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EvanSchenck posted:Sweden was vulnerable to German attack because their military would not have been able to resist a German invasion via Denmark and Norway, which were already occupied, and because Swedish iron ore was critical to the German war effort. Anything that imperiled that line of supply would have elicited an aggressive response from Germany. The Swedish government was negatively disposed towards the Nazis but mindful of the fact that they could not survive direct opposition. As a result Sweden aided both sides: the Nazis openly, and the Allies clandestinely. Swedish neutrality was not particularly inspiring or heroic but was in the best interests of the state and its citizens. As far as I know the Swedish government threatened to blow up the mines at Malmberget and Kiruna as well as the railway connection to the harbours in Narvik if Sweden was invaded by either side. That probably made more of a impression then the sub-standard Swedish armed forces.
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Jul 12, 2013 12:51
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Cast_No_Shadow posted:The second is more of an actual question, the war in the east was in no uncertain terms an absolute war, to the end, of extinction. But beyond the logistics of feeding a 3 million man army, was there any reason it absolutely had to include the extermination of undesirable peoples right at the same time? Lets take it as written that the elimination of the Salvic\Russian population was something that, according to the Nazis absolutely had to happen. I don't see any reason, beyond bad judgement and zeal, that it had to be done right this second. If the Nazis were victorious in the war they could have removed them at their leisure. Nothing says you cannot use their help to fight the Soviets and then get rid of them after the war is won. Once you accept that line of reasoning, then looking for other options when it comes to logistics gains validity. It seems to me that, putting moral arguments aside, from a purely strategic perspective it is a mistake that the Nazis made that Stalin did not. Per nazi-ideology, they were sub-humans, and not to be trusted. Their presence actively weakened the war effort, aided the enemy, and ate food the army needed. It's the same justification as when they started exterminating jews, homosexuals, the handicapped etc, years before the war started. A cancer on the body of the state. Also, they wanted their stuff.
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Jul 12, 2013 13:56
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Cast_No_Shadow posted:I have a question, I keep seeing the phrase, "they could have done things differently, but if they did well they wouldn't have been the Nazis". Which seems to make sense on the surface. The racist principles of the Nazi movement were a fundamental part of their ideology. However, I wonder about two points. Also the idea was that the war was to be a crude sort of cover. When people would ask what happened to the x Million Russians and Jews after the war the excuse was going to be "oh yeah, we shipped them all east but due to the fighting/starvation/destruction of infrastructure they all died of totally unavoidable problems sorry." and/or "they were all shot for harbouring partisans" Himmler himself gave a speech where he told his concentration camp goons that they would be the unsung heroes of the German race for doing what had to be done to strengthen the german people but that their work could never be made public. As for your first point we're getting into philosophical discussions of free-will and the relative strength of the "Great Man" theory vs the "broad currents" theory. There are plenty of arguments to be made for all sides but there is no "right" answer. Ferrosol fucked around with this message at 14:26 on Jul 12, 2013 |
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Jul 12, 2013 14:23
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Seven Hundred Bee posted:This was because of the fact that during the war, the American military leadership was virulently anti-Semitic. That's not to say they applauded the extermination of the Jews, but to them the war effort was to restrain Hitler and liberate France - rescuing Jews was a waste of time and resources: why bother saving a population of criminals and communists? What are the reasons behind this? Why did American leadership characterize Jews that way, and how did that understanding change over time?
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Jul 12, 2013 15:13
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Cast_No_Shadow posted:I have a question, I keep seeing the phrase, "they could have done things differently, but if they did well they wouldn't have been the Nazis". Which seems to make sense on the surface. The racist principles of the Nazi movement were a fundamental part of their ideology. However, I wonder about two points. There are several reasons why they would move to exterminate these groups rigth from the start. Ideologically, the Nazis ascribed the defeat in WWI to the crumbling of the homefront - with famine as a major factor. So by 1940, when the guys at the Reichsernährungsministerium go through their numbers and projections for the last years and the coming years, they dramatically fall short of the basics. By that time it was clear that something was coming up against Russia, then there was that idea about the fertility of the Ukraine (which proved quite wrong) and some cooked up numbers of how much that would yield. So Backe in his function gets to meet all the important guys like Generalquartiermeister Wagner, Göring, etc.; If we keep in mind everything else that I already said, the projections at least showed, that it would be impossible to keep the soldiers fed via these distances and circumstances. From the operational perspective it was clear that the war in the east had to be executed with the utmost speed, therefore the troops had to be completely supplied with food directly off the land (and the surplus that fitted into