Klaus88 posted:

I committed three extravagant mistakes lately.

Firstly, I checked out a book by John 'Ringo from my local library.
Secondly, I began reading a book by John Ringo from my local library.
Thirdly, I finished a book by John Ringo from my local library.

It left me with so many questions but only two are of concern to the thread.

Comendy question: is John Ringo wrong about everything ever?

Read question: has there been a serious academic examination of the "clean" Wehrmacht myth and if so, where could I begin my reading?

Klaus88 posted:

I committed three extravagant mistakes lately.

Firstly, I checked out a book by John 'Ringo from my local library.
Secondly, I began reading a book by John Ringo from my local library.
Thirdly, I finished a book by John Ringo from my local library.

It left me with so many questions but only two are of concern to the thread.

Comendy question: is John Ringo wrong about everything ever?

Read question: has there been a serious academic examination of the "clean" Wehrmacht myth and if so, where could I begin my reading?

Klaus88 posted:

I committed three extravagant mistakes lately.

Firstly, I checked out a book by John 'Ringo from my local library.
Secondly, I began reading a book by John Ringo from my local library.
Thirdly, I finished a book by John Ringo from my local library.

It left me with so many questions but only two are of concern to the thread.

Comendy question: is John Ringo wrong about everything ever?

Read question: has there been a serious academic examination of the "clean" Wehrmacht myth and if so, where could I begin my reading?

ArchangeI posted:

I once asked John Ringo on a forum why German soldiers in his book still wore fieldgrey given that flecktarn has been used for decades. He replied that the PE uniform was kinda grey and then changed the topic.

Gargamel Gibson posted:

How respected is Sven Hassel as a historian?

ArchangeI posted:

I once asked John Ringo on a forum why German soldiers in his book still wore fieldgrey given that flecktarn has been used for decades. He replied that the PE uniform was kinda grey and then changed the topic.

Watch on the Rhine is so deliciously crazy. It's not just clean Wehrmacht but clean Waffen-SS.

Also apparently Germany needs the SS because they are the only people properly motivated to fight against an alien species who wants to eat all humans and will invade Earth with untold billions of soldiers.

Libluini posted:

eat all Germans

tonberrytoby posted:

But the modern German PE uniform is blue. Soldiers jogging through the Forrest are even nicknamed Smurfs.

LowellDND posted:

In the last post on Fascism, you (Disinterested) talked about how there is a revisionist line about Stalin and the Terror/famines. Is there any decent histiography to it, or is it Stalinist apologetics?

Phanatic posted:

Why? Conventionally-powered CVs with steam catapults have been successful for decades.

Koesj posted:

What's the effect of the Weisswurstgrenze on this? Do Bavarians taste worse, or wurst? Inquiring minds (vast, cool, unsympathetic) want to know.

Trin Tragula posted:

100 Years Ago

quote:

When in far off ages men discuss over vintages ripened in Mars the black superstitions and bloody mindedness of the Georgian savages, still they will have to drain a glass to the memory of the soldiers and sailormen who fought here.

quote:

Fascism, the more it considers and observes the future and the development of humanity quite apart from political considerations of the moment, believes neither in the possibility nor the utility of perpetual peace. It thus repudiates the doctrine of Pacifism -- born of a renunciation of the struggle and an act of cowardice in the face of sacrifice. War alone brings up to its highest tension all human energy and puts the stamp of nobility upon the peoples who have courage to meet it. All other trials are substitutes, which never really put men into the position where they have to make the great decision -- the alternative of life or death....

...The Fascist accepts life and loves it, knowing nothing of and despising suicide: he rather conceives of life as duty and struggle and conquest, but above all for others -- those who are at hand and those who are far distant, contemporaries, and those who will come after...

...Fascism [is] the complete opposite of…Marxian Socialism, the materialist conception of history of human civilization can be explained simply through the conflict of interests among the various social groups and by the change and development in the means and instruments of production.... Fascism, now and always, believes in holiness and in heroism; that is to say, in actions influenced by no economic motive, direct or indirect. And if the economic conception of history be denied, according to which theory men are no more than puppets, carried to and fro by the waves of chance, while the real directing forces are quite out of their control, it follows that the existence of an unchangeable and unchanging class-war is also denied - the natural progeny of the economic conception of history. And above all Fascism denies that class-war can be the preponderant force in the transformation of society....

