Who was the more evil power in WWII ?

[Bear]

Ah, but there is the rub. To blame an emblem, nazi or otherwise for the acts of a "few men" in relation to the size of the nation, lessens the deeds of those who fought not out of madness, but out of duty for their country. Are all guilty? The Russians killed millions, the Nazi's killed millions, the Japs killed millions, the Americans killed millions (combining UTO & PTO), thus is the nature of war.

It is good that when we play these sims we remember not the powers that sent men out to murder, but the men who had the courage to live or die with what they did.

Someone smarter than I is supposed to have said (i wasn't with him that day so i can't be sure he said it.)

"If The Dead Could Return, There Would Be No More War."

[Mostinius]

i could never willingly put A nazi emblem of any shape or form on my conning tower, nor in a signiture pic for the forums. Others do, but i couldnt do it. (...) I have always respected this portion of history, and respected the human ordeal on the Ubootwaffes side of the story, its quite a story to be sure, and one i have empathy for, but i have never lost perspective of what flag they sailed under.You make a fair point. I believe it's illegal to display that flag in some countries, not to mention morally dubious in all of them. (That said, it's worth pointing out - though common knowledge, I'm sure - that the swastika itself was a holy symbol in many cultures long before the Nazis got hold of it. We can judge instances from context, of course, and if we're talking about World War II German subs then the context is pretty clear so I can agree wholeheartedly with your position.)

At the risk of sounding like an apologist, though, I do think it bears mentioning that - excluding the SS - most German sailors, soldiers and airmen in that period weren't fighting for the Nazis. At least, that is to say they weren't fighting for the Nazis as we now understand the full ramifications of the term. They were fighting for Germany - for family and friends, home and hearth, ashes and temples, all the usual stuff. We know now what the Nazis stood for, and therefore what the German army, navy and air force were effectively fighting for, but, I suspect, the troops just did what they thought they had to do - as do most combatants in any conflict.

The point I'm rambling around to is that you're entirely right to abhor the flag of that contemptible regime: pull it down, tear it up, burn it, trample it - whatever makes the point. But I'd be surprised if many of those who fought and died under that flag did so in the awareness and conscious support of the atrocities that were being committed under it in other places and by other people.

I don't advocate hero worship. I do advocate the simple acknowledgement of courage - which is to say, if Dr Jeffers will excuse me, feeling the fear and doing it anyway. I don't pretend that both sides were right: the fact is that Germany was wrong. It was the aggressor, and it was rightly defeated. Its masters at that time were evil men who should and will be reviled for all time by decent people. But at the same time I wouldn't want to see someone denied the recognition their courage deserves simply because they fought and died under a flag whose full meaning they probably didn't even realise.

Of course, it's always possible I just have a foolishly fluffy impression of history. At 32, I can't argue that I Was There - but I hope I've picked one or two things up over the years... We Shall See... :hmm:

[Ducimus]

At the risk of sounding like an apologist, though, I do think it bears mentioning that - excluding the SS - most German sailors, soldiers and airmen in that period weren't fighting for the Nazis.

Soundly true. Infact the Ubootwaffe, was argubly the most "unpoltiical" branch of their armed forces. But i will say what set me on my course of thought. Somewhere on uboat.net i found a post once (I can't find it now), by a fellow who claimed to be in the merchant marines during the time. He admonished the posters in this particular thread for hero worship, or rather, words like, "I never thought id hear about admiration for the uboats!" This set me thinking. Here was a man who faced it. On our side of the conflict, and now now, we "youngin's" are bestowing adulation, and praise for the same men who tried to kill him.

Even if his claim is false, the principle remains true. Put yourself into this situation: you find an old man in your home country. (US or UK), and he starts to talk about how it was out in the atlantic as a merchant sailor. How lofty will you hold uboats in admiration then? Will you defend or bestow praise on their actions to this man (a fellow countryman or ally) who was there? To us, the reality of Uboats nothing more then storybook material. We never see, nor feel, nor touch, nor fear. Its just a story. To others, the reality was very different. Its these thoughts, that made me rethink my enthusiasm.

[McBeck]

most German sailors, soldiers and airmen in that period weren't fighting for the Nazis. At least, that is to say they weren't fighting for the Nazis as we now understand the full ramifications of the term. They were fighting for Germany - for family and friends, home and hearth, ashes and temples, all the usual stuff.
This is very true and that makes them no different from any most other fighting soldiers. They were only a tool of politics, so if you want to go into the good/bad discussion dont blame the soldiers, sailors or airmen.

[Mostinius]

At the risk of sounding like an apologist, though, I do think it bears mentioning that - excluding the SS - most German sailors, soldiers and airmen in that period weren't fighting for the Nazis.
Soundly true. Infact the Ubootwaffe, was argubly the most "unpoltiical" branch of their armed forces. But i will say what set me on my course of thought. Somewhere on uboat.net i found a post once (I can't find it now), by a fellow who claimed to be in the merchant marines during the time. He admonished the posters in this particular thread for hero worship, or rather, words like, "I never thought id hear about admiration for the uboats!" This set me thinking. Here was a man who faced it. On our side of the conflict, and now now, we "youngin's" are bestowing adulation, and praise for the same men who tried to kill him.

Even if his claim is false, the principle remains true. Put yourself into this situation: you find an old man in your home country. (US or UK), and he starts to talk about how it was out in the atlantic as a merchant sailor. How lofty will you hold uboats in admiration then? Will you defend or bestow praise on their actions to this man (a fellow countryman or ally) who was there? To us, the reality of Uboats nothing more then storybook material. We never see, nor feel, nor touch, nor fear. Its just a story. To others, the reality was very different. Its these thoughts, that made me rethink my enthusiasm.I've no reason to wonder whether his claim was false. And yes, I understand what you're saying. In answer, and at the risk of sounding condescending, if I were to meet that man or someone like him I would shut the f--- up and listen to his stories. I would acknowledge his own courage and that of his comrades. And I would always appreciate and be grateful to those people for that courage, without which we couldn't possibly have won the war.

And now, in a time of relative peace when Germany and Britain and America and France and Japan and Russia are friends (if uneasily so sometimes), I have the luxury of being able to acknowledge the bravery and sacrifice of the men and women on all sides - while at the same time recognising and despising the horror and the atrocities inflicted by some.

Only if we're willing to recognise the people involved in that conflict as people can we have any hope of averting the next one.

[Von Tonner]

Only if we're willing to recognise the people involved in that conflict as people can we have any hope of averting the next one.
A very profound statement:up:

[namika]

Hmm, really good points from everyone.
This topic is the one which really shows that the posters are mature and serious people when coming to this discussion and not letting themselves rant about the evil xx country.
If all people thought this way I highly doubt there would be any conflicts regarding WW2 in these days. But that's of course only an utopistic dream until people get to know all the sides, their combatants' feelings in WW2 and try to understand that they were human aswell. After that they wouldn't fear them as an "unknown evil".
Old harms are not forgotten. That's natural, becouse people can never really forget such horrific things that have happened. But it is a problem when there are some territorries where the people or some groups of individuals can't set a line between past and present and they still try to make conflicts based ONLY the harms another nation inflicted to them in the past.
Why should a youngster be hated only becouse his/her grandfathers fought on the other side in the war?

[Frederf]

A fun point I like to make at parties (and why nobody invites me anymore) is there's nothing inherently evil about Germans circa 1940. Take pretty much take any Tom Dick and Francis and put them in the same position and the same thing would happen. It's utterly inconceivable that other people put under the exact same conditions wouldn't have nearly identical results.

The argument comically ends up with a complete rejection of the idea of an American, Austrailian or British person being able to be a cog in the holocaust machine despite the obvious conclusion that psychology is immune to nationality.

I have tremendous sympathy for German soldiers pitched in a losing battle. It always confuses me when others don't share that view.

[tater]

If you want to compare deaths due to allied bombings, only count the deaths inflicted after the axis surrendered. THAT is the difference. The axis powers slaughtered people who were already under their total control, the allies bombed people who were actively fighting them before the bomb run, during it, and RTB.

Evil on such a broad scale requires many hundreds of thousands of willing actors at the bare minimum (and millions of passive participants). Giving everyone but a tiny handful at the top a pass means you miss an important lesson in what not to do (or allow) in the future. That's a mistake people make at their own peril, IMO.

tater

[ReallyDedPoet]

Gentlemen, your sensitivities and sensibilities do you great credit. My father went to war in 1939 in the British Army. His three brothers all joined the Royal Navy. All survived - thank Goodness, but I remember my two uncles who were in destroyers talking about some of the things they had seen. It was actually their silences which spoke loudest.

If the game we play recreated the true horror of ships struck by torpedoes - men mutiliated, burnt, scalded, blinded and choked by swimming in fuel-oil, I don't believe any but the sickest minds would go near it. But, thankfully, the game concentrates on the mechanics and tactics of submarine warfare, not its human consequences.

And in the game, you're not sinking Brits, or Japs, or Yanks, or Jerries - you're firing a virtual weapon at an often anonymous virtual ship whose flag delineates that it's "one of theirs" rather than "one of ours."

A great computer game SH IV certainly is - as is SH III. War they are definitely not.

Indeed a very intelligent\thoughtful post, well done :up:


RDP

[Swede]

If you want to compare deaths due to allied bombings, only count the deaths inflicted after the axis surrendered. THAT is the difference. The axis powers slaughtered people who were already under their total control, the allies bombed people who were actively fighting them before the bomb run, during it, and RTB.

Evil on such a broad scale requires many hundreds of thousands of willing actors at the bare minimum (and millions of passive participants). Giving everyone but a tiny handful at the top a pass means you miss an important lesson in what not to do (or allow) in the future. That's a mistake people make at their own peril, IMO.

tater

Ever heard of Dresden, Hamburg or Berlin?

The americans bombed those cities into rubble, historical beautiful cities with hundreds of thousands of civilians.

Or what about the Millions of rapes by the russian hordes?

You should realize that its the victor that writes the history books. The Germans are only the bad guys of the world because they lost, if germany had won im sure we would all know about the american concentration camps for italians, germans and japs.

[Ducimus]

I predict this thread now takes a spiralling tumble downwards. Participating in Threads like this are kind of like an car accident on the side of the freeway. You know you shouldn't rubberneck (cause you'll slow down and add to the traffic congestion), but you do it anyway.

[tater]

Dresden is grossly overstated. 35k. Maybe. The large numbers came about from Nazi propaganda during the war, then Soviet propaganda during the cold war. Real Germans records support the lower numbers, Goebels literally added a zero to the real figure civil defense gave him and published it as an allied attrocity. I'll give you the Soviet rapes, etc. They had no problem murdering their own in countless tens of millions, a few hundreds of thousands or even millions of Germans would be small change to the CCCP killing machine.

