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Raskolnikov38 posted:Other than trolling meat sweats, what is the point of these? Nothing much, outside of clogging up the thread. But to be perfectly honest, they're clogging up the thread as much as meat sweats' furious "Anyone that doesn't agree with me is a nazi apologist"-idiocy. My favorite piece of irony is that The Central Council of the Jews in Germany disagrees with meat sweats and is thus, as per his definition, a bunch of nazi apologists. Noctis Horrendae posted:Haha even I'm not this much of an apologist. Incredibly obtuse is what you apparently are? But here's a question for the Ask/Tell thread since it was brought up a couple of pages ago: What are your thoughts on the topics of "Inherited guilt vis-a-vis inherited responsibility of the german people today with regard to the holocaust" and would you say there's been a shift from one towards the other over the past 70 years? To be specific, I guess I mean how would both you as forums poster Seven Hundred Bee answer this with your background in mind and what was the stance of the Allies on the matter and, if you have any specifics on it, has it developed over time? Duzzy Funlop fucked around with this message at 06:40 on May 12, 2014 |
# ? May 12, 2014 06:31 |
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# ? Jun 8, 2024 08:30 |
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Raskolnikov38 posted:Other than trolling meat sweats, what is the point of these? No, that's pretty much it, since his claim that every employee of the German state and armed forces is by definition a Nazi criminal is so dumb that the only coherent response is mockery. But if I'm making GBS threads up the thread I'll drop it.
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# ? May 12, 2014 07:01 |
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Kemper Boyd posted:This doesn't line up well with the fact that the Nazis were extremely concerned about public perception, which led to things like Germany not being put on a wartime economical basis and Catholic opposition to the Nazis didn't get a draconic reaction. Among other reasons, early in the war up to 1940/41 it is the failure/unwillingness to organize the economy for total war and ration foodstuffs early on. It stems from the legend that is closely related to the Dolchstoßlegende that rationing and failure to deliver consumer products in WW1 brought down the support for the war at home. It is a reoccuring theme in the nazi discourse that ultimately lead to the inclusion of the drastic economic directives in the "Grüne Mappe" and also in the planning of how Barbarossa was supposed to be supplied and how the occupied territories would be managed politically. As for religion, it is a complicated question that I cannot answer with great accuracy. Hitler was always careful not to irritate religious sentiment, remarkably he never spoke about his own beliefs clearly and gave listeners what they wanted to hear. Catholicism has deep and strong roots in Bavaria and Austria. He could not afford to stir fundamental trouble there, although the nazis always styled themselves as anticlerical and executed alot of priests and nuns for resistance activity, but those cases are handled individually. You can look over at the documentation archive of the austrian resistance, and will find lots of pictures of nuns and priests and info what they were arrested for.
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# ? May 12, 2014 08:19 |
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Supeerme posted:I hate to jump in but is Generation War realistic in the civilian sense? I'm very curious about this as well. Saw the series and the main characters seemed a little bit too "naive", but i'm far from an expert on this subject. BBC ran a programme about it this Saturday called "Generation war: fact and fiction". They might get into that topic, haven't actually watched it yet but i'll catch it later on iPlayer. For the record, the original title of the show is "Unsere Mutter, Unsere Väter", i didn't recognize at first by the English title. A contributor in the ask&tell military history thread thought it was full of WW2 cliches, but more as by the by comment and so didn't delve into the details of why. Falukorv fucked around with this message at 08:45 on May 12, 2014 |
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Supeerme posted:I hate to jump in but is Generation War realistic in the civilian sense? Yes. It is based on biographies of people that weren't actually befriended. There was a german documentation about this that accompanied the series. I found that the series touched alot of relevant issues and was very well made, if you put the scale of things that have to be said in perspective. e: you have to be very careful about what milhist says, because if you follow the US discourse, you're like 15 years behind actual research. Power Khan fucked around with this message at 08:48 on May 12, 2014 |
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JaucheCharly posted:Yes. It is based on biographies of people that weren't actually befriended. There was a german documentation about this that accompanied the series. I found that the series touched alot of relevant issues and was very well made, if you put the scale of things that have to be said in perspective. Ok thanks, good to know. I personally liked it, even if there were some WWII cliches it's not often you come across such high budget dramas that touch on those topics in that manner. I especially liked how it showed a very sensitive character slowly evolving into a jaded war criminal in the toxic environment in the Eastern front. As opposed to him being a brainwashed SS sadist to begin with, a good counter to the clean Wehrmacht myth and not something i've seen often on fictional portrayals of Nazi Germany. A great move that our public television channel acquired it and aired it a few weeks after it had it's original airing on Germany's ZDF. It caused quite a stir in Poland though due to the depictions of anti-semitism in the AK resistance. edit: Watching that BBC discussion, and it's with two British historians, a Polish writer and the producer of the show. Well, you see were this is going... As all three are in opposition to the producers view/depiction of the young adult