After Socialism, Fascism combats the whole complex system of democratic ideology, and repudiates it, whether in its theoretical premises or in its practical application. Fascism denies that the majority, by the simple fact that it is a majority, can direct human society; it denies that numbers alone can govern by means of a periodical consultation, and it affirms the immutable, beneficial, and fruitful inequality of mankind, which can never be permanently leveled through the mere operation of a mechanical process such as universal suffrage....

...Fascism denies, in democracy, the absur[d] conventional untruth of political equality dressed out in the garb of collective irresponsibility, and the myth of "happiness" and indefinite progress....

...iven that the nineteenth century was the century of Socialism, of Liberalism, and of Democracy, it does not necessarily follow that the twentieth century must also be a century of Socialism, Liberalism and Democracy: political doctrines pass, but humanity remains, and it may rather be expected that this will be a century of authority...a century of Fascism. For if the nineteenth century was a century of individualism it may be expected that this will be the century of collectivism and hence the century of the State....

The foundation of Fascism is the conception of the State, its character, its duty, and its aim. Fascism conceives of the State as an absolute, in comparison with which all individuals or groups are relative, only to be conceived of in their relation to the State. The conception of the Liberal State is not that of a directing force, guiding the play and development, both material and spiritual, of a collective body, but merely a force limited to the function of recording results: on the other hand, the Fascist State is itself conscious and has itself a will and a personality -- thus it may be called the "ethic" State....

...The Fascist State organizes the nation, but leaves a sufficient margin of liberty to the individual; the latter is deprived of all useless and possibly harmful freedom, but retains what is essential; the deciding power in this question cannot be the individual, but the State alone....

...For Fascism, the growth of empire, that is to say the expansion of the nation, is an essential manifestation of vitality, and its opposite a sign of decadence. Peoples which are rising, or rising again after a period of decadence, are always imperialist; and renunciation is a sign of decay and of death. Fascism is the doctrine best adapted to represent the tendencies and the aspirations of a people, like the people of Italy, who are rising again after many centuries of abasement and foreign servitude. But empire demands discipline, the coordination of all forces and a deeply felt sense of duty and sacrifice: this fact explains many aspects of the practical working of the regime, the character of many forces in the State, and the necessarily severe measures which must be taken against those who would oppose this spontaneous and inevitable movement of Italy in the twentieth century, and would oppose it by recalling the outworn ideology of the nineteenth century - repudiated wheresoever there has been the courage to undertake great experiments of social and political transformation; for never before has the nation stood more in need of authority, of direction and order. If every age has its own characteristic doctrine, there are a thousand signs which point to Fascism as the characteristic doctrine of our time. For if a doctrine must be a living thing, this is proved by the fact that Fascism has created a living faith; and that this faith is very powerful in the minds of men is demonstrated by those who have suffered and died for it.

Libluini posted:

Watch on the Rhine was the first book which made me genuinely angry after I had finished it. Later I threw it into my recycling-bin to be transformed into toilet paper. A fitting punishment.

I'm still not sure if that book was a huge troll by Kratmann or if that guy really has no loving selfawareness. That ending convinced me humanity would have been better off if the angry aliens had eaten all Germans, which is some feat considering the aliens genocided at the end of the book were assholes and I'm German, too.

ulmont posted:

Tekopo posted:

I just recently read The Myth of the Eastern Front which is a good start.

Edit: wait your username is Klaus88

Cyrano4747 posted:

I've made the mistake of reading all of his "Ghost" books, plus that awful Kratmann-coauthored love letter to the Wehrmacht. Ringo is a hack, but a mostly harmless hack. He comes dangerously close to writing really good airport grade fiction, but then goes off the rails with completely descriptions of pedophilia and child-rape.

If you really want to dive down that rabbit hole I did a "lets read" of Ghost for TFR a while back. It seemed pretty well received.

As for the clean wehrmacht: Omer Bartov is the go-to guy on that. In particular "Hitler's Army" and "The Eastern Front '41-45: German troops and the barbarization of warfare" explode any notion of a guilt-free Wehrmacht pretty spectacularly.

JaucheCharly posted:

Extensively in german accademia.

