Modern Germany and WW2

[chastn]

Originally Posted By: OVERK1LL
Originally Posted By: dailydriver
Originally Posted By: OVERK1LL
He was not a fan of the Nazi movement or what happened. But he also has a "German side" (perhaps bias is a better word..)


So, does that mean he is only mildly anti-Semitic, and only blames the Jews 'a little bit'?

He's not anti-semitic at all and doesn't blame the Jews for anything specific. He has his gripes about the current state of affairs here, Germany...etc but they have nothing to do with a particular ethnicity and everything to do with politics, so I don't think we need to get into that

His German bias I speak of is hard to explain, but basically he's just got a different perspective on things, since he was there and saw a lot of it first hand. He was also in the junior luftwaffe and said that a lot of the stuff that they were taught like the respect, discipline...etc and that the same approach was taken in school and in the household. He said that this was one of the reasons Germany was so successful. He applies criticisms to how his grandchildren and his own children were treated in schools here and how things here are run compared to what he experienced growing up. He thinks schools, teachers...etc are far too easy on pupils, there is no discipline, respect...etc And that same condemnation applies to many parents as well. He has an issue with what he feels is essentially cushy liberal hand-holding that stifles the drive to out-perform one's peers, the strive for absolute excellence and that nothing else is good enough. He is a perfectionist and it shows in everything he owns and makes. I say makes because he builds model railroads, including most of the electronics that control them by hand. He has bread boards that he makes his schematics on and then has them printed on PCB's once they are tested and verified to be working correctly. He machines his own miniature flywheels, does his own precision soldering....etc.

He also walks perfectly upright, still manages to be strong as an ox and is an extremely good driver, all of this despite his age.


Unfortunately, he is 100% correct on the discipline and motivational issues of many younger students today. I was speaking with an old friend of mine who teaches job training courses for a large manufacturer at a local technical college. It is unbelievable what he has to put up with in the classroom. I couldn't do it. The nonsense he has to put up with from unskilled people who supposedly want a relatively good paying job is disheartning.

But maybe there is a silver lining to it all. After all, was it not the VW van driving, pot smoking hippies of the 1960's who turned into the Volvo driving, Perrier water drinking yuppies of the 1980's??

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: chastn
Originally Posted By: OVERK1LL
Originally Posted By: dailydriver
Originally Posted By: OVERK1LL
He was not a fan of the Nazi movement or what happened. But he also has a "German side" (perhaps bias is a better word..)


So, does that mean he is only mildly anti-Semitic, and only blames the Jews 'a little bit'?

He's not anti-semitic at all and doesn't blame the Jews for anything specific. He has his gripes about the current state of affairs here, Germany...etc but they have nothing to do with a particular ethnicity and everything to do with politics, so I don't think we need to get into that

His German bias I speak of is hard to explain, but basically he's just got a different perspective on things, since he was there and saw a lot of it first hand. He was also in the junior luftwaffe and said that a lot of the stuff that they were taught like the respect, discipline...etc and that the same approach was taken in school and in the household. He said that this was one of the reasons Germany was so successful. He applies criticisms to how his grandchildren and his own children were treated in schools here and how things here are run compared to what he experienced growing up. He thinks schools, teachers...etc are far too easy on pupils, there is no discipline, respect...etc And that same condemnation applies to many parents as well. He has an issue with what he feels is essentially cushy liberal hand-holding that stifles the drive to out-perform one's peers, the strive for absolute excellence and that nothing else is good enough. He is a perfectionist and it shows in everything he owns and makes. I say makes because he builds model railroads, including most of the electronics that control them by hand. He has bread boards that he makes his schematics on and then has them printed on PCB's once they are tested and verified to be working correctly. He machines his own miniature flywheels, does his own precision soldering....etc.

He also walks perfectly upright, still manages to be strong as an ox and is an extremely good driver, all of this despite his age.


Unfortunately, he is 100% correct on the discipline and motivational issues of many younger students today. I was speaking with an old friend of mine who teaches job training courses for a large manufacturer at a local technical college. It is unbelievable what he has to put up with in the classroom. I couldn't do it. The nonsense he has to put up with from unskilled people who supposedly want a relatively good paying job is disheartning.

But maybe there is a silver lining to it all. After all, was it not the VW van driving, pot smoking hippies of the 1960's who turned into the Volvo driving, Perrier water drinking yuppies of the 1980's??


