Topics created by Zooey72

Entirely on a side note: his first name was “Wernher”, not “Werner”.

People are ignorant to it for the same reason why people can’t understand that Italian and German Americans were also in camps.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQFbgmayQ-E

I just got the HTC vive and picked up this game, and I must say it really is amazing (esp. for us WW2 geeks).  You are in a U-boat during WW2.  It can be single or multiplayer up to 4 people (some ship features like loading torps. can be put on auto if you don’t have a full crew).  I must say the realism is amazing.  The game does not assign you a role, but to be efficient the people playing need to split up resp. to complete the mission.  You are talking to these people, and running all over the ship to get the job done.  It is so realistic the other day when I was playing I had a bit of flatulence and my first thought was “can’t do that here, will stink up the ship”, just to remember a couple seconds later “uh, I am in my living room!”.

It is not just the underwater stuff.  You can go above deck and fire the 88 to take down merchant shipping, or fire the AA to knock down enemy aircraft.  When the boat is getting depth charged you have to seal the leaks and pump out the excess water.

I am not big into gaming systems.  XBOX and the playstation were not a big deal, and although I owned an xbox I almost never played it.  VR is different.  20 years from now people are going to look at the present gaming systems the same we look at 1970s ‘Pong’.

Well during the era of the Clan which by the way still technically exist, which ever clan controlled Kyoto, their Daimyō would then become Shogun if my knowledge is correct. So technically a Shogun is a military leader but I think Daimyo is technically a civilian who just happens to know how to fight like a Samurai.

Those poles did not go back to Poland because they argued the government for which they fought for no longer exist and Poland to this day denies that government from pre WWII.

As for captured soldiers, it makes sense. If you annex a nation, you only have two choices, either the former military cease to exist or you annex the military too. Which we know that Hitler took both options at different nations, some small countries had their military annexed and others we forced to become civilians with the exception to this rule being France.

@taamvan:

shares of AA50 have fallen to $90USD so the vacay could provide 222 copies of AXA to a dojo training new initiates like the Jedi academy in clone wars

Not all shares have fallen so low…

https://www.ebay.com/itm/AVALON-HILL-GAMES-Axis-And-Allies-Anniversary-Edition-Game-2017-/322923277854
{Link to an eBay auction for the 2017 reprint of AA50 with a “Buy It Now” of $699.95 and a “Make Offer” button underneath…}

Of course, I got both a brand-new 2017 copy and picked up a used 2008 copy for less than $200 for both. I love this reprint…  :-D

-Midnight_Reaper

History has shown that Japan was more favorable to the idea of bring USSR into the Axis but that was more for selfish reasons; easier trade with Germany.

@Zooey72:

I was watching some protests, and it really doesn’t matter what the protest was about; however there was someone who was a counter-protester who was very peacefully filming the whole event.  Police were present and there was no violence.  However a group of the protesters walked in front of the guy filming and blocked him filming with their signs.  Can they do that?  I wouldn’t think that would be legal to do, but they did it anyway and the cops allowed it.  I wouldn’t even think this would be a state by state thing either, the First Amendment is pretty straight forward with this kind of thing.

Anyhow, I would be curious to find out if anyone has the info.

Thanks.

He’s allowed to film it, they’re allowed to block it

IL posted this in General Discussion:  http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=39007.msg1662318#msg1662318

Roland Emmerich directing new film on the Battle of Midway.

Saints and Soldiers is really good equipment-wise, the movie itself is mediocre. It’s on Amazon prime instant video. It’s set in the opening days of the battle of the bulge. The only thing I noticed is that the Germans who shoot 70-plus American POW’s at Malmedy are regular Wehrmacht and not SS, but whatever.

By gum, that CIA poison takes it’s time.

@Baron:

Does B-17 rather able to do same things than B-25 but at longer range with more payload ?

I read that some of these B-17 were based in Australia and succeed at attacking a few IJN ships?

Yes and no… you’re kinda talking the difference between a tactical bomber (like the B-25) and a strategic bomber (like the B-17).  The B-17 has longer range and a bigger payload than the B-25, but its also less maneuverable, and usually used for different roles (strategic over tactical bombing).

As with anything in war, there can be fuzzy lines that are crossed (B-17s used for tactical missions like bombing ships and B-25s used for strategic bombing, like the Doolittle raid), but generally speaking those two bombers were used for different purposes.

@Narvik:

Born in Austria he was also a passionate mountain climber, and in his later days he build a cottage with view up in the Bergthesgaden mountains. When the Austrian climbers Heinrich Harrer and Heclmeier did the first ascend of Eiger Nordwand in 1934 he would invite them home for dinner just to show his admiration for real heroes. When he arranged the Olympic Games in 1938, no other national leader have ever showed that much enthusiasm as he did, he actually climbed on the chair, jumping up and down yelling RUN RUN RUN to the atleths passing by.

