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Yeah, there's still a lot of modern scholarship about how much the Wehrmacht was involved in the killings. In the East, they had their hand in massacring a lot of civilians and "partisans." They had a better record only because their duty was to kill Slavs who might have guns instead liquidating them in the woods.
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May 5, 2014 01:48
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My point is to call bullshit on the myth that the Wehrmacht was restrained or more civilized, or really at any point "honorable" fighting men. When they weren't fighting a war of extermination, they tended not to kill civilians as much, but that's only because that wasn't their job. Rules of war were followed only when it was convenient.
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May 5, 2014 02:25
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Noctis Horrendae posted:Also, that point goes for every war and country ever, not just Germany in World War II. Not really. The western allies were miles a over the Germans in terms of how they treated civilians and captured prisoners, even when it made things a lot more difficult. Yes, the committed war crimes, but not on the scale or of the institutional variety that the Germans did. Even the Russians, who treated Germans and German military with much less mercy, still can claim the moral high ground. Stalin made an offer to follow the Geneva rules if Hitler would as well, but Hitler ignored him. Interestingly enough, the reason the Allies tried so many nazi leaders instead of just hanging them in mass was because Stalin insisted. Roosevelt was totally cool with summary executions of leadership and proposed stripping Germany of all heavy industry and turning it into an agricultural state when they were defeated.
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May 5, 2014 02:51
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Besides, what reason, if any, is there to assume to Wehrmacht were "honorable?" Compared to what? Was their some land army that they fought that had less scruples or lower standards for behavior on the field of battle? I don't know the specific historiography of this idea, but it seems, from what I've read, that come from a lot of German people after the want needn't something to cling to after the crimes of the Third Reich became public. "Yeah, I was in Poland. But I was doing the honorable stuff."
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May 5, 2014 14:23
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Wasn't the Irgun of pre-Israel more or less fascist? I don't know if they ever had any allegiance or coordination with any other national fascist movements, but in practice they were going with the general tide of worldwide fascism.
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May 11, 2014 16:50
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How much if Blitzkrieg a myth? I haven't read that opinion much, I'd be interested in hearing it broken down. My understanding is that blitzkrieg-like strategy works well against smaller targets, but is at a great disadvantage when fighting others with significant reserves, is that not true?
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May 23, 2014 01:01
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JaucheCharly posted:*cough*Heß*cough* I'm not super cool and don't get what you're referencing. Are you talking about Rudolf Hess?
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Sep 13, 2014 05:24
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What's everyone's take on the book The Holocaust Industry by Norman Finklestein? I've heard him speak a lot and read some of his writings on Palestine, which are all pretty good. However, I just started this book, which was kind of his first big thing, and it doesn't seem very convincing so far (he's arguing that US Jews didn't care about the holocaust or Israel really until 1967). I've yet to read the large section on the Swiss Banking extortions, which I've heard is painted in less broad strokes.
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Jun 24, 2015 02:46
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Isn't that the root of the functionalist argument for the holocaust? Basically, a system which promoted based on enthusiastic action and fanaticism towards the stated goals of a new, pure world encouraged all the lower officers to commit the mass scale of murders that occurred. The goals were vague enough, and the culture cruel enough, that the violence was born out of people mostly looking to please their bosses and get promoted.
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Jun 25, 2015 17:51
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Cyrano4747 posted:I haven't read his book, so I can't comment on it directly, but I can say that it is (broadly) true that Israel and the Holocaust weren't really a political concern in the US until the late 60s. The general public really only began to concentrate on it as a unique and uniquely horrible thing (as opposed to simply another war crime committed by the Germans) after the Eichmann trial, Hannah Arendt's subsequent writing on the subject, and some high-profile news about the Mossad's Nazi hunting. What we would recognize as the modern cultural significance of it only emerged in the US in the late 70s, largely a a result of the TV miniseries "Holocaust." The conversation that it started, along with some very savvy outreach efforts from American jewish organizations and the media continuing to dwell on it as a result, really brought it to the forefront of american culture. Ok, I'm just wondering where you sourced this? I ask because this is close to what Finkelstein argues. He goes further and says that America was callous and American Jews didn't really care or want to hear about the Holocaust. I find this a little hard to believe, if only because my Grandparents, who were both alive during that time, have said their memories of the early 40s were of waves of news about the Holocaust coming in, in bits and pieces. People in their different Jewish communities (one in a leftist, commie circle, the other in more assimilated American Jews) both were horrified and changed by the holocaust, and as a result, Zionism was a big deal at 1948 and onward. Furthermore, the Holocaust was something that made them very politically conscious as Jews living in America.
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Jun 25, 2015 18:03
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