This is very true. My dad teaches at a University and the general approach of the prof's is to be very hands off in the early year (large classroom) courses because it isn't worth their time to try and get actively involved with the students, as many of them will not be following that subject beyond that first year or two and will often have horrible classroom manners on top of that. My dad has a technique that involves his laptop and everything just being on the screen to deal with this, as trying to fight to be heard over the hundred plus voices of gabbing students who refuse to listen got old quite quickly for him, and is very stressful. Now of course if a student expresses an interest to interact with the Prof on the subject beyond what is taught in the classroom, well that's a completely different topic and ties into my next point:

Later year students (and of course the grad students and the like) who obviously have a keen interest in the topic, as they've continued to take it, are the ones that become the focus of the professors. These are students that are worth having time invested in them, don't act out and genuinely want to learn.

However, my understanding is that this weeding out process (admittedly, we are talking about two very different age ranges of schooling here, but I think the concept is sound) wasn't necessary when/where my friend was growing up.

 

[dailydriver]

Originally Posted By: andrewg
I think you are characterizing all Germans during the war as "Nazis"....and that would be a mistake. And to say that they had a measure of "glee" in bombing innocent civilians is a bit of an overstatement. The German and Japanese people (innocent themselves) suffered HORRIBLY at the hand of the allied bombings....men, women, children, elderly, etc. It matters NOT if the allies felt guilt or glee....those people died. I'm not trying to say that it was wrong what happened....but I call it as I see it. Tens of thousands of innocent civilians died at the hands of the American and British. There is no way around that.
In hindsight, the war could have been won without such horrific bombings in my opinion. But I am speaking from a completely different perspective and time period to judge too harshly.


For the most part, I agree with you on the above (I know, the sky must be falling).

And NO, I did not mean to implicate ALL of the Teuton civilian populace, nor even every single one of either the Nazi combatants, nor ALL the Nippon Imperial army soldiers.

But it sure does seem like a fairly good portion of them (the Axis soldiers, that is, NOT their civilians) DID have this sadistic, bloodthirsty, glee in their efficient thoroughness of "carrying out their orders", and even much extra curricular pain and torture against innocents as well.

YES, their innocent civilians died en mass, and that WAS horrific as well, but it was not an intentional part of a "Master Plan" with the purpose of COMPLETELY wiping them off of the face of this earth just because they were of Aryan, or Nippon ethnicity/nationality.
We may not be 'innocent saints', but we did not do this during the second World War, especially not as "policy".

And YES, most of the Soviets may have been a match for the Axis commanders and soldiers when it came to cruelty, NO ONE is excusing them either!

 

[Shannow]

Originally Posted By: Tempest
Quote:
In hindsight, the war could have been won without such horrific bombings in my opinion.

V1 and V2 rockets pretty much sealed the destinies of the civilian German populace.


There is some significant differences in opinion and fact over which side intentionally bombed civilians in the first place.

 

[Spazdog]

The Germans bombed civillian areas of London.
The British retaliated by bombing Berlin.

Hitler allegedly ordered civillian areas off-limits to bombing, but it still happened. The Brits simply returned the same. Not certain if any diplomacy could have prevented the bombing of Berlin

The number one killer of Soviet citizens in WWII was the Soviet Union. The Nazis were number two.

 

[CapriRacer]

Originally Posted By: Spazdog
The Germans bombed civillian areas of London.
The British retaliated by bombing Berlin.......


I think that is backwards.

The British bombed Berlin on 25 Aug 1940 and the Germans bombed London on 7 Sep 1940.

 

[Spazdog]

The Germans "accidentally" bombed London on the 15th of August and then "accidentally" attacked civillian targets on 23rd and 24th of August.
The British raid on Berlin on the 25th was in retaliation. It infuriated Hitler who rescinded his alleged "no civillian targets" order. It was a misstep. If the Luftwaffe had stayed on plan, they may have been able to wipe out the RAF. The attacks steeled the British resolve as did their Royals standing thier ground in the midst of the attacks.

 

[CapriRacer]

Originally Posted By: Spazdog
The Germans "accidentally" bombed London on the 15th of August and then "accidentally" attacked civillian targets on 23rd and 24th of August.
The British raid on Berlin on the 25th was in retaliation. It infuriated Hitler who rescinded his alleged "no civillian targets" order. It was a misstep. If the Luftwaffe had stayed on plan, they may have been able to wipe out the RAF. The attacks steeled the British resolve as did their Royals standing thier ground in the midst of the attacks.


I struggled to find out about who did what when during that time period - and even after you gave me the dates, it's still a struggle to get a clear picture. Neverthelsss, thanks for the dates. That helps.

 

[ArrestMeRedZ]

Spazdog,if you take the quotation marks off the "accidentally", you are completely correct. Hitler had no problem being a monster to other ethnic groups, but he considered the Brits to be ethnic cousins. As you mentioned, this is why he was so upset with the British after they intentionally bombed German civillian targets. Hitler then managed to lose the war by going after British civillian targets on his own, giving the RAF respite and the ability to rebuild.

