Had one drink too much, Steed ? ;)

If not (yet): Then join me in this toast to freedom !

Here is to freedom ! :up: :()1:

:rock: etc...

:rotfl: :rotfl:

Why not :()1: :up:

There were other countries, besides Germany, that were influenced by the Eugenics movement - the US among them. By the time Hitler came to power in Germany, many American states had already passed, or would pass, laws for the forced sterilization of the "feeble minded". That's also where Hitler started, but he took the conclusion of the "science" to an extreme that later proved repellant.

Communists would later have a hard time of things during the Mcarthy era (of course it stopped short of gassing or shooting them, but that was also in the '50s and not the '30s) while all of this predated the Civil Rights movement when blacks in the US were still being sent to the back of the bus (when they weren't being lynched that is).

So the US had its own internal problems with various groups and the "twisted crap" that Hitler believed in may very well have found root in the US if things had gone a little differently. Or it may not have. You have to remember in any case that America was a very different place then, than it is today.

Edit: also recall that even while it was fighting this "evil" the US saw nothing wrong with rounding up Japanese American citizens and interning them in its own concentration camps.

Two more thoughts:

Thought #1:

Let's forget about the mass killing. In fact let's forget about Hitler. Let's pretend the topic didn't mention Hitler, and instead in 1938-1939, Europe was dealing with a re-militarized version of the Weimar government.

Question: Why on earth would any European (or American) power want a massive German state?
This makes no sense. Newsflash: Germany was NOT a nice country, period. Even without Hitler, they invaded France twice in the preceding 80 years. They were also still rather pissed at France and Britain. Why would France want a stronger Germany? Why would Britain, still the dominant world power, want another, even apparently-friendly empire to deal with?

There was, of course, some sympathy towards Germany as regards to the apparent unfairness of the Versailles treaty. There was certainly will among European countries to mend that issue with Germany, and they did - it was called appeasement. They were quite willing to let Germany do the Anschluss, have Sudetenland - the Danzig corridor, please. But it's no accident that appeasement stopped at the invasion of the Czech republic. There was no reason that the West should NOT have been horrified at a Germany which wants the Czech republic or Poland for some reason, even forgetting Hitler. Meanwhile, Newsflash #2: Germany would have to go through those countries to get to the USSR. Assuming it didn't take them over, why on earth would Poland or the Czech republic would want to let German troops through? Do THEY want a stronger Germany of all people?

I think the bottom line is, Hitler or no Hitler, there isn't anyone who wanted another German empire, even a nice and 'democratic' one like Britain's. A strong Germany before WWII would rightly have been seen as a timebomb - wait, nevermind, it was a timebomb. And it would have been a timebomb with a slower clock if there wasn't a Hitler, but nothing more.

***

Thought #2:

From the original post, this struck me:

What bothers me here is that..... so, let me get this straight, Hitler is not immortal, like everyone else, but Stalin is?

Um.

Newsflash #3: communism died without anyone having to destroy the USSR or kill the Jews and most Slavs. You think about the implications of that one for a while. :hmm:

Dönitz maybe ?

I agree the seeds of the downfall probably started in Poland with what's his name Lec something he stood up to the system and from that point on the cracks started. It's incredible how the Communist state fell like a pack of cards.

Right its not like the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan didn’t kill anyone or result in the disenfranchising of the Russian people with their government.

You hadn't really read my post fully, or my previous posts, have you :(

The invasion of Afghanistan was a terrible war, for Soviet soldiers as well as obviously the Afghans. Vietnam wasn't pretty either. But for both, we're talking hundreds of thousands dead in a war that, if ideological in nature, was in both cases one for maintaining a sphere of influence rather than a systematic eradication of whole groups of nations.

Noone can whitewash Soviet rule. But it just doesn't run up in comparison to Hitler's plans, neither on the ideological nor practical levels.

Well for one the invasion of Afghanistan was to bring Communism and Eastern society to the region, after all the (official) reason for the Soviet invasion was the murder of Soviet schoolteachers. (In this case I think we can learn a few things from old Ivan.)

But as for the Soviet's long-term plans they were nothing short of total world socialism. They believed that the only result of Capitalism and Communism existing on the same world was war until one defeated the other. I don’t think Hitler really thought that far ahead in his plans.

Quite opposite, actually, if you've read Mein Kampf. Straight from the horse's mouth, Hitler makes some very clear plans. He hides very little in that book of his. On the other hand, there has not been any clear texts on Soviet agenda from reliable sources; they've certainly adopted the Marxist theory, but according to Marx communism was not to be a product of international conflict, but rather class struggle within societies.

The brief but wide opening of the Soviet archives in the early 90's had revealed no evidence whatsoever of a global policy. By comparison, American Cold War policy against the Soviet Union had been far more clearly elaborated in a series of documents, none of which had so much as an equivalent in Soviet records.

In other words, the "Kremlin Design" idea is unfortunately nothing but a product of cold war propaganda. Which a lot of people still believe, 15 years after it was supposed to be done away with.

Soviet rule was far from resembling actual communism in reality. The Soviet regime has always been a totalitarian regime, and its goals weren't ideologically-based in the slightest. Again, archive evidence suggests that Soviet leadership was far more eager to conduct realpolitik and engage in all kinds of manuevering to expand and guard their sphere of influence. Which, authoritarian rule aside, is really not very different from what other large world powers had been doing all along. The means were ordinary; the end wasn't particularly attractive to the free world. Hitlers means, on the other hand, were strangely focused on genocide. There were clearly discriminatory (but comparatively limited in scale) repressions by Stalin against groups such as Chechens and Jews during the last years of his life, but there has been no precedent for genocide in the 40 years of post-war Soviet history. Not that this makes it any easier for the millions of repressed people; but at least the vast majority of them lived. Newsflash #4: in the real world, most people would prefer life under the worst of regimes to no life at all.