main characters. Man i'd hate to be in his position right now. So far the criticism raised are about the inplausability of the main characters being so "innocent", to paraphrase, like modern Germans catapulted into 1941. And with Jews already being commited into forced labour and special housing according to the opposition makes it ahistorical for a Jewish character riding a bike in Berlin shouting Shalom to his friends. And the more harsher Cambridge historian brought up something about the main characters starting innocent and only becoming corrupted with the war being ahistorical. The producer defends his depiction by talking about rare documented cases of childhood friendship between Germans and German Jews surviving that far into the war. I hope this isn't too much of a derail, but it's highly relevant and they bring up some of the major criticisms of the show (as far 've seen). Falukorv fucked around with this message at 10:47 on May 12, 2014 |
# ? May 12, 2014 09:20 |
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Falukorv posted:And the more harsher Cambridge historian brought up something about the main characters starting innocent and only becoming corrupted with the war being ahistorical. Do you have a link to this? I'm interested. There are certain points about this critique that are general statements, as if all jews from the western parts of europe were in forced labour by 1941, or as if the control that the nazis were able to exert was absolute. We had a few representative stories in a magazine here a year ago or so about people who were taken in by the Gestapo. What's common is, that you can be reported several times, people did report on others for all kinds of reasons (Neighbour being a oval office? Reported for listening to enemy radio. Janitor has a dog that always pisses at your door? Reported for telling a joke about Hitler.), and the Gestapo was really troubled by how to sort out real troublemakers or what have you. So there might be a number of reports on you, maybe from here and there, nobody connects it yet, and poo poo only hits the fan when somebody does it several times over. "Look here, there's a report about this Heislmüller again...Maybe we should pay him a visit or invite him over". You'd be surprised how far reaching this lack of control was throughout other departments and not just the gestapo. So anyway, there were many people who helped their friends and neighbours while others failed. This is alot more nuanced. I was surprised to find out that there were jews still living in this city by 1943, many in hiding, others moving from place to place. Ofc, that other statement about special housing for jews and strict controls is also true, but there is alot more to it. It is a strange melange of a half-legal existence for not just a handful of people that surely took nerves of steel and absolute will to live. Imagine you'd have to disappear today. I mean right now. Where would you go, who would and could you turn to, what will you eat? How would you avoid the system? How long can you go on? Some people were hidden by friends and neighbours for years (some even making it to the end of the war). Others applied for departure of the country and there was a special nazi organization where these people would have to show up, get their meagre, overpriced rations and register and have certain procedure where the system would milk them for all they had and still send them into the gas. This process went on over years, with people dropping out, showing up again, etc. It was alot more loose than standard narrative depicts, and not something that the mass of people was able to do, but it still existed in a number that was far larger than I suspected. I find it asinine to assume that because a person considers him/herself a nazi or holds certain views, that there can't be a coexisting of contradiction, of yes and no at the same time, within that person. THAT is actually more realistic to assume than not. He is my friend, but he is also a jew. Or for example a formula that nearly everybody has heard somewhere, sometime: "I hate black people, because reason XY, but my bro Dwaine is actually a cool guy....he isn't like the others." This is something that I really want to look into when I find time. We had a guest in a seminaire, who researched extensively into how the above mentioned system here in Vienna worked and how most of the jews here were finally transported to Maly Trostinez near Minsk. Please don't use this post as a chance to tell your friends "Well, but the nazis didn't deport all the jews". They would if they could have gotten their hands on everybody. I kinda lost the line. I don't get it which character is supposed to be innocent? Friedhelm? I feel his change is very realistic, but also the story of his brother. They have elements that I have read of over and over, it's not something unique. There's a channel on youtube that has lots of interviews with soldiers and civilians about the war, it's german though. I particularly like the story of this guy who was in a Strafbattalion by the end of the war. The Russians are coming and his superior orders that they have to take "care" of the wounded. How? Spade to the head. He wouldn't do it, and said it. So his superior orders him again and says that he will shoot him. He says no, he won't kill german soldiers. When the officer reaches for the pistol to shoot the guy, another kills the officer and the guys throw his body into the ditch that they made for the wounded. Have you heard of Willy Peter Reese? It's not the same story as Friedhelm's, but worth knowing, if you want to know how the war brutalizes a man of high education who hated the nazis. I'm sure you can come up with alot more if you search for it. And then we can always refer to what actual soldiers had to say after the Wehrmachtsausstellung. It's extremely interesting. Power Khan fucked around with this message at 14:13 on May 12, 2014 |
# ? May 12, 2014 13:50 |
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Were there any foreign nationals, from the Allies or otherwise, that were still in Germany when the war broke out? What happened to them? Does the regime let you stay in whatever hotel or house you're already in, do you ride out the war in your nation's embassy, or was there a ship or planes that could cross combatant borders?