Regardless, there is a huge difference between bombing--even area bombing--a city that is actively involved in war, and rounding up people who have already capitulated and (take your pick of industrial murder techniques and place here) them.

How many cities did we burn to the ground AFTER they had surrendered? None. How many people who surrendered themselves to German "relocation" were relocated to a trench covered with lime, or smoke in the air? A lot more than "none." A lot more than all the allied bombing deaths (legitimate or not) combined.

We'd know about American Concentration Camps? Where? The best you'll get are the Japanese Americans rounded up wrongly. They lost time, and property, they weren't murdered. None of them.

http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH.HTM
(US in ww2 is in there, BTW, he credits us with ~700k democides from bombing (mostly Japan---which might be in error since technically most japanese were combatants by Imperial Edict (all men 15-65, all women 17-47)).

tater

[-Pv-]

Decay...

There were many thoughtful and articulate posts near the beginning. Now it degrades into who killed the most and who is more evil.

More attuned to the intent of the thread at the beginning, I have played all the computer sub simulations since the mid 80s. I have played both sides. Being a US dude, I didn't have the emersion I suspect many in Europe get from playing the German boats.

Sonalysts games let you play US and Russian. SH lets us play either side so you can choose. I've noticed there is a similar dynamic in the Flight Simulator world where most people fly within a few hundred miles of their home even though they have the whole planet to explore. We are more likely to enjoy a familiar culture. Pacific Storm lets the player choose Japanese or US with equal chance of winning.

When I play sub sims, I don't even think of war though I know it's a concept deaply ingrained in the game. Having grown up on the mystique of sub stories since a child, gaming lets me participate in that mystique. I was 8 years old when I got to tour a nuclear sub. More, I'm thinking about the game logic as I've come to know it (the rules so to speak) and how to "beat" the game. I'm also thinking of how brave my parent's generation was to be wiling to flight in the many dangerous machines being developed and how difficult. Teamwork, logistics, strategy, environment, daring, luck. I'm also admiring the technology. Both that which is being simulated, and the computer techology that brings it so movie-like to my home desk. Being a technical kind of guy, I like simulations which encourage me to learn about the real world. Practical physics and mechanics. Different ways of solving complex problems.

So, I'm entertained on many levels but the level at which I'm NOT entertained is that of most 1st person shooters with gore splashing all over my screen. In that way, most sub sims are anesthetic enough I'm not re-living war which is why you're unlikely to find people participating in this forum going out and commiting mass murder. I'm not out for blood as much as I'm out for a score.
I'm not amblivalent to the theme of the game, nor am I so sensitive I cannot enjoy it at some level, but I HAVE drawn a line and I will NOT cross it. Ever.

Have I rescued the thread? I doubt it. Flame wars are perpetuated by those who will never give up a contentious opinion even after repeating it hundreds of times. Isn't this what war is really about? Fight to the death for an idea, then fight to the death because the other guy's idea killed your family and friends?
-Pv-

[Swede]

Hey tater, take your pro american propaganda to the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

[McBeck]

OK people....let get back on topic - or take it to the General forum! :ping:

[Ducimus]

Hey tater, take your pro american propaganda to the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

:roll:

As if the Japanese were innocent little angles...
http://members.iinet.net.au/~gduncan/massacres_pacific.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_war_crimes#Major_incidents

Go ahead, read it. The Nanking Massacre is a good place to start.

[McBeck]

OK...you were warned.

Posts not related to SH3 or SH4, but merly about WWII has been moved.

[The Avon Lady]

Hey tater, take your pro american propaganda to the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Who could have taken it at the time to their imperial an "divine" Emperor Hirohito and his military thugs, where the responsibility lies to this day.

Thank you Tater.

Swede, where's the disinformation in Tater's post? Waiting......................

[Oberon]

There was no strict 'evil' power in WWII IMHO, just bad people in the wrong places. Take, the Kriegsmarine for example, a reasonable proportion of the Kriegsmarine couldn't give a hoot about Hitler or the Nazi party, they just wanted to get out, do their jobs as military men, defending their nation from aggression, and get home alive....but not everyone was like this, there were the devout and fanatical Nazis, the SS troopers, those who would kill in the name of the fuhrer and kill again, not only because they loved their leader but because they loved killing. Such sadists are still around today, and they're usually drawn towards societies who need to use violence for their means, such as the early days of the Nazi party.

Each side had its own share of atrocities, only a couple of hours ago I was reading a book about the Battle of Britain and how Spitfire pilots would occasionally single out German parachutes and open fire on them...or wait until they landed on the ground and then strafe them. The Japanese commited countless atrocities, as did the Soviets and Nazis, you could also quite easily call Hiroshima and Nagasaki atrocities, but it was perhaps what is called a necessary evil...but where do we draw the line at necessary evils? What is defined as a necessary evil?

I think it's a little wrong to ask which is the most evil power in WWII, as each power had evil men, as much as they had good men.

[antikristuseke]

In my opinion both Nazi germany and the Soviet onion were equally "evil". But history, particulary of that era, is different in everyones eyes. For uswho live in a country boardering with Russia the history is especialy tricky since the societ version is complete bull**** and the real history is too inconvenient for most western powers to be widely acknowleged. Iv noticed several posts refering to SS and SS troops, but one must understand to draw a line between the Waffen-SS (exept for the Totenkopf part which did infact monitor concentration camps) and SS, since one was an elite military organization, though it mainly concisted of nazis, while the other was the organisation responsible for the atrocities, secret policing and such. Another thing about the Waffen-SS are the Baltic SS Legions, in which my grandfather fought, those were recognized as armed forces of coutries where the men came from during the Nuremberg trials, a fact that is allso conveniently looked past. I know from my granfather statements that allmost all men who voulenteered and those who were later conscripted only joined to keep the russians out of our country, when the germans withdrew, most deserted, but those who remained were shipped off from one killing field to the next. But ennough for now, dont want to rant too much about the history of ym own country during WW2

[Takeda Shingen]

I do not like the tone of this thread. Improve it or it will close.

The Management

[joea]

Hey tater, take your pro american propaganda to the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Why not pro-Chinese or pro-Soviet, why the obsession with Americans? I've said it before no moral equivalance between the Axis and Allies in this war, read Ducimus' links btw. I can bet a fair proportion of those who argue so must be secretly sympathetic to the Nazis and their ilk somehow. :down: Not saying this is the case of anyone here.

[StdDev]

I do not like the tone of this thread. Improve it or it will close.

The Management

Tak!!
If the thread gets too "out of hand"....
move it... to McBecks forum!! :rotfl:

[Takeda Shingen]

I do not like the tone of this thread. Improve it or it will close.

The Management

Tak!!
If the thread gets too "out of hand"....
move it... to McBecks forum!! :rotfl:

Hey Std. You made me smile with that one. Everyone knows how I feel about imported fist fights.

[joea]

Hey Std. You made me smile with that one. Everyone knows how I feel about imported fist fights.

Sorry, I should refrain from posting in these these kind of threads. :damn: What a stupid title as well. :dead:

[StdDev]

Hey Std. You made me smile with that one. Everyone knows how I feel about imported fist fights.

Just doing my duty sir! :)

[Takeda Shingen]

Hey Std. You made me smile with that one. Everyone knows how I feel about imported fist fights.

Sorry, I should refrain from posting in these these kind of threads. :damn: What a stupid title as well. :dead:

No, no, no. I wasn't yelling at you, Joe. A lot of the people that follow an imported thread do not regularly read GT, and therefore do not know how I operate as a moderator. So, when a thread like this get dumped here, I post as such to let the non-GTers know that I am watching it, and will lock it whether they like it or not.

I don't have to do it for guys like you and the other regulars. It is the reason that this forum has been running so smoothly in the past three weeks. Members know the rules and act accordingly, allowing me to be a, largely, invisible presence on the forum, and let you guys run the show.

[McBeck]

:smug: Nothin' like dumping problems in other peoples labs!

[Dowly]

My vote for the most evil power of WWII goes to...

*drumbeat*

Soviet Union!

What kind of man kills ~20mil of his OWN people?! :doh:

[GlobalExplorer]

This thread was a good read so far - but I promised myself not to discuss anymore the general forum.

[bradclark1]

This thread was a good read so far - but I promised myself not to discuss anymore the general forum.
You just did. :)

[Dowly]

This thread was a good read so far - but I promised myself not to discuss anymore the general forum. You just did. :)

No he didnt. ;)

[Dmitry Markov]

tater wrote: I'll give you the Soviet rapes, etc. They had no problem murdering their own in countless tens of millions, a few hundreds of thousands or even millions of Germans would be small change to the CCCP killing machine.



swede wrote: Or what about the Millions of rapes by the russian hordes?


Good day to you sirs. Let me tell you about "russian hordes" , "millions of rapes" , "Soviets murdering their own in countless tens of millions" etc and how it looks from Russia. Reading modern literature you may come to oppinion that III Reich has fallen an innocent victim of wild Russians. That it were III Reich's soldiers that were fighting for their homes and wives and peoples of CCCP were intent to kill all that lives on Earth.

Let me tell you what my ancestors were fighting for.

On 22th of June 1941 German army came to my country when no one asked them to come. Their leaders told them that peoples of the CCCP were "untermenschen" - underhumans. Talking with Antonesku (Romanian minister) Hitler said "My aim if I can achieve it is slaughter of slavs. There should be only two races in future Europe: Arian and Latin. These two races should work in Russia to lower the quantity of slavs. We cannot apply usual justice formulas in Russia as russian question has much more danger than it appears and we should apply here colonisator's and biological measures for slaughtering slavs."
So they luckily did.
About 21 million of us died in that war. Only 8 millions of them fallen on the battlefields. Others 17 millions were the civilians in parts of our country lying to the west of Moscow. Germans killed practically all jews in Ukraine, Litua, Belorussia and in western part of Russia. Only in Kiev in 1941 they murdered about 370 thousands of them during two days in place named Babiy Yar.
My grandfather being 14-years old was taken with his family as a slave to Austria. He did not ask for that.
My another grandfather fought with fascists and died from mortar shell launched by Hitler's soldiers. Two my other ancestors were injured fighting with true agressors.
As for rapes - it sounds rather silly taking into account how many of us were killed by the Germans. And by the way nobody counted Russian women raped by German hordes. They really weren't beautifull princes on white horses.

