldiers in Austria in 1945 and after 2 hungry years in a PoW camp in Rimini ended up in a PoW camp in Lockerbie.
He must have seen some truly dreadful things, for which not just Germans or those Yugoslavian partisans were responsible, but all nationalities. He must have done some dreadful things himself. How else did he survive the Eastern Front? And his offensive views on Poles and Jews never waivered.
Fair enough, Alias.
My old man was Ukrainian. He welcomed the Germans in 1939 as liberators from Polish occupation. When Hitler handed western Ukraine over to Stalin, he escaped, though his parents were shot. (They owned their own land.)
He had the choice of working in a Czech coal mine or joining the army. He chose the latter. He would not have survived the coal mine.
He deserted at the time of Stalingrad. He joined the Ukrainian resistance fighting both Russians and Germans. As the latter retreated, they recruited a division of these desperados with the offer of weapons, designating them armed SS to facilitate equipping them. My dad was among them. About the only story he ever told me of this time was of walking through a forest in Yugoslavia and seeing crucified corpses in German uniforms nailed to trees.
He surrendered to Commonwealth soldiers in Austria in 1945 and after 2 hungry years in a PoW camp in Rimini ended up in a PoW camp in Lockerbie.
He must have seen some truly dreadful things, for which not just Germans or those Yugoslavian partisans were responsible, but all nationalities. He must have done some dreadful things himself. How else did he survive the Eastern Front? And his offensive views on Poles and Jews never waivered.
Worse, it seems Gandhi was not convinced of Hitler’s evil. “I do not consider Herr Hitler to be as bad as he is depicted”, he wrote in 1940. “He is showing an ability that is amazing and he seems to be gaining his victories without much bloodshed.” Gandhi felt that Germans of the future “will honour Herr Hitler as a genius, a brave man, a matchless organiser and much more.”
http://www.hindustantimes.com/News-Feed/KaranThapar/The-other-cheek/Article1-653576.aspx
The Khedive of Egypt and I will both drink a bottle of champagne when the Führer sleeps in Windsor Castle. Churchill was paid by Jews. Aga Khan, 25 July 1940
Quoted in The Duel, John Lukacs 1990. To find it on the interweb, it's quoted in Blood, Tears and Folly by Len Deighton, p. 204, which is freely available as a Google e-book.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/News-Feed/KaranThapar/The-other-cheek/Article1-653576.aspx
The Khedive of Egypt and I will both drink a bottle of champagne when the Führer sleeps in Windsor Castle. Churchill was paid by Jews. Aga Khan, 25 July 1940
Quoted in The Duel, John Lukacs 1990. To find it on the interweb, it's quoted in Blood, Tears and Folly by Len Deighton, p. 204, which is freely available as a Google e-book.
SFBTW,
Why won't you answer the simple questions?
"Screaming, - did you ever ask your father, what he thought would have happened had Hitler won the war?
Did he seriously think that the Nazi's would have given him an Ukrainian independent state?
Did he honestly think that after they had got rid of the Jews, Gypsy's, etc. It wouldn't have been the Ukrainian Slavs (your father & you – you look Slavic!) the Poles & Russians all of whom had been labeled "Untermenschen" ("sub-humans"), in Nazi racial ideological classification – the next to be made slaves, then shot or gassed to make way for German Aryan espansion?"
Why won't you answer the simple questions?
"Screaming, - did you ever ask your father, what he thought would have happened had Hitler won the war?
Did he seriously think that the Nazi's would have given him an Ukrainian independent state?
Did he honestly think that after they had got rid of the Jews, Gypsy's, etc. It wouldn't have been the Ukrainian Slavs (your father & you – you look Slavic!) the Poles & Russians all of whom had been labeled "Untermenschen" ("sub-humans"), in Nazi racial ideological classification – the next to be made slaves, then shot or gassed to make way for German Aryan espansion?"
To be fair, it was a long post, northernlad5.
In 1941 my father was twenty. A lot of his elders and betters apparently thought the Nazis might establish an independent Ukrainian state, on the basis it would be the rational thing to do to get the local population on their side. I suppose my father followed their thinking.