Do you speak german? That discussion was hot from the start of the first Wehrmachtsausstellung to about 2005.

If you speak german, I could give you a poo poo load of titles

Gervasius posted:

Kratmann actually showed up one of the forums I used to frequent to proclaim that airdropping two Fallschirm divisions in southern England would be enough to occupy UK. Also, his response to Royal Navy sinking german river barges in English Channel in the event of Operation Sea Mammal? Germans troops would just swim ashore and continue to fight.

I don't think he has any self awareness whatsoever.

Klaus88 posted:

Do you think that people of this stripe even bother to read a popular history of WWII, let along a more serious minded work on the subject?

Gervasius posted:

He was a Lieutenant Colonel in US Army, so my guess is "yes".

Klaus88 posted:

I'd love to see you tear down Ringo's work but I can't find the thread. Can you throw me a link?

The Lone Badger posted:

Waitwaitwait

Someone let this guy command troops?

The Lone Badger posted:

Waitwaitwait

Someone let this guy command troops?

Perestroika posted:

I think by now it requires archives, here's the link: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3385144. It takes a very special kind of author to take the idea of "the protagonist should have flaws to make them believable and relatable" and decide that the best way to do that is by making him an unrepentant serial rapist.

Perestroika posted:

I think by now it requires archives, here's the link: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3385144. It takes a very special kind of author to take the idea of "the protagonist should have flaws to make them believable and relatable" and decide that the best way to do that is by making him an unrepentant serial rapist.

Perestroika posted:

I think by now it requires archives, here's the link: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3385144. It takes a very special kind of author to take the idea of "the protagonist should have flaws to make them believable and relatable" and decide that the best way to do that is by making him an unrepentant serial rapist.

Libluini posted:

Watch on the Rhine was the first book which made me genuinely angry after I had finished it. Later I threw it into my recycling-bin to be transformed into toilet paper. A fitting punishment.

I'm still not sure if that book was a huge troll by Kratmann or if that guy really has no loving selfawareness. That ending convinced me humanity would have been better off if the angry aliens had eaten all Germans, which is some feat considering the aliens genocided at the end of the book were assholes and I'm German, too.

Cyrano4747 posted:

I've made the mistake of reading all of his "Ghost" books, plus that awful Kratmann-coauthored love letter to the Wehrmacht. Ringo is a hack, but a mostly harmless hack. He comes dangerously close to writing really good airport grade fiction, but then goes off the rails with completely descriptions of pedophilia and child-rape.

If you really want to dive down that rabbit hole I did a "lets read" of Ghost for TFR a while back. It seemed pretty well received.

As for the clean wehrmacht: Omer Bartov is the go-to guy on that. In particular "Hitler's Army" and "The Eastern Front '41-45: German troops and the barbarization of warfare" explode any notion of a guilt-free Wehrmacht pretty spectacularly.

Frostwerks posted:

Is this the guy who wrote about nude women reloading his rifle while he was fighting off terrorists or somesuch craziness? Cuz that was almost singularly funny.

Thomamelas posted:

Ringo wrote a book called The Last Centurion. He figured it was terrible and shouldn't be published but apparently Jim Baen kept arguing with him. I don't recall it having rape but it's worse then the Ghost series. It's basically 90% politics and his lovely political opinions with no filter.

Klaus88 posted:

No, I don't speak German, is there anything else for a dumb American looking to expand his horizons a bit?

Comstar posted:

I missed a lot of the thread due to a sudden attack of marriage.

Here we are 100 years later, and Gallipoli was a complete failure of leadership, and even if they DO force the Dardendalles, it dosn't change a damm thing because they don't have enough troops to conquer Turkey and secure both sides of the straights. Is that right or wrong?

Tekopo posted:

The original idea IIRC, which ties in with why they attempted to force the straits as well, was that they would just need to get ships into the Sea of Marmara (which could potentially be done if they manage to capture one side of the strait), they just need to shell Istanbul and then the Turks would just collapse and sue for peace. If this was actually feasible or possible is unclear to me.

V. Illych L. posted:

Churchill was pretty bad at the whole "war" thing, yeah. His assets lay elsewhere (mainly in oratory tbh, but there are worse qualities in a leader of a democracy during total war)

Disinterested posted:

Although the fact he was sort of fond of war in many ways was beneficial at the time.