|
Beware my extensive Wikipedia knowledge! Did I get it right that most of the Shoa happened in 1941 and 1942, that there were more Jews killed in 1941 than in all other years but 1941 combined? If yes, why - simply because there were no more Polish Jews to murder, or because of external pressure? How dangerous would it have been to speak out against the Final Solution for somebody like Speer, or at the mid level? Not against Nazi rule or anti-semitism, but against extermination of people in favour of something like the Madagascar plan? Why is there so little direct evidence for the stated intent of mass extermination in the form of documents? For example, why is there no single document that says, "in this camp, we hope to be able to murder 8,000 Jews a day"? I assume during the later days of the war, when they could sense they would some day be brought to justice, it was prudent to try to hide the crimes, and even before, they tried to keep the total extent and nature of it hidden from the German public, or at least not in plain sight, but at least from what I am aware of, there is surprisingly little direct documentation by Nazis themselves of the intentional genocide and its scope (or maybe I'm just missing it). Cingulate fucked around with this message at 15:33 on Apr 1, 2013 |
#
¿
Apr 1, 2013 15:31
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 17, 2024 20:06 |
|
|
Uberskooper posted:I don't get how there are SS men still alive and admit who they were. Aren't there organizations that hunt these guys like dogs? What do they do with themselves after the war? Who wants to hire an SS guy?
|
|
#
¿
Apr 1, 2013 20:45
|
|
|
raven4267 posted:This is a question about the politics/economy of nazi Germany. I got into a big argument with a family member when he referred to President Obama as a commie/nazi, and I told him that statement was ignorant and stupid. He swears that the nazi's were left wing socialists and that the only reason that Hitler and Stalin were rivals was due to them being power hungry. After much argument I got him to admit that the nazi's were right leaning socialists??? I don't really know the much about the details of Nazi Germany's politics or economy, and I felt I was wasting my breath, so I pretty much just gave up the argument. I was hoping you could give me some insight into this issue. Also, while Obama comes from a minority ethnicity historically repressed by whites, Hitler wanted to murder all minority ethnicities in favour of (certain types of) whites. The equation of Obama with Hitler because, I don't know, Obama is okay with Gay people becoming married and possibly not lowering the tax on the richest of the rich, which is obviously typical Nazi thinking, feels like a huge insult to any of the tens of millions of victims of Nazi rule. Also, I just read that Germany under Hitler had something like half the personal income tax as Britain at the time (24 to 14%), and that at first he did not raise taxes to support the war. The economics of WWII are so astonishing. It's mind-boggling how they kept things running for years of Europe burning.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 2, 2013 00:02
|
|
|
Seven Hundred Bee posted:the government reaped huge financial benefits from seizing jewish property and wealth.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 2, 2013 00:08
|
|
|
ArchangeI posted:There were also large deposits in Thuringia, which were already being exploited and which eventually supplied large amounts of Uranium for the Soviet bomb projects. The Germans were definitely aware of the possibility, but in typical Nazi fashion the Army, Navy and Postal Service (No poo poo!) each had their own projects which sucked off resources that were already sparse. 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. Cingulate fucked around with this message at 17:31 on Apr 3, 2013 |
|
#
¿
Apr 3, 2013 17:24
|
|
|
What are some controversial issues in the field? I'm not talking about holocaust denialism, but about things like Functionalism vs. Intentionalism. What's the stuff reasonable people actually can have different opinions about these days? Both wrt. the Holocaust and 33-45 Germany in general.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 6, 2014 17:17
|
|
|
Cyrano4747 posted:the outbreak of WW2 (when, as I said before, things go on a wartime footing and get relatively boring I think you understand how contra intuitive this might sound to the layman. Mr. Sunshine posted:Its targets were, well, everyone. ... In the end it reached pathological levels, culminating in the bizarre Moscow show trials were old, loyal Bolsheviks who had led the revolution confessed to being bourgeoisie saboteurs, counterrevolutionaries and fascist agents. I'd argue that there was no aim or logic to the Great Purge, just a hysterical lashing out that targeted anyone who happened to be in the way.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 8, 2014 19:23
|
|
|
What is the primary source for Himmler throwing up after watching his first mass shooting (or otherwise not being able to handle it)?