But they discovered Nazis were not rational. If they had been, they would never have invaded the USSR in the first place. For one thing they had obtained more from that country by way of trade than they ever did in plunder. And they weren't likely to indulge Slav 'subhumans' to help their invasion, when the elimination of all the people they lumped together under that label was the whole point of invading in the first place.
I suppose this became clear, as he deserted and fought Germans and Russians as an insurgent. When Russia overran Ukraine again, he rejoined the German forces. Perhaps this seemed the best option in terms of getting equipment and organization to fight the obvious enemy. I don't know whether he thought about it in detail or ran through the implications for the future. I doubt it. He was a lonely 23-year-old in a grim place where life was very cheap.
His quote on the subject was "Zhermans - dey as bad as bloody Russians." You'll have to make do with that.
I don't seem to be getting my point over. I introduced him as example of someone I knew who did and said things for which we condemn The Germans, but wasn't German himself, and he wasn't alone. If I was trying to excuse him or downplay him, then he wouldn't be much of an example.
The thread ain't about him (or me) and it wouldn't have got very far if I'd diverted it into trying to analyse the political motives of a man nobody on here bar one or two on the Horse Racing forum ever met, and who at the time was young, poorly educated and whose principal talent was evidently survival.
In 1941 my father was twenty. A lot of his elders and betters apparently thought the Nazis might establish an independent Ukrainian state, on the basis it would be the rational thing to do to get the local population on their side. I suppose my father followed their thinking.
But they discovered Nazis were not rational. If they had been, they would never have invaded the USSR in the first place. For one thing they had obtained more from that country by way of trade than they ever did in plunder. And they weren't likely to indulge Slav 'subhumans' to help their invasion, when the elimination of all the people they lumped together under that label was the whole point of invading in the first place.
I suppose this became clear, as he deserted and fought Germans and Russians as an insurgent. When Russia overran Ukraine again, he rejoined the German forces. Perhaps this seemed the best option in terms of getting equipment and organization to fight the obvious enemy. I don't know whether he thought about it in detail or ran through the implications for the future. I doubt it. He was a lonely 23-year-old in a grim place where life was very cheap.
His quote on the subject was "Zhermans - dey as bad as bloody Russians." You'll have to make do with that.
I don't seem to be getting my point over. I introduced him as example of someone I knew who did and said things for which we condemn The Germans, but wasn't German himself, and he wasn't alone. If I was trying to excuse him or downplay him, then he wouldn't be much of an example.
The thread ain't about him (or me) and it wouldn't have got very far if I'd diverted it into trying to analyse the political motives of a man nobody on here bar one or two on the Horse Racing forum ever met, and who at the time was young, poorly educated and whose principal talent was evidently survival.
Re de Valera's condolences to the German ambassador in Dublin after Hitler's death. By this time he, like the rest of the world, knew what the Nazis had done. This letter from Angela Walshe, an Irish-American, appeared in a US newspaper soon after:
Have you seen the motion pictures of the victims of German concentration camps, de Valera? Have you seen the crematoriums? Have you seen the bodies of little children murdered by Nazi hands? Have you seen the flourishing cabbages—cabbages for German food—flourishing because of the fertiliser, human remains of citizens from almost completely Catholic countries like Poland? These were citizens of a conquered country—and ÉIRE might easily have been a conquered country, neutrality or no neutrality. Have you seen the living dead, de Valera? Skin stretched over bone, and too weak to walk?
Quoted at: http://www.historyireland.com/volumes/volume5/issue3/features/?id=113306
Have you seen the motion pictures of the victims of German concentration camps, de Valera? Have you seen the crematoriums? Have you seen the bodies of little children murdered by Nazi hands? Have you seen the flourishing cabbages—cabbages for German food—flourishing because of the fertiliser, human remains of citizens from almost completely Catholic countries like Poland? These were citizens of a conquered country—and ÉIRE might easily have been a conquered country, neutrality or no neutrality. Have you seen the living dead, de Valera? Skin stretched over bone, and too weak to walk?
