Modern Germany and WW2

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Originally Posted By: Shannow
Thread looks almost word for word like
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080809105151AAohArI


Ambrose?

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

Beginning late in his life and continuing after his death, however, evidence and reports have continued to surface documenting longtime patterns of plagiarism, falsification, and inaccuracies in many of his published writings and other work. In response to one of the early reports, Ambrose said he was not "out there stealing other people's writings."

I will say this. Ike, Patton, and some others saw first hand what the Nazi's were capable of when they started liberating the death camps. The first time he saw one, Patton, as tough as they come, threw up.

In fact, Ike had his own troops see them. He said, and I'm going from memory, (I *think* it's in Toland's book The Last 100 days.) "We hear that the American soldier doesn't know what he's fighting for. At least they'll know what they're fighting against."

None of them bought for a second that the German people did't know what was going on. They had nearby towns take a tour of the camps. The mayor and his wife of one town killed themselves after seeing it.
 
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Originally Posted By: tribocessive
"Salami on Rye please." an excellent choice. mustard?


Are you sure that's not a much too "socialist", or "leftist" sammich for you??!!
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Originally Posted By: tribocessive
europeans; thick oil; thick skulls; whitewash history; "urban renewal;" i cordially invite you to post your comments; i'm still offering to buy everyone finger sandwiches, especially european socialists.
Thank You, but I'd have to drive down from Canada.(will reconsider in winter)
 
Originally Posted By: dailydriver
Originally Posted By: uc50ic4more
Originally Posted By: tribocessive
left wing professor thinking aside, i see a lot of similarities between socialism, national socialism and communism;


Oh boy... Threads get locked so easily, but I have *got* to hear this. Please explain.


Yes, tribo, I'm usually in agreement with you on oil related topics, but THIS I've also got to hear.
confused2.gif



Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia used alot of red on their flags.
 
to the bitog band of brothers on all continents; here's one member who will actually listen to your ideas and give them serious consideration; however, then your ideas will be subjected to harsh, severe-service critical thinking; the nazis named themselves socialists; the soviets named themselves socialists; now, central planning is being predominantly ideological, while causing any reminders of WWII and europe itself to evaporate; the 100 years war, the war to end all wars, the spanish civil war, WWII...europe is avoiding its own realities; mr goodwrench motor oil- i'm not buying it.
 
Originally Posted By: kb01
...Many places, like Auschwitz or Gdansk are so historically significant, that there's no question of the necessity of preservation. For more run-of-the-mill reminders, like fascist-era office buildings, or Communist flats, things get more complicated.

While not related to Nazis, there's an interesting park located outside of Budapest -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memento_Park. It's basically a conglomeration of Communist-era statues and propaganda -- It's an interesting balancing act of preserving history, and balancing many complicated issues.


Agree with the necessity to preserve certain sites, in a way, paying homage to those that perished, that it not be forgotten.

Memento Park seems like they found a good and reasonable solution for what to do with all those old statues. Maybe the subject of the statue is no longer "the beloved leader" (and was actually a scoundrel) but someone probably put a lot of time and effort into the monument and as a piece of art it would be a shame to destroy it.
 
A Haiku, Composed In Honour Of The Good Member tribocessive

Coherent sentence
Seems like it's a tall order
Use semicolons!

Originally Posted By: tribocessive

nazism, national socialism, was a left wing movement; d-day, insignificant d-day, was only the largest military operation in history, and it involved multi-national forces; churchill was a great man; japanese atrocities? see #2752117; if alinsky can be quoted, then i will go ahead and quote sir charles barkley ",I don't need no history!" there is one artifact that predates WWII , that remains standing, and that matters to me, and that is the statue of liberty.

the late dale earnhardt "do you want to race or don't you?" me: "do you want to have a dialogue about history or don't you?" later on we'll go get some finger sandwiches; even the word "quagmire" is politically tinged; it was brought back from the dregs by pulitzer-prize-winning author the late david halberstam in an anti-vietnam war book; the reasons that buildings and places in europe connected to WWII have been erased are entirely political; is free speech only that with which you agree? there are a lot of perspectives on WWII; many of them are volatile and unpleasant; "topic toxic", i think not; i respectfully and politely disagree.

europeans; thick oil; thick skulls; whitewash history; "urban renewal;" i cordially invite you to post your comments; i'm still offering to buy everyone finger sandwiches, especially european socialists.

to the bitog band of brothers on all continents; here's one member who will actually listen to your ideas and give them serious consideration; however, then your ideas will be subjected to harsh, severe-service critical thinking; the nazis named themselves socialists; the soviets named themselves socialists; now, central planning is being predominantly ideological, while causing any reminders of WWII and europe itself to evaporate; the 100 years war, the war to end all wars, the spanish civil war, WWII...europe is avoiding its own realities; mr goodwrench motor oil- i'm not buying it.
 
Originally Posted By: tribocessive
much gracias for enlightening haiku; end of statement.