And by the way no one German civilian were taken into CCCP to work as a slave. Only prisoners of war worked to re-build that what they destroyed. And that was just and fair.
Russian prisoners of war were used as slaves by Germans. But mostly Germans meaned them to do one thing - just die. Germans never even fed them - they had to eat rats, birds even their drops. Sometimes there were about two or three hundreds of thousands Russian prisoners of war beyond the barbed wire with no roof over their head and they were situated there for weeks dieing one by one with no food at all... But did they destroyed something in Germany before they were taken? No! Did they killed somebody's wives in Germany before they were taken? Again NO!

So please dear gentlemen think a little bit before saying something about "russian hordes".

[antikristuseke]

Good day to you sirs. Let me tell you about "russian hordes" , "millions of rapes" , "Soviets murdering their own in countless tens of millions" etc and how it looks from Russia. Reading modern literature you may come to oppinion that III Reich has fallen an innocent victim of wild Russians. That it were III Reich's soldiers that were fighting for their homes and wives and peoples of CCCP were intent to kill all that lives on Earth.
While I cant really speak for those two I doubt they were trying to make the III Reich sound more innocent, rather I think they were trying to say that CCCP is far more guilty of atrocities commited than is qidely known and accepted, that is my opinion at least

Let me tell you what my ancestors were fighting for.

On 22th of June 1941 German army came to my country when no one asked them to come. Their leaders told them that peoples of the CCCP were "untermenschen" - underhumans. Talking with Antonesku (Romanian minister) Hitler said "My aim if I can achieve it is slaughter of slavs. There should be only two races in future Europe: Arian and Latin. These two races should work in Russia to lower the quantity of slavs. We cannot apply usual justice formulas in Russia as russian question has much more danger than it appears and we should apply here colonisator's and biological measures for slaughtering slavs."
So they luckily did.
About 21 million of us died in that war. Only 8 millions of them fallen on the battlefields. Others 17 millions were the civilians in parts of our country lying to the west of Moscow. Germans killed practically all jews in Ukraine, Litua, Belorussia and in western part of Russia. Only in Kiev in 1941 they murdered about 370 thousands of them during two days in place named Babiy Yar.
My grandfather being 14-years old was taken with his family as a slave to Austria. He did not ask for that.
My another grandfather fought with fascists and died from mortar shell launched by Hitler's soldiers. Two my other ancestors were injured fighting with true agressors.
As for rapes - it sounds rather silly taking into account how many of us were killed by the Germans. And by the way nobody counted Russian women raped by German hordes. They really weren't beautifull princes on white horses.

And by the way no one German civilian were taken into CCCP to work as a slave. Only prisoners of war worked to re-build that what they destroyed. And that was just and fair.
Russian prisoners of war were used as slaves by Germans. But mostly Germans meaned them to do one thing - just die. Germans never even fed them - they had to eat rats, birds even their drops. Sometimes there were about two or three hundreds of thousands Russian prisoners of war beyond the barbed wire with no roof over their head and they were situated there for weeks dieing one by one with no food at all... But did they destroyed something in Germany before they were taken? No! Did they killed somebody's wives in Germany before they were taken? Again NO!

So please dear gentlemen think a little bit before saying something about "russian hordes".

While i feel for your familys and your loss, i acnt agree with you on the points that German prisoners of war were treated rightly, im of the opinion that they got the same treatment that soviet prisoners of war got from the germans. Both were abused, used as slave labour, tortured and killed. I guess what im geting at hes is that both commited horrible, inexcusable acts, but only one is demonized.

[Dowly]

Good day to you sirs. Let me tell you about "russian hordes" , "millions of rapes" , "Soviets murdering their own in countless tens of millions" etc and how it looks from Russia. Reading modern literature you may come to oppinion that III Reich has fallen an innocent victim of wild Russians. That it were III Reich's soldiers that were fighting for their homes and wives and peoples of CCCP were intent to kill all that lives on Earth. While I cant really speak for those two I doubt they were trying to make the III Reich sound more innocent, rather I think they were trying to say that CCCP is far more guilty of atrocities commited than is qidely known and accepted, that is my opinion at least

Let me tell you what my ancestors were fighting for.

On 22th of June 1941 German army came to my country when no one asked them to come. Their leaders told them that peoples of the CCCP were "untermenschen" - underhumans. Talking with Antonesku (Romanian minister) Hitler said "My aim if I can achieve it is slaughter of slavs. There should be only two races in future Europe: Arian and Latin. These two races should work in Russia to lower the quantity of slavs. We cannot apply usual justice formulas in Russia as russian question has much more danger than it appears and we should apply here colonisator's and biological measures for slaughtering slavs."
So they luckily did.
About 21 million of us died in that war. Only 8 millions of them fallen on the battlefields. Others 17 millions were the civilians in parts of our country lying to the west of Moscow. Germans killed practically all jews in Ukraine, Litua, Belorussia and in western part of Russia. Only in Kiev in 1941 they murdered about 370 thousands of them during two days in place named Babiy Yar.
My grandfather being 14-years old was taken with his family as a slave to Austria. He did not ask for that.
My another grandfather fought with fascists and died from mortar shell launched by Hitler's soldiers. Two my other ancestors were injured fighting with true agressors.
As for rapes - it sounds rather silly taking into account how many of us were killed by the Germans. And by the way nobody counted Russian women raped by German hordes. They really weren't beautifull princes on white horses.

And by the way no one German civilian were taken into CCCP to work as a slave. Only prisoners of war worked to re-build that what they destroyed. And that was just and fair.
Russian prisoners of war were used as slaves by Germans. But mostly Germans meaned them to do one thing - just die. Germans never even fed them - they had to eat rats, birds even their drops. Sometimes there were about two or three hundreds of thousands Russian prisoners of war beyond the barbed wire with no roof over their head and they were situated there for weeks dieing one by one with no food at all... But did they destroyed something in Germany before they were taken? No! Did they killed somebody's wives in Germany before they were taken? Again NO!

So please dear gentlemen think a little bit before saying something about "russian hordes".
While i feel for your familys and your loss, i acnt agree with you on the points that German prisoners of war were treated rightly, im of the opinion that they got the same treatment that soviet prisoners of war got from the germans. Both were abused, used as slave labour, tortured and killed. I guess what im geting at hes is that both commited horrible, inexcusable acts, but only one is demonized.

Exactly what I am thinking. :up:

[Mostinius]

Hey tater, take your pro american propaganda to the people of Hiroshima and NagasakiMy 2p: If we were waiting for the post that should've seen this thread closed as having outlived its usefulness... this one was it. :-?

[HunterICX]

who was the more evil power in WW2

The Leaders....easy as that.
and not ONE...ALL of them...

[joea]

My vote for the most evil power of WWII goes to...

*drumbeat*

Soviet Union!

What kind of man kills ~20mil of his OWN people?! :doh:

What does that have to do with WWII though?? The purges and collectivization took place in the 1930s and had no bearing on the Nazi plans fror WWII. Hitler was not intending to "free" people from communism after all...if I had a penny for how many times folks said Saddam's crimes were no justification for the Iraq invasion.

To our Russian friend Dmitry Markov, please try to read some of the latest research, millions of Germans were displaced after the war and a fair number killed. I can't post figures as they vary widely, but at least as many died if not more as during the Allied bombing. Still this number was far less than the civilians killed by the Nazis in Russia, Poland, Yugoslavia..indeed as I have also posted before the imbalance proportionally between civilians killed among the Axis coalition and in the Allied camp is very large.

This of course is not the only war in history this has occurred...:dead:

[CCIP]

I refuse to participate in this thread.

Define 'evil' and define 'power'. And then tell me that the people of the Soviet Union should probably not have bothered to fight in WWII.

I swear. This is never gonna stop. The Russians (and their satellites of course) stopped the Mongols. They stopped Napoleon. They stopped Hitler. And still, at the end of the day, they're probably the more evil of the bunch, huh?

Please take this thread out. It's a lovely way to play with words and figures to undermine real complexities of the war by throwing around 'good' and 'evil' labels, and as of now also a lovely way to spread anti-Soviet/anti-Russian sentiment which is frankly offensive to me as a Russian person who was born in the USSR. :down:

[STEED]

Originally Posted by Oberon
a reasonable proportion of the Kriegsmarine couldn't give a hoot about Hitler or the Nazi party, they just wanted to get out, do their jobs as military men, defending their nation from aggression


One little point Oberon, they were not defending. I will agree they did not give much of a hoot about the party.

I will keep my case to Europe as I am still reading up on the pacific. The roots to the European war lie in the events that took place after WW1 the victors believed what they did was justified. Can we blame them for knocking down the first domino which plunged Europe in to a second war? When Hitler came on the scene little did anyone think this out spoken former Corporal would rise to power. After Hitler failed in the Beer Hall Putsch he wrote his book, it was all in print what he believed that should happen.

Hitler in 1935 is now in power and begins the rebuild the army and its clear to the rest of Europe what is going on and yet no reaction, was it a mistake? Winston Churchill saw Hitler for what he was, and no one would listening too Churchill, latter Hitler gambled on his pre-war land grab and Europe tried and failed to appease Hitler. The same thing happens with the Soviets they were supplying Nazi Germany with oil and metal just to keep Hitler happy but this did not stop him when his army marched in to Russia in June 1941.

The question is from 1935 to 1939 did any of the European leaders read Hitler's book? Can we really blame them for not stopping Hitler, when his army marched in to the Rhine Land? What happen, happen and is now history.

Hitler waged a two front war he wanted an empire which was free of Jews and that empire laid in Russia. Could Hitler had won in Russia if the correct military decisions were taken? I don't know. Here is the Key thing the Bolsheviks took power in Russia. And under Stalin's programme he bought Russia in to the 20th century. As we all know Stalin was a greater evil than Hitler who killed even more than Hitler, yet it was Stalin who would bleed the German Army white in Russia.

Was it wrong the Allies sent supplied to Stalin's Russia to add his war with the German invaders knowing full well Stalin starved his own people in the Ukraine and slaughtered a number of Military Officers and other crimes in the 1930's. Are we guilty of adding an evil man?

There were no rules in Russia for Hitler it was win or die and no half way house for his German Empire in Russia but remember this. On the eve of Barbarossa the Army was only one third motorised behind then were the killing units of the SS Einsatzgruppen and they were fully motorised.

Hitler was evil, and evil men believe they are right in what they do, those in the SS or so believed it was justified. Years of hatred and brain washing were now a fact. And when Hitler lost his gamble he speeded up the programme under the control of Himmler.

