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Shimrra Jamaane posted:Thats good since I just started reading the first part of his Third Reich Trilogy, which is apparently the definitive narrative account of the Nazis. good luck! after that you should read kershaw's two-part hitler biography. then you can dazzle people at cocktail parties with your knowledge of nazi germany.
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Apr 2, 2013 01:21
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Seven Hundred Bee posted:good luck! after that you should read kershaw's two-part hitler biography. then you can dazzle people at cocktail parties with your knowledge of nazi germany. Oh yeah, that should lead to some intellectually stimulating conversations and back and forth debate. "I'm sorry but I've watched the History Channel for 15 years and its known for a fact that Hitler was a devout devil worshipper behind the scenes. He also had one testicle. Maybe you should open your eyes and not believe everything those liberal professors of yours tell you." (This is not an exaggeration, I was told this during a discussion that originally was about Indiana Jones) Shimrra Jamaane fucked around with this message at 03:00 on Apr 2, 2013 |
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Apr 2, 2013 01:26
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Seven Hundred Bee posted:nazism was a combination of conservatism and socialism. it was born out of the push towards ultra conservative German nationalism in the wake of world war i. the 'socialist' elements (universal health care for example) were intended to make the party appealing to the average german worker, and were a product of the recognition of the economic realities of the 1920s and 1930s. many economists believed that the only way for countries to rise out of the great depression was through a planned, government-led economy. the first nazis were extraordinarily conservative, and a fundamental tenet of nazi ideology was the idea of volkisch thought -- the supremacy of the german (aryan) race within the competition between races. Thanks for the explanation. I pretty much told him the same thing, with a lot less detail than your explanation. Just as you said, my basic understanding was that the socialist elements of fascism/nazism were to make the party appealing to the average German. I also told him that you can't really be a socialist if you only provide government programs to one specific group of people while you busy are murdering every other group. If I recall correctly, some of the socialist programs such as universal healthcare were started way before Hitler even came into power. I think that he believes that because the Nazis called themselves "National Socialists", that meant that they were ultra left-wing on the political scale. No need to be sorry, I completely agree with you about my uncle. He is a tea-bagging moron. I think he listens to Glenn Beck too much and that is where he gets his ideas from. I should know better to get into political arguments with him, but I took great offense to that statement.
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Apr 2, 2013 02:17
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raven4267 posted:Thanks for the explanation. I pretty much told him the same thing, with a lot less detail than your explanation. Just as you said, my basic understanding was that the socialist elements of fascism/nazism were to make the party appealing to the average German. I also told him that you can't really be a socialist if you only provide government programs to one specific group of people while you busy are murdering every other group. If I recall correctly, some of the socialist programs such as universal healthcare were started way before Hitler even came into power. I think that he believes that because the Nazis called themselves "National Socialists", that meant that they were ultra left-wing on the political scale. Without going into a basic primer of the two ideologies, both Fascism and Communism derive from a belief that the modern world is experiencing a crisis that traditional systems cannot resolve and a radical solution is necessary. They just approach that solution from very different, practically opposite directions, and Fascism is in many respects the right-wing response to Communism. Since they're looking at some of the same problems they wind up with some of the same solutions, and on a practical level Soviet socialism and German fascism both produced authoritarian dictatorships so they had a certain family resemblance. But they're not remotely the same thing. I think the simplest demonstration that Hitler was not left-wing or a socialist per se is his popularity with wealthy industrialists. Why did Gustav Krupp fund the Nazis? Why did Ferdinand Porsche work so closely with Hitler? Why did Henry Ford send Hitler 50,000 reichsmarks for a birthday present every year?
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Apr 2, 2013 02:41
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I believe I read somewhere (Mein Kampf excerpt?) that Hitler really liked how the US had handled the Native Americans in terms of things like forced migrations and such. Was this actually the case, and was any inspiration taken from the Native American or any other historical genocides? Did the Nazis really hate religion? And was the occult stuff serious business or just one of those things that the History Channel likes to overstate?
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Apr 2, 2013 02:46
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:Thats good since I just started reading the first part of his Third Reich Trilogy, which is apparently the definitive narrative account of the Nazis. Chiming in here. Evans is good people, and his trilogy was what formed my understanding of the Third Reich before I went to grad school. It's very well respected and is pretty much the current go-to for anyone wanting an accessible but scholarly primer on the subject. Kershaw's bio of Hitler, as said above, is also great. Tojai posted:I believe I read somewhere (Mein Kampf excerpt?) that Hitler really liked how the US had handled the Native Americans in terms of things like forced migrations and such. Was this actually the case, and was any inspiration taken from the Native American or any other historical genocides? What the issue is here, however, is whether the Final Solution (the point where the Holocaust went from disorganized, discrete incidents to a planned policy of extermination, though that definition leaves out some twists and turns) was something entirely planned by Hitler, or rather a process of escalation instigated by government workers looking to anticipate what they thought were Hitler's wishes. Historians today lean toward the second narrative. The OP brought up the theories of intentionalism and functionalism (what I more or less just described) earlier, along with your other question on Nazi occultism. I think they're both on the first page. As far as hating Christianity goes, it's hard to tell exactly. Hitler definitely didn't care for "love thy brother" or "turn the other cheek," and probably didn't identify as Christian, except when it suited him for public purposes. Kangaroo Jerk fucked around with this message at 03:01 on Apr 2, 2013 |
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Apr 2, 2013 02:50
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Seven Hundred Bee posted:IT IS EXTREMELY GRAPHIC! BE WARNED! I've been in classes where this has been shown and students have vomited. That aside, this is a very informative thread! There were a few history threads that had holocaust/nazi germany derails that, while interesting, couldn't be talked about for more than a few posts because it was off topic. Glad something like this cropped up, thanks for writing it.