De nada; it was my first of two this morning:

Go, Detroit Lions!
The league's model franchise for
underachievement
 
Originally Posted By: Trajan
Originally Posted By: dailydriver
Originally Posted By: uc50ic4more
Originally Posted By: tribocessive
left wing professor thinking aside, i see a lot of similarities between socialism, national socialism and communism;


Oh boy... Threads get locked so easily, but I have *got* to hear this. Please explain.


Yes, tribo, I'm usually in agreement with you on oil related topics, but THIS I've also got to hear.
confused2.gif



Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia used alot of red on their flags.



OUR flag is not exactly devoid of the color red either (just trying to add to your point).
wink.gif
lol.gif
 
Originally Posted By: OVERK1LL
...

Now, back on topic, what I find interesting is that when I first mentioned this subject (millions of detained Germans in camps) I was told by Spazdog:

Originally Posted By: Spazdog
That's not true.

German Prisoners of war captured in Africa were sent to Texas (Geneva Convention. They have to be moved to a similar climate)


And by Win:

Originally Posted By: Win
We didn't have millions of German prisoners.


Yet clearly, the history on the topic of The Rheinwiesenlager and DEF's shows that we certainly DID have millions of Germans in camps (19 camps). And while we can certainly argue about how many of them starved to death or died due to disease (it is certainly quite possible that my old Luftwaffe buddy has used some generous numbers to bolster his argument), the fact of the matter is that I've had two people in this very thread tell me that what I mentioned didn't happen, when it clearly did.

And I think that this is something we should discuss, since the topic of deniers and the like has been mentioned in this thread.


OK, then, starvation was official Nazi policy with respect to Russia. To my knowledge, starvation was never an official policy of the western allies.

From Shirer's tome, at pp 748-749 (one of many examples):

"The German Administration in these territories [the directive declared] may well attempt to mitigate the consequences of the famine which undoubtedly will take place and to accelerate the return to primitive agricultural conditions. However, these measures will not avert famine. Any attempt to save the population there from death by starvation by importing surpluses from the black-soil zone would be at the expense of supplies to Europe. It would reduce Germany’s staying power in the war, and would undermine Germany’s and Europe’s power to resist the blockade. This must be clearly and absolutely
understood. 1014
How many Russian civilians would die as the result of this deliberate German policy? A meeting of state secretaries on May 2 had already given a general answer, ”There is no doubt,” a secret memorandum of the conference declared, ”that as a result, many millions of persons will be starved to death if we take out of the country the things necessary for us”1015 And Goering had said, and Rosenberg, that they would be taken out – that much had to be ”clearly and absolutely understood.” Did any German, even one single German, protest against this planned ruthlessness, this well-thought-out scheme to put millions of human beings to death by starvation? In all the memoranda concerning the German directives for the spoliation of Russia, there is no mention of anyone’s objecting – as at least some of the generals did in regard to the Commissar Order. These plans were not merely wild and evil fantasies of distorted minds and souls of men such as Hitler, Goering, Himmler and Rosenberg. For weeks and months, it is evident from the records, hundreds of German officials toiled away at their desks in the cheerful light of the warm spring days, adding up figures and composing memoranda which coldly calculated the massacre of millions. By starvation, in this case."

Unfortunately the citations to the source documents footnoted in the text are not in the online scanned copy. They are in my hardbound version of the book, I don't know about the paperback version.

The victorious western powers did not designate the fleeing soldiers who, as the Reich disintegrated, desperately wanted to avoid capture by the Soviets as prisoners, so far as I know. Some probably did starve, it was a terrible time in history, made possible by Germany.
 
Originally Posted By: dailydriver
Originally Posted By: Trajan



Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia used alot of red on their flags.



OUR flag is not exactly devoid of the color red either (just trying to add to your point).
wink.gif
lol.gif




crackmeup2.gif
 
Shirer, at p. 856 on German treatment of captured Soviet soldiers:

"Though it was a flagrant violation of the Hague and Geneva conventions to use prisoners of war in armament factories or in any labor connected with the fighting at the front such employment, massive as it was, constituted the least of worries for the millions of soldiers captured by the Third Reich.
Their overwhelming concern was to survive the war. If they were Russian the odds were greatly against them. There were more Soviet war prisoners than all others put together – some five and three-quarter million of them. Of these barely one million were found alive when Allied troops liberated the inmates of
the POW camps in 1945, About a million had either been released during the war or allowed to serve in the collaborator units set up by the German Army. Two million Russian prisoners of war died in German captivity – from starvation, exposure and disease. The remaining million have never been accounted
for and at Nuremberg a good case was made that most of them either had died from the above causes or had been exterminated by the S.D. (S.S. Security Service). According to the German records 67,000 were executed, but this is most certainly a partial figure.1179 The bulk of the Russian war prisoners – some 3,800,000 of them – were taken by the Germans in the first phase of the Russian campaign, in the great battles of encirclement which were fought from June 21 to December 6, 1941. Admittedly it was difficult for an army in the midst of combat and rapid advance to care adequately for such a large number of captives. But the Germans made no effort to. Indeed the Nazi records show, as we have seen, that the Soviet prisoners were deliberately starved and left out in the open without shelter to die in the terrible subzero snowbound winter of 1941-42. ”The more of these prisoners who die, the better it is for us,” was the attitude of many Nazi officials according to no less an authority than Rosenberg".
 
