Question

[loseyourname]

Originally posted by Anonymouse These are a bit of harsh indictments. I'd consider this to be one of the propagandas about National Socialism. It is clear Germany was intended for "Germans", not anyone else. Expulsion maybe, extermination, well unless you're terribly religious and not a rational mind basing conclusions on evidence, well there is no reason to assume that he was set out to exterminate anyone of the "gene pool". Rather there was Sterilization of non German offspring that resulted from German Women and Black French soldiers stationed around the Rhineland, as part of the Nazi Sterilization Law. In fact it is no secret that Nazis were involved in Eugenics. The United States moans about this today, yet it itself had eugenics instituted in the early teens of the last century.

He killed off people that were mentally ill and physically handicapped, including Germans. They were undesirable to the gene pool. I never said the US was any better. I have no issue with eugenics, but I would restrict it to encouraging people with more desirable genes to breed and giving some form of incentive to idiots and ugly people not to. I would not sterilize or kill anyone, as that is an unacceptable breech of freedom. And don't come back arguing about all the things governments already do that are a breech on personal liberty. I already agree with you.

[loseyourname]

Originally posted by Anonymouse That is unimportant in the context of events, for it was originally the Allies once again, who can be blamed for Hitler coming to power, since it was the Allies who instituted the conditions necessary for such a man to rise. Now if you are versed on the Hegelian Dialect and see history as a chain of causation, controlled and manipulated by powerful forces, then you would see that World War I Germany lost, it's peace treaty was organized the allied governments, in reality, the people behind the curtains of government. It was necessary to create conditions for the eventually rise a person such as Hitler, and rise he did. While all the negotiations on Versailles were going on, prior to it, it was also some of the same elites in the Allied countries that supported the rise of Bolshevism.

Granted, you put it a little more eloquently, but that is what I was trying to say. It is the Treaty of Versailles that caused World War II. But Hitler, for his part, was stupid to go as far as he did as quickly as he did. He got the concessions he wanted in the Sudetenland (however that's spelled) and he should have just kept at that. Ultimately, he probably could have gotten away with everything up to the point where he invaded Russia. If not for Stalingrad, it is likely he would have kept what he had already won.

What was Hitler "open" and "brazen" about? I'm sorry I'm missing what you're saying.

Once the way began, he took it too far. Invading Africa and Russia took it too far. I'm not speaking about the holocaust here, and really, I think the holocaust is a peripheral concern. The allies did not even have any knowledge of it until after the war. I'm only questioning Hitler's military tactics. As I said before, he made the same mistake that Lee and Bonaparte made. His hubris got the best of him.

[Anonymouse]

Originally posted by loseyourname Granted, you put it a little more eloquently, but that is what I was trying to say. It is the Treaty of Versailles that caused World War II. But Hitler, for his part, was stupid to go as far as he did as quickly as he did. He got the concessions he wanted in the Sudetenland (however that's spelled) and he should have just kept at that. Ultimately, he probably could have gotten away with everything up to the point where he invaded Russia. If not for Stalingrad, it is likely he would have kept what he had already won.


Once the way began, he took it too far. Invading Africa and Russia took it too far. I'm not speaking about the holocaust here, and really, I think the holocaust is a peripheral concern. The allies did not even have any knowledge of it until after the war. I'm only questioning Hitler's military tactics. As I said before, he made the same mistake that Lee and Bonaparte made. His hubris got the best of him.

For the purposes of not going too off topic, I will end it here for this is a whole new can of worms and maybe if you want to discuss the historical aspects we can erect another thread. However, with that said, and I will lightly touch up on this, even if Hitler wanted to avoid war, which is the case since he never wanted war with either Britain or England, he couldn't since the allies themselves wanted war.

If we delve into this far and deep enough, and if we consider the "revisionist" viewpoint on the conflicts that led up to war, one can see that it was the Allies themselves that maneuvered for Hitler to make the first strike, in the Danzig Corridor event, and the British knowing they would not have come to Polands air, and Poland in a way being duped into British promises. Lord Halifax was the person who was involved in this plan. The great question which is unanswered by historians is the paradox of why was Germany declared war upon and not the Soviet Union? Ultimately it was the British that tried maneuver Poland into withstanding the German talks of conceding the Danzig area which Hitler was trying to reclaim. It had nothing to do with invading Poland.

And as far as invading Russia, if you read Hitler's Reichstag speech you will see that Stalin was planning an offensive. Hitler's actions were preventive measures. It was Stalin that was far more cunning than Hitler and eventually outmaneuvered Hitler. The fact that Hitler got the advantage early on on the Soviets was because he striked first, as a preemptive measure, because the Nazi economy was not yet on a war footing, showing that Hitler never intended for a long drawn out war. Of course the 'other side' of history is perhaps more interesting to me because it goes deeper beyond the mere conventional aspects of the war, but rather the inner driving forces that lied behind the said powers that wanted war.

