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If nobody minds, I'm not near the expert that the OP is, but I know a little about the situation and thought I might chime in:ArchangeI posted:Why were the Nazis fighting until the very, very end? I don't necessarily mean the Wehrmacht, which did surrender en masse, particularly to the Western Allies, but the hardcore nazis fought on, knowing fully well that this would only end in their death, yet not committing suicide outright. Was there a genuine belief that they could still turn it around if they only fought hard enough? I don't think any of them actually believed that it was winnable in the late war (in fact, lots of people believed that it wasn't winnable in the early part of the war). I actually got a chance to talk to a former SS soldier about 5-6 years ago and the way he made it sound was that it was a practically nihilistic, going down with the ship, sort of mindset. Interestingly enough, he said that when he heard that Hitler died, he literally sat down and cried imagining Hitler going out in a blaze of glory against the forces of Bolshevism. When he found out that Hitler killed himself and left them to pick up the pieces, he realised that he'd been had by the Nazis. He also claimed not to have participated in any war crimes and I didn't press the issue.
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Apr 1, 2013 19:39
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Yeah, he was Waffen-SS, not a concentration camp guard or something along those lines. He was 18 when Hitler killed himself at the end of the war, so maybe 17 when he went into the organisation, but IIRC he wasn't specifically drafted into the SS; it was more that he was getting drafted and then ended up going with some friends to them (on the basis that they were supposed to be the best soldiers or something). In terms of what he did after the war, he worked as a mechanic. I have no idea whether he kept his past under wraps or something after the war, and even when I talked to him it was entirely possible that he was downplaying any possible involvement in war crimes. Other interesting fact, they let him in even though they didn't consider him an "Aryan". He was called "Latin" or "Roman" or something along those lines. I used to have some good notes, but I've since lost them  .
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Apr 1, 2013 21:10
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Devour posted:Did Nazi Germany have universal healthcare? The short answer is no. The longer answer: The German Empire ("Kaiserreich") was the first country in the world to sign into law a health care system. In 1883, Chancellor Otto von Bismark signed the Health Insurance Bill. This provided health care for a large segment of German workers. It was tied to workplaces in that the costs were split between employer and worker. Later there would be expansions to health care with the main ones coming after WWII. According to this pdf Germany achieved universal health care in 1988.
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Apr 20, 2013 16:03
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