Ask me/us About Nazi Germany

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Ask me/us About Nazi Germany

Obdicut: May 15, 2012; "What election?"

MrBling posted:

In the academic world is "The Holocaust" as a topic mostly centred on the extermination of the Jews as it is in mainstream media or is there acknowledgement of all the millions of other people that were killed in the camps as well? It just seems odd to ignore that at least as many Slavs, Romani, Poles, Russian POWs, Freemasons, Homosexuals and Freemasons were killed as Jews.

Why on earth would you think that it's ignored in the academic world? And the 'mainstream media' generally acknowledges the other groups too.

Actual question: Science in Nazi Germany. Obviously they shot themselves in the foot by getting rid of so many Jewish scientists right on the eve of war, but how much was the Nazi leadership involved in directing science? Did it get all Lysenko?

# ¿ Apr 1, 2013 16:14

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# ¿ May 17, 2024 15:03

Obdicut: May 15, 2012; "What election?"

One thing that gets talked about is the Nazi mastery of propaganda. I know this is subjective, but to what extent is this true, to what extent did they do something new or better in the area of propaganda? I have been surprised by talking to WWII-era folk that they said while they, the 20-something generation were very patriotic and rah-rah, their parents were very cynical and unpersuaded by propaganda, which I take to be the aftermath from WWI propaganda.

In Germany, on the other hand, there doesn't seem to have been the same acknowledgement that the propaganda during WWI was in any way overblown, instead the propaganda began anew with the 'stabbed in the back' conspiracy.

So I guess two questions:

What do you think of the propaganda capabilities of the Nazis? Was that the area they really excelled or were they just doing what their political contemporaries did? How much did the propaganda 'matter' and how much was it actual achievements by Hitler?

And was the older generation of Germans who had been through WWI wary of war and propaganda, or were they, having been humiliated, less able to gain perspective on the war?

# ¿ Apr 1, 2013 21:54

Obdicut: May 15, 2012; "What election?"

MrBling posted:

Denmark was viewed by Hitler as a model protectorate of the Nazi Empire, since it was a country of fellow Aryans he wanted to show the world how nicely they would treat occupied countries.

The occupation of Denmark wasn't really intended at first, it was more a target of opportunity since the German army was passing up through Jutland to get to Norway and their naval bases and resources. The Germans realised that since Denmark didn't really have much of an army they might as well take the country and the rather sizeable farming industry so they could feed their military.

The Danish government chose to cooperate with the Germans (something which has recently been condemned by politicians here as unforgivable, but it's not like there really was any other option) to make sure they would retain the most amount of power. The country essentially continued as usual, only with some German oversight. Eventually the resistance movement became enough of a nuisance that the Germans dissolved the government and ran the country.

The Danes also managed to get their (small) Jewish population out of there, along with a lot of other types the Germans would have liked to get their hands on.

# ¿ Apr 3, 2013 00:26

Obdicut: May 15, 2012; "What election?"

Cingulate posted:

You're almost making it sound as if there had been a number of separate organisations aiming to produce a nuke during WWII. This was not the case. The postal service partially funded one research group independently working on I think isotope separation/enrichment, and the Uranverein was designated kriegswichtig, but especially during the time where the Manhattan Project operated, Nazi Germany was far from willing or able to coordinate anything at the scale of the Manhattan Project. The German physicists (severely depleted by anti-fascist brain drain) had discussed and rejected (as unfeasible) the idea of constructing a nuke for the current war. What they were working on was a power plant, and they got quite close at times.
Beyond a lack of overarching command structure, a clear goal, the collection of the absolutely best researchers and unlimited funds (like the Manhattan project), the Uranverein was also critically hindered by resource availability. While Stalin would later build many of his bombs out of uranium mined in East Germany, the uranium available to the Germans during WWII was actually stolen from Belgian Congo. Also, the heavy water critical as a reaction moderator had to be imported from a plant in occupied Norway, and the allies undertook commando and bomber attacks to cripple the facility.

A German U-boat (U 234) tried to supply the Japanese with tons of uranium, supporting them in their attempts at building a nuclear bomb, but never reacher Japan.

Really, one of the biggest things that the US had was Oppenheimer. His skills as a leader of scientists-- one of the more difficult things in the world to do-- were extremely high. Without a figure like him, it's hard to see the Manhattan Project succeeding in the time scale that it did.

# ¿ Apr 3, 2013 18:29

Obdicut: May 15, 2012; "What election?"

Jedi Knight Luigi posted:

I'm pretty sure it was based on Jewish ethnicity, not Jewish religion.