the empty freight rolling back into the Reich was for Germany to support the living standard. What was left after that was the stuff that the local *working* population had to make do with). The logistic reason for that decision was, that the transportational infrasturcture in western Russia was practically non existant, left for some neural centres that were connected by railway (that had to be adjusted for german track width). There were practically no fortified roads, at best, what was labeled as roads were a dirt tracks. Incapable of carrying large numbers of trucks when rain set in. So you see that the lifeline that supplied the troops with ammo, fuel and supplies that couldn't be obtained on the run was very vulnerable and on it's own prone to logistical problems, as everything that ran via rail had to be timed perfectly. You meant other reasons than logistics, but it was certainly meaningful to elaborate this. The other grand reason is of ideological nature, but always connected to the operational planing: What follows next in the planing is at least 2 pronged. First, you have the Einsatzgruppen and Einsatzkommandos, that were tasked to kill anyone suspected as partisans, which I already mentioned meant Jews (as the carrier of Bolshevism in the Nazi's worldview.), but also cadres of the communist party. Basically this was sold to the OKH as effort to keep everything running smoothly, but as we read here already, the officer's corp was hardly less antisemitic (and anticommunists) than the Nazis themselves. So no meaningful objections here. It's useful to remind yourself, that each agency connected certain practical tasks with their own intentions, and in case of the SS and Himmler, it's quite obvious what that was. Anyway, for the OKW and OKH you can google the speech that Hitler held for his Generals on the 30.March 1941 The 2nd prong was the decision to basically authorize the common soldier with power over life and death of the civilians with what in the german literature is called "Verbrecherische Befehle" or criminal orders, 5 of them, each more radical than the last. That speech that I mentioned before was described as a framework for these orders. From what I've understood, next to the obvious ideological hogwash it was sold to the common soldier and the troop leaders via the widespread fear of partisans. That was partly ideologically fueled by the formula that I already mentioned, but also by the strategical problems that partisans posed for the logistics and the helplessness of the leadership of how to deal with them (This issue dates back to the 1870s war, but more recently the officer's experience in WWI Belgium). So, anyway, H. manages to get the Wehrmacht involved, you have the Einsatzgruppen and various local Hiwis. So, like you said. These "what if" questions make no sense, since you'd eliminate all the premises that the decisions based on "Weltanschauung" put in motion. The war was planned in terms of ideology. Not in a pragmatic fashion as e.g. the campaign against France. Every rule was swept aside in the stage of planning to assure the chance of victory. This wasn't just a total war, but a war of annihilation, where it was clear and agreed upon from the outset, that millions of civilians and pows would die. Power Khan fucked around with this message at 17:05 on Jul 12, 2013 |
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Jul 12, 2013 16:44
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Cast_No_Shadow posted:I have a question, I keep seeing the phrase, "they could have done things differently, but if they did well they wouldn't have been the Nazis". Which seems to make sense on the surface. The racist principles of the Nazi movement were a fundamental part of their ideology. However, I wonder about two points. For your first question, you're absolutely right, its just that when discussing the nazis for some reason they inspire many "what-if" questions, which the answers usually boil down to the then they wouldn't be nazis quote. For your second question, the German economy was basically a facade. Hitlers rearmament program would have destroyed the nations economy if he wasn't able to steal gold, money and resources from the countries conquered. The racism you bring up, combined with the need of taking everything the conquered territory had, leads to the slaughter of Slavic peoples so that in addition to not feeding them it is also easier to steal what they have. When Speer comes to power in 1942 he starts demanding more and more workers to get the war economy somewhat functional, leading the nazis switching to using POWs and other peoples of the occupied territories as slave labor to make up the man power shortage.
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Jul 12, 2013 16:54
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Cast_No_Shadow posted:I have a question, I keep seeing the phrase, "they could have done things differently, but if they did well they wouldn't have been the Nazis". Which seems to make sense on the surface. The racist principles of the Nazi movement were a fundamental part of their ideology. However, I wonder about two points. Don't think of that line as an appeal to determinism, because that's not really what it is. It's more than so many of the "what-ifs" around the Nazis relate to them not being dicks to particular groups (scientists, Poles, Balts, Slavs of various flavours), which would run completely contrary to Nazi ideology, and they weren't known for being pragmatic. The questions just don't make any sense. But there's a million more "what-if" questions you can ask. Really Julius Caesar does falls into a similar boat. What we know about the guy, and the absolutely toxic political climate really means that he had to do something at least similar to that. You could add all sorts of minor distinctions in what he does of course, including exactly what he does with his power. But assuming that level of power is pretty much a given; if he had been willing to relinquish power within the political system, he never would have fought a civil war against Pompey over who got to be in charge.