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# ? May 12, 2014 14:05 |
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gradenko_2000 posted:Were there any foreign nationals, from the Allies or otherwise, that were still in Germany when the war broke out? What happened to them? Does the regime let you stay in whatever hotel or house you're already in, do you ride out the war in your nation's embassy, or was there a ship or planes that could cross combatant borders? Normally you're put on a neutral ship/plane/train and sent back to the home country/a neutral country where you can arrange transport home. Germany's ambassador to the USSR was held for a few a weeks then shipped to Turkey after the war broke out for example.
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# ? May 12, 2014 16:12 |
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Raskolnikov38 posted:Normally you're put on a neutral ship/plane/train and sent back to the home country/a neutral country where you can arrange transport home. Germany's ambassador to the USSR was held for a few a weeks then shipped to Turkey after the war broke out for example.
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# ? May 12, 2014 20:42 |
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Skeleton Jelly posted:Did this also apply to normal people guest working or doing whatever? If I was say, from the UK and staying temporarily in Nazi Germany for whatever reason and the war broke out, what would've happened to me? Because yeah I get ambassadors are not interned or whatever but how far does such courtesy extend? I dunno about people in Germany when war broke out, but Allied citzens caught during the fall of France were put in internment camps.
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# ? May 12, 2014 20:51 |
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Your fate as an enemy civilian caught in the other's country at the outbreak of war is kind of a crapshoot. If you're really lucky, the two combatants will come to agreement allowing for the exchange of civilians early on. This was attempted early in WW1 but fell apart due to Germany refusing not to conscript returning men and the British realizing they held more Germans than the Germans held British and wanting a 1:1 exchange ratio. If an exchange doesn't happen then you're interned and the Red Cross is supposed to be able to check up on you and give you food. This is what happened to allied civilians in Germany during both world wars and the Germans didn't impede the Red Cross too much. I would imagine soviet civilians in Germany (if there were any) would have suffered the same fate as red army soldiers and been starved to death. Japan also ignored these provisions for all prisoners, civilian or otherwise though I do believe some civilians in Singapore and Manila got a separate internment camp from POWs but were still mistreated.
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# ? May 12, 2014 21:02 |
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An "Ask me about how Japan was poo poo during WW2" thread could be interesting.
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# ? May 12, 2014 22:37 |
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Is it true that some huge portion of Italian merchant marine was in Allied ports when Italy declared war?
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# ? May 12, 2014 23:39 |
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Baron Porkface posted:Is it true that some huge portion of Italian merchant marine was in Allied ports when Italy declared war? Yeah like a full third or something. Italy's war is one long series of comedic errors.
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# ? May 12, 2014 23:46 |
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Pornographic Memory posted:If you have something nice to say about Hitler, don't say anything at all Have to say "Autobahns" but still it's right thing, wrong way. Hypation fucked around with this message at 00:07 on May 13, 2014 |
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Hypation posted:Have to say "Autobahns" but still it's right thing, wrong way. Weren't the autobahns planned during the Wiemar years?
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# ? May 13, 2014 00:18 |
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:Yeah like a full third or something. Italy's war is one long series of comedic errors. Is there a good book anyone can recommend on this? Even a good biography on Mussolini would be fine, as his super villainish escapades sometimes seem too bizarre to have actually happened. But then someone shows you a picture of his head quarters, and yep, that is, in fact, a gigantic statue of his head on the front there...
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# ? May 13, 2014 00:53 |
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Spoilers Below posted:Is there a good book anyone can recommend on this? Even a good biography on Mussolini would be fine, as his super villainish escapades sometimes seem too bizarre to have actually happened. But then someone shows you a picture of his head quarters, and yep, that is, in fact, a gigantic statue of his head on the front there... I mean, even if it's from a movie, it still gets the point across about the dude.