Quoted at: http://www.historyireland.com/volumes/volume5/issue3/features/?id=113306
To be honest Alias - you write like you've read one version of history. No nuances at all. All a bit sterile and a let down.
So sorry to let you down, Pandorica. To each his own, but if you call several books by eminent historians and authors "one version", I must disagree. What's the sum of your reading on the subject?
......................................................................................
screaming.
As I said early in the thread, umpteen years ago I met and spoke to lots of east Europeans who came to live in this country after the war. I've long realised that there were countless people like your father who found themselves on the horns of the most hellish dilemma. However, your quote below isn't factually correct:
And they weren't likely to indulge Slav 'subhumans' to help their invasion, when the elimination of all the people they lumped together under that label was the whole point of invading in the first place.
They (the Nazis)did use Slavic peoples in German (even SS) uniforms, as per your dad's situation. Your knowledge of the war on the eastern front isn't exactly sparse, so you must be familiar with the term hiwi. If not, google it. The Germans used Russian prisoners, all manner of Slavs, disaffected Cossacks et al. In fact, towards the end, anybody would do. A Red army soldier captured by the Nazis could find himself in a situation similar to your father's - fight for us or we starve you to death or gas you. Yes, around three and a half million Russian prisoners of war died in Nazi hands, but quite a few were coerced into fighting for them.
Most people would agree that Germany was harshly treated by the treaty of Versailles, but that didn't give the resurgent nation of the 1930s the right or reason to invade Poland and Czechoslvakia before turning west on France and the Low countries. It's more than obvious that the expansion was planned from the beginning - the attainment of power in 1933, and it took no time at all to begin attacks on Jews, then the passing of Race laws, euthanasia for the mentally ill and physically deficient etc. Do you believe that any other country could have produced monsters such as Reinhard Heydrich, Josef Mengele and Aribert Heim, and given them their head? Apart that is from Austria, which flung in a few real Nazi baddies of it's own? I doubt it. It wasn't Versailles that produced these people, or unleashed them.
So sorry to let you down, Pandorica. To each his own, but if you call several books by eminent historians and authors "one version", I must disagree. What's the sum of your reading on the subject?
......................................................................................
screaming.
As I said early in the thread, umpteen years ago I met and spoke to lots of east Europeans who came to live in this country after the war. I've long realised that there were countless people like your father who found themselves on the horns of the most hellish dilemma. However, your quote below isn't factually correct:
And they weren't likely to indulge Slav 'subhumans' to help their invasion, when the elimination of all the people they lumped together under that label was the whole point of invading in the first place.
They (the Nazis)did use Slavic peoples in German (even SS) uniforms, as per your dad's situation. Your knowledge of the war on the eastern front isn't exactly sparse, so you must be familiar with the term hiwi. If not, google it. The Germans used Russian prisoners, all manner of Slavs, disaffected Cossacks et al. In fact, towards the end, anybody would do. A Red army soldier captured by the Nazis could find himself in a situation similar to your father's - fight for us or we starve you to death or gas you. Yes, around three and a half million Russian prisoners of war died in Nazi hands, but quite a few were coerced into fighting for them.
Most people would agree that Germany was harshly treated by the treaty of Versailles, but that didn't give the resurgent nation of the 1930s the right or reason to invade Poland and Czechoslvakia before turning west on France and the Low countries. It's more than obvious that the expansion was planned from the beginning - the attainment of power in 1933, and it took no time at all to begin attacks on Jews, then the passing of Race laws, euthanasia for the mentally ill and physically deficient etc. Do you believe that any other country could have produced monsters such as Reinhard Heydrich, Josef Mengele and Aribert Heim, and given them their head? Apart that is from Austria, which flung in a few real Nazi baddies of it's own? I doubt it. It wasn't Versailles that produced these people, or unleashed them.
And they weren't likely to indulge Slav 'subhumans' to help their invasion, when the elimination of all the people they lumped together under that label was the whole point of invading in the first place.
That sentence was in the context of northernlad's question of whether my dad expected the Nazis to grant Ukraine an independent state as a means of gaining local support against Russia.