[PASAMONSTER]

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[loseyourname]

Originally posted by Anonymouse For the purposes of not going too off topic, I will end it here for this is a whole new can of worms and maybe if you want to discuss the historical aspects we can erect another thread. However, with that said, and I will lightly touch up on this, even if Hitler wanted to avoid war, which is the case since he never wanted war with either Britain or England, he couldn't since the allies themselves wanted war.

I was never trying to say the war was Hitler's fault, but I think he knew the consequences of what he was doing as soon as he began to remilitarize the Rhineland. Now if you want to go back further, you can simply argue that he had little choice if he ever wanted his country to regain its respectability, and the allies, well before any of the plotting you speak of, forced the issue both by disallowing militarization of the Rhineland, which would be essential if Germany was ever to be safe from France, and by imposing stringent war reparations. The only hope the German economy had was the crash industrialization brought on by military buildup.

If we delve into this far and deep enough, and if we consider the "revisionist" viewpoint on the conflicts that led up to war, one can see that it was the Allies themselves that maneuvered for Hitler to make the first strike, in the Danzig Corridor event, and the British knowing they would not have come to Polands air, and Poland in a way being duped into British promises. Lord Halifax was the person who was involved in this plan. The great question which is unanswered by historians is the paradox of why was Germany declared war upon and not the Soviet Union? Ultimately it was the British that tried maneuver Poland into withstanding the German talks of conceding the Danzig area which Hitler was trying to reclaim. It had nothing to do with invading Poland.

You could also argue that if the British had simply stopped Hitler from annexing the Sudetenland, well before he ever went into Poland, the conflict might have been stopped then, as at that point, Hitler really could not have offered much resistance.

And as far as invading Russia, if you read Hitler's Reichstag speech you will see that Stalin was planning an offensive. Hitler's actions were preventive measures. It was Stalin that was far more cunning than Hitler and eventually outmaneuvered Hitler. The fact that Hitler got the advantage early on on the Soviets was because he striked first, as a preemptive measure, because the Nazi economy was not yet on a war footing, showing that Hitler never intended for a long drawn out war.

I still don't think it was good military strategy. Hitler should have known that a drawn out war in Russia was almost inevitable, and the only chance he really stood was to go straight for Moscow, which he didn't do. Germany was already well cushioned at that point by its annexing of smaller nations to its east and it could be argued that an invasion by Stalin would not have been successful, though that probably wasn't the point anyway. Ultimately, fighting a war on so many multiple fronts is what brought down the Nazis anyway. Still, Stalingrad was the turning point at which the Nazis really never again had much of a chance. I can't help but think what might have been had Hitler either taken a defensive stance or gone straight for Moscow. Ultimately, we'll never know. But as with my analogy to Lee - what would have happened had he never floundered at Gettysburg? As weak as the Confederacy was at the time, Union resolution was wilting and everybody but Lincoln was ready to give up, and Lincoln might not have even be reelected. If only the men who made these mistakes had known what we now know. Anyway, as you pointed out, we've gone pretty far off topic.

I suppose my original point was only that, if not for a few military blunders, and if not for the forced labor camps that allowed the allies to bring righteous indignation against the Nazi regime once the war had ended, we might either have had a chance to see how Naziism would have worked out or at least been able to study it without the connotation of evil that is inevitably attached at this point.

As far as positive effects of the Nazi system, the only thing I can think of is how quickly Germany did get back on its feet. To spiral's question of "does might make right?" I can only say that I don't think it does on any moral ground, but it can certainly be argued that a strong, central government is essential for any nation to rise very quickly to power. If you study the history of empire building up until the last century, you'll notice that almost every one was built by a strong, highly centralized, totalitarian government, usually one led by militarily inclined men. Furthermore, most of them fell when the government was either weakened or decentralized.

Nothing rallies a nation like war and expansion. The problem comes after the conquering is complete. A parallel can be seen in our current conflict in the middle east. Most of the US was firmly behind going into Afghanistan and even Iraq, and rallied behind Bush and the US flag. Now that both unfriendly regimes have been removed and the sobering fact is revealed that we may not have made things any better and likely had no business there in the first place, you can see support for Bush and for US foreign policy in general waining. The primary difference is that in a democracy such as the US, instead of the government being weakened and replaced through violent revolution and losing its empire, we just get a new party in place four years later, as if that is really going to make any difference.