Posts made by Zooey72

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/print-hitlers-mein-kampf-unleashes-row-germany-125015713.html

I thought this was interesting.  I didn’t know there was a time thing on Germans being able to buy this.  I read it in college for a class (I took as many WW2 classes as I could), and it was a ramblefest.  This is not to be political, but I find it funny that with the mess in the middle east and ‘nation building’ to be a democracy the question comes up 'what do you do if they elect a crazy?"  Easy answer to that.  We didn’t allow crazy to get elected after ww2.  Only 7 or so decades later are we ALLOWING Germans to read the book that crazy wrote.  Flies in the face of our first amendment, but scerw em.  Don’t like it?  Don’t start world wars!

I see nothing exceptional with the terrorist.  The idea that they are so fanatical that we can’t win is absurd.  The Japs flew planes into ships, and in a few days they will be celebrating Christmas because we imposed our culture on them (not that they are christians, but we did convert them into capitalist).  They prefer baseball to banzai now, and they are better off for it.

Hitler’s idiocy with this weapon was a godsend for humanity.  Had he put a 1/100 of the resources into developing this, and the 44, turned into the 41 we would all be speaking German now.  As it happened it had to be hidden from the dumkuff that it was even developed in the first place.  Fast jets and big tanks are sexy, but ground troops win wars.  You put this kind of an advancement into the hands of the German military in 41, the Russian war wouldn’t have lasted to 42.

I held one and got my picture taken with it at a WW2 renenactment.  Derz is right, they are heavy as hell in comparison to an M16.

Thought it might be fun to talk about what relatives everyone has who served than.  Both my grandfathers did.

One is meaningless to me, because he was a douche bag I never met, but he was in the 101st and was part of the Normandy invasion.  Had I ever met him, and wanted to talk to him, I would have liked to ask him about it because his take on it would have been different than most.  He was full on Kraut, (second generation, full blooded German).  My mother never cared for the man to put it lightly, but I would be interested to know his story about invading the country his mother and father came from.  He volunteered, so he knew what he was getting into.  I question the military choosing to send my grandfather ‘the hun’ to fight Germans.  If the Germans found out he was ‘Aryan’ I think they would have not been too pleased (I and my mother have blond hair and blue eyes, and are in relatively good shape - that’s the stereotype).  I never met the man, but I would not doubt we look alike.  I am not normally an ‘evil government’ type of person, but they could have just as easily sent him to the Pacific instead of literally dropping him into the middle of France where he had a good chance of being captured.

My other grandfather served in the Pacific.  He was stationed at Guadacanal.  I started getting interested in WW2 in about the 5th grade and my father told me that his father had served, and said I should ask Granddad about it.  Hearing Guadacanal I figured I was going to hear some really cool war stories.  Well… the conversation went like this:

“Granddad, what did you do in the Army?!”
“I had a plane I had to fix everyday”.  (and that was the end of the story until I pressed him further)
“Anything else?”
“Well, one day the Japs dropped a bomb on my plane”.
“REALLY?!?  WHAT HAPPENED NEXT?”
“Didn’t have to fix the plane any more”.

Hardly medal of honor material, but I like the story.  A side note to my grandfather’s service, thank god for nuclear weapons.  Later on he was set to invade Japan.  Me and my  father wouldn’t have been around if not for nukes!

First off, I know the rules of the forum.  I do not want to make this a topic about anything current, just a conversation about the subject.  If anyone wants to respond to my post do it in the terms of the era, not your own political opinions.

Most people believe that (who have passed History 101 in HS) during WW2 you had 2 opposing extremes in the USSR and the Nazis.  One far left, the other far right. For many years I believed the same thing. However getting older and wiser I figured out that there was not much of a difference between Nazi Germany and Stalin’s Russia.  That being said, both hated each other, but why?

Depsite the incredible similarities that exist between them both, why do you think they both hated each other as much as they did?  I have my own ideas on this, and will post them later, but I am curious what everyone else thinks before I throw my opinion in.

Before anyone throws in the “Aryan” argument, I think all of us on this board are aware of how the nazis viewed the ‘lesser races’.  However historicaly Stalin killed more people in his gulags than Hitler did in his death camps.  So if you want to use the Holocaust argument please put it in context.