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Jul 12, 2013 17:47
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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MothraAttack posted:I would be interesting in learning about the Belarussian occupation, though. What was the general Nazi outlook for the fate of Belarussians? How serious was the attempt to build an extermination camp at Mogilev? In the initial economic planning for the occupied territories, there was a distinction between areas that had an overproduction of foodstuffs and areas that were mostly consumers ("Zuschussgebiete"). Belorussia was considered to be an area of "overconsumption", as the geography is largely swampy and forested. In my last post I have already mentioned the logistical considerations, as what was there to be harvested in foodstuffs was hierachically distributed. First choice goes to the troops, what's left after that goes to Germany according to transport capacity, after subtracting this the local *working* population gets few with what's left, etc. POWs and jews were all the way down the list. The initial planning is more vivid in my memory, there are dairy notes left of the guy that was to govern that occupied part of the soviet union. It showed that they planned to let the big cities starve to leave the countryside only with the task of supplying foodstuffs. Of course that was a pretty stupid and unrealistic idea. E.g. who would organize the population and work once they shot all the intellectuals and the members of the administration (which they did)? What would happen to the local markets? Who would supply tools for the workers? A few weeks into the occupation that policy gets dropped. I recall reading the reports back and forth. It's really astonishingly deluded. What was left in place was that hierarchical order or supplying food, that would stay for a few years, officially at some time by 1943 or end 1942 the rations of the civilians and pow workers were adjusted to the level of german citizens, but in reality stayed far behind that, as the army was sucking up everything. I cannot give a detailed account of such a camp at Mogilev as it slipped from my memory, but Mogilev is a name that will make your blood freeze if you read into what was done there and the area surrounding it. It's basically a ground zero for what was to come in terms of shootings, but also it was the place where the germans kept most gas waggons. Gerlach mentioned several reports and considerations why Mogilev was ruled out as a place for such a camp, but I forgot what that was. The requirements were unpopulated spots along train lines, but not within centers where the main transports ran. Sidings so to speak. I suppose the consideration of the threat that partisans posed in more populated areas were a reason too. An example for such early camps is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maly_Trostenets_extermination_camp , a place where most exclusively Austrian jews were murdered (nearly every jew from Austria that went east at that time, ended up there). Mogilev is actually a very interesting question, I'll look it up when I find time. e: I completely forgot, that Himmler came to Mogilev to witness the shootings there. After that and seeing how it affected the men, he moved to look for other means of murder. Power Khan fucked around with this message at 18:19 on Jul 12, 2013 |
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Jul 12, 2013 17:49
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Michael Scott posted:What are the reasons behind this? Why did American leadership characterize Jews that way, and how did that understanding change over time? Historically, Christians had despised Jews because Jews had not only rejected their Messiah, but murdered Him. This meant that anti-semitism was baked into the DNA of European identity. If you have the time, I very strongly recommend the PBS series Heritage: Civlization and the Jews (episode 1 on YouTube). Also the book has some more pictures and stuff that couldn't fit into a 9 hour TV series. One of the most interesting pictures in the book was a stele indicating Jerusalem being destroyed by the Sea Peoples. The Sea Peoples waged a 30+ year war to destroy every city in the Bronze Age world. They burnt every city except Memphis and Thebes, and many cities were destroyed more than once. They are a fascinating people who came from many different regions (some came from regions we now call the Baltic and Afghanistan) and waged a war that lasted longer than the average lifespan. They never settled in the regions that they destroyed and if they never conquered the entire Mediterrean/Middle East, then neither the Romans, Greeks, Persians and Phonetians would have ever existed. They weakened the Egyptians so much that that when the Greeks came to power hundreds of years later, the Egyptians could not stop the Greeks from conquering Egypt. A book that described the Sea Peoples with some hypotheses for who and what they were is Drew's The End of the Bronze Age. The first part of institutionalized anti-Semitism changed after WW2 when actual evidence of the Nazi atrocities became public. In the beginning, many felt the tales about death camps were propaganda like the Belgian atrocities - staged and faked photographs that later turned out to have been British propaganda to get the US and others involved in WW1. This is similar to why people didn't believe the stories coming out of the Soviet Union about the gulags and Stalin's purges. Instead of being propaganda, the Nazi atrocities turned out to be horribly true and mass murder on a scale that shocked everyone. And it took more time for the Soviet atrocities to come to light, and even more time to become credible. There were a number of cases where shiploads of Jews were refused permission to unload in the US, and they were sent back to their deaths at the hands of the Nazis. The St Louis was probably the most widely known of these. In short, guilty feelings from the Holocaust lead to a softening of anti Jewish sentiment in the US. The later part came about due to the rise of evangelicals in the GOP and the rise of neoconservatism. This later part has tied America intimately with Israel. One SA thread on this subject is here. I strongly recommend the Brad Hicks posts 1 2 3 4 5 linked in that first post. Explaining how evangelicalism and neoconservatism came to conquer the GOP would take books to explain. Many evangelical organizations were followers of British Israelism. This is the belief that England and America were the direct descendants of the lost tribes of Israel and thus we are "exceptional" and "blessed" by God. This is the source of most American Exceptionalism: that We The People are God's Chosen to spread democracy throughout the world. One of the more influential books on this subject was distributed by Worldwide Church of God, who used to publish The Plain Truth and had several TV and radio shows, titled The United States and Britain in Prophecy (210 page PDF, other versions). British-Israelism was also made more popular by the Left Behind series of books. WWCoG was one of the big proponents of "end times" theology, without which the Left Behind series would not have existed. In this eschatology, the The neoconservative movement in the US was started by Leo Strauss and was based on Greek philosophy (pretty much just Plato and Aristotle) and medieval Jewish philosophers (mostly Maimonides). Most of the advisors of Presidents Reagan and GW Bush were neoconservatives who studied under Strauss. When their movement became public, they tried to distance themselves from public scrutiny by claiming "neoconservatism is another name for anti-semitism" while carefully ignoring that they chose the name for themselves. One of Leo Strauss' major claims is that politicians must lie to the public in order to "protect" the public. The documentary The Power of Nightmares compares the rise of Neoconservatism and Muslim Brotherhood. Without Strauss, neoconservatism never would have existed. Without Qutb, Muslim Brotherhood (and Al Qeda) never would have existed. Online video.