That sentence was in the context of northernlad's question of whether my dad expected the Nazis to grant Ukraine an independent state as a means of gaining local support against Russia.
Of course it is being 'little englander' racist, backward,etc etc
but would you trust a germany who looted and raped france and belgium in two world wars.
They started the concentration camps in WW1 (if you didn't know) and killed thousands of civilians.
They must have got a taste for it and found it a good idea for ww11. So it wasn't just a nazi idea.
Now they achieve hegemony silently and stealthily and I still don't trust them based on the above - let alone what else they have planned for the eussr!!!
but would you trust a germany who looted and raped france and belgium in two world wars.
They started the concentration camps in WW1 (if you didn't know) and killed thousands of civilians.
They must have got a taste for it and found it a good idea for ww11. So it wasn't just a nazi idea.
Now they achieve hegemony silently and stealthily and I still don't trust them based on the above - let alone what else they have planned for the eussr!!!
Concentration camps were used by Germany in S W Africa over a hundred years ago, and by Britain during the Boer war.
YES britain did - it's just that the germans liked it and used it again and again - they tell me it was just a nazi thing but I doubt it.
Concentration camps were one thing, Death camps were unique to the Nazi's and built using their latest technology.
German how dare you suggest this notion !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
hang on though I would rather be German than
....... Scottish
hang on though I would rather be German than
....... Scottish
Alias,
I know - the British during the Boer War used them as internment camps mainly consisting women & children having burnt their farms etc. Nazi concentration camps were originally correctional facility's & holding centres for a range of inmates considered anti Nazi that included common criminals.
However there were many other types - Red Indian reservations in the US for example.
I know - the British during the Boer War used them as internment camps mainly consisting women & children having burnt their farms etc. Nazi concentration camps were originally correctional facility's & holding centres for a range of inmates considered anti Nazi that included common criminals.
However there were many other types - Red Indian reservations in the US for example.
page-413
07 Mar 13 22:14
Joined:
03 Jan 05
| Topic/replies: 1,262 | Blogger: page-413's blog
German how dare you suggest this notion !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
hang on though I would rather be German than
....... Scottish
......... ... ...
In that case, you deserve to be German, imbecile.
....................................................................................................................
Aware of all that nl5, thanks, except that I'd contest the example of reservations for native Americans. They were - and are - always too big to call camps.
07 Mar 13 22:14
Joined:
03 Jan 05
| Topic/replies: 1,262 | Blogger: page-413's blog
German how dare you suggest this notion !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
hang on though I would rather be German than
....... Scottish
......... ... ...
In that case, you deserve to be German, imbecile.
....................................................................................................................
Aware of all that nl5, thanks, except that I'd contest the example of reservations for native Americans. They were - and are - always too big to call camps.
oh go and eat a fried mars bar you vile ginger spotty sweaty
IF I'd asked for proof that you were an imbecile, I couldn't have expected more. Thanks.
Love NL's defence of the germans repeated use and liking for concentration camps - will they herd the greeks into 'enclaves' for their disrespect to the german, whoops, I mean EU ideology. Has this been done before??
Alias nearly all the myths you extol here were exposed 40 years ago by AJP Taylor.
'By the way doubleagent, regardless of your claim, the Nazis had plenty of bombers that could reach Britain from France and the low countries, which is exactly what they did. This after a few practise runs in Spain of course, in the preceding few years.'
That's the point numbskull. The bombers couldn't reach london in Sept 1939. It was all B.S like Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. Btw Germany's rearmament was nowhere near as strong as France and Britain's. That's on I think page 2.
'By the way doubleagent, regardless of your claim, the Nazis had plenty of bombers that could reach Britain from France and the low countries, which is exactly what they did. This after a few practise runs in Spain of course, in the preceding few years.'
That's the point numbskull. The bombers couldn't reach london in Sept 1939. It was all B.S like Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. Btw Germany's rearmament was nowhere near as strong as France and Britain's. That's on I think page 2.
except for a few kondors germany only had twin engined medium bombers with relatively light loads and fairly light defencive armament.