We in the west knew Stalin was evil, yet we needed him to destroy the bulk of the German army, in 1944 Hitler suffered two major set backs the Western Armies landed in Normandy and later that month the Soviets launched there major summer operation Bagration. As the Soviets advanced towards the death camps the SS took control of vital rail stock moving the Jews west and this rail stock was needed to move war equipment to the Ost Front. It is a clear cut case Hitler wanted to slow the Allied advance what ever the cost so the SS could carry on there sick work.


In 1945 the Third Reich is crushed and the facts were out in the open. Should Europe had stopped Hitler before 1939 if they knew what he had planned for the Jews; well it was in his book. Hitler's rotten life came to an end in his Bunker and Stalin kept all of liberated land in Eastern Europe and starts his deportations of ethnic races in Russia.

Stalin is a different kind of evil he was happy to stay put in his own country and rule with an iron will, Hitler on the other hand lived for war. Mistakes were made but remember they were different times and if we do not learn from there mistakes are we really fit to move forward in the 21st century? Time will only tell, but we are now in a dangerous situation in the Middle East facing a new kind of evil.

[fatty]

At the risk of sounding like an apologist, though, I do think it bears mentioning that - excluding the SS - most German sailors, soldiers and airmen in that period weren't fighting for the Nazis.

Soundly true. Infact the Ubootwaffe, was argubly the most "unpoltiical" branch of their armed forces. But i will say what set me on my course of thought. Somewhere on uboat.net i found a post once (I can't find it now), by a fellow who claimed to be in the merchant marines during the time. He admonished the posters in this particular thread for hero worship, or rather, words like, "I never thought id hear about admiration for the uboats!" This set me thinking. Here was a man who faced it. On our side of the conflict, and now now, we "youngin's" are bestowing adulation, and praise for the same men who tried to kill him.

Even if his claim is false, the principle remains true. Put yourself into this situation: you find an old man in your home country. (US or UK), and he starts to talk about how it was out in the atlantic as a merchant sailor. How lofty will you hold uboats in admiration then? Will you defend or bestow praise on their actions to this man (a fellow countryman or ally) who was there? To us, the reality of Uboats nothing more then storybook material. We never see, nor feel, nor touch, nor fear. Its just a story. To others, the reality was very different. Its these thoughts, that made me rethink my enthusiasm.

The idea that certain branches of Germany's armed forces were relatively light on politics during the Second World War is helpful for clearing our consciences while playing from the other side, and maybe it even holds some truth - I don't know, I'm not a historian. But as I've said in other threads on the same subject, I refuse to accept that u-boat skippers or whoever should be immune to reprehension. The submariners had a great degree of courage to sail in their iron coffins for month after month, but they lacked courage to escape service to the Nazi regime.

They were fighting for their country and not for the Führer, some say. Just like any Allied sailor. Fair enough, but the circumstances were grossly different compared to those on the other side of the trenches. Germany was not embarked on a defensive mission to repel invaders - at least not for a few years - and this is reflected in the submarine arm, with their extraordinarily long-ranged boats. Goebbels et al certainly did their best to skew the Allies in such a way to make them seem the aggressors, but through the employment of slave labour, the book burnings, the systematic exterminations, and even Hitler's published literature the mission of Germany - to conquer nations and subjugate entire races - was not really a secret.

So I think it's fair enough that many (not all) u-boat captains and crews were not super sieg heil Nazis, you can't lose sight of the larger picture that Ducimus hints at. They departed from their bases with bellies full of torpedos to kill merchant mariners and choke out relief supplies bound for Great Britain. I can't believe that any military officer would do so and not be able to anticipate that this would make possible an eventual invasion and occupation of the British isles and the enslavement of yet another people. So in a bizarre twist I think it took more courage for German submarines to realize what they were actually fighting for and to pop the hatch and surrender to the nearest destroyer, compared to those who fought on with their heads in the sand believing it was their duty to serve their nation regardless of the swastika.

[HunterICX]

I refuse to participate in this thread.

Define 'evil' and define 'power'. And then tell me that the people of the Soviet Union should probably not have bothered to fight in WWII.

I swear. This is never gonna stop. The Russians (and their satellites of course) stopped the Mongols. They stopped Napoleon. They stopped Hitler. And still, at the end of the day, they're probably the more evil of the bunch, huh?

Please take this thread out. It's a lovely way to play with words and figures to undermine real complexities of the war by throwing around 'good' and 'evil' labels, and as of now also a lovely way to spread anti-Soviet/anti-Russian sentiment which is frankly offensive to me as a Russian person who was born in the USSR. :down:


Agreed mate,

also its the matter of POV

the Japanese will tell the americans and british where evil
the Russian will tell that the germans and Japanese where evil
the brits the same as the russians and you can go scroll down the whole list.
Overall you CANNOT determe who is the bad guy.
its the matter of a Point of view in this case.

War is in the human nature it always has been , the only thing that has changed are the tools of war. we can kill faster while we started with a piece of wood and rocks. and now we have rockets, machine guns, compact weapons with greate power.

War is horrible , but sometimes its unavoidable.
if there has been no war at all in history the world would be a very crowded place.
you can almost say War is a World's clean up...thought it sounds very hard.

HunterICX

[GlobalExplorer]

Some very intelligent arguments in this thread, so I have changed my mind and post my opinion :)

No matter if some details were exaggerated or wisted by the victors, Nazi Germany was still the most evil power, among many things because it build machinery for eradicating whole groups of people like vermin.

There was whitewash on war crimes commited by the western Allies, like concentration camps for Japanese Americans, retaliative bombings of civilians, occasional shootings of prisoners. But on the whole this was the most humane side, the one that was most acting in the interest of righteousness.

The opressive, imperialistic nature of the USSR was realized only when it was too late by the free world, and the countries they had went out to support (Poland and Czecholovakia) were the victims (and many non allies like the baltic states).

But I dont see why Dmitry Markov and other Russians should be more upset about this look back on the war than we Germans. Didnt Chrustchov do away with Stalins terror and almost eradicate him from history books? Meaning even if the USSR wasnt exactly a free country after Chrustchov came to power, your politicians were fed up with (most of) the terror against everyone and the country become much more humane?

A fun point I like to make at parties (and why nobody invites me anymore) is there's nothing inherently evil about Germans circa 1940. Take pretty much take any Tom Dick and Francis and put them in the same position and the same thing would happen. It's utterly inconceivable that other people put under the exact same conditions wouldn't have nearly identical results.

The argument comically ends up with a complete rejection of the idea of an American, Austrailian or British person being able to be a cog in the holocaust machine despite the obvious conclusion that psychology is immune to nationality.

This is the best thing I've read in this thread. Thats exactly how I think!

[P_Funk]

This thread began beautifully. Then it degenerated into the High School version of the topic. I remember the charts of war dead. Oh my look at the decimal points! :huh:

When people start talking about the number of dead as if they're like dollars lost in the stock market then you miss the point. My grandfather was a Commando, he served under Lord Lovat and he told me that he did some terrible things. He said that everyone he was fighting was just like him, caught up in something this big and doing what they're told. He said that they're all someone's child and that he hates the terrible stuff he did, but that he did it for a reason. He also made a point of saying that the SS were the exception, obviously. They didn't bother taking them prisoner.

So what does this mean? That he knows he did terrible even evil things for his country. He did them to other people who mostly weren't any worse a man than he. War makes evil. I think that classifying evil in such a cut and dried way is counter productive. We were all evil in that time and we were fighting for less evil than the alternative. It does no good to count numbers if we can't avoid using them as the crutch of why someone or thing was more evil. Don't quantify evil, just remember what the evil was for. Evil for good or evil for bad. Hitler wanted bad, my grandpa did evil for good.

And one more thing he told me. "Whatever you do, don't join the f*cking army."

Have a nice day, and keep it civil please. If me, the pinko commie, can stay away from the 'Those Americans' generalizations then you all should be able too.

[GlobalExplorer]

Very true but it should still be allowed to say something evil was evil. Just dont take it to heart if someone says something bad about bad things that a country did in the war, otherwise you might still clinge to a dilusion.

And I dont see why everyone gets so upset about threads like these, a touchy lot you are. If you'd ever get spit out in front of you or someone made the Hitlergruss just because of you nationality, you might be able to shrug off a lot more things.

[bigboywooly]

My grandfather was a Commando, he served under Lord Lovat and he told me that he did some terrible things. He said that everyone he was fighting was just like him, caught up in something this big and doing what they're told. He said that they're all someone's child and that he hates the terrible stuff he did, but that he did it for a reason. He also made a point of saying that the SS were the exception, obviously. They didn't bother taking them prisoner.


.

Ah the generalisation all SS were evil :roll:
You say SS prisoners werent taken but ???
So does that make your grandfather a war criminal ?

[joea]

This thread began beautifully. Then it degenerated into the High School version of the topic. I remember the charts of war dead. Oh my look at the decimal points! :huh:



Well I posted some charts buddy, if you didn't get the point well I am sorry. :dead: A point I thought you understood in PM. It was not a damn stock market comparison...but to illustrate the different goals like you said about your Grandfather, bad for good (or to prevent a worse thing). There are other wars too.

[joea]

I refuse to participate in this thread.

Define 'evil' and define 'power'. And then tell me that the people of the Soviet Union should probably not have bothered to fight in WWII.

I swear. This is never gonna stop. The Russians (and their satellites of course) stopped the Mongols. They stopped Napoleon. They stopped Hitler. And still, at the end of the day, they're probably the more evil of the bunch, huh?

Please take this thread out. It's a lovely way to play with words and figures to undermine real complexities of the war by throwing around 'good' and 'evil' labels, and as of now also a lovely way to spread anti-Soviet/anti-Russian sentiment which is frankly offensive to me as a Russian person who was born in the USSR. :down:

Agreed mate,

also its the matter of POV

the Japanese will tell the americans and british where evil
the Russian will tell that the germans and Japanese where evil
the brits the same as the russians and you can go scroll down the whole list.

HunterICX

Maybe, but could you say in case of a rape or robbery it is just a question of POV to determine the perpetrator or victim??

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Oberon
a reasonable proportion of the Kriegsmarine couldn't give a hoot about Hitler or the Nazi party, they just wanted to get out, do their jobs as military men, defending their nation from aggression

..Lots..