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Jul 12, 2013 19:26
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PittTheElder posted:Don't think of that line as an appeal to determinism, because that's not really what it is. It's more than so many of the "what-ifs" around the Nazis relate to them not being dicks to particular groups (scientists, Poles, Balts, Slavs of various flavours), which would run completely contrary to Nazi ideology, and they weren't known for being pragmatic. The questions just don't make any sense. But there's a million more "what-if" questions you can ask. "But then they wouldn't be the Nazis" isn't intended to be an argument, it's just a pat phrase to dismiss the question on grounds of plausibility. To explain it in a little more depth I guess I would say... Dealing with questions of counterfactual history, you have to draw a distinction between "for want of a nail" scenarios regarding an event seemingly contingent on random chance, and scenarios where you want to alter large decisions made by an individual or group at a specific moment in time. In the first case there are definitely cases where the course of history might have been drastically altered by a change in the outcome of an event that could easily have gone a different way, particularly in war. In the second case, though, people usually do not arrive at momentous decisions on a whim, but rather as a extended process of reasoning through the circumstances in which they find themselves. And we often have a pretty good idea of why a particular decision was made instead of a suggested alternative. Unless the circumstances leading up to it are materially different in some way (perhaps altered by that missing nail), asking "why didn't they do Y instead of X" isn't a great question. As people have been explaining, Nazi Germany wanted to expand eastward so that they could clear desirable lands of their inhabitants and resettle them with Germans. This was their primary reason for invading the USSR, among other secondary reasons such as stamping out communism--by exterminating communists and Jews, naturally. Therefore it makes no sense to ask whether they could have invaded the USSR and refrained from trying to kill or enslave everybody they saw. That is the very reason they invaded.
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Jul 12, 2013 20:17
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InspectorBloor posted:Bunch of awesome information. It looks like Gerlach co-wrote a piece on it -- "Failure of Plans for an SS Extermination Camp in Mogilev, Belorussia," 1997, Oxford University Press. If you have academic access, which I don't, it's probably worth checking out. I do know that Topf und Söhne even sent a furnace to the site, but I think it wound up being sent for use in Birkenau or something. Also absolutely horrific at Mogilev was the one-time attempt to use explosives for mass killings.
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Jul 13, 2013 06:50
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I just downloaded the pdf. The reason why the idea for a camp at Mogilev was dropped was that the railway network was overstrained, so they planned to ship the jews up the Bug and Dnjepr, but the waterway and the facilities were damaged by fighting (the Soviets blew up a dam at Dniepropetrovsk, which resulted in a drop of the waterline in the canal) and were overburdened with freigth transports. Also they were constant targets of partisan activity. It seems that Mogilev was a place where they intended to bring some big economic plans to bear for the waterways, but that failed as there was a shortage of ships and railway engines. Another factor that made them rule out the ship option was, that the canal froze by late fall and began to thaw only in spring. By Summer 1942 the Dnjepr-Bug canal was completely paralyzed by partisans. In the end, the plans for an extermination camp at Mogilev failed because the deportation plans there failed, and because of the resistance of the Red Army. Apparently the ovens that were ordered were of a capacity of 3000 bodies per day. They were for a rather unknown camp at Mogilev that was under the controll of the HSSPF (under von dem Bach-Zelewski), not Einsatzgruppe B. This camp was initially used to gather up displaced persons or refugees, or vagabonds as it was called, for anti-partisan measures. Himmler's visit from 23. to 25 October seems to have put new plans in motion, but it is not exactly clear to what end, it seems to have been an order to look for new, "more humane" methods of killing. His visit only marks the moment of the decision, but the use of gas was mentioned and tested earlier by August 1941 on jewish women in Latvia. There is also a mention of the experiments with explosives that you refered to. Apparently this was carried out on inmates of a psychiatric asylum from Novinki. Then there's the gassings with exhaust fumes that we already mentioned, and some reference to the "Kanzlei des Führers" that I brought up, who the Kriminaltechnisches Institut that was tasked with that research (as they were with T4) reportet to. Apparently there was a group of bureaucrats there tasked with this specific assignment. Power Khan fucked around with this message at 11:13 on Jul 13, 2013 |
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Jul 13, 2013 10:18
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Huttan posted:As he wrote in Mein Kampf, Hitler truly believed that in a war against Communism, that England and America would be natural allies of the Nazis. You sure about that? Wages of Destruction makes a strong argument that Hitler saw the US as the second greatest threat to MASTER RACE SUPREMACY (and Britain as the only true major inevitable ally of Team Germany). Which isn't incompatible with a global anti-commie war, I guess.
