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Konstantin posted:How much privilege did having "good" genetics get you in Nazi Germany? If you were the prototypical blue-eyed blonde, did you get tangible benefits or favoritism from the government and military because of this, beyond what "ordinary" Germans got? Nothing that I know of, but here's some tidbits from Burleigh and Wippermann's The Racial State: Newlywed German couples could get loans that would be payable if (a) the couple had kids and propagated the German race, and (b) the woman quit her job, and (c) the couple were physically examined to prove they had no genetic disorders (46) Abortions, while encouraged for non-Germans and the handicapped, were made illegal for German women (249) Mothers got financial kickbacks depending on how many kids they had (252) Also, Hitler Youth groups often camped near League of German Girls campsites, and the two groups were encouraged to "socialize." (Dagmar Herzog's Sex After Fascism, but not sure of the page number.) So Hitler and the Nazis wanted lots of German kids, but they didn't care much about what they looked like as long as they were healthy. I seem to recall reading an off-hand remark by Himmler that his selection process for SS candidates would one day be so exacting that they'd end up with only blue-eyed blonds, but as a whole that preference gets a lot more press than it's deserved. I mean Christ, look at the top Nazis. Ugly fuckers, all of them, except maybe Speer and Goering in 1915.
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May 7, 2013 21:43
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Cowslips Warren posted:Was there ever a plan for Hitler to escape like some of the others did? Run off and hide in South America? Or was he set to suicide for reasons other than pride? IIRC the Nazis had a major redoubt somewhere in the Swiss Alps where they could have conceivably held out for years but never made use of it. There's no clear record of Hitler's final days, as most of the information regarding it was second-hand recounts from relatively low-ranking military personnel and civil servants (as much of the higher-ranking officials who were with him in the final days either committed suicide just ahead of the Soviet invasion or were shot by the Soviets afterwards,) but its generally accepted that Hitler's loose screws really came undone in the final weeks of the war and he adapted a "gently caress y'all, I'm out - I gave you everything and you hosed it all up" mindset. Geoj fucked around with this message at 05:21 on May 8, 2013 |
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May 8, 2013 05:18
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Geoj posted:IIRC the Nazis had a major redoubt somewhere in the Swiss Alps where they could have conceivably held out for years but never made use of it. There's no clear record of Hitler's final days, as most of the information regarding it was second-hand recounts from relatively low-ranking military personnel and civil servants (as much of the higher-ranking officials who were with him in the final days either committed suicide just ahead of the Soviet invasion or were shot by the Soviets afterwards,) but its generally accepted that Hitler's loose screws really came undone in the final weeks of the war and he adapted a "gently caress y'all, I'm out - I gave you everything and you hosed it all up" mindset. The National Redoubt was a complete myth. Though it actually had a substantial effect on Aliied strategy, since the rumors motivated Allied forces to concentrate on the Alps, rather than rushing for Berlin like some had planned to. Yeah, Hitler pretty much flipped his poo poo at the end (though he was already making some pretty questionable decisions, see the Ardennes Offensive, for one). When he found out about Goering's secret negotiations with the Allies, he went ballistic. That and just blaming everyone around him for "betraying" him. If anyone's interested in reading more about Hitler's last days, James O'Donnell's The Bunker is quite good, though some of the books peripheral details (like Speer's claim he planned to murder Hitler) are questionable. Cornellius Ryan's The Last Battle touches on the last days in the Fuherbunker, as well as Berlin's fate in general. Then there's the excellent film Downfall, which I highly recommend.
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May 8, 2013 09:35
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Tell me about the Catholic Church's role in Nazi antisemitism leading up to the war, the Church's interaction with escaping Jews and the Church's interaction with the Nazi high command. Please.
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May 9, 2013 05:35
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Happy Victory Day folks!
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May 9, 2013 07:51
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Was there any dicking around during the Victory parade in Moscow? I know in France African soldiers were screwed out of the parade so the white boys who barely fought could march, was there any similar thing in the Soviet case?
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May 9, 2013 08:59
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Mans posted:Was there any dicking around during the Victory parade in Moscow? I know in France African soldiers were screwed out of the parade so the white boys who barely fought could march, was there any similar thing in the Soviet case? Considering the alleged Vodka consumption I don't think there was any time for racism.