Very good point STEED, and one I should have probably put across clearer, although with the spin put across by the Reich it was quite possible that some people thought the world had declared war on poor little Germany quite unjustifiably. Which is total cattle dung as we now know.
There were warning signs that Hitlers rise to power was going to end in trouble, particularly to the Jewish community...but at the time there was a fairly high level of anti-semitism anyway, and there were a few that agreed with Hitler, particularly after the '29 crash. It was easy to find a scapegoat and use it, such as Stalin used the Kulaks, to blame all of societies ills upon it, it's still done today. Then it was easy enough to make a communist confess to the Reichstag fire, and Hitler was all set to rumble on the right.
I do ponder though, if Hitler hadn't have come to power...quite whether the Soviet Union would have stayed put in the east, or whether it would have slowly advanced across Europe. As it was it did that chasing the Reich, which worked for us so we let it happen...it wasn't until after the war that Churchills curtain came down and suddenly the Communists were our mortal enemy.
It's perhaps strange how the evilness of people change depending upon the situation. Up until 1944, Stalin was a good man, the Allies liked him (not that they trusted him as far as they could throw him), the general public liked him, because Hitler hated him. Then after the war, Stalin was the big bad wolf because suddenly it's east vs west.
We looked the other way when supporting Saddam against Iran, but then when he attacked Kuwait he became public enemy number one.
The US helped create the Taliban, gave it arms and support to fight the Soviet invaders, then thirty years later goes to war against it and denounces it as evil.
Evil depends upon the viewer and the situation. History is written by the victors as they say.

(note - This post does not condone evil or terrorism in any form...put away the flamethrowers now)

[bradclark1]

I would say to get an opinion of both peoples you have to read a biography of both Hitler and Stalin. What they did, when they did and how they did it. It's interesting reading if you get the right books and read more then one of each so you can separate the wheat from the chaff. Me? Without doing a quadruple length Skybird post I would say neither people as a majority were evil. Patriotism, fear, revenge, brainwashing and a whole list of other emotions played a part starting from approximately 1910. If you would also read the biography's you will notice a lot of parallels between them and you would also learn they each took idea's from the other.
Who was the more evil power in WWII? Simple question but no simple answer.

[Onkel Neal]

most German sailors, soldiers and airmen in that period weren't fighting for the Nazis.

They sure weren't fighting against the Nazis....

[bigboywooly]

most German sailors, soldiers and airmen in that period weren't fighting for the Nazis.

They sure weren't fighting against the Nazis....

No they were fighting for their country
How many US or UK soldiers in the middle east now voted for or believe in their leaders ?

Not as extreme but you go where ordered
Now todays soldiers can express their point of view or dissent for a war they dont agree with
But then they dont live in a police state as in Nazi Germany

Bigger picture to look at

[Onkel Neal]

most German sailors, soldiers and airmen in that period weren't fighting for the Nazis.

They sure weren't fighting against the Nazis....

No they were fighting for their country


Which was run by Nazis.

Sorry, I don't buy it. I'm not saying each individual German soldier and sailor was evil, but they were fighting balls to the wall to advance the goals of a murderous, evil system. I equate it to the South, where Confederate soldiers were willing pawns in defence of slavery.

[bigboywooly]

Did they know it was a murderous evil system in 39 ?
Germany before WW2 was a complex situation
After the Versailles treaty no doubt they would have followed the devil himself if he promised and delivered as Hitler did

[fatty]

most German sailors, soldiers and airmen in that period weren't fighting for the Nazis.

They sure weren't fighting against the Nazis....

There ya go. Succinct. You said it better than I did.

[SUBMAN1]

most German sailors, soldiers and airmen in that period weren't fighting for the Nazis.
They sure weren't fighting against the Nazis....
No they were fighting for their country

Which was run by Nazis.

Sorry, I don't buy it. I'm not saying each individual German soldier and sailor was evil, but they were fighting balls to the wall to advance the goals of a murderous, evil system. I equate it to the South, where Confederate soldiers were willing pawns in defence of slavery.

Way to take a high school thread that was very entertaining, and twist it up with sound logic that is irrfutable! Good job Neal - you screwed up the entertainment because now this thread is just going to die. I was waiting on a reply from Swede on the subject too! :D

-S

[bradclark1]

Sorry, I don't buy it. I'm not saying each individual German soldier and sailor was evil, but they were fighting balls to the wall to advance the goals of a murderous, evil system. I equate it to the South, where Confederate soldiers were willing pawns in defence of slavery.
And in 1945 to the present they suddenly aren't? In the beginning they believed Hitler. In the middle they questioned. In the end it was for survival, but yes all the way through a portion were pure nazi.

It is a fact that when the armies for the North and South were first formed, only a small minority of the soldiers on either side would have declared that the reason they joined the army was to fight either "for" or "against" slavery.
Southern politicians convinced their majority that the North was threatening their way of life and their culture. Northern politicians convinced their majority that the South, if allowed to secede, was really striking a serious blow at democratic government. In these arguments, both southern and northern politicians were speaking the truth--but not "the whole truth." They knew that to declare the war to be a fight over slavery would cause a lot of the potential soldiers of both sides to refuse to fight.
But was it only about slavery? No. It was also about the constitutional argument over whether or not a state had a right to leave the Union, and--of primary concern to most southern soldiers--the continuation of antebellum southern culture. Although the majority of Southerners had little interest in slaves, slavery was a primary interest of Southern politicians--and consequently the underlying cause of the South's desire to seek independence and state rights.
http://members.tripod.com/~greatamericanhistory/gr02013.htm

History is never simple.

[P_Funk]

My grandfather was a Commando, he served under Lord Lovat and he told me that he did some terrible things. He said that everyone he was fighting was just like him, caught up in something this big and doing what they're told. He said that they're all someone's child and that he hates the terrible stuff he did, but that he did it for a reason. He also made a point of saying that the SS were the exception, obviously. They didn't bother taking them prisoner.


.
Ah the generalisation all SS were evil :roll:
You say SS prisoners werent taken but ???
So does that make your grandfather a war criminal ?
Well in the midst of war, it seemed so. Now in the aftermath we can count out the good and the evil. But at the time the same way we didn't really know the story of the Holocaust we understood that the SS were all pigs. And considering the way SS were known or rumoured to not take prisoners well... like I said evils of war. Was it right? Probably not, but then my grandpa said that when he signed up for the special forces they told them right up front that what they were doing was illegal and they sure as hell wouldn't get any medals for it. The war my grandfather fought is certainly even more hard to rationalize in peace time than the average soldier's.

Well I posted some charts buddy, if you didn't get the point well I am sorry. :dead: A point I thought you understood in PM. It was not a damn stock market comparison...but to illustrate the different goals like you said about your Grandfather, bad for good (or to prevent a worse thing). There are other wars too.
I didn't mean anything to you, I only meant it in response to those that obcess over the numbers. Stalin versus Hitler. Counting the dead in Dresden. If not for the meticulous records of the Nazis the number of dead in the holocaust wouldn't even be as easy to note. My point was that people were making this into a football game and focusing on the score rather than talk about the philosophy of it. Please don't confuse that with my personal respect for you.

[waste gate]

Which was run by Nazis.

Sorry, I don't buy it. I'm not saying each individual German soldier and sailor was evil, but they were fighting balls to the wall to advance the goals of a murderous, evil system. I equate it to the South, where Confederate soldiers were willing pawns in defence of slavery.


When Lee was asked if he would command the Union forces he said he wouldn't abandon his country, Virginia. Do you think Robert E. Lee was fighting for slavery?
Or, as he stated, his country? This is the great lie of our civil war that it was about slavery. Lincoln said:
My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.

Remember TAK's paraphrase some time back?

That being said I can see how the average German soldier could answer the call to duty without supporting or even condoning the NAZI party or what it did during WWII.

[Swede]

Saying that all german soldiers were fighting for the political belif of the NS party, or that all confederate soldiers were fighting for slavery is no diffrent than saying that all US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan are republicans who voted for and fully belive in George Bush.

There is such a concept as fighting for your nation, and not their leaders.

I doubt the common russian soldiers who had the nkvd behind him and the germans infront of him, would call himself a communist (unless asked by his leader).

Furthermore, as ive said before, the victor writes the history books, and Germany and the german people have truly been shat on by the world since ww2. The germans of today are still paying tribute to israel for something that their ancestors did.

If my father murders someone, should i go to prison because of what he did?

I know the american mentality, and this post wont change it. But if for one moment you could try to imagine that there is no one true truth, but rather countless versions of how events took place.

Innocent jews slaughterd in a camp, or enemies of the people being concetrated in one area to avoid dissident?

Liberation of frace or an attack on vichy?

Weapons of mass destruction, or maintaining good relations with israel?

[bigboywooly]

But at the time the same way we didn't really know the story of the Holocaust we understood that the SS were all pigs. .

:roll: generalisation again

Of all the German organizations during WWII, the SS is by far the most infamous - and the least understood amongst average historians. The SS was in fact not a monolithic "Black Corps" of goose stepping Gestapo men, as is often depicted in popular media and in many third rate historical works. The SS was in reality a complex political and military organization made up of three separate and distinct branches, all related but equally unique in their functions and goals. The Allgemeine-SS (General SS) was the main branch of this overwhelmingly complex organization, and it served a politicial and administrative role. The SS-Totenkopfverbande (SS Deaths Head Organization) and later, the Waffen-SS (Armed SS), were the other two branches that made up the structure of the SS. The Waffen-SS, formed in 1940, was the true military formation of the larger SS, and as such, it is the main focus of this section. Formed from the SS-Verfungstruppe after the Campaign in France in 1940, the Waffen-SS would become an elite military formation of nearly 600,000 men by the time WWII was over. Its units would spearhead some of the most crucial battles of WWII while its men would shoulder some of the most difficult and daunting combat opertations of all the units in the German military. The Waffen-SS is sometimes thought of as the 4th branch of the German Wehrmacht (Heer, Luftwaffe, Kriegsmarine) as in the field it came under the direct tactical control of the OKW, although this notion is technically incorrect as strategic control remained within the hands of the SS. To this day the actions of the Waffen-SS and its former members are vilified for ultimately being a part of the larger structure of the political Allgemeine-SS, regardless of the fact that the Waffen-SS was a front line combat organization.

http://www.feldgrau.com/ss.html

[GlobalExplorer]

Saying that all german soldiers were fighting for the political belif of the NS party, or that all confederate soldiers were fighting for slavery is no diffrent than saying that all US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan are republicans who voted for and fully belive in George Bush.

Absolutely. I also think that Neal got it all wrong with bringing the Confederate soldiers into the discussion. Because most people in the North didnt give a **** about the slaves. Freeing the slaves was just a shrewd move by Lincoln, it at the same time hit the South at his most vulnerable spot, and raised the political price of foreign intervention. Saying that the South was evil because it was a slave country is pure hippocrisy, because the only difference was that they couldnt do away with it as easily and quickly as the North, which the North used in its favour.

