Who was the more evil power in WWII ?

[bigboywooly]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

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]

Originally Posted by bigboywooly

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

[SUBMAN1]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

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!

-S

[bradclark1]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

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/~greatamer...ry/gr02013.htm

History is never simple.

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

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.

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?

[GlobalExplorer]

Originally Posted by 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.

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.

Originally Posted by Swede

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.

Originally Posted by Swede

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.

Originally Posted by Swede

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.

[Onkel Neal]

Originally Posted by GlobalExplorer

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 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.

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?

[GlobalExplorer]

Originally Posted by Heibges

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.

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

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.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by 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).

[GlobalExplorer]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

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

[Onkel Neal]

Originally Posted by Swede

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?

[GlobalExplorer]

Originally Posted by waste gate

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.