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Jul 13, 2013 15:45
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One interesting counterfactual I've wondered about is, what if Röhm won the Nazi Party's internal power struggle in 1934? No Night of the Long Knives, the SA becoming the new Reichswehr, implementing the "second revolution", would it have caused the course of history to be that different? Was it something that "was always going to happen" or was it something that could have been avoided if, say, Röhm wasn't gay?
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Jul 13, 2013 16:23
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GreyjoyBastard posted:You sure about that? Wages of Destruction makes a strong argument that Hitler saw the US as the second greatest threat to MASTER RACE SUPREMACY (and Britain as the only true major inevitable ally of Team Germany). Well Hitler believed that the US was controlled by the Jewish conspiracy to gently caress over Germany so it's all the same to him.
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Jul 13, 2013 17:31
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The Monkey Man posted:What did the Ku Klux Klan think of the Nazis? Did they object to fighting them in World War II? It's not that the KKK liked the Nazis, it's more about the hypocrisy of the US government and people complaining in a high-minded way about {x group being oppressed by a foreign country} while still turning a blind eye to lynchings and Jim Crow in the South. It was a common theme of the Soviet Union in the 50s and 60s, as well.
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Jul 13, 2013 18:17
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Konstantin posted:One interesting counterfactual I've wondered about is, what if Röhm won the Nazi Party's internal power struggle in 1934? No Night of the Long Knives, the SA becoming the new Reichswehr, implementing the "second revolution", would it have caused the course of history to be that different? Was it something that "was always going to happen" or was it something that could have been avoided if, say, Röhm wasn't gay? Hitler over time eliminated any threat to his power, which is quite a natural mechanic to any dictator, but at that time he was far from having absolute power (that happened, actually pretty late, at around mid 1943). So as you probably read, the SA was the only thing inside the party that could've posed a threat to H., but that doesn't mean that the SA was something that could've endangered the powerstructure of Germany at that time. It was very clear to see who had the real hard power. The SA becoming the new Reichswehr was never going to happen, the power of the old national-conservative elites was unbroken at that time and H. had to appease the military and broker a deal. The Generalstab basically could've wiped out the movement at whim if they wanted to up to after France (which they almost did, facing H. back and forth when starting the war). The success in the west meant that H. popularity made him untouchable. There was talk that the Generalstab wanted to remove H. after being done with Russia, but I can't follow the reasoning behind that argument. H. was never a friend of the revolutionary wing of his movement, it was a more functional relation that became a burden once he got into office and had to deal with the established powerstructures. The remarkable thing about this man is, that he managed to subvert the system with very great determination and stamina. e: Since you mentioned it: Homosexuality wasn't such a big deal if you didn't practice it too openly. Even in the SS. If you had the wrong enemies on the other hand....Himmler kept files about any bigger rival in his safe. Seemingly looking away was a great way to be able to blackmail the person sooner or later when a favor was needed. With Röhm it was just a pretense and a welcome means to discredit him in public. Power Khan fucked around with this message at 19:31 on Jul 13, 2013 |
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Jul 13, 2013 19:13
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My wife randomly watched a documentary about five descendants of prominent nazis the other night - "Hitler's Children" (also available on instant queue) on Netflix. It was pretty interesting. I especially liked the son of Hans Frank, who took a complete  stance towards anyone who was even remotely sympathetic to the nazi movement, including his own siblings who (as he states in the documentary) attempted to deny the holocaust by claiming the math of number killed vs. how quickly you could burn bodies didn't line up and therefore was a vast conspiracy. Its a pretty good documentary if you have an hour to burn.
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Jul 14, 2013 05:27
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InspectorBloor posted:Apparently the ovens that were ordered were of a capacity of 3000 bodies per day. They were for a rather unknown camp at Mogilev that was under the controll of the HSSPF (under von dem Bach-Zelewski), not Einsatzgruppe B. This camp was initially used to gather up displaced persons or refugees, or vagabonds as it was called, for anti-partisan measures. Much thanks, that makes sense. One point I'm confused on are the ovens. Were they for the same camp at Mogilev that Himmler visited, where gas vans were in action? Or, rather, what was the difference between camps controlled by the HSSPF and the Einsatzgruppe B? Anyway, thanks again. One interesting point you mention is the freezing of the canal. Just how poor was German intelligence to not factor something like this in? More broadly, how intimate was German knowledge of Soviet geography and topography?