Furthermore, as ive said before, the victor writes the history books, and Germany and the german people have truly been shat on by the world since ww2.?

Do you really think so? I think they were treated pretty lenient, at least the ones in the western part.

The germans of today are still paying tribute to israel for something that their ancestors did.?

I think thats a ok because I have some genuine feeling of shame though I was born in the 1970s. We rather have mixed feelings wether its right to support the current policies of the state of Israel, as "we have the right to treating Arabs like animals because they happen to live in the land of our forefathers". I also refuse to ever travel to Israel because I know I would be treated with extreme injustice as well.

If my father murders someone, should i go to prison because of what he did?

Absolutely no. But it would be the right thing to do if you help his family and make it clear that you're sorry for the murder and that it won't happen again.

[GlobalExplorer]

That being said I can see how the average German soldier could answer the call to duty without supporting or even condoning the NAZI party or what it did during WWII.

The problem is that they didnt give a **** about what they were going to do or why. German education since then has mainly aimed to raise the awareness, self-responsibility and opinion forming in the single individual, in order make up for that traditional german defect.

[Onkel Neal]

If my father murders someone, should i go to prison because of what he did?



No, but if your father orders you to murder someone, you sure will go to prison.


I know the american mentality, and this post wont change it. But if for one moment you could try to imagine that there is no one true truth, but rather countless versions of how events took place.

Innocent jews slaughterd in a camp, or enemies of the people being concetrated in one area to avoid dissident?

Liberation of frace or an attack on vichy?

Weapons of mass destruction, or maintaining good relations with israel?

Shades of grey or ignoring reality?

[Onkel Neal]

Absolutely. I also think that Neal got it all wrong with bringing the Confederate soldiers into the discussion. Because most people in the North didnt give a **** about the slaves. Freeing the slaves was just a shrewd move by Lincoln, it at the same time hit the South at his most vulnerable spot, and raised the political price of foreign intervention. Saying that the South was evil because it was a slave country is pure hippocrisy, because the only difference was that they couldnt do away with it as easily and quickly as the North, which the North used in its favour.



Slavery is evil. Those who practice and support it, are evil. IMO, it's that simple and direct.

I did not say anything about the Northern Americans caring one way or another about slavery. And despite the continued assertion of willful revisionists that the Civil War was not about slavery, that's historically untrue and unsupportable. The war was caused by the South's demand to keep slavery and the admission of new western states as slave states, as well as the opposition to tarriffs that handicaped slave-powered industries. The Civil War was not about slavery? The Missouri Compromise, the 1850 Compromise, the Kansas-Nebraska act, all tried to prevent open conflict. All were major struggles between the pro- and anti-slavey factions in the US. What was the US Civil War about? Oh yeah, states' rights. ;) Primarily, the state's right to practice slavery.

The Confedarate soldier was ferociously supporting a bad cause. And Robert E. Lee should have been smarter, he could have shortened the war and saved a lot of lives by not deserting his country (the USA, not ol' Virginny). Sam Houston (http://www.lone-star.net/mall/texasinfo/shouston.htm) is a good example of a man, a smart man with vision, balls and integrity, who had the sense to oppose secession and not to assist it.

[waste gate]

Conservative estimates place the number of confederate soldiers from slave holding families at 30%-35%. Tha leaves 65%-70% of an army of 880,000 to 1,000,000 who had little to gain from slavery and perhaps much to loose. Slavery depressed wages much like illegal immigration depresses wages today. These men were fighting for something else.

Also there were an estimated 50,000 black confederate solders. What were they fighting for?

[fatty]

I think the Civil War comparison is hard to make and is a little more convoluted because of the many reasons for the war and neither side was out to conquer or exterminate.

[bradclark1]

Conservative estimates place the number of confederate soldiers from slave holding families at 30%-35%. Tha leaves 65%-70% of an army of 880,000 to 1,000,000 who had little to gain from slavery and perhaps much to loose. Slavery depressed wages much like illegal immigration depresses wages today. These men were fighting for something else.
What he said. :o (shudders) ;)

Also there were an estimated 50,000 black confederate solders. What were they fighting for?
I am not giving excuses for slavery. I'm not insinuating it was right. What I am saying is fact.
Because they were fighting for there home also. They worked as teamsters, laborers, and even soldiers.

[Jimbuna]

This year the UK are celebrating the 200th anniversary of the abolition of slavery :up:

[Heibges]

Eisenhauer, I believe, was responsible for nearly 1 million German's starving to death in the Winter of 1945/1946.

I don't think there were any good guys in wwii. But there were honorable career soldiers and sailors, like Ray Spruance who argued against the bombing of German and Japanese cities. People who were protecting their job security more than their country, like Curtis LeMay, were for it.

The real losers in WWII, were the folks of Central and South America, the Middle East, and Asia.

[peterloo]

IMO war crimes do happen in war, due to the over-excited and over-pressured soldiers fighting in a deadly war. Thus, German and Soviet always treats their POW in a poor rate, resulting in high death rate in the camps

I believe that Soviet, German, Japan has commited serious war-crimes, but it does not represent that

(1) Allied is free from war crimes (there are some reletive "minor" one)
(2) All the combantants in Soviet, German, Japan in World War II are evil and be blamed

Soviet - mistreatment of German POW, killed and raped Germans after WWII as they are angry about that war ...
Germany - mistreatment of Soviet POW, razed serval villages in vengeance of the presence of sabotages behind front line, the masscare of Jews, ...
Japan - As a Chinese... =( Nanking Masscare + Unit 571 <=Unit 571 is protected by USA from trials in order to get the experimental data
Again, numberous villages had been demolished for retaliation of the guerilla force
They also mistreat Allied POWs...

In conclusion, almost every side commited horrible war-crimes. However, not all combatants are evil. There are still many patriotic guys like Donitz, Rommel, or Yamamoto, who just hope to make their country stronger. I do think that these guys make up the bulk of the force. Unfortunately, there are some "black-horses" who loves to do something against humanity, and unfortunatly, these horses are remembered by us, but not the "white" ones

(p.s. Black horse IS NOT a racial discrimiant OR analogy to anybody except those evil soldiers)

[P_Funk]

But at the time the same way we didn't really know the story of the Holocaust we understood that the SS were all pigs. .
:roll: generalisation again Yes it was. I have a book that I've read myself on the 2nd SS Panzer Division, Das Reich. They weren't the cookie cutter baddies that we generally get the impression of. But at the same time in the early war they were selected based on ideological standings as much as pruity of appearance. Towards the end the SS were more lax in their requirements but nevertheless Himmler always anticipated turning the SS into the universal police force for the Third Reich.

So I don't get why what I said is so incorrect. War is full of generalizations, thats propaganda. Also a soldier doesn't know the full historian's truth about the SS. As you say yourself the SS is hugely misunderstood. And the outward propaganda of the Third Reich was misleading and demonic. But at the same time the SS was far and above a worse perpetrator of crimes than any other military organization under Nazi Germany. There are the many stories of SS crimes, and while this might not characterize the entire body of SS soldiers it did occur that the SS were more brutal and inhuman than their regular army counter-parts.

Nothing is black and white but sometimes, as the SS dressed themselves, things can be a very dark shade of grey.

[joea]

Eisenhauer, I believe, was responsible for nearly 1 million German's starving to death in the Winter of 1945/1946.

I don't think there were any good guys in wwii. But there were honorable career soldiers and sailors, like Ray Spruance who argued against the bombing of German and Japanese cities. People who were protecting their job security more than their country, like Curtis LeMay, were for it.

The real losers in WWII, were the folks of Central and South America, the Middle East, and Asia.
Your first paragraph is wrong, that thesis has been disproven: http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/b/bacque-james/ambrose-001.html

Agree with the last. Disagree sort of with the second.

I disagree strongly with Swede's downplaying of Axis and Nazi crimes.

[GlobalExplorer]

Eisenhauer, I believe, was responsible for nearly 1 million German's starving to death in the Winter of 1945/1946.

Where did you get that from? You could also say he was responsible for 60 million Germans surviving that winter by supplying them with food and CARE parcels. I think thats really not fair, because the country was a mess, and the US delivered lots of food, saying anything else would be ungrateful.

Slavery is evil. Those who practice and support it, are evil. IMO, it's that simple and direct.

Of course, but thats not the question. Doing justice to historic decisions is never simple and direct. Otherwise the USA was evil until 1865, because it was a slave country. Initally Lincoln freed only the slaves in the Confederate states, not the ones in the northern and border states, so doesnt that make him not only evil (because he didnt abolish slavery everywhere when he could and should have), but also a hippocrit and an oppertunist? I am not saying that btw, we just shouldn't demonize the South nor the German population as it was by the post war propaganda.

The South would have abolished slavery sooner or later, they might even have done it during the war had it lasted longer. But they didnt realize how weak their position was on that issue, and by that delivered the North the (post war) casus belli on a silver plate. In reality, the Civil War was a last measure in order to prevent the Union from falling apart when the individual states developed national identity, very much like in Europe several centuries earlier.

[The Avon Lady]

Initally Lincoln freed only the slaves in the Confederate states, not the ones in the northern and border states, so doesnt that make him not only evil (because he didnt abolish slavery everywhere when he could and should have), but also a hippocrit and an oppertunist? I am not saying that btw, we just shouldn't demonize the South nor the German population as it was by the post war propaganda.
What revisionist tripe! Learn a little bit of elementary history in its original context: The Emancipation Proclamation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emancipation_Proclamation).

[GlobalExplorer]

Initally Lincoln freed only the slaves in the Confederate states, not the ones in the northern and border states, so doesnt that make him not only evil (because he didnt abolish slavery everywhere when he could and should have), but also a hippocrit and an oppertunist? I am not saying that btw, we just shouldn't demonize the South nor the German population as it was by the post war propaganda.
What revisionist tripe! Learn a little bit of elementary history in its original context: The Emancipation Proclamation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emancipation_Proclamation).

Why dont you read it yourself:

" .. The Emancipation Proclamation did not free the slaves; the Thirteenth Amendment did that."

" .. It was Abraham Lincoln's declaration that all slaves would be permanently freed in all areas of the Confederacy that had not already returned to federal control by January 1863. The ten affected states were individually named in the second part. Not included were the Union (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_%28American_Civil_War%29)slave states (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave_state) of Maryland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maryland), Delaware (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delaware), Missouri (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missouri) and Kentucky (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kentucky). Specific exemptions were stated for all 48 counties that would soon become West Virginia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Virginia), seven other named counties of Virginia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia), and for New Orleans (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Orleans%2C_Louisiana) and 13 nearby named parishes already under Union control, areas under Union control on January 1, 1863."