In June 1941 using a panzerfaust on a Russian tank would be like taking a sledgehammer to an ant.  The choice is obvious (hindsight being 20/20).  Assault rifle rules the modern day.

I got to hold one of those bad boys about 10 years ago.  I am not knocking them, but they are much heavier than an M16.  But a few more pounds of weight is not that big of a deal when your opponent has tech that is now being used to shoot deer.

testy testy

He is right though, and most people don’t know that.  I think most people believe that Stalin was bad, but not nearly as bad as Hitler, and that justifies us allying with him.  Roosevelt pushed the whole “Uncle Joe” propaganda thing on the American people.  Stalin was a bigger monster than Hitler, but he was our monster so as to not make us look bad (for allying with a monster) it wasn’t generaly known how bad Stalin was.

Just because of that I think it is worth mentioning.  Anyone who was to look at my original post and not know the real history could think I am some kind of Nazi sympathizer because I made the argument “what if we let Germany get away with it”.  The Poles were destined to have what happened to them happen whether England and France declared war or not.  But not declaring war on Germany could have saved a lot of lives for the western democracies. Ultimately France, England, and the U.S. would need to defeat whoever won the Russian/German war, but that would have been much easier after those 2 anhilated each other and having years to stockpile weapons while still holding on to France to launch an offensive against Germany or Russia.

I am aware of the history of that, but what my point is, is the war and land Hitler desired was in the east.  He believed (and had every reason to) that his attack on Poland would not lead to war with England and France.  This was not his first land grab.  Securing the treaty with Stalin was a ‘just in case’ kind of thing.  My argument is that had England and France let Germany have Poland Hitler’s next target would have been Russia.  You could argue it would leave his western front exposed if the French decided to attack, but in all likelyhood if the French and English did not come to the aid of Poles and Chec’s they certainly would not go to war for the USSR.  The best case scenerio would be for Germany to have attacked Russia, beaten them almost to death, than France and England attack Germany from the west and for the allies to keep pushing east until they take Moscow.  That way the 2 biggest evils of the 20th century anhilate each other with a min. cost to us non savages.

I think Hitler deseired a one front war.  I agree that eventualy he would have demanded the return of Alsace-Loraine from the French, but I doubt he would have had to fight a war over it if the USSR had been wiped out.  Had Hitler taken out the eastern front he could have told France “give it to me ‘or else’”.

I know people here know there history, but most people do not understand that just because Hitler orchestrated the Holocaust and has the biggest imprint on history as being evil… he did not kill the most people in camps.  Stalin killed a lot more, including more jews.  The idea of both of these savages killing each other off instead of any of the rest of society having to deal with it is attractive.  It is horrible that all of these people had to die, but that doesn’t mean we have to die.

Not being political (because I have no urge to get into the details or debate this), but who here would care if ISIS and Iran started butchering each other?  Ya, it would be great if there was world peace, but if there is going to be barbarism I would rather it be between 2 savages than having any of the rest of us shed blood.

In “Mein Kamph” Hitler wrote that he wanted ‘living space’.  The first living space he went after were territories taken from Germany in the first world war, and all of his agression was to the east of Germany (other than the Ruhr).  He never looked at Alsace/Loraine (sp) as an objective because to make a play for that would obviously mean a war with France, which he did not want.

This is a big “what if” here, but a great mind teaser.

What if Chamberlain said “bah, who needs the Polish - not worth fighting a war over”.  What would have happened next?  There may not have been peace in Europe’s time, but there could very well have been peace for England and France’s time (not to mention America).  Hitler saw Germany’s ‘living space’ coming at the expense of Soviets.  Had Chamberlain backed down I doubt Hitler would have started a war with France and England, when his desired living space was to the east.  The Franco/Prussian war was fought over Alsace/Loraine, it was never brought up by Hitler.

Germany and the U.S.S.R. slugging it out on there own is a good thing.  It is like having 2 super villains duke it out.  Or, like an admiral in the British Navy said once he heard Germany had attacked the Soviet Union, “it is a pity that they both can’t lose”.

In the mean time as these abominations kill each other in war, the west watches and builds strength.