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Jul 14, 2013 09:14
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MothraAttack posted:Much thanks, that makes sense. One point I'm confused on are the ovens. Were they for the same camp at Mogilev that Himmler visited, where gas vans were in action? Or, rather, what was the difference between camps controlled by the HSSPF and the Einsatzgruppe B? Anyway, thanks again. Himmler also visited Dulag 185, which was a big pow camp close by. This visit to Mogilev was probably meant to cover several issues. The ovens were meant for the camp that I mentioned, but the use of the camp wasn't rigth away for extermination - it was just a structure that was there already and that could be used (it was also close to a factory complex that was planned to house the gas chambers). Those early camps weren't much more than an open space with barbed wire around and mgs on 4 corners. At first it was meant for the policeforce that the germans brought with them, which was affiliated to the SS. They'd gather up and screen vagabonds and shoot them (or probably hand them over to the SD) if they looked suspicious. I don't know too much about the Einsatzgruppen, but they were a relatively small taskforce that would move in and do the executions after the wehrmacht or SS troops locked down the area and the policeforce screened anyone they found there. It's rather confusing, as the police would also do lots of executions (and the Wehrmacht too sometimes) if men were needed, but any bigger operation (shooting loads of civilians) would generally fall to the Einsatzgruppen. I honestly have no idea about the organisational subdivisions, but those things are certainly on the internet somewhere if you want to look it up. E.g. the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) would screen the pow camps for commisaires and jews and identify hiwis. Then there's the division between Einsatzkommandos and Einsatzgruppen, which had something to do with the proximity to the area of operation of the Heer. The details about Himmler's visit are sparse, but it is known that he watched several executions. I'm not 100% sure about the gas waggons, but I'd suppose so. How was the German intelligence? The guy who was used for the idea with the ships antagonized alot of people (he got thrown out of the SS some time before and he pulled alot of other strings to get the job), so it might have been that they didn't supply him all informations, "Dienst nach Vorschrift" so to speak and let him run aground. He also didn't seem to be overly capable. From what I've read, the intelligence could be pretty good, but it's another story that the right information reaches the rigth people in time, and they'd migth not belive it's validity. By the way, I often came across several estimates by the Gernalstab and various sources that the war in the east would be done in 4 to 10 weeks. There was a wealth of information about a realistical estimate about the strength of the red army, but those in charge didn't take notice of that for ideological reasons. Power Khan fucked around with this message at 11:05 on Jul 14, 2013 |
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Jul 14, 2013 10:52
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So this is a bit of a bump and I hope that's okay? I've never posted in this section before. My question is, how much truth is there to the highly popular Nazi Occultist stuff? I've read wiki and read about the Thule Society but what I'm wondering is how many of the Nazi high command were "spiritual believers" I guess you could call them? Someone like Himmler is what I'm thinking of, as contrasted with Hitler who seems to have been a politician first and foremost and his ideology or beliefs suited whatever was smart at the time. IN a similar vain, since Hitler's death, some people have sort of deified him. He was a god, an avatar, a messiah, yadayadayada. (an earlier people brought up Ms. Devi. Eckart also appears to have thought of Hitler in this way) But what was the official religious policy of the Nazis? Were people supposed to venerate the Fuhrer? NikkolasKing fucked around with this message at 13:28 on Sep 7, 2013 |
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Sep 7, 2013 13:26
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InspectorBloor posted:e: Since you mentioned it: Homosexuality wasn't such a big deal if you didn't practice it too openly. Even in the SS. If you had the wrong enemies on the other hand....Himmler kept files about any bigger rival in his safe. Seemingly looking away was a great way to be able to blackmail the person sooner or later when a favor was needed. With Röhm it was just a pretense and a welcome means to discredit him in public. So why did the camps hold gay men, marked with a pink triangle? Why did the Nazis destroy Institut fuer Sexualwissenschaft's library and close it down? I'm not trying to start fights, I'm merely questioning your insistence that homosexuality wasn't a "big deal" to the Nazis, when they actively persecuted queer people. I don't doubt they turned a blind eye to high-ranking gay Nazis, just like they ignored Goebbles's club foot while persecuting the disabled, but I don't think that translates to homosexuality, previously illegal in the Weimar Republic, illegal under the Nazis and liable to get you into a lot of trouble anyway, being "[not] such a big deal".
