Well how were the Germans any different from anybody else? You can say what you will about Hitler, the SS, the Nazis in general, but this is all a case of hindsight where we accuse the Germans of supporting something that wasn't even fully understood until it was over.

If you actually look to pre-39 Germany you see a different drive than just war. Thanks to the punitive terms of the Versailles Treaty Germany was left post-WW1 as a bankrupt state, punished by the Republic of France (the punitive terms was their sweetheart really) for the crimes of their monarchs. There is no doubt that Germany was abused during the interwar years and as a result the desperate situation in Germany lent to a more radical sense of survival. Then comes along this really charming and rousing guy. He calls himself a national-socialist. He gives great speeches and promises to return Germany to her old glory.

In a desperate situation like that the Germans went with the strength of a man who was a great leader, and Hitler was a great leader in those days before he unleased his real madness. He worked at evil but he led like nobody else in those days. So the people are reinvigourated. They want hope and he gives it to them. They want pride and he gives it back to them. That Hitler was more evil than the average lame duck president was just luck I guess. But the Nazis and the German people are two seperate entities and regardless of what the history books tell us Germans weren't any different than other people. My grandfather gives me the best point of reference.

One story he told me of an SS man that they came accross. Fired at them from a shed. They fire back, wound him. They walk up to him, see he's SS, look at each other, shoot him dead. According to my grandfather SS didn't deserve mercy. But on a different occasion he remarked to me "I didn't like killing them. When I killed one of them I thought 'this guy is just like me. He was just caught up in this mess like anyone else'." He was talking about regular army of course. But that is the distinction. The rare animals that colour the propoganda of the winning side aren't characteristic of the majority. The vast majority of Germans were just doing what they saw as their patriotic duty. Hitler and his cohorts were hatching their own scheme.

This isn't people forgiving crimes. And sometimes history needs to be revised. I believe Winston Churchill once said "History is written by the victors, and I intend to write history." So that really is it. I'm not saying that there is no guilt on the part of Germany for their part in supporting a man like Hitler. But many nations of righteous people have supported bad man and been complicit in all kinds of crimes. America, Canada, Britain. We all allow evil things to happen. So maybe the German people deserve a fair share of the blame for Hitler (I myself encourage blaming the French in part too for their irrational revenge seeking in 1919), but they aren't alone in that. We are all complicit in something daily. But to say that they were somehow different human beings than us is just the rascism of war.

Mein Kampf, copyright 1925-1926, by Adolf Hitler, all rights reserved.
What Churchill said was "History will be kind to me for I intend to write it."

Too bad he didn't say "History will be kind to me for I intend to revise it."

You just revised the meaning of his quote. Come to think of it, much of your post is baseless revisionism.

What Churchill also said was:

"An immense responsibility rests upon the German people for this subservience to the barbaric idea of autocracy. This is the gravamen against them in history - that in spite of all their brains and courage - they worship power and let themselves be led by the nose"

One last Churchill quote:

" Learn all you can about the history of the past, for how else can one even make a guess what is going to happen in the future?"

[quote=Heibges]If Jimmy Carter had one the election in 1980 we might not have any manned bombers today at all, and 400 Submarines.
[quote]

Doubt it, we would still have inflation rates around 23% and couldn't afford much more than a few patched up GATO boats. :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

The Dutch did there share of slaughtering around the world, but not in the US, back you pardon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Amsterdam

Why do I want to watch Das Boot so bad after reading this thread? :-?

Well, I won’t do that again, I will promise never to say I’ve had my last word … I’ll just simply not post unless I change my mind.


Ok, let me be clear, war is immoral, perhaps amoral, but I believe the reasons may not be. The clearest case is when one is forced to make a choice, submit or be wiped out or dominated, in WWII many countries in Eastern Europe, Russia and China faced that choice. Some ethnic groups faced extermination. Some countries had the choice like the Commonwealth or the USA (besides the Axis) but felt for self interest (not necessarily bad) they ought to get involved. The heaviest moral responsibility always falls on the initiators / aggressors, though in my opinion “preemptive war” has always been risky and rarely been successful. Responding to unfair treatments of Versailles by going to war beyond just getting the Rhineland back is an example.