Gotta go with Moscow.  Some of you are forgetting that Hitler felt that the only reason England stayed in the war was because they hoped to get the USSR in it to relieve pressure.  If Russia falls, England would sue for peace.  I do not find that at all unreasonable.  Germany would not have pushed further into the eastern part of the USSR because it was pretty much worthless.  Taking the entire German army and Air force and than putting them in France in 1942 after the Russian surrender would have made England’s chances at victory impossible.  They would be lucky to be able to stop an invasion at that point.

I am looking at the question as a “rub a lamp, make a wish” kind of way.  The feasibility of Germany beating Russia is another question all together.

@wheatbeer:

@Zooey72:

Heavy handed government whether it be a king, president, czar, or whatever title you want to give it is a sign of the leftist politics.

Monarchies are by definition right-wing. It doesn’t matter if they are heavy-handed or laissez-faire.

CWO Marc makes the most accurate analogy: left/right is roughly equivalent to egalitarian/stratified.

The closest humanity has come to a far-left society in practice have been hunter-gatherers.

I don’t agree with that at all, and I would argue the closest humanity has gotten to the true far left is the Amish (in an idealistic sense).

I maintain that heavy handed government is what defines the left.  Hands off economics is what defines the right.  Whatever the policy may be, it should be viewed in that way.  I am not advocating for either extreme, I am just pointing out that that is what they are.  A monarchy is to the left, the government has control.  It is not a socio-economic question.  North Korea has what is basically a king, although they are communists, and I don’t think anyone would confuse Kim Jong for Rand Paul.

To play devil’s advocate, you could say this country is far right in that lobbyist have such a huge influence on how our government works.  That is the private sector having a lot of control over the government.  Or to look at it another way, our government has taken to bailing out companies that are “too big to fail” which is direct meddling of the government in the private sector which would be far left.

My point being is that left and right is measured by the amount of control a society is willing to allow its government to have.  If that is the case Nazi Germany and the USSR were both far left.

@Herr:

@Zooey72:

So your argument is, is that when you flip a coin because one side is heads, the other side has to be tails?

I see your point, but I have to disagree. The Nazis were far from being capitalist (Hitler raged against capitalism as much as he raged against Communism). The government would pay for cars and vacations as an incentive for the people to work more. Volkswagen “the people’s car” is the best example of that. A heavy handed government is a sign of the left, whether it be good or bad. Who wouldn’t want a paid for car and vacation? I won’t go into detail about the evils communism and national socialism, I am sure everyone here knows them.

I probably should have explained my idea a little better. My point was not that the nazis were ardent capitalists - in fact, I agree with you that the weren’t. My point was simply that because communism was considered “left”, people started to think of their opponents as “right”, regardless of their social-economic politics. But doing so, is probably just lazy thinking.

Suppose, as a thought experiment, that there would have been no prominent communist movement in Germany during the interbellum years, and that instead, the opposition to nazism by the old Prussian aristocracy and other conservative forces would have been much stronger. In that case, those opponents would have been though of as “right”, and it’s entirely possible that people would have considered the nazis “left”.

In the end, the whole left-right distinction is just not enough to define all possibilities in politics.

Other than Goering who was a WW1 war hero, the Nazis were a bunch of rabble.  Failed artists hobos and chicken farmers hardly constitute Prussian aristocracy.  But going with your thought experiment… you prove my point.  The Nazis were the left, but I disagree that a Prussian king was the right.  Heavy handed government whether it be a king, president, czar, or whatever title you want to give it is a sign of the leftist politics.

King Solomon even though he was blessed by God with wisdom (and was kind) was on the left side of politics, he ruled unilaterally.

@Herr:

@Zooey72:

So your argument is, is that when you flip a coin because one side is heads, the other side has to be tails?

I see your point, but I have to disagree. The Nazis were far from being capitalist (Hitler raged against capitalism as much as he raged against Communism). The government would pay for cars and vacations as an incentive for the people to work more. Volkswagen “the people’s car” is the best example of that. A heavy handed government is a sign of the left, whether it be good or bad. Who wouldn’t want a paid for car and vacation? I won’t go into detail about the evils communism and national socialism, I am sure everyone here knows them.

I probably should have explained my idea a little better. My point was not that the nazis were ardent capitalists - in fact, I agree with you that the weren’t. My point was simply that because communism was considered “left”, people started to think of their opponents as “right”, regardless of their social-economic politics. But doing so, is probably just lazy thinking.