Which makes me sort of confused as to why Nazi ideology had shoutouts to Martin Luther's treatise on the Jews. It's true that he did go way over the top on how they should be treated, saying things like dung should be thrown at them till they're run out of town, etc. But he was just a very passionate man for Christ who couldn't comprehend why God's chosen people so tacitly rejected Jesus Christ and his teachings. Luther's writings were directed at Jewish religious beliefs--beliefs which were naturally followed by ethnic Jews. I haven't done much research on the Nazi side of things, but I don't think the Jews' rejection of Jesus or anything related to Christian or Jewish theology was related to the founding of the NSDAP or even among their core beliefs.

I guess what I'm saying is how could they shoehorn Martin Luther's one-off treatise into their ideology and then imprison and murder people like Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Niem�ller, who were both Lutheran pastors?

Luther wrote three seperate treatises on the Jews, not one. You are vastly minimizing what he said in them. For example, in "On the Jews and Their Lies", he calls for rabbis to be executed if they 'preach', for synagogues to be razed to the ground, and for Jews to have no safe conduct on the roads.

In "Vom Schem Hamphoras" he allies the Jews with the devil.

In Warning against the Jews, he calls on all Jews to be expelled from Christian countries and claims that Jews would kill all Christians if they could.

How can you be confused as to how this contributed to the antisemitism that the Nazis were founded on? I don't get it.

# ¿ Apr 24, 2013 03:22

Obdicut: May 15, 2012; "What election?"

Jedi Knight Luigi posted:

Obviously these writings are not integral to the Book of Concord or Large and Small Catechisms or really any Lutheran ideologies. The two Lutheran pastors I named are examples of what Lutheranism was at the time of the Nazis, and they were both sent to concentration camps. So how did the Nazis justify it? It just seems contradictory to me.

The Nazis weren't consistent. Luther's writings against the Jews were almost genocidal, and so were obviously both part of the background of antisemitism which the Nazis capitalized on and specific works that the Nazis could point to for legitimacy in their treatment of the Jews. They also made a lot of use of him just for pure nationalism. But in everything, the Nazis didn't actually care or revere Luther, they were self-obsessed. Lutherans who supported them-- and there were plenty-- got nice treatment. Those who opposed and were powerful or influential in any way, got sent to the concentration camp.

The Nazi relationship with religion is an inherently twisted one and it doesn't make any real sense, but the way that Luther was both inspiration and support for the Nazis is very historically clear.

# ¿ Apr 24, 2013 04:29

Obdicut: May 15, 2012; "What election?"

ArchangeI posted:

Doubtful. Hindenburg was already pretty old and died in 1934. The communists were seen as the growing threat, and I would argue that Hitler might have been able to snatch an election afterwards. of course, the German people could just as well have risen up in a grand communist revolution.

As for Luther, I have always been taught that he was antijudaistic rather than antisemitic (opposed to the religion rather than the race). Has there been anything to prove that he considered Jews a separate race that would remain a problem even if they converted to Christianity?

What I don't get is why this is seen as important. In Luther's time, 'race' wasn't nearly as big a concept, and religion was. Jews who converted, however, were still obviously under a ton of suspicion for false conversion, given that the conversions were often of the 'or-else' variety. The Nazis, and really the 20th century, moved from a more religious to a more racial mindset.

Nobody is alleging that Luther supported the Nazis, or that he wouldn't have opposed them, or that he would have persecuted Jewish converts. It is not the case, however, that Nazi antisemitism came out of nowhere and was an entire invention of racial theory-- it is very, very clearly inherited from the legacy of Christian antisemitism already present, including that of Martin Luther. In the Nazis case, as well as Luther's 'antijudaic' (if you want to split that fine hair) cultural influence, they used him as a nationalist symbol.

Does it it help not to view it as an accusation that "Martin Luther was a Nazi" but, "The antisemitic works of Martin Luther contributed to the antisemitic environment in which Nazi-ism rose, and the Nazis also made use of Luther as a nationalistic figure"?

# ¿ Apr 24, 2013 22:39

Obdicut: May 15, 2012; "What election?"

MN-Ghost posted:

I have a question. Why did Hitler break the non-aggression pact with Russia and invade them before securing the western front by forcing Britain into surrender? I was taught that being forced to fight on two front between France and Russia was one of the biggest reason Germany lost WWI. So given that Hitler should have already learned this lesson, this always seemed to me to be a monumentally dumb move.

How was he going to force Britain into surrender?

# ¿ May 2, 2013 11:31

Obdicut: May 15, 2012; "What election?"

Kemper Boyd posted:

The answer you got was pretty much what I was thinking about, but I might add that Rommel is one of the figures who always gets remembered as the brave not-at-all nazi general who died tragically murdered (coaxed into suicide, but who's counting?) by the SS.