|
|
#
¿
Dec 10, 2014 12:31
|
|
|
Big Willy Style posted:Karl Wolff I am pretty sure. He was interviewed for BBC's World At War (a must watch) and I don't remember if he says he vomited it but definitely that brains splattered on his coat during an execution and that he looked quite green around the gills. If I understand it correctly, almost the same story (again without puking) is also told by Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski as a witness in the Eichmann trial. http://www.nizkor.org/ftp.cgi/peopl...ach_Zelewski-02 I found the incident interesting because in Himmler's Posen speech, he seems to refer to that and/or similar events: "Most of you here know what it means when 100 corpses lie next to each other, when 500 lie there or when 1,000 are lined up. To have endured this and at the same time to have remained a decent person -- with exceptions due to human weaknesses -- had made us tough." So he specifically emphasises being tough in such a situation. I guess pointing out examples of Nazi hypocrisy is not the most challenging task, but it's particularly interesting because the specific brain-on-Himmler anecdote is also sometimes claimed to have led Himmler to ask for more "humane" methods of mass murder, leading, eventually, to gassings.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 10, 2014 19:20
|
|
|
I'm not sure if you're disagreeing with me ... either way, in von dem Bach-Zelewskis testimonies, he clams after the shooting, he brought Himmler's mind to the fact that this style of executions was putting a high strain on the psyche of the executioners, and in a following visit to an asylum, Himmler orders a further aide, Nebe, that future executions should be done in a different way so as to spare the executioners mental health. The Posen speech could possibly indicate how Himmler personally remembers these events - in his mind, he's re-interpreting himself as a stone-hearted dark hero, because surely, getting sick after watching one of the many executions he himself had ordered is not what his self image looked like.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 10, 2014 20:38
|
|
|
Wasn't basically everyone in Europe but for Hitler and parts of the proto-revanchist German military extremely war weary after the devastating first World War and the knowledge that the next one would not be any better?
|
|
#
¿
Dec 15, 2014 18:14
|
|
|
To keep it in perspective, if Obama had been Hitler, by now, the US would have invaded Cuba, annexed Mexico and preparing the imminent invasion of Canada, there would have been an instance of state-sanctioned shooting of rich people/catholics (?) in the street, members of the Republican party would be sent to prison camps, Ron Paul would be in prison or dead, and the size of the US military would have grown by orders of magnitude. They both wrote autobiographical books with some political oomph though, and had favourable opinions on vegetarianism. I kind of see the connection. Disinterested posted:That's an over-simplification. Germany was militarily capable of fighting on in 1918
|
|
#
¿
Dec 16, 2014 12:58
|
|
|
Disinterested posted:There were a lot of reasons for the Germans to be pissed in their own minds. Unlike with WW2, looking back, they were genuinely close at moments to winning the gamble - and they did it with even fewer and more incompetent allies. They enjoyed military superiority over their competitors a lot of the time. France came perilously close to losing Paris or just giving up at various points. Britain, before it adopted convoys, was almost ruined by submarine warfare. Sure, when you're talking about the motivations behind the Dolchstosslegende, you can bring up stuff like that, but it's still a myth - Germany was defeated, and that the military could have added a few months of watching the nation burn and the people starve does not change that they were defeated; German revanchists had motivation, but no reason.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 16, 2014 18:46
|
|
|
I don't know much about this, but to me it seemed that popular support for the Dolchstosslegende grew as the actual horrors of the war became more distant. Of course, the militarists immediately blamed everything on the left, but many people in Germany, much as in the rest of Europe, had really experienced how terrifying the whole thing was, and needed some time to switch to a new ideology.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 16, 2014 20:07
|
|
|
I assume your friend somehow frames this offer to leave Germany as a benign gesture? Also, ask him how many Jews died in the Holocaust, and what of. Oh, and ask him to explain the experiences of people like Wittgenstein. Cingulate fucked around with this message at 11:45 on Apr 19, 2015 |
|
#
¿
Apr 19, 2015 11:39
|
|
|
EvanSchenck posted:Statistically German Jews were overrepresented in universities and professions. AFAIK it's still the case today in countries with Jewish minorities, like the USA. The Nazis complained about it a lot. Still they were a long, long way from running "all the finances and businesses", they just ran slightly more of them than you would expect from their share of the population. In any case it wasn't really a cause of antisemitism as much as it was something that got you riled up if you were already an antisemite. How this in any way justifies anti semitism is, however, a bit of a mystery to me. The racist's explanation should be that Jews are genetically smarter (there is good evidence they just might be), in which case they should, according to the racist, be right where they are. On the other hand, the vast majority of the Jews Hitler murdered were not bankers, but poor poles and other eastern european people.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 19, 2015 21:48
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 17, 2024 20:06 |
|
|
Kanine posted:
|
|
#
¿
May 9, 2015 13:34
|
|