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May 9, 2013 13:08
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Mans posted:Was there any dicking around during the Victory parade in Moscow? I know in France African soldiers were screwed out of the parade so the white boys who barely fought could march, was there any similar thing in the Soviet case? I read some memoirs where an officer from border guard forces got a request to send some people to the parade, and one of the requirements was a height of 175 cm or higher. He complained that there were no men in his unit that would meet that requirement, since being tall is a disadvantage when you want to be stealthy. He didn't say if the requirement was lifted or if his unit got shafted, though.
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May 9, 2013 17:40
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Its Miller Time posted:Tell me about the Catholic Church's role in Nazi antisemitism leading up to the war, the Church's interaction with escaping Jews and the Church's interaction with the Nazi high command. Please. There is an extensive Wikipedia article on the Vatican in World War II. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vatican_City_during_World_War_II There is also a play that is extremely critical of the Vatican called The Deputy. While it's not source material, being raised Roman Catholic, I'm willing to accept just about any criticism of the church.
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May 10, 2013 18:29
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Not all the way through the thread, but does anyone know anything about Hermann Goering's brother Albert? I read over on Cracked that he helped a lot of Jews, but I don't really trust them as a source. A book about him or something would be great.
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May 16, 2013 11:03
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The book Thirty Four by William Hastings Burke seems to be what you're looking for but I've never read it so no idea on how good it is.
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May 16, 2013 17:59
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Its Miller Time posted:Tell me about the Catholic Church's role in Nazi antisemitism leading up to the war, the Church's interaction with escaping Jews and the Church's interaction with the Nazi high command. Please. The movie "Amen." (wikipedia link) also addresses this, and it was apparently based off that play "The Deputy."
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May 17, 2013 07:01
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Jedi Knight Luigi posted:The movie "Amen." (wikipedia link) also addresses this, and it was apparently based off that play "The Deputy." I can't speak to the larger Vatican-Nazi relations, but while this movie is loosely based on the real-life story of SS officer Kurt Gerstein it is largely fictional. Gerstein, the hygiene and sanitation officer who witnessed mass gassing at Belzec and transported Zyklon B to Auschwitz, was stridently anti-Nazi and tried on numerous occasions to spread news of the genocide to those he felt he could trust, including several clergy members, a Swedish diplomat and a member of the Dutch underground. Unfortunately since Gerstein died in jail in 1945 the chronology of his wartime activities is still a bit unclear in some areas. It appears that Gerstein attempted to visit the papal nuncio of Berlin, Cesare Orsenigo, in 1941 (or possibly early '42) to tell him about the mass extermination of Jews but was refused entry to the nuncio's office. He did, however, find an auxiliary bishop who found his reports credible and fulfilled his request in sending the information to the Vatican on his behalf. It doesn't appear they responded. One certain thing is that around this time word was spreading to the German clergy about mass murder. In late 1941 Margarete Sommer, assistant to Bishop of Berlin Konrad von Preysing, prepared an eyewitness account of the Kovno massacres and distributed it widely among German bishops and likely to other anti-Nazi clergy members in the city. Roughly 18,000 Jews were murdered in these open-air shootings between July and October 1941. It's possible this information reached Orsenigo, but he was ardently anti-Semitic and fascist in leanings and his German assistant was a Nazi party member, so it likely fell on deaf ears. MothraAttack fucked around with this message at 07:57 on May 17, 2013 |
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May 17, 2013 07:46
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I want to sustain this thread because it's fantastic. Based on this thread I've bought The Bunker, and I wanted to recommend a few of my favourite sources to help any amateur history fans who might be keen. Dan Carlin's Hardcore History podcast - Ghosts of the Ostfront. This is an excellent introduction to the Russian front. I've listened through a bunch of times and always enjoy the atmosphere that Carlin creates. He's a great storyteller. If you're ever trying to get someone into WW2 history who is hesitant, this is a very good first experience. Currently reading Hugh Trevor-Roper's The Last Days of Hitler, which was first published in 1947. The author was a British intelligence officer who turned a report on Hitler's death into a bestselling book. It's well written and researched and kind of mindblowing to read an account by someone who personally explored Hitler's bunker. Recently read Joachim Fest's Inside Hitler's Bunker. This is my favourite book on Hitler and National Socialism. He presents a view on Nazism I hadn't fully considered - believing it to be basically a front for nihilistic pieces of poo poo who lived for one reason - to destroy. Would love some other recommendations of books in the same vein. I'm at work so I can't quote my favourite passage, but will edit it in tonight. Anyway, keep it up, it's been a pleasure reading through this thread over the last few days. Thanks a lot, everyone. edit: Here's part of the chapter 'The will to destroy' from the Fest book. quote:"The intent to demolish had always been Hitler’s first and preferred course of action, an expression of his true voice. Peace Frog fucked around with this message at 13:40 on Jun 9, 2013 |
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Jun 9, 2013 06:23
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Peace Frog posted:I want to sustain this thread because it's fantastic. Based on this thread I've bought The Bunker, and I wanted to recommend a few of my favourite sources to help any amateur history fans who might be keen. I had a good buddy of mine that I trust pretty thoroughly recommend Dan Carlin the other day with a sterling review. I'm hoping someone else adds a recommendation because third time's a charm in my book.