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Apr 2, 2013 02:56
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Tojai posted:I believe I read somewhere (Mein Kampf excerpt?) that Hitler really liked how the US had handled the Native Americans in terms of things like forced migrations and such. Was this actually the case, and was any inspiration taken from the Native American or any other historical genocides? hitler 'hated' religion in the sense that he believed it acted as an outside power within the state, thereby encouraging people to worship something other than volkisch Nazism. I don't remember reading that in mein kampf, but mein kampf is a clusterfuck of a book. the impetus (for hitler at least) for the holocaust was his understanding of race. he, like many people in the 1930s, believed in scientific racism -- that the rise and fall of civilizations was a product of a competition among races, equivalent to the competition among species. within this model, each race has particular 'qualities' (think of them as evolved traits) that led them to succeed over the years. the aryans were brave and the source of culture. the latins were artistic. the slavs, while not intelligent, were capable of physical endurance and manual labor. jews were equivalent to a virus or a parasite, and were successful in integrating themselves and leeching off the success of other, superior races. the races could also be placed into a hierarchy, with aryan/anglo saxons at top, and jews at the bottom. so to hitler, the consequence of not wiping out the jews was the potential destruction of the aryan race. thus, the holocaust to him wasn't born of a radical anti-semitism as much as it was a product of his belief that jews were inimical to the existence of the aryan race (which i guess is in and of itself anti-semitism). edit: also great explanation of functionalism vs. intentionalism above. while hitler definitely plan the holocaust step-by-step, at some point had to at least verbally aprove of what was being. despite the rampant illegality of the nazi regime, there was a surprising dedication to observing the forms of legal government. Seven Hundred Bee fucked around with this message at 03:13 on Apr 2, 2013 |
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Apr 2, 2013 03:08
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Avocados posted:Oh this film again. Had to watch it in my honors history class in highschool. The lack of soundtrack and excess of white noise made the thing even worse. One of the most repulsive things I've watched. I remember everyone's expression after the film ended. We were all in shock and disbelief. Crazy way to end the last class on Friday. I don't know if your version had the original narration, but this one does. but yea no actual sound was recorded, just added in after the fact.
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Apr 2, 2013 03:11
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Seven Hundred Bee posted:I don't know if your version had the original narration, but this one does. but yea no actual sound was recorded, just added in after the fact. Ours was part of the PBS Frontline special recorded on a DVD. It didn't have any 'music' like other documentaries, but it had the narration. Looks like they're both the same though, especially with the memorable narrator. Back on subject, how did the German population react to holocaust after the war was lost? From what I've read in the thread, support for Hitler was steadily falling by the end of the war which was viewed as hopeless by that point, so it seems like things weren't an instant realization. How many people were aware of it going on, or at least knew of it happening through rumors? How did society go from being pro Nazism to "oh crap what have we done"? e:I also heard that during the liberation of camps, the allies would force nearby citizens to watch what their government was responsible for and occasionally help move bodies/clean up. It sounds something of a rumor or exaggeration, but liberating a camp like that has got to bring out some crazy emotions. vvv: Ah I must have forgotten that was in the video. It's been years since I've last watched it in class and I haven't exactly yearned to see it again. buglord fucked around with this message at 04:19 on Apr 2, 2013 |
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Apr 2, 2013 03:37
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Avocados posted:Ours was part of the PBS Frontline special recorded on a DVD. It didn't have any 'music' like other documentaries, but it had the narration. Looks like they're both the same though, especially with the memorable narrator. it's not an exaggeration. they would frequently take local officials from nearby towns and force them to move bodies. you can see examples of it in the video linked above. there's a couple school of thoughts on how much the average german knew about the holocaust. immediately after the war most germans pretended to know nothing. we now know that a large number of germans probably knew that something was going on, but likely didn't know the full extent of the holocaust. a better question in my eyes has always been, what could they have done about it? imagine germany in 1943 and 1944. the war in the east is a disaster. the allies could invade in the west at anytime. germany is under constant bombardment. you're probably female, and your father, your brother, your boyfriend are all at the front fighting, home injured, or dead. travel throughout the country was difficult. the nazi regime was oppressive, and had no hesitation in jailing and executing germans. what could you have done? while there are isolated examples of germans protesting the holocaust (the jehovah's witnesses are a fascinating and courageous example) by and large most germans did nothing. the german reaction to the holocaust is a complex one. immediately after the war people were disgusted with hitler, but wanted more than anything to move on, and there was no deep public reflection on the holocaust and the legacy of nazism. in the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s germany went through a process called the Vergangenheitsbewältigung, which involved a coming to term with the holocaust, and a public accounting. similar processes have been ongoing over the last 50 years. today germany has some of the best holocaust education in the west.