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Sep 7, 2013 14:24
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NikkolasKing posted:So this is a bit of a bump and I hope that's okay? I've never posted in this section before. I didn't dig too deep into that, but I read a book about the Black Sun a few years ago. Himmler was the one if you're looking for occult stuff or ambitions to create some kind of ressurection of "the old germanic" faith. Hitler didn't put out his colors in that sense - it was his policy to appear not too connected to anything that would be considered odd by a large part of the population in terms of religion. Interestingly it is mentioned in Hitler's Tischgespräche that he held Hörbiger's Welteislehre favourably (pretty crazy stuff). H. had definitely alot of touch with all the crazy occult writing of the time, the magazine "Ostara" and all the likes from these circles when he was a bum in Vienna. There are several witnesses that did account for that independently. weavernaut posted:So why did the camps hold gay men, marked with a pink triangle? Why did the Nazis destroy Institut fuer Sexualwissenschaft's library and close it down? I'm not trying to start fights, I'm merely questioning your insistence that homosexuality wasn't a "big deal" to the Nazis, when they actively persecuted queer people. I don't doubt they turned a blind eye to high-ranking gay Nazis, just like they ignored Goebbles's club foot while persecuting the disabled, but I don't think that translates to homosexuality, previously illegal in the Weimar Republic, illegal under the Nazis and liable to get you into a lot of trouble anyway, being "[not] such a big deal". I don't know the story behind the closing of the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, but I assume that the Institute itself wasn't favourably towards homoseuality to begin with, much like any official agency back then. You're probably looking at claims of "Verjudung" of such an Institute, which could mean about anything, ranging from too modern, to too much science to just another intrigue to start up the same Institute under another name, run by opportunists close to (or in) the party. You mistake the stuff that a common person would not get away with that what a member of the party could allow himself. People who grew up in western democracies often forget that party membership does make a huge difference - you're not dealing with an egalitarian society where everybody is the same in face of the law. Highly stratified. If you imagine the Third Reich as a place where laws were strict, but applied to everybody, you're wrong. The higher up you get in the hierarchy, the more untouchable you get, and you start to get the effects of "being someone better" and becoming gradually invulnerable for the common part of the not party-state sphere pretty much by entering the party. That's not to say that it was possible to display your gayness openly - that would be suicidal, but if you kept everything discreete, it was overlooked. Somewhat like victorian England. Or like I said, somebody kept notes on your in case that he needed a favor from you (Himmler's speciality). It is documented that Hitler lamented the gayness of certain circles in the SS (accidentally it was the clique around somebody influential of the Thule society, the name escaped me. That guy poisoned himself later on for other reasons). For the common person: As long as you didn't get denunciated too often and by several sources, or not caught red handed you're ok. Denunciation was ominpresent, not only in this aspect, but day to day life. You don't eat your green potatos? -> possibly Wehrkraftzersetzung (happened to my grandma). It's interesting to read how agencies would handle you showing up on the radar. You don't get sacked usually for the first time (unless you did something stupid in public) - since there was so much denunciation, that they'd know that 90% is just bullshit. Get reported more often and by different sources and you're in trouble.
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Sep 7, 2013 22:01
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You assume wrong, the Institut was founded by Magnus Hirschfeld, who himself was gay, and he's the guy that coined the term "transsexual" and was a pioneer in gay and transgender rights. I also think you don't realise how dismissive you're coming across as and how vicious homophobia and persecution of such were at the time (and still are). What your posts say to me (a gay man resident in Germany) is "pfffft, it wasn't that bad", "it" being both persecution of gay men and other LGBT+ individuals under the Nazi regime and homophobia/transphobia in general. :/ I realise that isn't your intention, but still. Thank you for explaining, however! I, indeed, wasn't thinking of the Third Reich as a stratified society with one law for the common people and another law for the elites.
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Sep 7, 2013 22:14
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I understand your commitment and agree that the LGBT perspective of this part of history is useful and neccessary - it's just not a perspective that I concentrated on yet. That doesn't mean that it just slips my attention whenever I read or that I dismiss it as not relevant - I told you what I came across about this theme in my studies. That being said, it's also useful to realize that while the NS system liked to paint itself as following law to the letter, it didn't. Arbitrariness is the right word, at least whenever it comes to some kind of political resistance. I think we touched it earlier and other posters mentioned it, that a certain wing of the party was marxist inspired and rather egalitarian, but the powerstructure within the party was reorganized as soon as the party came into a position of power within the state. It had to strike a deal with the old elites and put an end to anything within the national socialists that had any revolutionary aspiration. Whenever you approach your material in your studies, it is useful not to think of the state populated by zealots, where every misstep automatically meant doom. Reality is potentially even more cruel and disgusting, as the people would go with the wind and try to rig the current ideology of the system in their favor for this or that gain. While reading short biographies may give you the impression of "first strike and out", I found that the individual stories of political resistance sometimes drag on over years until some agency connects information, and then you're hosed. Since you asked for it, I tried to find some referential cases here (which is an excellent source to start off for Austria): http://www.doew.at/erforschen/recherche/archiv If you look into the categories of victims, you will find surprisingly that there is no category for homosexuals. Which is very odd, but probably a matter of lacking finances. I'm sure there are several dissertations on this in the database of my university, but that won't do you any good unless you're fluent in german. By the way: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/07/w...e%2Findex.jsonp Power Khan fucked around with this message at 12:57 on Sep 9, 2013 |
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Sep 8, 2013 10:10
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Does anyone have, or know of, a record of the votes by each individual judge at Nuremberg? Googling only gets me some sporadic mentions here and there (eg. "the Soviets voted 'guilty' against Schacht"), but I'd like to see a nice compiled list.