Suppose, as a thought experiment, that there would have been no prominent communist movement in Germany during the interbellum years, and that instead, the opposition to nazism by the old Prussian aristocracy and other conservative forces would have been much stronger. In that case, those opponents would have been though of as “right”, and it’s entirely possible that people would have considered the nazis “left”.

In the end, the whole left-right distinction is just not enough to define all possibilities in politics.

@Zhukov44:

The national socialists considered themselves right-wing.  While their agenda was populist, radical, revolutionary, it’s also anti-left and explicitly opposed to the (left-wing) socialists and communists.  Fascists adopted marching and sloganeering tactics from the left but their message was aimed at persuading right-wingers, monarchists, religious believers, etc, who weren’t interested in communism or socialism.

When you look at the electoral history of the period, as they rose the Nazis took the most votes from the Nationalists and National Liberals (eg, conservative, protestant, capitalist funded) as well as the Center (Catholic).  People who formerly supported these right-leaning parties converted to national socialism.

The Nazis eventually formed a coalition with Nationalist and Center politicians.  As far as I’m aware, the Nazis didn’t form working relationships with “left” parties like the SPD, KPD etc.

They were “right-wing” within their own context–perhaps many aspects of the 30s would be considered “left-wing” by the MSM today.

The 30s were a period of bureaucratic collectivism worldwide–all Western governments of the period shared some common features, from right-wing to left-wing to any-wing.  Nazi Germany was particularly barbaric but Stalin set the stage for it.

‘Left/right’ designations more accurately refer to cultural attitudes than economic philosophy.  Attitudes towards religion, morality, tradition, authority etc.  The Nazis did not present themselves as “secular” the way a leftist party would.

I am going to go back to my comparison of both being gangs.  The Crips and Bloods may hate each other, but they are pretty much the same.  Hatred of Communism may have led to a lot of Germans to follow the Nazis, but I still maintain that there was little difference (if any) between Communism and National Socialism.  A lot of the arguments I am reading are more about semantics of “How people viewed it”.  The real question is “what was it really?”

I am sure that every Death’s Head SS officer viewed himself as some kind of saint while he committed unspeakable atrocities.  Just because that was his point of view, that doesn’t make it so, much less give justification for what he did.

@CWO:

Nazi Germany and the USSR were both totalitarian dictatorships – or single-party police states, to put it another way.  So in that respect they were very similar.  The far-right versus far-left dichotomy actually refers to how each society was structured on paper (and I stress “on paper” as opposed to in reality) from an ideological point of view.  Nazi Germany can be called a right-wing state because it was, by its own admission, vertically structured: the Leader at the top, and everyone else below him – in other words, the concept of structuring a state like an army.  The USSR can be called a left-wing state because it was (in principle) a horizontally-structured classless society.  In actual fact, it had its own powerful Leader at the top (especially in Stalin’s time), so in that respect it was far from being the “dictatorship of the proletariat” that it claimed to be.  The right/left terminology itself comes from the traditional association of the right with the aristocracy and of the left with the masses.

Good point, but that is just the terminology both sides used.  In the end, after all the posturing both Nazi Germany and the USSR were identical IMO.  The “Germans Woker’s Party” sounds like it comes from the “masses”.  The first attempt to seize control of the government started in a bar.  Hitler was huge into “Aryan helping Aryan”.  The first move about the “Titanic” was written by the Nazis to show the evils of capitalism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanic_(1943_film)

I feel that the reason it is taught that the right are evil Nazis, and the left are evil Communist is to disperse evil so as to not lump the 2 biggest evils in modern history into one political ideology.  While nice on paper I do not think it is at all accurate.  Heavy handed government was at the heart of both the Nazis and the Communists, which is a purely left.  The Rockefellers, Carnigees, and the Steve Jobs would be a better characterization of the far right.

So your argument is, is that when you flip a coin because one side is heads, the other side has to be tails?

I see your point, but I have to disagree.  The Nazis were far from being capitalist (Hitler raged against capitalism as much as he raged against Communism).  The government would pay for cars and vacations as an incentive for the people to work more.  Volkswagen “the people’s car” is the best example of that.  A heavy handed government is a sign of the left, whether it be good or bad.  Who wouldn’t want a paid for car and vacation?  I won’t go into detail about the evils communism and national socialism, I am sure everyone here knows them.