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Apr 2, 2013 03:49
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Seven Hundred Bee posted:it's not an exaggeration. they would frequently take local officials from nearby towns and force them to move bodies. you can see examples of it in the video linked above. I visited Dachau in 2007 while backpacking through Central and Eastern Europe, and it was one of the most educational and sobering experiences of my life. The scale of the operation is horrendous--but is hidden in plain site from this tiny, beautiful little town. The museum is full of British puff-pieces about the industriousness of the late-30s Germans, 'repurposing' the 'listless rabble' in indentured servitude at the camp. Many of the films showed the co-opting of local wagons to dispose of the dead--as well as marching townspeople through the crematorium. They mention the outright denial of events by locals, even after viewing the implements. I got the impression that it was fairly common, at least for the allies, to force locals to participate in the liberation of the camps, disposal of the dead, and rehabilitation of survivors. From what I understand, the main crematorium was never operational, and thus the camp never operated fully as a death camp. Having said that, the number of dead was still fairly staggering, and there was plenty of media to confirm it. /derail Actual question for the scholar: It was brought to my attention that the Jewish population of Vienna was largely exterminated, never to return in any number. Is there a remaining/prevailing anti-semitism in Austria? I find that interesting to reconcile against the intentional dissociation with Nazism after the war. LeeMajors fucked around with this message at 04:19 on Apr 2, 2013 |
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Apr 2, 2013 04:15
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if you have the stomach (or really if anyone reading does), watch the youtube video i linked above. IIRC it's not from a death camp, but rather a labor camp, so most of the people who died there died from starvation or disease. it's.. sobering and moving to see bodies thrown around like cardboard. also your post was by no mean a derail.
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Apr 2, 2013 04:18
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Seven Hundred Bee posted:if you have the stomach (or really if anyone reading does), watch the youtube video i linked above. IIRC it's not from a death camp, but rather a labor camp, so most of the people who died there died from starvation or disease. it's.. sobering and moving to see bodies thrown around like cardboard. I watched it. It is very similar to standing in the loading room of the crematorium (empty, concrete walls with 12ft ceilings) staring at a picture of the same room stacked to the ceiling with dead bodies awaiting disposal. The grounds had many pictures to remind you of the atrocities that occurred precisely where you were standing.
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Apr 2, 2013 04:23
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When were camps like Treblinka and Sobibor discovered and understood by the Allies? Since they were completely dismantled and hidden well in 1943 it had to have been post war.
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Apr 2, 2013 04:25
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:When were camps like Treblinka and Sobibor discovered and understood by the Allies? Since they were completely dismantled and hidden well in 1943 it had to have been post war. while I can't answer specifically, I'd imagine it was either from captured records, or the allies were informed of the location by captured nazis or perhaps by local civilians.
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Apr 2, 2013 04:29
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What were the prevailing attitudes of average German citizens towards the Allies like? Obviously they were not really down with the Soviets, but what did they think of the Western Allies? Also how did they react to the growing awareness that they were going to lose the war, and what factors would the average person on the ground have blamed the progress of the war on?
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Apr 2, 2013 04:44
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Seven Hundred Bee posted:This is one of the curious idiosyncrasies about Nazi Germany - on one hand, a part of Hitler's ideology was a return to historic Germany and historic values, on the other hand he wasn't a moron and recognized the importance of science, especially military research. There were lots of smart scientists working in Germany through the war, and with government support. That said, the Nazi state was extraordinarily chaotic, so there was never a single, well articulated scientific policy. Kicking out all the Jewish scientists (or gassing them) isn't why they lost the war. This is way back from page 1, but I just found the thread. There were a few incompetent scientists who exploited Nazi ideology to get themselves appointed to important positions to the detriment of German science. This was especially true in "German Physics" which rejected the "Jewish physics" of Einstein and others, both relativity and quantum mechanics. It's probably more accurate to say the Nazis valued engineering and technology over actual science. A fair number of non-Jewish scientists also left Germany at the same time, like Schrodinger, and while its true that the Nazis managed to lose the war too quickly for it to make a difference, the atom bomb was originally meant for Germany.
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Apr 2, 2013 05:09
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Base Emitter posted:This is way back from page 1, but I just found the thread. there was a big controversy in germany in the 60s (IIRC) when it was discovered that one of the government-funded german research institutes was staffed by a bunch of ex-nazi psuedoscientists. statistically, about 12,000 intellectuals fled germany from 1933 - 1940.
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Apr 2, 2013 05:22
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Seven Hundred Bee posted:there was a big controversy in germany in the 60s (IIRC) when it was discovered that one of the government-funded german research institutes was staffed by a bunch of ex-nazi psuedoscientists. Other really prominent scientists, Liese Meitner, Fritz Haber, and Emmy Noether, for example, were driven out but did not later become involved in the Manhattan project. Nevertheless, it's hard to see their time going to waste in a country at war. It's difficult to predict what would have happened if Germany managed to hang onto those 12,000 intellectuals, but the number is deceiving in that so many of those driven out were truly at the pinnacle of their careers and at the tops of their respective fields. It's just my opinion, but I've always thought that, had the Nazis managed to get those big names to stay, a Nazi nuclear bomb would have been alarmingly likely; and that just goes to show how early the Nazis started working on their own defeat. Speaking of counterfactuals -- I've always wondered what the plan was in the event of a successful invasion of the USSR. Did the Nazis think that there simply was no other threat? I mean, if the Nazis had eked out a win at Stalingrad in 1942, for example, they might have exhausted the USSR and forced its surrender. At that point, though, Nazi Germany would be in a shambles, Africa would be lost, the strategic bombing would have only accelerated, etc. Even if the Nazis managed to beat the Soviets and negotiate some kind of peace with the remaining Allies, how could they possibly repair their economy or deal with hordes of demobilized soldiers? What, in other words, would the Western European (particularly German/Austrian/Czech areas) look like after some kind of limited victory that left the Nazis with much of Europe but the rest of the world hostile? Were there any plans for that eventuality at all?