Compared to Churchill he was a saint. He never went to any bordello neither. Churchill on the other hand lived in bordellos instead of hotels when he travelled, he chain smoked as a train, and was always drunk, and would eat nothing but beefs. So basically we got this fat, smoking, drinking, beefeater bordello customer that believed in personal freedom and democracy, and his antagonist the slim, non smoking, non drinking vegetarian athlete with real high morale whos only wish was to enslave the world and subdue every man, except the Jews who he wanted to kill by gas.

Go figure

Indeed, the contrast between Churchill’s hedonism and Hitler’s austere lifestyle was noted by John Keegan in his book The Mask of Command.  Keegan says that unlike Churchill, whose daily breakfasts of pheasant or partridge cheerfully exceeded the weekly wartime protein allwoance of British schoolchildren, Hitler spent the war living on bleak fare (such as mashed apples) in miserable surroundings (such as his isolated headquarters at Rastenburg, which was a pure military facility with no luxuries).  It should also be noted that Hitler, sensitive and artistically-inclined man that he was, admired not just the well-proportioned physiques of Aryan men and women (as widely depicted in German visual arts of the time, though not quite so widely found in the Fuhrer’s immediate entourage, the devilishly handsome Reinhard Heidrich being a notable exception) but also had a keen eye for the beauties of the natural world, as expressed by a popular German song of the time (which can be heard in the documentary series The World at War) whose refrain roughly translates as “Adolf Hitler’s favourite flower is the delicate edelweiss.”

Zooey wrote:

Maybe we should have enlisted him to fight in the Korean war lol.

If we’d done that, the Chinese would have taken him prisoner during one of their “human wave” attacks. He would have been conscripted to fight in the Chinese Army. The Chinese would have used him in their invasion of India of 1962. Once he’d been taken prisoner/added to the Indian Army, he would have been used to help fight the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965. Upon being captured and conscripted by the Pakistanis, he would have been sent to fight in the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971. After being captured by Bangladesh, he would have been forced to serve in the Bangladeshi Army, especially in the Chittagong Hills Tracts Conflict (which began in 1975). He would have been captured by the Shanti Bahini (Bangladesh’s opponent in that conflict). But once that conflict ended, he would have been allowed to retire; quietly living out the rest of his days in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of southeastern Bangladesh.

Imagine it’s the 1980s. An old man in the Chittagong Hill Tracts is cooking food by an outdoor fire. A child comes up to him and begins a conversation. “I served in the war,” the old man says. “Which war?” the child asks. “Now that is a complicated question!” answers the old man.

Good topic, Zooey.

Traditionally the German economy has been structured as follows:

Germany imports food –> foreign currency flows out of Germany
Germany imports raw materials for its factories --> foreign currency flows out of Germany
Germany exports manufactured goods --> foreign currency flows into Germany

Note that without the third item on the list, it would be impossible for Germany to pay for the first two items. Paying for those first two items became considerably more difficult due to the massive reparations payments required by the Versailles Treaty. The burden of that treaty was (temporarily) eased by large loans from the American government. On the other hand, most of the reparations payments went to Britain and France, which meant that the combination of U.S. + Germany was helping fund France’s + Britain’s appetite for money.

In the late ‘20s, the U.S. government was able to convince Britain and France to cease requiring further reparations payments from Germany. In exchange, Britain and France demanded (and received) American forgiveness of those nations’ remaining debts from WWI. But by this point, Germany owed vast sums of money to the American government. Interest payments alone were a very difficult burden for it to bear.

During the '20s, Britain and France closed themselves and their empires to German imports. The United States later followed suit, with the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act. With much of the world refusing to accept German imports, Germany could not export enough manufactured goods to even out its balance of payments. The result was an economic collapse which began in Germany, and which quickly spread throughout the Western world. The politically moderate Weimar government lost credibility because it was no longer able to feed the German people. (They didn’t have the currency necessary to pay for food imports.)

Hitler inherited an economic disaster, and immediately began taking ruthless measures to improve the situation. He stated that if any nation refused to accept German imports, Germany would default on 100% of its debt to that nation. In particular, Germany defaulted on all its debt to the United States. On the other hand, if a particular nation agreed to accept German imports, Germany would repay a large percentage of the money owed to that nation. A number of nations which had formerly refused German imports began accepting them.