" .. Had any seceding state rejoined the Union before January 1 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_1), 1863 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1863), it could have kept slavery, at least temporarily."

" .. Some 20th century black intellectuals, including W.E.B. Du Bois (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W.E.B._Du_Bois), James Baldwin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Baldwin_%28writer%29) and Julius Lester (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Lester), all described the proclamation as essentially worthless. Perhaps the strongest attack was Lerone Bennett's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lerone_Bennett%2C_Jr.)Forced into Glory: Abraham Lincoln's White Dream (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_into_Glory:_Abraham_Lincoln%27s_White_Dream ), which claimed that Lincoln was a white supremacist who issued the Emancipation Proclamation in lieu of the real racial reforms that radical abolitionists were pushing for."

Got the gist now?

[The Avon Lady]

You left out an essential sentence"

"It first affected only those slaves that had already escaped to the Union side, but as the Union armies conquered the Confederacy, thousands of slaves were freed each day until nearly all (estimated at 4 million) were free by July of 1865."

There aren't too many men in history who, as a result of their words and direct actions, caused the freedom from slavery of millions of downtrodden people. Lincoln was one such historic man.

And all this goes without talking about the 13th Ammendment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitu tion), also instigated by Lincoln, which closed down and legal loopholes throughout every last state of the Union.

Such an evil man. :yep: :yep: :yep:

[GlobalExplorer]

I still dont see why you call me a revisionist on the grounds of a document you did not care to read. No offense taken, but weigh your words a bit more careful, will ya?

[The Avon Lady]

I still dont see why you call me a revisionist on the grounds of a document you did not care to read.
You did not link to the document - I did!

You chose to select your quotes, especially quoting the end of the article that there are indeed revisionist historians who cannot - heaven forbid - give Linclon the credit he deserves.
No offense taken, but weigh your words a bit more careful, will ya?
I stand by them, as I see your intentions. You did not even bother referencing the revisionist opinion yourself, just assuming we should swallow it as fact. But thanks for the opportunity for all of us to learn a little bit of important history.

Some Lincoln quotes on the subject of slavery. Take a hint:

"Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally."

"In our greedy chase to make a profit of the Negro, let us beware - lest we cancel and tear to pieces even the white man's chance of freedom."

"In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free - honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve."

"Slavery is somewhat like the vein that you see on the back of a man's neck. If it were cut off immediately without the necessary precautions, the man could easily bleed to death. However, if it were allowed ri grow unattended, and without any kind of medical surgery, it could easily spread until it would completely disfigure or incapacitate the man. As the man must submit to carefully planned surgery to save his life from being destroyed by the vein, so must the nation carefully and tolerantly treat the problem of slavery in a way so as not to destroy the Union."

(The above quote has much to do in explaining with the Emancipation Declaration was drafted as it was.)

"As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master."

"It is the eternal struggle between these two principles - right and wrong - throughout the world. They are two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time; and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity, and the other the divine right of kings. It is the same principle in whatever shape it develops itself. It is the same spirit that says, "You toil and work and earn bread, and I'll eat it." No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle."

"When I see strong hands sowing, reaping, and threshing wheat into bread, I cannot refrain from wishing and believing that those hands, some way in God's good time, shall own the mouth they feed."

"If we cannot give freedom to every creature, let us do nothing that will impose slavery upon every other creature."

"If I ever get a chance to hit this thing <slavery>, I'll hit hard!"

And so he did, G-d bless him.

[Takeda Shingen]

Conservative estimates place the number of confederate soldiers from slave holding families at 30%-35%. Tha leaves 65%-70% of an army of 880,000 to 1,000,000 who had little to gain from slavery and perhaps much to loose. Slavery depressed wages much like illegal immigration depresses wages today. These men were fighting for something else.

Also there were an estimated 50,000 black confederate solders. What were they fighting for?

Yes, the confederate soldier fought for the right of his state to succeed from the Union. Of course, that state suceeded over representation in congress for slave-holding terrirories and states. Accordingly, the average confederate soldier did not posses slaves, but, in effect, fought to preserve the south's slavery-based economy. As such, slavery was the root cause of the American Civil War, as it was the issue that singlularly drove the states' rights movement.

The 50,000 black confederate soldiers fought for their freedom. They were promised citizenship at the war's end.

[Packerton]

My Grandfather was a member of the Merchant navy during world war 2 (Canaidian of course, im here in Newfoundland) How do you think I feel when im blowing up Canaidian ships in SH 3...then I remember its only a game.

[TteFAboB]

Nepal.

[HMCS]

Nazi Germany, obviously....

Why is this question even being asked?

The Nazis never hid their intentions, and went about it with a fair degree of enthusiasm. It's really a pity that they didn't last for another 8 months to a year. We could have dropped the A-Bomb on them instead.

[The Avon Lady]

It's really a pity that they didn't last for another 8 months to a year. We could have dropped the A-Bomb on them instead.
I would rephrase that to read:

"It's really a pity that we didn't produce the A-bomb much sooner. We could have dropped the A-Bomb on them instead."

[Tchocky]

Nepal.You fool, it was the Islamofascists.

[GlobalExplorer]

I thought you were cool AL .. :-?

[bradclark1]

It's really a pity that they didn't last for another 8 months to a year. We could have dropped the A-Bomb on them instead.
I would rephrase that to read:

"It's really a pity that we didn't produce the A-bomb much sooner. We could have dropped the A-Bomb on them instead."
Thats a better phrase.

[HMCS]

Thank you...yes. It was 3:30 am and I had just returned from patrol, and some Becks had been consumed. Grammar suffered.

Mistakes were made....

[antikristuseke]

Nazi Germany, obviously....

Why is this question even being asked?

The Nazis never hid their intentions, and went about it with a fair degree of enthusiasm. It's really a pity that they didn't last for another 8 months to a year. We could have dropped the A-Bomb on them instead.

Because using nuclear weapons allways makes things better, its like a bandaid when you cut yourself in the finger.:roll:

[The Avon Lady]

I thought you were cool AL .. :-?
What seems to be the problem?

[STEED]

I thought you were cool AL .. :-?
What seems to be the problem?

He thinks your not so hip these days. :roll:

[The Avon Lady]

I thought you were cool AL .. :-?
What seems to be the problem?
He thinks your not so hip these days. :roll:
Groovy! :cool:

[Jimbuna]

I think he's into younger chics :lol:

Either that or he didn't appreciate earlier comments re: the bomb....and that I can understand :yep:

[Sailor Steve]

I also think that Neal got it all wrong with bringing the Confederate soldiers into the discussion. Because most people in the North didnt give a **** about the slaves. Freeing the slaves was just a shrewd move by Lincoln, it at the same time hit the South at his most vulnerable spot, and raised the political price of foreign intervention. Saying that the South was evil because it was a slave country is pure hippocrisy, because the only difference was that they couldnt do away with it as easily and quickly as the North, which the North used in its favour.
I see a big problem with that argument. It is true that soldiers always fight for more basic causes than their leaders claim. The southern soldiers also couldn't have cared less about secession, or state's rights; they fought because they percieved that the North had invaded their states.

But when you bring up Lincoln and his causes, you ignore the fact that he was, before the war, indeed a proclamed abolitionist; and you disregard the fact that the states' right to secede came up in the first place because the southern states, in their own articles, declared that they were seceeding because the northern states wanted to use the federal government to take away their slaves (which wasn't entirely true, but then that holds for pretty much every argument made on both sides of that war, and probably most other wars as well).

[GlobalExplorer]

I also think that Neal got it all wrong with bringing the Confederate soldiers into the discussion. Because most people in the North didnt give a **** about the slaves. Freeing the slaves was just a shrewd move by Lincoln, it at the same time hit the South at his most vulnerable spot, and raised the political price of foreign intervention. Saying that the South was evil because it was a slave country is pure hippocrisy, because the only difference was that they couldnt do away with it as easily and quickly as the North, which the North used in its favour.
I see a big problem with that argument. It is true that soldiers always fight for more basic causes than their leaders claim. The southern soldiers also couldn't have cared less about secession, or state's rights; they fought because they percieved that the North had invaded their states.

But when you bring up Lincoln and his causes, you ignore the fact that he was, before the war, indeed a proclamed abolitionist; and you disregard the fact that the states' right to secede came up in the first place because the southern states, in their own articles, declared that they were seceeding because the northern states wanted to use the federal government to take away their slaves (which wasn't entirely true, but then that holds for pretty much every argument made on both sides of that war, and probably most other wars as well).

I never said anything against Lincoln, I just explained that Neals logic makes him (and anyone in the US before 1865) a evil person because of slavery. I said "if" which is too complicated .. as some people got it wrong and now insist I am a revisionist and probably a racist as well :cry::-?

[joea]

Ok time to put and end to this thread:

http://img104.imageshack.us/img104/4000/tankrunoverdt1.gif

(Is it a Panzer? US Army? Red Army? British Army? Imperial Japanese Army? People's Liberation Army? Isreali or Iran? Or maybe even Andorra?)

Cause it don't make sense anymore:

http://img511.imageshack.us/img511/7425/11180602942697su3.jpg

[Takeda Shingen]

Nice pic. :up:

Look, I agree that this thread is dead, but nothing is lock-worthy. If everyone has had enough, and I know I have, we should just stop posting in this one.

[Sailor Steve]

I said "if" which is too complicated .. as some people got it wrong and now insist I am a revisionist and probably a racist as well :cry::-?
Not to me. I just get my back up at the old argument about the causes of that particular fight. There were so many different causes that sometimes I think everybody was fighting for something different.

I've been avoiding the actual topic because I don't know. Compared to the ancient Assyrians the Romans and Alexander's Greeks weren't so bad. They didn't make piles of skulls out of the people who resisted them. But I do agree that for the most part the common soldier usually has a very different reason for fighting than the ones for which his leaders actually went to war.

[Hakahura]

Here's my response to the original question...


Germany.


Closely followed my Japan and Italy then the remaining Axis powers.

Why?

Not because they failed to write history, but because they were the aggressors.

And WWII was probably the most aggresive war man has ever seen thanks to the ambitions of the Axis powers.

All the horrors and attrocties commited during WWII, were put in motion and largely carried out by those that started that war.


Please feel free to discuss the above in a calm and reasonable manner, or...
Get really angry and vent your spleen in my general direction. The choice is yours.