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Apr 2, 2013 05:55
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How involved with the Nazis was Martin Heidegger? Was there ever any attempt (whether on his part, or on the part of others) to put concepts from his philosophical works to use in crafting Nazi ideology?
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Apr 2, 2013 06:03
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Unluckyimmortal posted:Speaking of counterfactuals -- I've always wondered what the plan was in the event of a successful invasion of the USSR. Did the Nazis think that there simply was no other threat? I mean, if the Nazis had eked out a win at Stalingrad in 1942, for example, they might have exhausted the USSR and forced its surrender. At that point, though, Nazi Germany would be in a shambles, Africa would be lost, the strategic bombing would have only accelerated, etc. Even if the Nazis managed to beat the Soviets and negotiate some kind of peace with the remaining Allies, how could they possibly repair their economy or deal with hordes of demobilized soldiers? With hindsight the Germans had absolutely zero chance of winning by the time Stalingrad happened but you bet they had plans. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generalplan_Ost
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Apr 2, 2013 06:39
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Geez, reading this thread is making me aware of how lovely my education on it has been. I mean, it was covered very often it seemed in school, but it was always shallow and kind of the same thing over and over. I don't think we ever talked about why any of this apprehended, or how, or what was going on in the world really. It's always, Nazis are very bad, pearl harbor, atom bomb, Americans single-handedly win on all fronts and literally save the world as heroes forever.
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Apr 2, 2013 06:44
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Unluckyimmortal posted:It's difficult to predict what would have happened if Germany managed to hang onto those 12,000 intellectuals, but the number is deceiving in that so many of those driven out were truly at the pinnacle of their careers and at the tops of their respective fields. It's just my opinion, but I've always thought that, had the Nazis managed to get those big names to stay, a Nazi nuclear bomb would have been alarmingly likely; and that just goes to show how early the Nazis started working on their own defeat. There's almost zero chance that any intellectual with a Jewish background or leftist views would have survived and been productive in Nazi Germany if they'd stayed, and every chance they'd leave if they got any chance. Its just completely implausible. There's enough good scientists that did stay and were German enough to survive, like Planck and Heisenberg, but they didn't really get a lot of practical work done. They were in a highly politicized environment where every institution had to serve the state and every appointment was seen through the lens of the Fuhrer principle. Even if more scientists had stayed, they likely would have been little more productive. Finally, the Germans did not have as ready access to nuclear materials for research as the Allies. I don't think they had access to uranium ores and - going by unreliable memory here - I think they also lacked access to large amounts of heavy water. My understanding has always been that a Nazi bomb was never a credible worry.
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Apr 2, 2013 06:53
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Unluckyimmortal posted:It's difficult to predict what would have happened if Germany managed to hang onto those 12,000 intellectuals, but the number is deceiving in that so many of those driven out were truly at the pinnacle of their careers and at the tops of their respective fields. It's just my opinion, but I've always thought that, had the Nazis managed to get those big names to stay, a Nazi nuclear bomb would have been alarmingly likely; and that just goes to show how early the Nazis started working on their own defeat. I find a Nazi nuke extremely unlikely in any case. Yes, nuclear technology including nuclear bombs was coming, but getting a working device by 1945 essentially required an epic goal-directed project which no power other than the USA had the resources and ability to undertake. You needed to have not just enough top brains but also competent laboratory grunts, space, industrial capability, money etc. so that you could afford throw any amount of effort at the task without taking anything away from your conventional warfighting ability. Whenever a particular problem had two or more apparent approaches, duplicate all laboratory setups and processes and try every approach at once! And keep going down every path unless and until it is obviously no longer viable. This method, and only this method, proved able to provide a working nuclear bomb design before the war was over, and even then it only barely made it in time (but then again, it provided not one but two quite different bomb designs which both worked). By, say, the early 1950s, sure, Nazi Germany could have managed to build a working bomb. And it would have cost a fraction of what the Manhattan Project cost. But Nazi Germany would not likely have survived that long (it would lose its conventional war against the Soviet Union long before then even if the Western Allies stood by and did squat; if that war never started, the regime would likely have collapsed due to its various instabilities and completely rotten economic policy), and I'm pretty sure they wouldn't be the first and only power to get a bomb by then in any case (the most promising project previous to Manhattan was the British/Canadian "Tube Alloys" project, which was also incorporated into Manhattan). As it was, while contemporary fears of Nazi superweapon projects were not unjustified, with hindsight we also know that what they did have in the way of a nuclear project was absolutely barking up the wrong tree and they were basically wasting their time.