This isn't to suggest any love for the Soviet regime. This is merely to explain why ideology has nothing to do with the fact that the choice between Hitler and Stalin for the Soviets was "no freedom; death almost certain" vs "no freedom; death somewhat likely" :hmm:

Ahhh here is one thing that I don't think anyone got (at least no one in my high school economics class got) about Fascism. There are four socioeconomic systems, Capitalism (Democratic Government/Free Market Ex. USA), Democratic Socialism (Democratic Government/Free Market with Government controls Ex. Most of Western Europe today), Communism (Dictatorship/State Run Market Ex. CCCP), and last but not least Fascism (Dictatorship/Free Market Ex. Nazi Germany). No one in my class understood that (they all stared blankly at the teacher when he asked what is this fourth system he described was, I then remembered Messerschmitt, and Volkswagen they were companies not government run design bureaus like MiG or Sukoi and said "Fascism" with a smile of satisfaction.) So the point is there were freedoms under Hitler, they weren’t (to paraphrase the US Declaration of Independence) Life and Liberty but you could pursue Happiness… unless you were Jewish… or Gay… or Mentally Impaired… or etc.

"Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"
-Patrick Henry, Speech in Virginia Convention, Richmond (March 23, 1775)

I prefer a much more relevant WHAT IF discussions, such as what if the allies actually learned the lessons of WW1 and waged the war correctly - the whole WW2 would have lasted about 2 years or so. I'm reading a very good, solid and nonpropoganda analys of Blitzgrig Myth and gladly will share the thoughts once through. But that whole 'what if WE were fighting against Russia nonsense kinda bothers me. I AM RUSSIAN.

And you kicked Hitler out of Russia and all the way back to Berlin :yep:

Patrick Henry, however, was a man fighting a "constitutional" (not really, perhaps parliamentary would be a better term) monarchy of the same general national origin and far, far milder goals. Had he lived through Stalin's time, I wonder what he would have said.

I think it's equally sad that Americans and those following their ideological basis - naturally given their history - look at the rest of the world and are in shock at how all these people aren't hot for the fundamental ideology of liberty, democracy and all the other nice things. I mean, how could they?

But think of it the same way as your reaction to when people - like some on this forum - accuse America of imperialism, your president of being a terrorist, and other nasty things of the sort. I go to Russian forums occasionally, and you'd be surprised at the sort of stuff they say about America!

But why do they? Very simple. Just as you can't see why they don't buy these high enlightened ideas of liberty and democracy, they can't understand why you buy something so superficial and unreal. People live in very different worlds. And there are billions of people in this world who'd rather have some potatoes than liberty.

Having seen the issue from both sides, I really do have sympathy for both alike. But one thing I have learned from growing up in tough circumstances of a different country is that the world is real and one really shouldn't underestimate how the fulfilment of basic biological needs will always trump the fulfilment of basic ideological needs - when it comes down to that choice. People are very easy to break. The NKVD had made a science of it back in the day.

I'll put my bottom line to everything: no -ism or -y is worth the life of even one innocent person. Fundamentally, WWII was thought for Nazism by Germany; but for survival by people of the USSR. There is absolutely no question about this. Maybe that's part of why the Soviets won.

---

PS - Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness is, essentially, right. But only in that order. Happiness means nothing without liberty, and liberty means nothing without life. Sure Hitler's regime gave happiness. But what does a Russian care for that happiness if he's not allowed to live?! Likewise, what's liberty in public life to anyone if they can't put food on the table?

Well I wouldn’t go that far. The Nazis and Soviets may have only said they wanted to conquer the world, the Nazis even tried but the British did. All under the pretext of bringing civilization to the "savages" of the world- "The White Mans Burden". Now the British didn’t massacre large numbers of people based on race, but they certainly were expansionist and imperialist and gave no or limited rights and repsentation to the Americans.

Remember, “the sun never sets on the British Empire� (but now adays I’ve hear it’s never sets on the Golden Arches, scary what the world is coming too).

No I do understand a bit why they don't care so much about Liberty and Democracy, (oh no here is another -ism) Nationalism. When the USA was founded it was basically cut off from the direct influence of most of Europe, the founding fathers even went so far as to distance the language from British English when ever possible. The entire slate was wiped clean for us, for the rest of the world that slate has never been wiped totally clean every time a nation gets close something happens to remind them of their past. Take France for an example they get rid of a Monarchy that’s been busy fighting wars with its neighbors for centuries with a man who starts off by doing some good (“the accused is innocent until proven guilty� for one)- but then he decides to try and conquer all of Europe. They finally move past Napoleon only to be sucked in to both World Wars and then the Cold War. Or then of course there is Russia, for a few centuries the Tsars went around conquering and fighting until Lenin and crew take over. Then WWII happens and they are fighting an invader. They finally win and then they are worried that the West is going to drop the A-Bomb on them. Eventually the Soviets go bankrupt and a Democracy starts to form until… well check back a few decades, maybe Aliens who knows. They just can’t move past a half dozen centuries of one way of life no matter how hard they try, something or someone just drags them back.


With out liberty you may have life but its not yours. With out liberty whose to stop the goverment from just coming in and taking your food and sleeping in your beds and stuff (way to go little known 3rd amendment and the always quoted 4th & 5th amendments).