Camp that held Rommel's men surrenders its secrets

He would be housing Hitler himself, not helping Germany. And yes it would be stupid to announce they were holding Hitler. He would be taken in secret, probably until death.

Just wondering if Franco would be willing to take him in, which im guessing is a no.

I voted for the Soviet invasion of Manchuria.

Prior to the dropping of the first atomic bomb, the Japanese were already willing to agree to a conditional surrender.

The Soviet Union was fundamentally hostile to the Western democracies. Some Japanese leaders hoped for an alliance between Japan and the Soviet Union–an alliance against the U.S. and Britain. Their hope was that the Soviet Union would enter the war on Japan’s side.

The Soviet invasion of Manchuria demonstrated that any kind of diplomatic arrangement with the Soviet Union was no longer an option. With its diplomatic options exhausted, Japan’s only way of avoiding the Americans’ demands was to achieve some kind of military victory. There was a shortage of Japanese military victories from '43 - '45, and the Soviet invasion of Manchuria only made things worse. That invasion was regarded by both sides as a prelude to the invasion of Japan itself. The quick collapse of Japan’s Manchurian forces inspired little hope that Japan would do well in a follow-up Soviet invasion of its home islands. Still less did it seem possible for Japan to defeat a combined invasion of American and Soviet forces. At that point, it was concluded that it was better to unconditionally surrender to the Americans, than to have unconditional surrender imposed anyway by a combined Soviet-American force.

Why wasn’t Stalin interested in joining Japan’s war against the U.S. and Britain? I see two main reasons: 1) He wasn’t yet ready for such a war, and 2) By 1945, Japan’s military had little left to offer. By the early '50s, Stalin may have felt himself ready or close to ready for war against NATO. Some historians feel that Stalin permitted the Korean War to proceed because he wanted to test American military readiness. The results in that war were such that Stalin felt comfortable moving forward with his plans for WWIII. However, he died before putting those plans into effect.

Well said frimmel, my wife surprised me by saying she wanted to see it.  I found it a rather mild movie, but enjoyable none the less.  I must admit, I had to go home and watch the second half of Pearl Harbor to get a lil action fix.

Go see it though, They got all the period vehicles right…even the Russians and to that I say bravo!

There’s a scene in the movie Across the Pacific in which Sydney Greenstreet shows his pistol (I think it’s a 38-caliber gun) to Humphrey Bogart, who puts his Colt 45 pistol alongside Greenstreet’s and comments, “Mine’s bigger than yours.”

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2102796/Did-Hitler-father-lovechild-New-claims-emerge-Fuhrer-son-Frenchwoman.html

German army papers showed that officers brought envelopes of cash to Miss Lobjoie during the Second World War.

After she died, Mr Loret found paintings in her attic which were signed by Hitler. In Germany, a portrait of a woman painted by the Fuhrer emerged that looked remarkably like Miss Lobjoie.

all the best NATO military testing facilities

Canada should get an award for that. Most important thing ever!

Patton is one of the most interesting characters in WW2.

First of all look at how the Germans feared him. They were terrified of the man. Secondly a good many of Patton’s strategic and tactical viewpoints came to pass about both the 2nd World War and the Cold War. The man also had a sense of justice. He forced German civilians that tried to ignore the existence of the concentration camps to walk through the horrors there. As a tactician and commander I doubt we had anyone better than Patton.

The man had his faults certainly. The two incidents of slapping a soldier (he discharged a firearm in at least one of those, not sure about the second), he always seemed to have trouble managing his supply lines, and he always had trouble keeping his opinions quiet. He blundered severely sending troops to liberate a POW camp that happened to have his son in law as a prisoner. Patton never believed in shell shock, “battle fatigue”.

I really enjoyed Rick Atkinson’s first two books (Army at Dawn and Day of Battle). Patton is a major player in Army At Dawn (focused on North Africa). In the second book Patton is involved briefly but you learn many of his predictions about the fight in Italy prove to be correct. I look forward to third which focuses from D-day to the end of the war. I was disappointed in the amount of time Jeff Shaara devoted to Patton in “No Less Than Victory”. True a wealth of information is already recorded about Patton but writing any WW@ novel without Patton would be like writing about the Shenandoah Valley without mentioning Stonewall Jackson.

I believe that some authors portray Patton with a bias and marginalize Patton (most notably alternative writer Harry Turtledove). Part of this is because Patton offers so much stuff to criticize in his character. Part of it also comes from the fact it is popular to criticize anyone that could be considered conservative today.

@Audacity:

Very interesting.  Can you direct us to published material about this?

I certainly can. My best source is “THE SS, Hitlers Instrument of Terror” by Gordon Williams. It was actually Himmlers idea to incorporate Muslims into SS units as an experiment. They used their new power to quickly murder “religious infidels” including Jews and were eventually given only police authority because of their lack of obediance to SS order. They had their own special collar tabs but were never issued an SS Honour cuff on the sleeve. Himmler had these units engaged in the Balkans, around Greece and a few other minor battles. They were actually fought VERY poorly and were taken off the front lines. For the rest of the war, the units that weren’t disbanded were used for anit-partisan activities and were “attached” to another SS unit but did not have the title SS.

It was a brief experiment that elated Himmler. Hitler has little to do with it as far as I know.

PS – thanks for all the Karma while I’ve been out sick for the last month. You guys rock.