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Apr 2, 2013 07:05
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Unluckyimmortal posted:I've always found it pretty frightening to consider what would have happened if the Nazis managed to hang on to the really important intellectuals that fled the Axis countries. Like quite a lot of counterfactuals about the Nazis, the answer to this question is "if they could have done X they would not have been the Nazis". Another one along the same lines is the fact that many people living in the USSR had no love for the Soviet government and likely would have cooperated with the Germans, had the Germans actually sought their allegiance instead of mistreating and murdering them. But it happened the way it happened because the entire logic of the German invasion was based on Nazi racial theory and their intentions of clearing the Slavic population so it could be resettled by Germans. Intellectuals fled the Nazi regime because the Nazis were violent racist thugs who wanted to force the German arts and sciences to conform to their political views. Aside from being a completely different political movement, it's not clear what the Nazis could have done to retain those people. It is also not clear that the Nazi's would have even wanted those scientists you named, because eliminating suspect elements from academics and research was a major part of their program for those institutions--in that fact that was arguable the main point of their interaction with universities and research labs, even moreso than getting usable research out of them. Also, even assuming a completely different Nazi party more in line with, say, Italian Fascism or perhaps a military dictatorship run by the old-line officer corps, it is by no means likely that those scientists would have assisted that fantasy German government in achieving the atomic bomb. They were willing to go to the United States to avert the apparent possibility of the Nazi getting to the bomb first, but why should they put themselves in that ethical quandary on behalf of a Mussolini-style dictator or a junta of Prussian generals? quote:Speaking of counterfactuals -- I've always wondered what the plan was in the event of a successful invasion of the USSR. Did the Nazis think that there simply was no other threat? I mean, if the Nazis had eked out a win at Stalingrad in 1942, for example, they might have exhausted the USSR and forced its surrender. The thing about historical turning points is they don't always have the same significance for both sides. Taking another example, the Battle of Midway was a turning point in the Pacific Theater because it did crippling damage to Japan's offensive capabilities, but it would not have been a turning point for the Americans had they lost. The US Navy had so many ships rolling out in the coming years that Japan's cause was basically hopeless, and they would have needed to win Midway five or six times and never once lose, an impossible task. It would only have delayed the Americans' victory. The battle of Stalingrad was a complete debacle and a turning point for the Germans, but conversely it probably would not have been nearly as destructive a loss for the Soviets they been pushed out instead. Much is and was made of the fact that Stalingrad was the last defensive point and there seemingly wasn't anywhere to check the Germans behind it, but taking the city doesn't get the Germans across the Volga. Realistically the effort of capturing the city would leave the Sixth Army severely depleted and in no condition to press on, and there isn't really anybody behind them to take over. Independent of the outcome of the fighting in the city itself, the Soviets are also massing for Operation Uranus. It's conceivable that the capture of the city would complicate the Soviet attack and cause it to be less successful than historical, but even so the Soviets would still be in a far better position in the area than the Germans simply because they had more fresh reserves available and the Germans in Stalingrad were operating at the tip of a very long salient. quote:What, in other words, would the Western European (particularly German/Austrian/Czech areas) look like after some kind of limited victory that left the Nazis with much of Europe but the rest of the world hostile? Were there any plans for that eventuality at all? To answer this, simply return to the topic of atomic weapons. The US military had plans for production of additional devices to be used to shatter Japanese defenses in preparation for a land invasion. Production was scaled back when Japan surrendered instead, but there would have been a number of bombs available by late 1945. In your scenario these weapons would go to Europe instead.
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Apr 2, 2013 07:28
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I think the only way the Germans could work out a peace with Britain and the US after defeating the USSR would be some alternate history where the Americans focused on Japan over Germany. The only scenario I can come up with would be terrorism by Japanese nationals coupled with one of them assassinating Roosevelt maybe? It would take a huge helping of revenge-driven anger to get the US to have chosen a different strategic focus.
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Apr 2, 2013 07:32
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EvanSchenck posted:Like quite a lot of counterfactuals about the Nazis, the answer to this question is "if they could have done X they would not have been the Nazis". EvanSchenck posted:The battle of Stalingrad was a complete debacle and a turning point for the Germans, but conversely it probably would not have been nearly as destructive a loss for the Soviets they been pushed out instead. Much is and was made of the fact that Stalingrad was the last defensive point and there seemingly wasn't anywhere to check the Germans behind it, but taking the city doesn't get the Germans across the Volga. Realistically the effort of capturing the city would leave the Sixth Army severely depleted and in no condition to press on, and there isn't really anybody behind them to take over. Independent of the outcome of the fighting in the city itself, the Soviets are also massing for Operation Uranus. It's conceivable that the capture of the city would complicate the Soviet attack and cause it to be less successful than historical, but even so the Soviets would still be in a far better position in the area than the Germans simply because they had more fresh reserves available and the Germans in Stalingrad were operating at the tip of a very long salient. As far as Stalingrad goes, a successful capture of Stalingrad after a frontal assault might have avoided 6th army starving to death in the ruins of Stalingrad over the winter, but it's an open question whether or not a Stalingrad could have been captured by frontal assault anyway. As I recall, Hitler was the one who insisted on sending armies into the city to capture it. If the Germans had pursued a reverse Operation Uranus strategy in the first place, the thinking goes, they could have avoided the bloodbath of Stalingrad altogether. Basically, a scenario where the Red Army never manages to make a real stand in or around Stalingrad pushes the turning point back to 1943, and on top of that, even the USSR could have run out of men or space if pushed very much past the Volga.