I think I remember reading about the English using elecronic countermeasures on the radio signals the Germans were using for navigation, causing them to go off course and drop on London instead of military targets.

 

[Tempest]

The Nazi's bombed civilians in Poland in 1939 and in Holland in 1940, as well as in the Spanish Civil War in 1937.

 

[ArrestMeRedZ]

Originally Posted By: Tempest
The Nazi's bombed civilians in Poland in 1939 and in Holland in 1940, as well as in the Spanish Civil War in 1937.


That would be the other ethnic groups. Hitler had no problem being a mass murderer, just not to Germanic people (the Saxon part of Anglo Saxons) unless they ****ed him off.

 

[Trajan]

Hitler had a love/hate attitude toward England. The accidental bombing was just that. IIRC, it was an errant crew that did it. Damage was slight.

But in the end, IMO it was inevitable, as the Luftwaffe command thought that London was the one target the RAF would defend at all hazards, which would lead to its defeat.

 

[Spazdog]

Originally Posted By: ArrestMeRedZ
Spazdog,if you take the quotation marks off the "accidentally", you are completely correct. Hitler had no problem being a monster to other ethnic groups, but he considered the Brits to be ethnic cousins. As you mentioned, this is why he was so upset with the British after they intentionally bombed German civillian targets. Hitler then managed to lose the war by going after British civillian targets on his own, giving the RAF respite and the ability to rebuild.

I think I remember reading about the English using elecronic countermeasures on the radio signals the Germans were using for navigation, causing them to go off course and drop on London instead of military targets.


I used quotes because Adolph Hitler allegedly ordered civillian targets off-limits. He may have publicly ordered them off-limits and then sent them after civillian targets anyway. All's fair in love and war....
I heard the countermeasure story before. It's pretty unlikely that they would be able to do that during that period in time and effect the compass and the pilot's (and possibly navigator's) calculations. Not impossible, but unlikely
It was that or bomber pilots saw a squadron of Hurricanes or Spitfires coming and dropped their ordinance early. Wouldn't be the first bomber crew of the war to do that and certainly wouldn't be the last.
Or they just plain got lost.
Or one of Hitler's subordinates decided to terrorize the English by attacking civillian targets without the Chancellor's knowledge or approval.

 

[ArrestMeRedZ]

I'm not sure it happened in this instance, but the Germans did use radio station navigation employing crossing beams to give their aircrews a rough point on where to drop their bombs at night. The Brits figured out what the Germans were doing, interferred with the radio station navigation, and caused the bombs to fall off target.
With the navigation systems available at that time, at night with unlit targets, about the best you could do is hit the ground. Probably why the Luftwaffe wanted to bomb London rather than military targets. Too hard to explain to Der Furrer why you always missed.

 

[LordAbbett]

Originally Posted By: dailydriver
Originally Posted By: andrewg
I think you are characterizing all Germans during the war as "Nazis"....and that would be a mistake. And to say that they had a measure of "glee" in bombing innocent civilians is a bit of an overstatement. The German and Japanese people (innocent themselves) suffered HORRIBLY at the hand of the allied bombings....men, women, children, elderly, etc. It matters NOT if the allies felt guilt or glee....those people died. I'm not trying to say that it was wrong what happened....but I call it as I see it. Tens of thousands of innocent civilians died at the hands of the American and British. There is no way around that.
In hindsight, the war could have been won without such horrific bombings in my opinion. But I am speaking from a completely different perspective and time period to judge too harshly.


For the most part, I agree with you on the above (I know, the sky must be falling).

And NO, I did not mean to implicate ALL of the Teuton civilian populace, nor even every single one of either the Nazi combatants, nor ALL the Nippon Imperial army soldiers.

But it sure does seem like a fairly good portion of them (the Axis soldiers, that is, NOT their civilians) DID have this sadistic, bloodthirsty, glee in their efficient thoroughness of "carrying out their orders", and even much extra curricular pain and torture against innocents as well.

YES, their innocent civilians died en mass, and that WAS horrific as well, but it was not an intentional part of a "Master Plan" with the purpose of COMPLETELY wiping them off of the face of this earth just because they were of Aryan, or Nippon ethnicity/nationality.
We may not be 'innocent saints', but we did not do this during the second World War, especially not as "policy".

And YES, most of the Soviets may have been a match for the Axis commanders and soldiers when it came to cruelty, NO ONE is excusing them either!

Agreed the russians were just as cruel as any of the nazis.
One thing to keep in mind is the difference between SS units and regular Wehrmacht army units. They are not the same. And which one was tasked with the opening of the real atrocities when germany turned east. In the end the Wehrmacht was complicit with the final solution and others crimes. It's a very complex thing to get away from our point of view and understand the perspective of a soldier in 1940s europe

 

[cjcride]

Originally Posted By: ArrestMeRedZ

With the navigation systems available at that time, at night with unlit targets, about the best you could do is hit the ground.
This is why the USAF chose to bomb by daylight.