Win:

With all due respect, my point had nothing to do with how poorly the Germans treated their own citizens or their own POW's.

My point was simply that there were camps setup for German POW's at the end of the war in which a rather significant number died. Your first reply to me stated that this didn't happen. Clearly it DID happen. There is plenty of information on the DEF's and I don't see why it is being glossed over.

This was a horrible period of time in history for humanity. But the mistreatment of people, particularly POW's was certainly not isolated to the Germans, and that was what I was pointing out. The DEF designation essentially allowed the Allies to starve the German POW's to death in these 19 wonderful camps. Appropriate? Perhaps. But I don't see why people seem to pretend it didn't happen
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http://worldwar2database.com/html/germanpow.htm

The Western Allies were overwhelmed by the number of surrendering Germans in late 1944 and early 1945. The POW system was completely overloaded, with too few guards and too little shelter and food. Many guards were brutal to the German POWs, often in retaliation for the German occupation of their home country.

This may be worth the read. (Apologies if already mentioned.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eisenhower_and_German_POWs#Other_evidence_for_German_POW_deaths

I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss what OVERK1LL is saying. Why? Andersonville comes to mind.
 
Originally Posted By: dailydriver
Originally Posted By: Trajan


Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia used alot of red on their flags.



OUR flag is not exactly devoid of the color red either (just trying to add to your point).
wink.gif
lol.gif



And the Canadian Flag, the Mexican Flag, the Haitian Flag, The Dominican Republic....HEY! the Jamaican flag does not have red in it!
 
Originally Posted By: OVERK1LL
Originally Posted By: Nickdfresh

So where were the "millions" Overkill? Your posts seem rather irresponsible and bordering on trolling here!


You seem rather irate to be participating in a civil discussion on this topic......
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I very clearly said that those were the numbers HE cited in the folder of info he had. And I do recall it listing something of an estimate of 1.2 million people based on the number of people that left the camps.

In my own reading on the topic, again, I did see much higher death rates listed from certain sources. This is obviously a very uncomfortable topic for you for whatever reason, but if you'd like to continue discussing it, I'd appreciate it if you toned it down a few notches and refrain from calling me a troll. I'm anything but.

Now, back on topic, what I find interesting is that when I first mentioned this subject (millions of detained Germans in camps) I was told by Spazdog:

Originally Posted By: Spazdog
That's not true.

German Prisoners of war captured in Africa were sent to Texas (Geneva Convention. They have to be moved to a similar climate)


And by Win:

Originally Posted By: Win
We didn't have millions of German prisoners.


Yet clearly, the history on the topic of The Rheinwiesenlager and DEF's shows that we certainly DID have millions of Germans in camps (19 camps). And while we can certainly argue about how many of them starved to death or died due to disease (it is certainly quite possible that my old Luftwaffe buddy has used some generous numbers to bolster his argument), the fact of the matter is that I've had two people in this very thread tell me that what I mentioned didn't happen, when it clearly did.

And I think that this is something we should discuss, since the topic of deniers and the like has been mentioned in this thread.


Yeah, we were going in different directions there. I was referring to the the German POWs stateside who were often treated better than American Blacks.

Many German POWs did petition to stay here. Given the large numbers of Americans of German heritage here,(Pflugerville, New Braunfels, Muenster, New Baden, Westphalia, Shiner...) they could assimilate pretty easily, they were pretty well acclimated to the heat from serving in North Africa, and they may have had some foresight as to how bad things were back in Germany. Letters from home or whatever may have warned them

No doubt that the prisoners in Germany had it much worse. But as far as which occupier was worse? Well, no one ever told a brave and harrowing story of escaping to East Berlin.
 
NAZI GERMANY AND THE SOVIET UNION BOTH STARTED OFF AS SOCIALISM BUT INVARIABLY EVOLVED INTO TOTALITARIANISM. THE OPPOSITE OF TOTALITARIANISM IS DEMOCRATIC AS IN THE DEUTSCHE DEMOKRATISCHE REPUBLIK. THUSLY EAST GERMANY WAS THE OPPOSITE OF NAZI GERMANY ALTHOUGH THEY WERE BOTH GERMANY. EAST GERMANY WAS THE OPPOSITE OF THE SOVIET UNION ALTHOUGH IT WAS A PUPPET OF THE SOVIET UNION. THE EAST GERMAN FLAG DID HAVE SOME RED IN IT. I WOULD LIKE TO TELL EVERYONE THAT AN EAGLE NEEDS BOTH ITS LEFT WING AND ITS RIGHT WING IN ORDER TO FLY HIGH. I MISS MY SEMICOLONS. SOMETIMES ABSURDITY IS USED TO MAKE A POINT.
 
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