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# ? May 13, 2014 01:30 |
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:Yeah like a full third or something. Italy's war is one long series of comedic errors. Are you forgetting about the Greco-Italian war here? That wasn't THAT bad compared to other World War 2 Italian missteps.
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# ? May 13, 2014 01:35 |
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JaucheCharly posted:Have you heard of Willy Peter Reese? It's not the same story as Friedhelm's, but worth knowing, if you want to know how the war brutalizes a man of high education who hated the nazis. I'm sure you can come up with alot more if you search for it. I read his manuscript/book today on this recommendation, and man that's some depressing stuff in there.
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# ? May 13, 2014 01:39 |
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Rhymenoserous posted:An "Ask me about how Japan was poo poo during WW2" thread could be interesting. I would be interested in this. I'm familiar with more than a few wartime atrocities committed by the Japanese, but at times I do wonder just how fascist they were on the ideological and domestic and day-to-day aspects.
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# ? May 13, 2014 02:08 |
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gradenko_2000 posted:I would be interested in this. I'm familiar with more than a few wartime atrocities committed by the Japanese, but at times I do wonder just how fascist they were on the ideological and domestic and day-to-day aspects. I've heard that they were worse than the Reich, but that's wholly improbable. Shall we consult ADTRW?
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# ? May 13, 2014 02:31 |
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They probably didn't have as high of a death count, civilian and noncombatant deaths of the Japanese are commonly thought to number 5-6 million but due to poor census data from China it's not out of the realm of possibility for it to be more than 6 million. I'd also be interested in an imperial Japan thread. E: those numbers are estimates of people killed directly by the Japanese, when factoring in famine and disease(some of which unit 731 was responsible for) the total dead for china alone is roughly 20 million. Raskolnikov38 fucked around with this message at 02:45 on May 13, 2014 |
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We all know that a Japan overview thread would boil down to a unit 731 thread, just like this is essentially a clean Wehrmacht and Holocaust thread.
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# ? May 13, 2014 02:57 |
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Spoilers Below posted:? Even a good biography on Mussolini would be fine, as his super villainish escapades sometimes seem too bizarre to have actually happened. Elaborate please.
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# ? May 13, 2014 04:24 |
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Baron Porkface posted:Elaborate please. I know bits and pieces, which is why I was asking for something a little more authoritative, so please correct any of the mistakes in the following. Mussolini loved Nietzsche. Loved him to death. Got a complete set of his works as a 60th birthday present from Hitler. And like any good Nietzchian, he believed he was the man who should be in control, and most everyone else was just a sap. So, in his attempt to start up a new Roman Empire with himself as Caesar (which causes all sorts of continuity problems with his buddy Hitler's 3rd Reich), after taking power and cementing his role as dictator for life, Il Duce ("The Leader") Mussolini decides that the place to kick off his grand imperial conquest is the mighty land locked East African nation of Ethopia, well known for its abundant natural resources and ease of holding. He used a lot of mustard gas and phosgene to do so, for which he was rightly condemned, and which he regarded as a sign of hypocrisy by the other European nations, who had themselves used it during their own conquests of Africa and during WW1. Hitler was the only one who supported Mussolini in this, and thus an alliance was made between the two countries. Mussolini personally regarded Hitler as a puffed up yutz, but a useful one, kinda like that kid whose parents always bought him the latest video games and always had a ton of ice cream in the fridge so you'd always find excuses to hang out with him even if you didn't actually like him very much because he was always going on and on about how much he hated the Jews when you didn't really care and actually found them more useful than the Christians some of the time. Unfortunately for Hitler, Mussolini was more like that Kramer-esque neighbor who's always dropping in to borrow your stuff and getting you embroiled in stupid schemes. Basically, because Mussolini was jealous that Hitler had successfully invaded and conquered Poland, Mussolini decided to do that same thing in Egypt. Unfortunately, the Italian army sucked. Sucked big time. Sucked so hard that they barely knew how to use the WWI surplus gear they'd been handed, and told to follow a sucky plan that their Great Leader had come up with all by himself. We're talking Cobra level incompetent here. So Hitler rolls in and bails out his good buddy, because that's what the Pact of Steel does. But this is even more embarrassing for Mussolini! The last thing the Glorious New Roman Empire needs is that lousy Hun Erwin Rommel saving their asses... So Mussolini decides he's going to conquer Greece, because dammit, Mussolini knows what the borders of the Roman Empire used to look like, and he's going to have his empire, crap rifles, shoddy tanks, and rickety biplanes be damned. It went about as expected, and Hitler rolled in again to conquer the Balkans completely off schedule. At this point in 1943, the cult of personality is turning against him, and Mussolini's broadcasts are said to be actively demoralizing the troops. The Italian Fascist council votes to have him imprisoned and reinstate the King. And here comes Hitler again to bail out his buddy, sending valuable troops to smash his best friend out of prison and reinstate him as the head of Northern Italy, which was still under German control. The war continues to go poorly, and by 1945 Mussolini is out of favors. Hitler is a little too busy crouching in a bunker and waiting for the Russians to destroy Berlin and can't help him anymore. While trying to board a plane to go hide with Franco in Spain, Mussolini is captured by the Italians and gunned down alongside his mistress. The bodies were then dumped on the side of the road, and strung up upsidedown at a gas station by the local villagers.