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Sep 16, 2013 07:57
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NihilCredo posted:Does anyone have, or know of, a record of the votes by each individual judge at Nuremberg? Googling only gets me some sporadic mentions here and there (eg. "the Soviets voted 'guilty' against Schacht"), but I'd like to see a nice compiled list. If it is important, I have the complete transcripts of the nuremberg trials at home. I can scan whatever you need, but it will be in german.
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Sep 20, 2013 09:04
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Besides the KMS Graf Zeppelin, what do we know of Kriegmarine ships that never were, even if they were just on the drawing boards? If Hitler wanted to build the Maus and the Ratte, I refuse to believe he didn't have something bigger than the Bismarck/Tirpitz planned.
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Sep 20, 2013 10:32
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Some super-battleships were considered: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-class_battleship_proposals
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Sep 20, 2013 10:51
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Does anyone have book recommendations on the NihilCredo posted:Does anyone have, or know of, a record of the votes by each individual judge at Nuremberg? Googling only gets me some sporadic mentions here and there (eg. "the Soviets voted 'guilty' against Schacht"), but I'd like to see a nice compiled list. Following on from this - does anyone have book recommendations on the Nuremberg trials?
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Sep 20, 2013 12:11
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Kopijeger posted:Some super-battleships were considered: A pity they didn't sink even more resources into expensive projects that wouldn't have helped their war effort at all.
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Sep 20, 2013 12:39
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Groke posted:A pity they didn't sink even more resources into expensive projects that wouldn't have helped their war effort at all. The H-Series is the perfect example of engineers doing crazy poo poo to avoid being drafted into the infantry. "No Sir our super-massive battleships are absolutely critical, the Führer himself said so!"
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Sep 20, 2013 14:49
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I loved that design. Hitler initially demanded that they have bigger guns then any possible adversary. Then someone pointed out how massive the ship would have to be and how it would be unable to dock in any port. It is interesting to wonder what additional craziness would have been built if the British and French had let Germany have Poland and Germany could have finished their rearmament.
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Sep 20, 2013 17:01
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Xenocides posted:I loved that design. Hitler initially demanded that they have bigger guns then any possible adversary. Then someone pointed out how massive the ship would have to be and how it would be unable to dock in any port. None, as the Nazis rearmament program was destroying their economy. They were only kept afloat by seizing other countries currency reserves.
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Sep 20, 2013 22:24
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Xenocides posted:I loved that design. Hitler initially demanded that they have bigger guns then any possible adversary. Then someone pointed out how massive the ship would have to be and how it would be unable to dock in any port. It's almost like a child in the sandbox demanding a bigger digger; not understanding... well, anything at all.
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Sep 20, 2013 22:27
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The more I've read up on the Third Reich, the more amazed I become that it made it as far as it did, and had to be put down so very hard, rather than metaphorically choking on its own vomit on the bathroom floor. I guess a large part of the blame has to go to widespread incompetence among their opponents, as well.
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Sep 20, 2013 22:45
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elwood posted:If it is important, I have the complete transcripts of the nuremberg trials at home. I can scan whatever you need, but it will be in german. Mainly I wanted to see if the Soviet judges voted "not guilty" for any charge on anyone, or even if they ever voted for anything less than a death sentence. I was kind of flabbergasted by the fact that they tried to convict Schacht, and their dissenting opinion (in vol. 1 linked above) is pretty crazy to read; it seemed like they seriously didn't give a drat about the whole thing. NihilCredo fucked around with this message at 07:27 on Sep 21, 2013 |
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Sep 21, 2013 07:20
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To be honest, given what the soviets had experienced first hand it's understandable why they'd want retribution on anyone that had even the slightest to do with the war. What do they give as their opinion in the case of Schacht?
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Sep 21, 2013 08:09
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Mycroft Holmes posted:None, as the Nazis rearmament program was destroying their economy. They were only kept afloat by seizing other countries currency reserves. This. Austria's surprisingly large gold reserves took it a long way, but only so far. The next moves cover a weird mix of very longterm and shortterm (economic) goals, up to what has already been said about Russia. I'm still surprised what terrible rational argumentative power lies behind issues cloaked in seemingly objective numbers, and the way things were justified as "economic" neccessities. That somehow does sound familiar, doesn't it?. What the nazis did was called a giant raid by various authors, but this is just one dimension. Whenever I read about this, it seems to me that there is a pool of arguments that were meant to hold something for everyone who was in a position to decide something substantial. Beside blindly following orders, or at least make it sweeter.
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Sep 21, 2013 13:56
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Mycroft Holmes posted:None, as the Nazis rearmament program was destroying their economy. They were only kept afloat by seizing other countries currency reserves. Don't be silly. I've played Hearts of Iron. Hitler just had to bump up the Consumer Goods slider to stay solvent.
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Sep 21, 2013 16:24
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