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Jun 9, 2013 08:44
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I listened to it a couple of years ago and it was excellent.
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Jun 9, 2013 14:11
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Yeah throwing in a recommendation for Dan Carlin as well. He just has a particular style that really makes you feel like you're getting into the heads of the people he's describing, and more than once I've had to stop what I was doing, close my eyes and just feel what was going on in whichever story he was narrating.
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Jun 9, 2013 16:29
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So what's the verdict among historians (or whomever) about what proportion of the Germans were sincere believers in the Nazi cause, even to the point of wanting all Jews dead? Did Hitler radicalize a hatred that many Germans already nurtured?
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Jun 10, 2013 01:47
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Vivian Darkbloom posted:So what's the verdict among historians (or whomever) about what proportion of the Germans were sincere believers in the Nazi cause, even to the point of wanting all Jews dead? Did Hitler radicalize a hatred that many Germans already nurtured? The typical consensus would be that a significant minority of Germans were true believers, only a vanishingly small group were actively opposed to Nazism, and the remaining majority of Germans went along with the program to avoid any legal or social unpleasantness. There's not a precise figure, since at the time the Nazis were in power no one would admit to opposing them, and once they were out everyone in Germany denied ever having supported them. Daniel Goldhagen had a revisionist take on this in "Hitler's Willing Executioners" in which he argued that the German people were uniquely antisemitic and were self-aware and enthusiastic participants in the Holocaust, which was rather roughly dismantled by other historians of the Third Reich. One of them, Christopher Browning, is generally better-regarded by the profession. His take was that German conservatives were supportive of Nazi antisemitism up to the point of the Nuremberg Laws but left to their own devices would not have gone beyond them to the point of deporting German Jews, let alone murdering them. By co-opting the machinery of the state the minority of ardent Nazis was able to get it done, while the balance of the population willfully ignored what was happening.
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Jun 10, 2013 02:38
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That, and it's worth keeping in mind that the Nazi cause was way more than just 'Kill all the Jews'. The 'Make <YourNationHere> Strong' narrative tends to be pretty attractive.
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Jun 10, 2013 07:17
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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What was the official flag of Germany during the War? The swastika is the symbol of Nazism and all, but I always just assumed it was just the flag of the Nazi Party itself and not the actual national flag during the war until I realised I had no idea what the national flag actually was.
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Jun 10, 2013 10:29
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The Swastika flag. Apparently I can't embed the vector images wiki uses, so I'll just link it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Germany#Nazi_Germany The naval jack was a little different, but similar story: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:War_Ensign_of_Germany_1938-1945.svg PittTheElder fucked around with this message at 19:13 on Jun 10, 2013 |
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Jun 10, 2013 19:11
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Was there any real thing as the Madagascar plan, to move all the Jewish people from Germany there, or was it just a lie/clusterfuck/rumor from the start?
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Jun 17, 2013 03:27
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Cowslips Warren posted:Was there any real thing as the Madagascar plan, to move all the Jewish people from Germany there, or was it just a lie/clusterfuck/rumor from the start? It was definitely a plan that was being worked on, but it didn't get very far. For it to work the Germans would have had to have dealt with the Royal Navy. Since that was a no-go, the plan was abandoned in favor of enslavement and the Final Solution.
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Jun 17, 2013 03:33
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Cowslips Warren posted:Was there any real thing as the Madagascar plan, to move all the Jewish people from Germany there, or was it just a lie/clusterfuck/rumor from the start? No, it was a thing for sure. It seems the Nazi's were willing to just deport the Jews to somewhere, and they assumed the other powers of the world (namely, Britain) would be happy to go along with this, the Jews being Jews and all. Of course, they never had any real ability to carry it out, for the reason Gumby gave. And then onwards to the Final Solution. Actually, I wonder if anyone has any writing from the Nazi head staff on the topic. I wonder if they thought deporting the Jews to Russia/America/wherever would be a good idea, owing to their belief that the Jews would destroy the people of those nations from within somehow, like they had done to noble Germany.