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Apr 2, 2013 07:47
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I've never done any actual study on WWII but the topic fascinates me. Here are a few questions I have. It seems like there was a large number of Nazis -- both high-level officials and lower grunts -- who either committed or at least seriously contemplated suicide at the end of the war. Is this true, or is the number / percentage no higher than any other empire's collapse? And if it is true, why? Pragmatism, despondency, panic? Magda Goebbels murdering her children just chills me. I've also heard that the Nazi higher-ups were hoping the Allies would accept generous surrender terms so that the Nazis and Allies might work together to fend off the Soviet threat, but the Allies wanted nothing to do with the Nazis. I had assumed that was moral outrage over the concentration camps, but that doesn't really fit if the Allied forces already knew about the Holocaust. So why were they so repulsed? Gumby posted:Speer is a slippery character and probably the first rule of WW2 scholarship is "don't trust anything Speer says" What's your take on him? Do you think he was covering his rear end, so to speak, in case Germany lost? I know he played the "nice Nazi" card to save his own neck at Nuremberg, but I don't know that he would have seen that coming that far in advance. So was he angling for something else entirely? Lastly: have you seen the movie Downfall (Der Untergang) and if so, what did you think?
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Apr 2, 2013 08:23
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slackerbitch posted:I've also heard that the Nazi higher-ups were hoping the Allies would accept generous surrender terms so that the Nazis and Allies might work together to fend off the Soviet threat, but the Allies wanted nothing to do with the Nazis. I had assumed that was moral outrage over the concentration camps, but that doesn't really fit if the Allied forces already knew about the Holocaust. So why were they so repulsed? Out of principle, perhaps. Stubborn old Winston. And France mainly, and a lot of populations of the allied countries in western europe anyway would've had none of it - out of hatred towards the nazis and sympathies towards communists. The latter being prevalent at least until communist takeover of eastern Europe. That's my guess anyway.
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Apr 2, 2013 08:40
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How much do you know about the post-war social impact of de-nazification? Specifically, how did the post-war generation of Germans deal with their skeletons in their parents closet? Earlier on you mentioned that the whole de-nazification system was pretty loose, did Germans self-govern themselves into dealing with their pasts? Don't worry if this is a little out of the realm, I understand that I'm asking about something to do with more than just the party.
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Apr 2, 2013 08:58
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I think this is still on-topic enough to deal with here but you might also get more input from the Ask Me about Military History thread. I'm assuming by "reverse Operation Uranus" you're talking about encircling Stalingrad. The primary objective of Case Blue was to move into the Caucasus and capture Baku, the center of Soviet oil production. Hitler is sometimes criticized for splitting his forces and sending too much of his combat power with Army Group B against Stalingrad, which was technically a secondary objective, but this line of argument ignores the strategic issue facing the German army at that point. The thrust towards Baku created an extremely deep salient and left the German lines stretched perilously thin, such that a determined attack by the Soviets in the direction of Rostov could achieve a breakthrough and result in a huge encirclement. Because Stalingrad was the major city and transportation hub on the lower Volga it was the obvious jumping-off point for any such counterstroke, as Soviet forces shuttling from their center of gravity up by Moscow would move down through Stalingrad on their way to Rostov to clip the German advance off at the sea of Azov. As Stalingrad was the strongest point held by the enemy in the theater and also a critical objective in terms of achieving the goals of Case Blue, the German army had to send the strongest available forces. The position of Stalingrad as the regional transportation hub is also what forced the Sixth Army to make a frontal assault. Stalingrad could not be easily bypassed because that would necessitate crossing the Volga, and the only crossing in the area that could accommodate such logistical demands was the city itself. Stalingrad was a significant city but that region of Russia is actually somewhat remote, and there aren't a ton of rail bridges and such out there. AFAIK you would have to go all the way down to Astrakhan or all the way up to Saratov. I'm not familiar with the minutiae of German bridging equipment during WWII but the Volga is an exceptionally broad river. The narrowest point in the area is, again, at Stalingrad. Even if they had the theoretical capability to bridge the Volga elsewhere, it was at the far end of a long thrust into Soviet territory and at a great distance from their logistical base, so it would have been very hard indeed to bring forward that kind of equipment. Due to the lack of bridges (the ones in Stalingrad were obviously destroyed) the Soviets ferried their forces across for Operation Uranus. This is not possible for the Germans. The Volga flows into the Caspian Sea and the Volga-Don Canal wasn't completed until after the war, so bringing in anything from the Black Sea is impossible. Hauling boats overland in sufficient quantity to ferry an army is not doable. Essentially, any plan that involves crossing the Germans crossing the Volga is right out, and as Stalingrad is hard against the western bank, it can't be encircled without crossing the Volga. Even granting that it was feasible to make the crossing, it wouldn't necessarily be a good idea. As above, Stalingrad has to be neutralized because it is a transportation hub and assembly point for a Soviet counteroffensive. This also means that if it is encircled Soviet forces will have an easy time moving south by rail and by river to break a German encirclement operation. German forces on the east bank of the Volga meanwhile will be operating at a distance from their base of supply (back near the Don crossings, IIRC), with a severe logistical bottleneck in the final leg due to the Volga crossing. Also, and potentially more seriously, encircling the city will require lengthening the line and detailing substantial forces to contain sorties from the Soviet forces in city itself (which were fairly strong and are not being pounded to dust in this scenario). In the historical battle the German lines were very thin, to the point that they were forced into their fatal reliance on low-quality Romanian troops to guard the Sixth Army's flanks. Substantially lengthening the front by forming a kessel would exacerbate this problem, and having a large part of the encirclement force isolated across the river would put them at very serious risk of a defeat in detail. The only realistic counterfactual for the Germans would be to avoid approaching the city altogether and instead use airpower to destroy the bridges and interdict the city as much as possible, and leave the Sixth Army fronting it at a distance to screen Soviet forces so they cannot interfere with Army Group A's advance into the Caucasus. The issue with this is that it cedes the initiative in the area to the Soviets and permits them the use of the city as a bridgehead. Most likely this would have resulted in the Soviets being able to concentrate for an offensive in sufficient numbers to scotch Case Blue anyway. The merit of this approach is that the Germans would have a better opportunity to withdraw in good order, but it's debatable how much that would benefit them in the long run.