These measures were ugly, and many Western politicians found them offensive. They also worked. By 1937, Germany’s economy was booming. The unemployment rate had plummeted, real wages had significantly increased, working conditions improved, the work week had been reduced to 40 hours, and workers had been given extensive vacation time. Improved clean air and clean water standards were enacted. Profits for German companies rose considerably.

I think there are at least two lessons to be learned from all this. 1) A nation should not accept narcissistic, one-sided economic/trade arrangements from other nations. The Weimar Republic allowed itself to be economically exploited by the Allies (especially Britain and France). Ending that economic exploitation was an absolutely essential part of Germany’s subsequent economic boom. In the modern world, China is engaged in currency manipulation. That currency manipulation makes it too easy for Chinese firms to export their products inexpensively; too difficult for other countries to import into China. Ending that currency manipulation would significantly improve the economies of the United States and of China’s other trading partners.

If a large, modern government commits itself to achieving a particular economic objective, and if that government knows what it’s doing, that objective can often be achieved. But at least in the United States, running for office is very expensive. Politicians must therefore accept large sums of money from large corporations, public sector unions, wealthy individuals, and other lobbyists and special interest groups. It is necessary for these politicians to act in the best interests of those who fund their campaigns. That goal is often incompatible with the objective of growing the economy as a whole. American politicians are far more likely to be former lawyers than former economists; which means that most of them probably don’t understand the economic damage their policies create. Even if they did understand it, they might not have any choice but to inflict it anyway. There is a tendency for politicians who aren’t willing to “play the game” to get weeded out. Large media corporations have a very, very strong vested interest in preserving the importance of money in politics. If any politician attempts to reform the existing system, the media will either a) kill him with silence, or b) give him only negative press coverage.

@KurtGodel7:

You have not read the book, and are relying on the opinions of reviewers who have. If you think those reviewers are doing their very best to give a fair and unbiased appraisal of the work, then nothing I write is going to change your mind.

Funny that especially you say something like that. :lol: :lol: :lol:

Funny also is that you still try to convince peoples of your own ideas  :lol: :lol:

@EricTheGreat12:

Although no one in my family fought in the Second World War, my great grandfather was in the Canadian Army during the First World War.

He was a messanger, and unfortunately he got gassed up pretty badly. I don’t remember how long he was in the war, but I do remember records saying that he fought in the battle of Passendale. He later got brought back to Canada after he got shot in the leg   :-(

My grandmother tells me that he never talked about the war; he never even kept any part of his uniform. But at least my grandmother kept his medals and she still has a photo of him in his military uniform :-D

I wished I had asked more questions to my relatives.
I believe one serviced Halifaxs in India though on reflection
I was unaware whether they were based there, others served
in the Merchant navy or in the Fire service etc.

One account I recently read about the gassing in WW1 was
a doctor treating two patients, the Chlorine gas was so strong
on them that he left the room to be sick.

@aequitas:

Something??
And you say that you don’t deny the Holocaust??

To underline your arguments you should have evidence of it.
You don’t! So just leave it!!
First you blame the Western Allies for the imaginary Food Blockade, now you are saying it was the beasty Pluto-rusky-soviets??

It is just sad… :-(

And you say that you don’t deny the Holocaust??

Correct. I do not deny the Holocaust.

To underline your arguments you should have evidence of it.

If there are specific factual claims I’ve made for which you’d like to see more evidence, just ask. My typical response to such requests is to provide evidence of my assertions. In supporting such claims, I have never cited pro-Nazi or other far right sources. My rationale is that a far right source could be expected to present the Nazis’ case in the most favorable light, and might even be willing to exaggerate things in the Nazis’ favor. If on the other hand a mainstream (anti-Nazi) source is willing to admit the truth of something which casts a less than 100% favorable light on the Allies’ actions, then that admission is most likely true.

First you blame the Western Allies for the imaginary Food Blockade

After his political career ended, former U.S. president Herbert Hoover wrote a series of books. One of those books was Freedom Betrayed. On page 589 of Freedom Betrayed, Hoover wrote the following:

[In 1939] the Polish Government escaped to London under Prime Minister Wladyslaw Sikorski. He requested me to organize relief for his country. My old colleagues and I did so, but after about one year, during which about $6,000,000 was raised and supplies had been shipped, our work was stopped by the British blockade.

Neville Chamberlain had of course blockaded metals, oil, weapons, ammunition, and other items you’d normally expect to be blockaded. Churchill added food to the list of contraband items. That is why Hoover was able to send food to the starving Poles during the first year of the war, and was unable to send food to them thereafter.

The Wikipedia article expands on the subject of this blockade.