[Stealth Hunter]

Japan. More brutal, more brainwashed, and more dedicated than Germany or Italy... or Yugoslavia, but there's no competition there.:lol:

Let's not get how the Japanese would amputate the limbs of Allied prisoners without anesthesia and then sew on a dead animal to the prisoner's stump. Sick people. They were bright in using prisoners for live munitions testing. First, they'd fire on them with whatever weapon they were using, to see the damage. Then, they'd hand them over to their medical staff to train medics and field surgeons (they were particularly fond of using howitzers and grenades AND bayonets).

[Swede]

It's really a pity that they didn't last for another 8 months to a year. We could have dropped the A-Bomb on them instead.
I would rephrase that to read:

"It's really a pity that we didn't produce the A-bomb much sooner. We could have dropped the A-Bomb on them instead."

I could only expect such barbaric wishes from a jew and an american...:nope:

[Smaragdadler]

Has nothing to do with nationality, sky is blue everywhere...


...The suggestion at this point is that by late 1944, Waffen-SS scientists in Germany had developed a catalyst or reagent, apparently a waxy substance, maybe a plasmoid of some kind, which when added to a conventional explosive containing liquid air vastly magnified the effect, killing everything within a three mile radius by blast, tremendous heat and suffocation. It appears also to have had undesirable meteorological effects.
On April 16, 1945 the Type XB submarine U-234 (KL Fehler) departed Kristiansand, Norway for Japan direct. She had loaded at Kiel in January and February, and besides a strategic cargo in the region of 260 tonnes carried ten German and two Japanese passengers, all of whom were specialists in the military field or scientists.


On May 17, 1945, against his express orders, Kptlt. Fehler decided to surrender his submarine to the US Navy, and arrived two days later at Portsmouth Navy Yard, New Hampshire.
What is principally of interest is the cargo, and in particular ten cases of "uranium oxide" of 560 kilograms weight, and several items which were not included on the Unloading Manifest.
The Unloading Manifest (US NAT Arch, College Park MD, Box RG38, Box 13, Document OP-20-3-G1-A (Unloading Manifest) dated May 24, 1945) is a falsified document purporting to show the entire cargo aboard U-234. The true Manifests, both American and German, have never been declassified. In the normal course of events, a Manifest upon declassification would bear the censor's deletions where it was intended that certain items should not be displayed. The USN alleged Unloading Manifest is clean of any deletions and purports to be the true Unloading Manifest. From a declassified cable, it is evident that 80 cases of Uranium Powder have been omitted, as was also, from the statements of the U-boat crew members and Kptlt. Fehler, a two-seater Me 262 bomber aircraft brought from Rechlin and stowed in its component parts.
Germany had 1,200 tonnes of uranium oxide on hand at Oolen in Belgium throughout the war, but made no strides towards making an atom bomb. Nevertheless, many commentators fantasize an embryonic atom bomb in the 560 kilos of "uranium oxide" aboard U-234. It is a fantasy, for such evidence as exists points to this being a cover word for something else.
Two official documents address the ten cases of "uranium oxide" directly.
a. A report headed "Regarding 'URANIUM OXIDE' and other CARGO aboard U-234" on the interrogation of Geschwaderrichter Kay Nieschling, U-234 passenger by USN Intelligence Officer Lt Best states that "Lt Pfaff was the man responsible for loading the U-boat" and that "the meaning behind the ore" - peculiar phrase suggesting that the ore was not the ore - would be known by Kptlt. Falk (or Falck) who took some secret courses before he boarded the U-boat. Kptlt. Fehler should also know something about the ore."
It does not appear that Kptlt. Falk or Falck survived his interrogation, for there is no record of his return to Germany, and the US authorities have not been able to account for his movements in their custody after interrogating him on May 26, 1945. There are other indications that the "uranium ore" was extraordinary. Lt. Col. John Lansdale, chief of security for the Manhattan Project, wrote in a 1996 newspaper article published in Britain and Germany that he had personally handled the disposal of the ten cases. He stated that the American military authorities "reacted with panic" when they learned what the cases contained.
b. The second document was found by researcher Joseph Mark Scalia, a former 12-year US Navy man, during a rummage through old boxes at the Portsmouth Navy Yard. It is a secret cable from CNO to NYPORT on the subject "MINE TUBES, UNLOADING OF" and states:
"Interrogation Lt. Pfaff IIWO U-234 discloses he was in charge of cargo and personally supervised loading all mine tubes. Pfaff prepared Manifest List and knows kind cargo in each tube. Uranium Oxide loaded in gold-lined cylinders and as long as cylinders not opened can be handled like crude TNT. These containers should not be opened as substance will become sensitive and dangerous..."
The so-called "Uranium Oxide" would become sensitive and dangerous if exposed to air. The so-called "Uranium Oxide" was perfectly safe in its cylinders provided one respected it as one would dynamite. The so-called "Uranium Oxide" was sealed in a cylinder lined with gold.
In nuclear physics gold is used to absorb fission fragments plus gamma rays in containers, and is particularly efficient at capturing neutron radiation as well. From this it is evident that the material in the ten cylinders was not just highly radioactive - it was extraordinarily dangerous and behaving as if it were itself a nuclear reactor. No atomic physicist who has examined the evidence about these ten cases has been able to deliver an opinion as to what substance kept within a lead case might have required these extraordinary precautions.
On May 24, 1945, when the US Navy began to unload U-234, it is clear from the US State papers that no decision regarding the atom bomb had been taken by the US government. On May 30, 1945, both Secretary of State Stimson and President Truman were agreed that no alternative existed to deploying America's atomic arsenal against Japan.
They had no alternative to using the atom bomb, and no satisfactory reason has ever been forthcoming why that decision was made. So what could have caused these two decent men to decide that such a course of action was unavoidable?
What was aboard U-234 might also be aboard other Japan-bound U-boats. The Japanese had at least two submarines with a range of 30,000 miles, that were capable of being used as aircraft launchers. The Japanese had a plan of mixing the uranium from U-234 with standard explosives, and loading them in bombs or planes which were to take off the submarines and attack San Francisco. The target date was August 1945; they were ready, only waiting for the shipment of uranium to arrive.
That would make no sense unless the "uranium" from U-234 was the waxy substance which when mixed with conventional explosives turned the material into the miracle weapon. These two Japanese submarines would be very close to San Francisco, and the pilots of the bomber aircraft would have to be kamikazes, for proximity to the waxy substance meant certain death.
If the Japanese were indeed in the process of being supplied with this material by German U-boats for use against the United States west coast, then this was the reason for the nuclear attacks against Japan. ...

--> http://greyfalcon.us/Located%20near%20Ohrdruf.htm

[The Avon Lady]

It's really a pity that they didn't last for another 8 months to a year. We could have dropped the A-Bomb on them instead.
I would rephrase that to read:

"It's really a pity that we didn't produce the A-bomb much sooner. We could have dropped the A-Bomb on them instead."
I could only expect such barbaric wishes from a jew and an american...:nope:
Then you'd be surpised.

[Swede]

[/quote]
Then you'd be surpised.[/quote]

After reading the protocolls of the learned elders of zion, nothing about your kind surprises me

[The Avon Lady]

Then you'd be surpised.

After reading the protocolls of the learned elders of zion, nothing about your kind surprises me
Guess what? That was no surprise, either. Glad you admitted being the stupid anti-Semite that you are.

Now if you'll excuse me, the mailman is at the door with my family's monthly payment from the Jewish Overlord Commitee.

:roll:

p.s. Be careful or we'll send someone over to gore you with our horns.

[Swede]

Then you'd be surpised.

After reading the protocolls of the learned elders of zion, nothing about your kind surprises me
Guess what? That was no surprise, either. Glad you admitted being the stupid anti-Semite that you are.

Now if you'll excuse me, the mailman is at the door with my family's monthly payment from the Jewish Overlord Commitee.

:roll:

p.s. Be careful or we'll send someone over to gore you with our horns.

an ethnic group that has been persecuted for 2000 years... one must ask themselfs, why has countless generations held such a grudge against them.

[The Avon Lady]

Then you'd be surpised.

After reading the protocolls of the learned elders of zion, nothing about your kind surprises me
Guess what? That was no surprise, either. Glad you admitted being the stupid anti-Semite that you are.

Now if you'll excuse me, the mailman is at the door with my family's monthly payment from the Jewish Overlord Commitee.

:roll:

p.s. Be careful or we'll send someone over to gore you with our horns.

an ethnic group that has been persecuted for 2000 years... one must ask themselfs, why has countless generations held such a grudge against them.
With scum of the earth people such as yourself, what's the question! :yep:

But you hinted to the answer. Something else began just about 2000 years ago.

Waiting for the penny to drop...............................

[P_Funk]

an ethnic group that has been persecuted for 2000 years... one must ask themselfs, why has countless generations held such a grudge against them.
Whoa buddy. You weren't actually being anti-semitic til you said that.

Broad Generalizations are a no no. There are legitimate ways to criticize modern Jewish culture, be it Israeli, or otherwise, but that is not a very civilized argumentative tact. It also delegitimizes anything you might say that has real weight.

You'll only get this thread locked.

[The Avon Lady]

an ethnic group that has been persecuted for 2000 years... one must ask themselfs, why has countless generations held such a grudge against them.
Whoa buddy. You weren't actually being anti-semitic til you said that.
No. He's most likely been anti-Semitic for years now.

And now we can ask you why you think the following prior quotes of his were not indicative of his anti-Semitism:
"After reading the protocolls of the learned elders of zion, nothing about your kind surprises me."
And especially:
"I could only expect such barbaric wishes from a jew and an american..."
What you perhaps meant to say is he didn't let it slip out until around now.

[The Avon Lady]

And now we can ask you why you think the following prior quotes of his were not indicative of his anti-Semitism:
"After reading the protocolls of the learned elders of zion, nothing about your kind surprises me."
And especially:
"I could only expect such barbaric wishes from a jew and an american..."
Looking back at this pile of drek's first post on this thread, you can see exactly where he's coming from:
"The Germans are only the bad guys of the world because they lost, if germany had won im sure we would all know about the american concentration camps for italians, germans and japs.'
What we have here is a holocaust denier, at minimum. You can assume a lot more from the rest of his posts, if you read through them one after another.

[joea]

Swede please go away. :nope: The mask never stays on for long does it? :down:
So much for an "alternate view."

http://img187.imageshack.us/img187/633/uniquevf6.jpg

Go play with your dolls then.

http://img472.imageshack.us/img472/1746/1173456311766ag0.png

[Takeda Shingen]

Now it's lock worthy. Congratulations.

Swede, you need to tone down the anit-semetic rhetoric if you wish to continue to play in this sandbox.

The Management