Rommel was very much pro-Nazi early on in his career and only turned against the Nazis when the going wasn't good anymore. Which is pretty much the whole story on the Wehrmacht. You don't get to run Hitler's personal bodyguard unit if you're not a Nazi.

Rommel's drive through North Africa would have, if successful, conquered Palestine, and there is no reason to believe that he would have stood in the way of the persecution and murder of Jews that would have followed.

# ¿ Jul 1, 2013 13:24

Obdicut: May 15, 2012; "What election?"

Disinterested posted:

This is actually a really messy subject. A lot of Nazis were very strongly observant Christians - a very great proportion of the SS, for example, were strongly Roman Catholic. That was certainly the religious background of a strong part of the Nazi movement (though many were also Lutherans).

Do you have any source and figures for this? It's a pretty startling claim, given both the anticlericalism of the SS and the specific hostility of the sicherheitsdienst towards Catholicism.

# ¿ May 5, 2015 15:09

Obdicut: May 15, 2012; "What election?"

Disinterested posted:

Why would have expected wiki to deliver so hard:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Nazi_Germany
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_and_Nazi_Germany#Catholic_adaptation_to_Nazism

These article is pretty comprehensive.

First, I don't accept Wiki as a source for any contentious claims, second, I'm asking particularly about your claim of high representation in the SS>

quote:

I can't dig out the stat at the moment but I believe Catholics were over-represented in the higher echelons of the Nazi party including the SS, although to advance further and deeper you had to begin to renounce elements of your faith. On the other hand, the average voter for the Nazi party was more likely to be protestant. I think I over-state my case somewhat by claiming these people were observant (they were often strongly religious, from a Catholic cultural background, but were also anti-clerical).

You appear to be combine wildly different time frames, talking about the SS and 'voters' at the same time. The SS was also not a 'higher echelon of the Nazi party'. Instead of operating off of your remembrances, could you find an actual text backing up anything you're saying? What time period are you even talking about, the original SS? The Waffen SS included--with the later enforced SS battalions?

quote:

I don't think that many of the SS actually ever bought the paganism, at least that's the impression I always got from interview footage of SS members.

What paganism are you talking about? The SS was specifically monotheistic.

# ¿ May 5, 2015 15:33

Obdicut: May 15, 2012; "What election?"

Disinterested posted:

I'm not using the Wiki as a source for a contentious claim, merely saying it's a fairly comprehensive article on the whole subject.

What whole subject? I'm asking you about a specific claim: That the SS was heavily Catholic.

quote:

I don't have the text available. I'm searching now, I'll get back to you.

I am 99% certain you will find you are absolutely wrong. Do you have a name of a text that you got this from?

quote:

Paganism=/=polytheism, even though the two often go together. I'm not sure what things like the Thule Society are if not 'neopaganism' of some description.

Why are you talking about the Thule society? It was dissolved in 1925. Obviously the SS weren't signing up for it. Where do you get the idea that paganism was being promulgated in any serious way?

# ¿ May 5, 2015 15:45

Obdicut: May 15, 2012; "What election?"

Disinterested posted:

In the context of the Thule society I am not talking about the SS. But that and elements of Hitler's occultism strongly leaned on pagan motifs and rituals.

I definitely made a bad post, and I need to keep digging to see if I can find where I produced this idea from.

When I say that the SS wasn't paganistic becaues it was monotheistic, and you reply that "Paganism=/=polytheism, even though the two often go together. I'm not sure what things like the Thule Society are if not 'neopaganism' of some description." I'm going to assume that you're talking about the Thule society as connected with the SS. Hitler's occultism is generally overstated by History Channel's Secrets of the Nazi Curse-Wizards and stuff like that. In general, Nazis were absolutely overwhelmingly Christian.

# ¿ May 5, 2015 16:07

Obdicut: May 15, 2012; "What election?"

Cyrano4747 posted:

Most of the bigwigs were pretty secular and tolerated churches of any type as a necessary evil and a good way to drum up anticommunist zeal among traditional sections of society.

Minor quibble here, but there were some churches that the Nazis found inimical, because the churches by their nature wouldn't go along with Nazism: The Society of Friends and the Jehovah's Witnesses.

# ¿ May 6, 2015 12:21

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# ¿ May 17, 2024 15:03

Obdicut: May 15, 2012; "What election?"

JaucheCharly posted:

Afaik, this wasn't handled in a blanko manner, but case by case. You weren't in danger for being a Jehova's witness, but if you object to being drafted for reasons of faith, you'll get hanged.

Fair counter-quibble, but given that pacifism is a tenet of being a Jehovah's Witness, it's still a fundamental opposition.

# ¿ May 6, 2015 12:59

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Ask me/us About Nazi Germany