As 1940 drew to a close, the situation for many of Europe’s 525 million people was dire. With the food supply reduced by 15% by the blockade and another 15% by poor harvests, starvation and diseases such as influenza, pneumonia, tuberculosis, typhus and cholera were a threat. Germany was forced to send 40 freight cars of emergency supplies into occupied Belgium and France, and American charities such as the Red Cross, the Aldrich Committee, and the American Friends Service Committee began gathering funds to send aid. Former president Herbert Hoover, who had done much to alleviate the hunger of European children during World War I, wrote:[63]

The food situation in the present war is already more desperate than at the same stage in the [First] World War. … If this war is long continued, there is but one implacable end… the greatest famine in history.

Adam Tooze’s book Wages of Destruction has been praised by The Times (London), The Sunday Times (London), The Wall Street Journal, and History Today. The Financial Times called it “masterful.”  On pages 418 - 419 Tooze writes the following:

After 1939 the supply of food in Western Europe was no less constrained than the supply of coal. . . . Grain imports in the late 1930s had run at the rate of more than 7 million tons per annum mostly from Argentina and Canada. These sources of supply were closed off by the British blockade. . . . By the summer of 1940, Germany was facing a Europe-wide agricultural crisis. . . . By 1941 there were already signs of mounting discontent due to the inadequate food supply. In Belgium and France, the official ration allocated to ‘normal consumers’ of as little as 1,300 calories per day, was an open invitation to resort to the black market.

now you are saying it was the beasty Pluto-rusky-soviets

The food blockade was of course imposed by the Western Allies. Those nations are typically known as democracies, even though a study showed that, in practice, decisions are made on a plutocratic basis. Princeton University found there is zero correlation between what the bottom economic 90% wants and what the federal government actually does. (The data go back a number of decades, but do not go all the way back to WWII. The study therefore represents very strong evidence, but not proof, that the U.S. had been a plutocracy during WWII.)

I regard most politicians as shills for America’s plutocrat class. The brutality of the Allied food blockade was not reflective of a murderous American population. It was reflective of a murderous, evil plutocrat class.

@Zhukov44:

Suppose that France had pursued that same policy of neutrality. Might Hitler have left France alone too? Might he have focused his attention on his one foreign policy goal–war against the Soviet Union–while leaving things well enough alone in the west?

Seems unlikely.  There was a large chunk of territory (the Alcase) at stake.  Hitler makes it clear in Mein Kampf that France and Germany are rivals and France should be subordinate.

I had been under the impression that the French and Soviets were willing to fight for the integrity of Czechoslovakia but the British put their weight behind the peace deal.  Of course it wouldn’t surprise me if the French government was also determined to avoid war at all costs, as they were leaving the Spanish republican government in the lurch at the same time.

There was a large chunk of territory (the Alcase) at stake.

In Hitler’s second book, he wrote about the inadvisability of basing broad national policy on border disputes. The incident which prompted those comments was the fact that Italy had annexed South Tyrol, an area with hundreds of thousands of Germans. Many in Germany felt that Hitler should do something to prevent those Germans from being annexed. Hitler, on the other hand, was prepared to let South Tyrol go so that he could have an alliance with Italy.

If Hitler was willing to write off South Tyrol in order to gain a completely useless ally, he might also have been willing to write off Alsace in order to avoid a pointless and unwanted war with Britain and France.

Hitler makes it clear in Mein Kampf that France and Germany are rivals and France should be subordinate.

It is true that Hitler expressed bitterness about the fact that France had pursued an anti-German foreign policy for literally centuries. He felt it was inevitable that France would continue pursuing an anti-German foreign policy, regardless of the nature of the French or German governments. France could have tried to change Hitler’s mind about all this by pursuing a policy of neutrality or even benevolence towards Germany. But that option was never considered.

[The French] were leaving the Spanish republican government in the lurch at the same time

It’s true that France could have done more to support Spain’s communist government in its war against Franco. Whether France should have done more to help the communists is, of course, another question.

To be simple… Look at politics as a square.

The top side of the square is 100% government control and authority.  The bottom being 0%

The left hand side of the square is essentially 100% tax.  The right being 0%.

Depending on policy, different groups find themselves at different coordinates in the square.

To answer the original posters question - Communists and Fascists essentially exert the same amount of authority.  But differ in their economic policies.  IE one could be rich in Nazi Germany, where as in communism, the economic freedoms were not as available.  That is one of several conclusions that leads people to see the Nazi’s as right wing.

In simpler terms it’s “Government control of business (Left) vs Business control of Government (Right).”

But is that enough to make the NSDAP a right wing party? In my opinion no. As I feel that all big government is essentially “Left Leaning/Socialistic”.  Meaning that 3/4 of the square is socialism (Anything with more than 50% authority, or 50% tax control of your life)

Again, a very rudimentary and simple perspective, take it or leave it.