But the extreme right to me is not the government run amok.  It is the government not paying enough attention to (or being complicit with) evil.  The movie “3:10 to Yuma” shows the evil of extreme capitalism.  The bank wants a farmer to sell his land but he won’t sell, so they buy the land upstream of him and block off the river supplying him water forcing him to sell his land.  While what the bank did is not illegal, it is immoral.

This is not a political thread.

It is a question as to why it is taught that the far right of the political spectrum are the Nazis, and the far left is the old U.S.S.R.  The Nazis and the Soviets were pretty much the same animal, the government makes or brakes you - go against us and we will crush you.  The far right to me would be capitalism taken to the extreme (which we have seen in our history).  Having children work 30 hours a week.  Horrid workplaces.  Low pay.  Etc. etc.

I fail to see how the Nazis were “Extreme Right Wing”, and the Soviets being “Extreme Left Wing”.  They were both the same animal, the government running your life.

I am aware that in the 20s and 30s the Communist and Nazis fought each other for control over Germany.  But to me that is like the ‘Bloods’ and the ‘Crips’ fighting.  There is no ideology, they just want their gang to win.

My ultimate question is what constitutes Nazis being extreme right wing, and the Soviets being extreme left wing?  I guess it is a political question after all, but I want to keep it to the WW2 era.

I didn’t say it was a good idea for England to attack Norway, but I think it was clear that that was their intention.  England did have a large fleet that could have helped with logistics, but that is pretty much where their advantage ended.  At the very least Hitler believed that was England’s intention because (naval bases aside) there is no real reason to attack Norway other than to protect the iron ore coming from Sweden.  The Germans stranded 300k troops in Norway until the end of the war.  300k troops protecting the Stalingrad flanks could have made the difference (or anywhere, suffice to say they would have been better off anywhere other than sitting in Norway for 5 years).

You have to remember that the country who was planning this gave us Gallipoli in WW1.  They were bombing Germany with leaflets as the Germans used actual bombs on Poland.  2 years into the war their best land ‘victory’ was the evacuation of northern France.  They didn’t even win the Battle of Britain, Hitler just lost interest.  And to add to that their partner in this plan came up with the idea of the Maginot line.

All that being said I disagree that Norway’s terrain made it impossible to invade.  The Germans did it and logisticaly they were in a worse position than England.  What I would have done though had I been in charge is let England attack first so that you can get Norway on your side.  The English may ‘get the drop’ on Norway, but I think it would have been more of a massacre than what happened had the Germans been given safe ports to land troops in instead of having to take them… not to mention having the Norwegians on Germany’s side instead of against them.

How to win it in late 41…  good one.

To begin with I would kill corp. Hitler.  That dumb ass got Germany in the predicament it was in in the first palce.

That being said you keep pushing on Moscow because the logistics of moving troops is what killed Germany.  Is the Caucus a better objective - yes.  But Corp. Hitler didn’t figure that out until it was too late.  Germany may not have gotten the same fruits of capturing the oilfields (which should have been their major objective in 41), but they would have taken Moscow which was the locomotive hub of the USSR (not to mention, the capital.

The logistics of transferring the troops was a stupid play at that point.  He should have kept the focus on Moscow and broke them there, than take his Moscow forces and move them where they needed to go.  At all 3 Russian fronts Corp. Hitler never won… because when he had overwhelming force he never finished the fight.

WW2 history is kind of funny in that you think “thank god Hitler was so crazy that he lost the war”, but at the same time it is also “how did this crazy person get in charge in the first place?”

This is why the Germans invaded Norway.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altmark_Incident

England could not be trusted to respect the neutrality of Norway.  The English invasion of Norway would have gained England access to Sweden which supplied Germany with most of its iron ore.  That was a war ender for Germany.

Norway in and of itself was not important (later in the war it was a good place for U-boats, yes, but not in 40). If England had not PLANNED an invasion of Norway so that they could later attack Sweden the Germans never would have invaded.  (Germany left 300k troops there until the end of the war that could have been used elsewhere).

It really isn’t a matter of opinion.  Norway’s days were numbered no matter if the English or the Germans invaded.  Look at the time line.  How did the English and French have such a quick reaction to the German invasion to send “aid”.  Because that “aid” was going to be the allied invasion force had the Germans not beat them to the punch.