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Jun 17, 2013 05:19
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One semi popular plan was to simply send all Jewish people into the wastes of Siberia after Germany was done conquering Russia. In the hope that everyone would starve and/or freeze to death.PittTheElder posted:and they assumed the other powers of the world (namely, Britain) would be happy to go along with this, the Jews being Jews and all. Hitler absolutely adored Britain and everything about it and for a long time he hoped for an alliance with Britain. The reason Hess went to the UK to try to broker a peace deal was because he knew this and was trying to "work towards the Fuhrer".
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Jun 17, 2013 07:08
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Plus, y'know, Nazi Germany being a clusterfuck of competing agencies. At least they didn't have the Army and Navy murdering one another a la Imperial Japan.
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Jun 17, 2013 07:14
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Interesting that this came up as I was just reading up on a movie called "the flat" that popped up on Netflix that deals with this. The movie is about an SS officer, Leopold von Mildenstein who investigated sending the Jews to Palestine pre-war to create a Zionist state. According to the wiki article he eventually fell out of favor and saw his job taken over by Reinhard Heydrich who decided that it was just easier to kill them.
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Jun 17, 2013 07:27
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FreudianSlippers posted:Hitler absolutely adored Britain and everything about it and for a long time he hoped for an alliance with Britain. The reason Hess went to the UK to try to broker a peace deal was because he knew this and was trying to "work towards the Fuhrer". Yeah, I know. Which doesn't make any sense of course, but if the Nazis had been capable of rational analysis, they wouldn't have been the Nazis! 
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Jun 17, 2013 19:04
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What was the composition of the Weimer Republic's political structure? You had the Presidential election, and then separately the Reichstag elections both in run off voting. Is the Chancellor the representative of the majority party in the Reichstag or is he appointed by the President? I know Hitler was appointed by President Hindenburg but that was after the Reichstag was basically made defunct by the conservative element around HIndenburg so I don't know if that's how it was always done.
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Jun 19, 2013 01:55
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The Weimar Republic's political system was something like an attempt to create a republic without dramatically altering the structure that had existed under the German Empire. As such continuity with the civil service, judiciary, constituent states, and so on was maintained as much as possible. For example, even though the monarchy had been abolished and the various kings and dukes of the German states were deposed, nearly all the states continued as political entities under the Republic. This was because the leadership of the republic that emerged from the German Revolution was a centrist coalition consisting of the Catholic Center Party, the moderate (pro war) Social Democratic Party, and the liberal German Democratic Party. The politicians who created the Weimar Republic actively opposed attempts to effect real revolutionary change on German society and politics and in fact made common cause with the right wing paramilitary Freikorps to defeat the left-wing revolutionaries who were trying to do so. The President functioned as something like an elected Kaiser, particularly during a national emergency, in which case the constitution enabled him to essentially rule by decree (Article 48). The Weimar Republic spent a considerable portion of its brief lifetime under such emergencies. Among his ordinary powers was responsibility for asking the leader of whatever party happened to have a workable coalition in the Reichstag to form a government. The chancellor did not have much power as an office in itself, but was more like the leader of the Reichstag, exercising power through that control of the legislature. By 1930 the party system had destabilized to the point that there was no workable coalition, so Hindenburg simply appointed Brüning of the Center Party Chancellor. Brüning bypassed the legislative gridlock by simply preparing decrees that Hindenburg then issued under Article 48. In theory the excessive power of the Reich President was counterbalanced by the powers of the Reichstag, but in practice the President was clearly dominant.
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Jun 19, 2013 03:12
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In summary, gently caress Bruning and Van Papen to hell.
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Jun 19, 2013 06:11
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Pretty much. You should probably also keep Hindenburg on that list. And the American financial elite too really. Without the depression, I don't see anyway the Nazis wind up running the show.
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Jun 19, 2013 06:44
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PittTheElder posted:Yeah, I know. Which doesn't make any sense of course, but if the Nazis had been capable of rational analysis, they wouldn't have been the Nazis! I know this gets tossed around a lot, but was the whole of the Nazi regime just average men with extraordinary power? That guy from McAfee went crazy in Belize just because he could, right? Was this a whole government of that? The guys at the top were just completely power-mad and delusional, and the vast majority of the people below them were happy to do their bidding because at least they had a job?