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Apr 2, 2013 09:49
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:When were camps like Treblinka and Sobibor discovered and understood by the Allies? Since they were completely dismantled and hidden well in 1943 it had to have been post war. I’ll take a stab at this. The short answer is that the Soviets found them and performed basic investigations before the end of 1944. For those who are unaware, Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka were the key Aktion Reinhard camps responsible for gassing Polish Jews. In a period of less than 14 months they “handled” the “evacuation” of their “goods” and were closed, destined to be demolished and planted over with lupine trees and farms. In some cases bodies in mass graves were exhumed and burned on iron girders to further conceal their crimes. Belzec was the first and most experimental of the camps. Despite having the most primeval gas chambers relative to the others, its successful extermination of the Lublin-area Jewish population paved the way for the program’s expansion. It’s worth noting that Belzec was so thoroughly demolished that its exact dimensions remain roughly unknown today. Sobibor was shuttered after a semi-successful revolt, and while Treblinka halted operations after a similar attempt it managed to stay open as a small, non-functioning death camp for another year. These camps, along with the hybrid extermination/concentration/POW camp of Majdanek, were discovered by Soviet forces in 1944. Investigations began almost immediately, and presumably they learned of the Reinhard camp locations from eyewitness testimony, which would account for the bulk of their evidence during subsequent investigations. Marshal Konev’s 1st Ukrainian Front found Belzec, and Marshal Zhukov’s 1st Belorussian Front liberated Majdanek and discovered Treblinka and Sobibor. The Soviet organ tasked with war crime investigations, the State Extraordinary Commission in Moscow, was plagued with the same indifference toward European Jewry that befell its Western military counterparts. Of these camps, the Commission only devoted additional resources to the investigation of Majdanek, chiefly because it was the most intact and had also served as a final destination for Soviet POWs. News of Majdanek was published widely in the Soviet press and around the world. But just what were these additional resources for investigating Majdanek? Well, it merely meant the 1st Belorussian Front’s judge advocate officers would participate -- similar to how in the later initial Auschwitz investigation the judge officers from the 1st Ukrainian Front were utilized. In the case of the Reinhard camps, though, investigative responsibilities fell solely to non-specialized junior officers without legal or investigative pedigrees. In the cases of Sobibor and Treblinka these were officers of the subordinate 47th and 65th Armies, respectively. Sometimes the investigations overlapped. While each camp received its own investigation, a broader survey conducted by Chuikov's 8th Guards at the end of July 1944 covered Sobibor, Majdanek and several Soviet POW camps. It's important to note that these individual camp investigations were fairly informal and not directed in a top-down manner, and all are fairly brief in their reporting. They were, rather, initial impressions and findings undertaken by officers as they spoke to residents and mostly investigated the sites in situ. Despite these limited resources, each Reinhard camp investigation arrived at the correct conclusion, and their findings have been validated time and again: the Reinhard camps were explicitly extermination camps primarily for Polish Jews where victims were systematically gassed by tank engine exhaust and either buried or burned in mass graves. The investigators interviewed hundreds of area eyewitnesses, including a local Pole named Stanislaw Kozak who helped build the gas chamber at Belzec, and also confirmed that villagers were aware of camp purposes, able to see pillars of smoke wafting from the camps and able to sniff acrid death from considerable distances. Villagers likely smelled the camps from as far as 15 kilometers away, extending to perhaps a distance of 20 miles on some occasions. A Polish diary writer in the vicinity of Sobibor reports residents washing their clothes in cologne to dispel the odors, and a Wehrmacht garrison commander in the area later testified that his men constantly speculated upon, and were disturbed by, the charnel stench. A similar communiqué upward from a Wehrmacht commander downrange from Auschwitz complaining of corpse smoke is another such occurrence of this. Thus, Soviet authorities were well aware of camp purposes before the war’s conclusion, but most public emphasis was put on findings at Madjanek and later at Auschwitz. The Soviet-backed Polish civilian government of 1945 conducted another series of investigations into the Reinhard camps, this time with the benefit of returning Reinhard survivor Rudolf Reder's testimony and concerted grave excavations, and independently affirmed the 1944 Soviet Army investigation findings. By this period in 1945 the Western Allies and press were mostly up to speed on the general nature of the death camps, and Western war crimes investigators were also aided by such primary evidence as SS officer Kurt Gerstein's voluntary eyewitness report on the early Reinhard gas chambers and other survivor testimonies to which the Soviets and Poles weren't yet privy. Someone earlier asked about express orders and other such documents regarding the Final Solution, which Seven Hundred Bee and others have covered well. It’s worth noting, though, that in some cases we do have documents inadvertently kept or preserved. The Hoefle telegram, for instance, clearly delineates the number of Jews exterminated in Aktion Reinhard up to a certain point. The Jaeger Report -- of which five copies were made and only one survives -- details the number of Jews and others shot by Einsatzkommando 3 from July to November 1941 on the Ostfront. Extant operational reports and additional unit documents mirror this for other Einsatzgruppen and Security Police deployments. A 1944 letter from Odilo Globocnik to Himmler hails the success of Aktion Reinhard. And, supporting the notion that most orders were verbally given and reinforced, we have some audio recordings of Himmler’s speeches in Posen giving pep talks in no uncertain terms to officers on the necessity of what they were doing. In a weird twist, when Himmler finally witnessed a mass shooting of Jews on the Ostfront he was alleged to have taken sick, visibly shaken by the horrific nature of a mass shooting. There are more examples, of course, but for anyone interested I would suggest reading Architects of Annihilation by Susanne Heim and Goetz Aly. For some it might be a bit too firmly in the functionalist camp, but it provides a good primer on the organic and informal nature that characterized much of the Holocaust’s early development. Hope this helps! And yo, Seven Hundred Bee, I see you don't have PM's. Is there an e-mail address I can catch you at? MothraAttack fucked around with this message at 11:38 on Apr 2, 2013 |
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Apr 2, 2013 10:04
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What was Nazi Germany's fiscal policy like after 1933? How much control did the party have over the central bank? Was it a purely political currency? How did Nazi Germany conduct trade for materials it needed?
