Who was the more evil power in WWII ?

[GlobalExplorer]

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

[bradclark1]

Originally Posted by GlobalExplorer

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

You just did.

[Dowly]

Originally Posted by bradclark1

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]

Originally Posted by Dmitry Markov

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]

Originally Posted by antikristuseke

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

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.

[Mostinius]

Originally Posted by Swede

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

My 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]

Originally Posted by 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?!

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...

[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.

[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]

Originally Posted by Ducimus

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]

Originally Posted by 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.

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?

Originally Posted by 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.

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!

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.