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Jun 19, 2013 22:37
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Well, the point of that line is to emphasize the power-mad and delusional part of their personalities. Other than that, relatively regular dudes with lots of power.
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Jun 19, 2013 23:21
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PittTheElder posted:Pretty much. You should probably also keep Hindenburg on that list. The last democratically elected government fell apart over the question whether unemployment insurance should be raised 0.5%. Putting the blame on Brüning and von papen is overly simple, because like it or not, the legislative system had failed completely and everyone was pretty sick of it. When you have elected Reichstag members go "Well a population who elects a gridlocked Parliament doesn't want a democratic government anyway" you're not staying a democratic republic, period.
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Jun 20, 2013 10:34
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Wiki posted:On 15 September 1935, one year after the death of Reich President Paul von Hindenburg and Hitler's elevation to the position of Führer, the dual flag arrangement was ended, with the exclusive use of the Nazi flag as the national flag of Germany. One reason may have been the "Bremen incident" of 26 July 1935, in which a group of demonstrators in New York City boarded the ship, tore the Nazi party flag from the jackstaff and tossed it into the Hudson River. When the German ambassador protested, US officials responded that the German national flag had not been harmed, only a political party symbol. What was the foreign sentiment regarding Nazis in the early years of their rule, e. g. 1935? What about before their rise to power? There were obviously split opinions, on what grounds were foreigners opposing the Nazis and supporting them prior to WW2?
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Jun 20, 2013 13:19
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ArchangeI posted:The last democratically elected government fell apart over the question whether unemployment insurance should be raised 0.5%. It's misleading to suggest that the Müller government fell entirely because of a single bill. With the advent of the Great Depression the Weimar Republic was in a situation where dire economic straits demanded government spending for relief, but Germany's financial obligations to other countries as well as a solid chunk of the Reichstag demanded deflationary austerity policies. In a parliamentary system the government will collapse any time it introduces a bill and then fails to garner a majority, because that demonstrates on its face that they no longer have a majority. The vote on unemployment insurance happened to be when that occurred, but there were any number of issues that coming up in short order on which the government would have foundered. quote:Putting the blame on Brüning and von papen is overly simple, because like it or not, the legislative system had failed completely and everyone was pretty sick of it. When you have elected Reichstag members go "Well a population who elects a gridlocked Parliament doesn't want a democratic government anyway" you're not staying a democratic republic, period. This eventually became a popular point of view, but it's not actually the case. It comes from people conflating the economic crisis and hyperinflation of early Weimar with the later, unrelated crisis of the Great Depression. In reality Germany had about 5 years of economic stability and relative prosperity in 1924-1929, and the Weimar system was more-or-less adequate during that interval. The Great Depression was what made the government non-functional and caused Germans to flock to the KPD and NSDAP, and it should be said that Germany was hardly alone among the nations in failing to handle the crisis effectively. Moreover, public confidence in the government and the mainstream political parties was severely undermined by, among other things, unelected chancellors abusing Article 48 to force deeply unpopular deflationary legislation on the nation. That is, by Brüning and von Papen. von Papen isn't a very sympathetic character from any angle, but Brüning is somewhat justified because his position was impossible. Germany's reliance on credit from American banks (now foundering) and their obligations for reparations to Britain and France meant that the government did not actually have any kind of freedom of action to deal with what was happening in their economy. Brüning could only follow the lead of other countries as they bungled their response to the global disaster. And from that perspective it actually makes sense to bypass the unresponsive Reichstag and rule by decree, because of dire necessity. I would somewhat compare it to what is currently happening to Greece. ashgromnies posted:What was the foreign sentiment regarding Nazis in the early years of their rule, e. g. 1935? What about before their rise to power? There were obviously split opinions, on what grounds were foreigners opposing the Nazis and supporting them prior to WW2? I don't know that people outside German took the Nazis overly seriously before they were in power. I think that in general they were regarded--not unfairly!