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# ? May 13, 2014 05:48 |
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Oh come on it wasn't all bad.
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# ? May 13, 2014 13:48 |
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Ghost of Mussolini posted:Oh come on it wasn't all bad. The trains ran on time.
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# ? May 13, 2014 13:50 |
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One of my favorite anecdotes from WWII involves Italian incompetence: In 41/42, when the German line in Russia was reinforced by units from their allies (Italians, Romanians, etc), there was lots of conflict between German units and everyone else, because the Germans thought any other fighting force was such garbage. To combat this problem - it was bad for morale and all of that - the German military instituted measures to promote cooperation between units by holding dances and distirbuting propaganda about the 'racial strengths' of other, non-Aryan nationalities.
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# ? May 13, 2014 15:44 |
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Spoilers Below posted:While trying to board a plane to go hide with Franco in Spain, Mussolini is captured by the Italians and gunned down alongside his mistress. The bodies were then dumped on the side of the road, and strung up upsidedown at a gas station by the local villagers. And then, in a very strange coda... after his body was taken down and buried, a trio of crazed Mussolini fanboys exhumed the corpse and ran away with it. "Finally, O Duce, you are with us. We will cover you with roses, but the smell of your virtue will overpower the smell of those roses." Not a dignified ending, but perhaps the one he deserved.
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# ? May 13, 2014 18:12 |
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Seven Hundred Bee posted:One of my favorite anecdotes from WWII involves Italian incompetence: That's absolutely hilarious, is any of this stuff online?
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# ? May 13, 2014 18:29 |
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Mussolini always had cookies and milk for breakfast. Lunch was pasta, usually with tomato sauce, rarely with meat. He almost never had dinner, but snacked on fruit later in the day. He drove a red Alfa Romeo, and refused to introduce rationing for leather although troops sent to the Eastern front lacked proper footwear.
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# ? May 13, 2014 18:51 |
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Here is a cartoon that I've always felt neatly encapsulated the Hitler/Mussolini relationship. It's a scan of a leaflet that I believe was air dropped around '42 or '43. for by the way http://imgur.com/jqKtK9d.jpg Cyrano4747 fucked around with this message at 20:26 on May 13, 2014 |
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Seven Hundred Bee posted:One of my favorite anecdotes from WWII involves Italian incompetence: To be fair the German soldiers were absolutely right about the quality of their allies' troops. But really, who can blame those allied troops? You're far from home in a frozen hellhole surrounded by angry Germans telling you what to do, with poor training and poorer equipment, fighting not for your country but for the mad dreams of a German dictator.
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# ? May 14, 2014 14:41 |
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ThePriceJustWentUp posted:He actually declined a higher promotion to stay with his messenging unit. He was what the US military would consider a Lance Corporal or Specialist, and was considered for a promotion to Corporal. So yes, not exemplary but certainly respectable. quote:PROBATION 05/13/14 04:26pm ThePriceJustWentUp Doesn't Hate Hitler. User loses posting privileges for 1 month. XyloJW XyloJW This is the most hosed up probation I've ever seen.
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# ? May 14, 2014 22:20 |
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Lumpy the Cook posted:This is the most hosed up probation I've ever seen. Getting a probation for unironically white-knighting Adolf loving Hitler is wrong to you?
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# ? May 14, 2014 23:25 |
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Say what you want about Hitler, he was not as bad as this thread (has become I guess).
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# ? May 14, 2014 23:29 |
Lumpy the Cook posted:This is the most hosed up probation I've ever seen.
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# ? May 14, 2014 23:29 |
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Azathoth posted:Read his posts in this thread. He was working his way towards holocaust denial/neonazism/antisemitism, he was just not being straightforward about it, so the thread was getting shitted up with his act. It was a good probation. Probably could have picked a better post for the probation, but I don't think it really matters.
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# ? May 14, 2014 23:59 |