One of the reasons I reject moral equivalency between the Axis and Allies can be fouind in this link:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties

Please, use it as a start…it is one of the better wikipedia articles and the sources are well-noted and acknowledged. What will get comments I’m sure is this graph:


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...e-Piechart.png



Now, I have quibbles too, for example counting countries that switched sides from the Axis to Allies could be tricky and what counts as victims (Bengal famine or say the various small nationalities deported by Stalin). I seriously doubt any alternate count could greatly affect the disproportionate distribution of victims.


I do not however wish to excuse actions like the bombings of Dresden, Hiroshima or the expulsion of German civilians at the end of the war especially as they were in no way necessary to stop the Axis. I also recognize other highly immoral very disproportionate aggressions in history…the conquest and exterminations of the Americas and the colonial wars that took place in Congo or Algeria are others. I am sure the Incas or Aztecs would have loved to wipe the Conquistadores out…they were not able to…

I also firmly believe, that the aggressor and those by design or negligence who support them bears responsibility for the evils that fall on his own people. This is my big problem with “revisionism” not that saying “bad” things were done by the other side-even the victims-but downplaying what one did AND the responsibility in unleashing a catastrophe.

I don't disagree. In fact a mostly agree with you there. However its not as cut and dried as just saying they voted for Hitler, supported him and that was that. The Treaty of Versailles put Germnay in a position where Hitler could make a stab at grabbing power. Germany was a crippled nation and the rest of Europe was sucking the life out of her. Of course the German people were complicit in Hitler's power. But so was the rest of Europe in leaving the German people to rot. When you starve a people and deny them real freedom and then extinguish any real sign of a future you start rolling the dice. Not only were the terms of the Treaty punitive but France continued to enforce the terms that Germany couldn't pay by occupying territory. An angry nationalist could easily see this as a reason to go back to war. France saw Germany as a threat and maybe they helped it along to making her one again.

At worst I paraphrased the quote. And my characterization of it, though lacking as much of Churchill's special wit, carried most of what he meant anyway. I don't see what else he was trying to say. And I didn't revise history. I just pointed out something we always like to gloss over. The military build up was the big thing, the economic recovery from the Versailles blood letting was just an afterthought I'm sure.

I'm not excusing anything, I'm giving motive. This isn't about downplaying the horrors of the Third Reich. Its about making sure nobody can get away with saying as joea did, that the German people were somehow different than us.

Glad you like Churchill.:doh:

"It would be a dangerous folly for the British people to underrate the enduring position in world history which Mussolini will hold; or the amazing qualities of courage, comprehension, self-control, and perseverance which he exemplifies." Winston Churchill 1938

I prefer his good quotes.

Google around for Heibges' quote and you'll find it put to use by Pat Buchanan and Stormfront. :roll:

I prefer context.

If you look around and if you read up on Churchill just a bit, you'll find plenty of non-complementary words Churchill had for Mussolini at around the same time. On its own, Churchill's 1938 article "Dictators on Dynamite" contains enough to show why something is peculiar with Churchill's supposed admiration for Mussolini.

Could it possibly be that Churchill was attempting to appease Il Duce in an attempt to break up the German-Italian Axis alliance and keep Italy out of the war? I wonder..... :hmm:

Of course Churchill made mistakes, however, this might actually not have been one of them. And all this is assuming the quote is in context and factual.

I believe another Churchill quote is appropriate here:

"The only way a man can remain consistent amid changing circumstances is to change with them while preserving the same dominating purpose."

A sharp fellow, that Churchill was. Wish we had some of the same stuff today. :nope:

Now theres something we can totally agree on.

Hear hear!

Sharp fellow? I'll agree England needed Churchill as a strong leader against the fear of German take over artist Hitler, but a bit strange or queer the English would say in the 1940's meaning of strange.

Strange of him to sit around in his hotel room in the nude and calling in his secretary to take a letter, forgetting of course that he was in the nude. She refused to do shorthand :lol: for Churchill while he had no clothes on.

It's a battle for what we think ... Churchill was on the winning side. :yep:

When the man had an idea or something to say, he needed it written down then and there! He worked all night and slept all day. That's my style.:lol:

On the contrary! Churchill was a big history buff! :)