For the most part I like the Germans.
Their spectacular collective moral failure during the WWII was appalling, but I have a sneaking suspicion that we were not as far from committing similar outrages as we would like to believe.
I've only ever properly met one German of the Nazi era, and he was fascinating. He was a meek and humble man who lived a meek and humble life after the war but did his best to warn anyone who would listen about the dangers of nationalism...
Henry Metelmann
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/military-obituaries/8788018/Henry-Metelmann.html
Their spectacular collective moral failure during the WWII was appalling, but I have a sneaking suspicion that we were not as far from committing similar outrages as we would like to believe.
I've only ever properly met one German of the Nazi era, and he was fascinating. He was a meek and humble man who lived a meek and humble life after the war but did his best to warn anyone who would listen about the dangers of nationalism...
Henry Metelmann
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/military-obituaries/8788018/Henry-Metelmann.html
That's the point numbskull. The bombers couldn't reach london in Sept 1939. It was all B.S like Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. Btw Germany's rearmament was nowhere near as strong as France and Britain's. That's on I think page 2.
Thanks for that Kamikazee. Myths? Antony Beevor, Max Hastings and others wouldn't agree with you. Ask the Poles, Danes, Norwegians, Dutch, Belgians etc etc etc who rearmed and WHY, and the results thereof.
Are you saying the Nazis were hard done by? Should we all apologise for the beastly treatment they received?
Back to school, simpleton.
Thanks for that Kamikazee. Myths?
Antony Beevor, Max Hastings and others wouldn't agree with you. Ask the Poles, Danes, Norwegians, Dutch, Belgians etc etc etc who rearmed and WHY, and the results thereof.Are you saying the Nazis were hard done by? Should we all apologise for the beastly treatment they received?
Back to school, simpleton.
Alias
So sorry to let you down, Pandorica. To each his own, but if you call several books by eminent historians and authors "one version", I must disagree. What's the sum of your reading on the subject?
I didn't say you weren't well read. I said you write as though you're not. I think your reply proves the point. You read; you don't see nuances.
So sorry to let you down, Pandorica. To each his own, but if you call several books by eminent historians and authors "one version", I must disagree. What's the sum of your reading on the subject?
I didn't say you weren't well read. I said you write as though you're not. I think your reply proves the point. You read; you don't see nuances.
I didn't say I was well read either, Pandorica, and I didn't realise you were a literary critic operating on a public forum, but it's immaterial since I'm not a professional writer. Again, what's the sum of your reading on the subject, and would you care to share your perceived nuances with the rest of us?
Alias you are a orrible little scotsman go away and watch a krankie DVd
Germany got away with mass murder after WW2. Only a handful paid the ultimate price. With massive investment from the US, she quickly developed a higher standard of living in West Germany (mainly to keep the commies at bay) than all the countries she waged war on including Britain.
Germany should have been divided up like a cake & pieces going to each of the countries around her borders that she invaded. So there would have been no such thing as
Germany ever again. All media broadcasts including the press should have been banned from using the German language, as it should have been banned in all public places. Schoolchildren should have been taught the new language of what ever country their territory had been given too & German forbidden The same thing should have happened to Austria.
Germany should have been divided up like a cake & pieces going to each of the countries around her borders that she invaded. So there would have been no such thing as
Germany ever again. All media broadcasts including the press should have been banned from using the German language, as it should have been banned in all public places. Schoolchildren should have been taught the new language of what ever country their territory had been given too & German forbidden The same thing should have happened to Austria.
Germany should have been divided up like a cake & pieces going to each of the countries around her borders that she invaded
At least if that had happened, you wouldn't have people wandering around "wishing they'd been born German".
................................................................................
page-413, you astound me. How you manage to type while constrained in your straitjacket, all the while dribbling on your keyboard, is nothing short of amazing. I salute you.
At least if that had happened, you wouldn't have people wandering around "wishing they'd been born German".
................................................................................
page-413, you astound me. How you manage to type while constrained in your straitjacket, all the while dribbling on your keyboard, is nothing short of amazing. I salute you.
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