--as brutes, thugs, and criminals who would never be able to assemble enough support to participate in government except as the junior member of a coalition. The Nazi appetite from streetfighting was a big part of this, as was their brand of antisemitism. Most politicians, opinion-makers, and other members of the international elite were at least somewhat antisemitic at that time, but the Nazis were very vocal in their support for unseemly, vulgar, paranoid antisemitism and that made a lot of people contemptuous of them. At that time and for most countries, foreign policy tended to be the province of independently wealthy gentlemen, and consequently the people in Britain, the United States, and so forth, who were responsible for forming opinions of the Nazis were a large social step above them. After the Nazis began to draw more and more support, people had to take them seriously and give them a second look. Around this time the conservative German elite (i.e. officer corps, aristocrats, industrialist) began to see them as a group of people with whom they could work. They did not believe that Hitler or the Nazis were sophisticated enough to run the country on their own but rather they could be used as a broad base of support through which congenial policies could be enacted. The attitude in other countries was similar. At that time in history the Soviet Union and the international Communist movement were seen as the main threat to world peace and fiercely anticommunist leaders like Hitler or Mussolini were well-regarded by the ruling class. The attitude of somebody like Winston Churchill towards Hitler around, say, 1934 would have been that he was probably the right man to sort out Germany's problems and deal with all the problems being caused by the Socialists and Communists. At the same time, a lot of the "gentlemen" who made up the ruling class were still unable to take the Nazis too seriously, because a lot of them came off as cranks and buffoons. It don't think it was realized until 1938 that Nazi Germany was the real threat to the international system. There's a book I read not long ago, which is more on the end of popular history though I still found it interesting, "In the Garden of Beasts" by Erik Larson (he also wrote "The Devil in the White City"). It's about William Dodd, FDR's ambassador to Berlin 1933-1937, and his interactions with the Nazi regime. It goes into some detail about all this and is a pretty easy read as well. Meanwhile, Communists had a rather different opinion of the Nazis, for obvious reasons. Before 1933 the line out of Moscow, represented in Germany by the KPD (German Communist Party), was that the Nazis represented something like the death throes of German capitalism. Unable to keep control by relatively genteel political means and with the Great Depression causing widespread misery, the German bourgeoisie was trying to control the working class through street violence and brute appeals to racism; collapse would soon follow. By this time the KPD and the SPD (Social Democrats) were bitterly opposed, largely due to the SPD's often aggressive use of force against Communist activists, and rather than make common cause against the Nazis the KPD was determined to stand back and let everything fall apart, after which I presume they planned to sweep into power. When the Nazis assumed power and quickly suppressed the KPD and SPD both, the USSR realized that they had made a disastrous mistake and they promptly reversed the policy of the Comintern. Communists in the rest of Europe were instructed to form popular fronts with Social Democratic and Liberal parties to help forestall any more countries resorting to Fascism, and to participate in anti-German agitation. This changed again after the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, with the Comintern then being instructed to advocate peace with Germany, and then yet one more time after Germany invaded the USSR, with all the Communist parties going all-in on the Popular Front and support for the war.
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Jun 20, 2013 20:24
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PittTheElder posted:Pretty much. You should probably also keep Hindenburg on that list. I have a hard time blaming Hindenburg. The man was not entirely lucid (senility) and wanted to retire but was fielded primarily because his opponents thought he was the only one capable of defeating Hitler in an election. He personally despised Hitler. I wish we had his will but his son destroyed it. There is a story it instructed Hitler to restore the monarchy but it has never been substantiated. He can be accused of giving Hitler the Chancellorship but he did not have much choice at that point. Legally it should have been safe as the Enabling Act did not allow the Chancellor to interfere with the office or duties of the President. Hitler got around this by combining the two offices and putting the change to the popular vote which passed overwhelmingly. The move was not really legal though no one could realistically challenge it at that point. If Hitler had just run for President the result would have almost certainly been the same in any case.
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Jun 20, 2013 22:12
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EvanSchenck posted:After the Nazis began to draw more and more support, people had to take them seriously and give them a second look. Around this time the conservative German elite (i.e. officer corps, aristocrats, industrialist) began to see them as a group of people with whom they could work. They did not believe that Hitler or the Nazis were sophisticated enough to run the country on their own but rather they could be used as a broad base of support through which congenial policies could be enacted. It's really interesting to work through the literature and find, that the Heeresführung in '41 actually thought that they could "get rid" of the Nazis after winning the war in the east. I fail to see logic in that - Hitler rode on a wave of popularity after France, which made it basically impossible to dispose of him, those guys even lamented that fact while talking about these plan. So how would they want to do that after basically defeating the nazi's archenemy, the SU and legitimizing H. even more? I don't see the argument "we'll be popular too by winning the war" cut it. Such a plan may work someday in a longterm, but it just feels like "well, eventually we'll get there, but for now we're comfortable". Talk about same goals and worldviews of the national-conservative elite. It's really a bloody mess.
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Jun 21, 2013 12:17
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