 

[chastn]

Originally Posted By: andrewg
I think you are characterizing all Germans during the war as "Nazis"....and that would be a mistake. And to say that they had a measure of "glee" in bombing innocent civilians is a bit of an overstatement. The German and Japanese people (innocent themselves) suffered HORRIBLY at the hand of the allied bombings....men, women, children, elderly, etc. It matters NOT if the allies felt guilt or glee....those people died. I'm not trying to say that it was wrong what happened....but I call it as I see it. Tens of thousands of innocent civilians died at the hands of the American and British. There is no way around that.
In hindsight, the war could have been won without such horrific bombings in my opinion. But I am speaking from a completely different perspective and time period to judge too harshly.


I don't know if I would characterize the German populace as entirely innocent. Remember, a significant number of then voted for the nazi's in the early years. Granted, they probably voted for them out of fear of the communists and despiration from a collapsed economy, but vote for them they did. The nazi's got enough votes in the Reichstag that the nationalists had to do some parliamentarily manuevers with them to keep the communists out of power. This was in 1932 I believe. Hitler was made Chancellor and Von Papen was made vice Chancellor even though his party had more seats. 'The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich' by William Shirer is an excellent read on the subject. I haven't read it in a few years but it is an indept analysis.

As for so many civilians dying in the bombing campaigns, it was probably more than tens of thousands. As the old saying goes, 'hindsight is 20/20'. We probably did over do it in cases like Dresden. But a stragegic bombing capability was one area where we definitely bested the Germans. It would have been tragic not to exploit it.

 

[Spazdog]

Originally Posted By: cjcride
Originally Posted By: ArrestMeRedZ

With the navigation systems available at that time, at night with unlit targets, about the best you could do is hit the ground.
This is why the USAF chose to bomb by daylight.


The USAAF B-17's ability to defend itself, maintain close formations, and it's ability to get her crew back home in spite of horrific amounts of damage made it a better daylight bombing choice than the more powerful/higher bomb load Lancaster.

Zero pilots reported emptying all their 7.7mm and 20mm into a B-17 and it continued to fly. A Messerschmitt Bf 109 was involved in a mid-air collision destroying the Bf 109 but the B-17 continued to fly. I honestly do not know if anything else could have done it.

 

[ArrestMeRedZ]

It's hard to believe, but we lost more Air Corp troops in U.S. bombers over Europe than we did Marines in the Pacific. Had we continued at the loss rate we had before we had fighter escort, we would never have been able to complete the Normandy invasion. The concept of bombers being able to defened themselves was a false one - every time it was tried in the Pacific or Europe (before the other force's fighters were essentially destroyed) we had unsustainable loss rates.

For some of the best info on the air war against Japan, I would recommend researching Gen. George Kenney and 5th AF in the Pacific.

What the bombers did in Europe was force the Germans to defend. When we finally got fighters with enough range to escort the bombers, we were able to destroy the Luftwaffe in the air.

 

[Spazdog]

Originally Posted By: ArrestMeRedZ
It's hard to believe, but we lost more Air Corp troops in U.S. bombers over Europe than we did Marines in the Pacific. Had we continued at the loss rate we had before we had fighter escort, we would never have been able to complete the Normandy invasion. The concept of bombers being able to defened themselves was a false one - every time it was tried in the Pacific or Europe (before the other force's fighters were essentially destroyed) we had unsustainable loss rates.

For some of the best info on the air war against Japan, I would recommend researching Gen. George Kenney and 5th AF in the Pacific.

What the bombers did in Europe was force the Germans to defend. When we finally got fighters with enough range to escort the bombers, we were able to destroy the Luftwaffe in the air.


I didn't mean to imply that the B-17 could entirely defend itself. Just that it defended better than the Lancaster

If the B-17 could defend itself entirely, there wouldn't be so many images and so much footage of B-17s coming in on less than 4 engines (allegedly just one turning in some cases), sections of wing/stabilizer/elevator missing, or these guys that were in a mid-air collision with a '109.

For a different perspective on how much difference P-51 fighter escorts made in the Pacific: (although it is the Superfortress he refers to)
"For a short period of time the fighters broke the B-29's myth of invinciability, and the Raiden's four cannon and flashing speed raised our hopes by blowing several B-29's out of the sky."

"The enemy's answer was to send swarms of Mustangs over Japan during the daylight raids. The swift enemy fighters tore savagely at our planes and slaughtered them. Where the Raiden shone against the B-29, it was helpless before the swifter, more manuverable Mustang." Saburo Sakai