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Apr 2, 2013 12:18
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This is slightly off topic, but who was the equivalent of Hitler/the Nazis before they existed? If you had a questionnaire about 'Who was the most evil man in history' I'm pretty sure Hitler would win with an overwhelming majority. Who would have won in Europe in 1920?
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Apr 2, 2013 13:13
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you can email me at teger230 at gmail.com will answer a bunch of question, but specifically to the denazification question - in the western zones, denazification went through several phases. initially, most german soldiers, regardless of their participation, were held in prisoner of war camps. high-ranking nazis were tried in allied courts. almost all members of the nazi party were fired from their jobs. after a year of this, and amid complaints by germans and outsiders that this wasn't equitable and violated germany's sovereignty, denazification was handed over to the germans, who operated under the law i outlined earlier - denazification boards and classifications. for about a year, the military government had considerable oversight into this process, but beginning in late 1946, denazification was pursued much less fervently. this was also speeded along the passage of amnesties (for example, everyone born after x date was exempt from denazification). this continued until 1947 when most of those still held by the americans were released, and in 1948 the entire process was shut down. the failure to pursue denazification on the part of the americans had much to do with rising tensions between the west and the soviets, and on the part of the germans, it had to do with a general desire to move past nazism and hitler without exploring culpability in depth. socially, denazification accomplished little, and there were a number of scandals in the 1940s and 50s when it was revealed that many officials in the new democratic german government were former nazis. these scandals, as well as academic work, prompted a closer examination of germany's legacy in the holocaust, which was the beginning of a much more indepth analysis of culpability and consequences. by and large though, the vast majority of nazis -- even those of high rank -- escaped any sort of prosecution in the west. russia was a different story. Seven Hundred Bee fucked around with this message at 13:49 on Apr 2, 2013 |
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Apr 2, 2013 13:40
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kanonvandekempen posted:This is slightly off topic, but who was the equivalent of Hitler/the Nazis before they existed? If you had a questionnaire about 'Who was the most evil man in history' I'm pretty sure Hitler would win with an overwhelming majority. Who would have won in Europe in 1920? The level of hatred for napoleon was extremely high in the early 19th century. And many of the attitudes you tie to germans these days, such as being efficient goose stepping drones, were attached to the prussians.
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Apr 2, 2013 13:49
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kanonvandekempen posted:This is slightly off topic, but who was the equivalent of Hitler/the Nazis before they existed? If you had a questionnaire about 'Who was the most evil man in history' I'm pretty sure Hitler would win with an overwhelming majority. Who would have won in Europe in 1920? as a historian (maybe a junior historian) i don't really judge the nazis to be 'evil,' or, by extension the allies to be 'good.' such pronouncements aren't really historically useful. that being said, hitler and the nazis were unique, and the holocaust is distinct from other genocides that came before and have come sense.
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Apr 2, 2013 13:50
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slackerbitch posted:I've never done any actual study on WWII but the topic fascinates me. Here are a few questions I have. speer was an opportunist both under hitler and after his fall. unlike how he presented himself at nuremburg and in his book, he was clearly much more involved in the planning of the holocaust and the function of the nazi state than he would like you to believe. that being said, he was not an ideological nazi. much more akin to eichmann than himmler. suicide was endemic for lots of reasons. first, the experience of having your entire world (and worldview) destroyed and discredited is difficult to absorb, especially if you're a true believer. second, high-ranking nazis recognized that they were likely to be executed or imprisoned for their crimes, especially if captured by the russians. killing yourself was preferable to being worked to death in a siberian labor camp. downfall is a great movie.
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Apr 2, 2013 13:56
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| # ? Apr 30, 2024 01:40 |
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also if you'd like to chime in, please do! i am by no means an expert on everything related to nazi germany, and as always with historical subjects, there's endless (and justified) debate. edit: somewhere I have copies of some SS documents from 1941 which detailed how german villages would be constructed in the captured russian territory, back when they thought the war was winnable. very specific and fascinating. ill try to find them and scan them. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Apr 2, 2013 13:59
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