Nazi Germany VS The Soviet Union

[AgentOrange]

@cyan:

@Yemble:

It was SS units which hunted down Jews, political criminals, and other “rotents” in areas recently captured by Germany.  Einstatzgroupen I believe they were called, which located and eliminated inferior groups of people.  They comprised the fanatics, who were hitlers personal guard, who believed the sh*t he spouted whereas the wehrmacht was the army which was the most likely to not know about the atrocities of SS.

there like the revolutionary guard for Iran. just as guilty.

I don’t see how they’re “just as guilty” if they actually didn’t know about it.

[Guest]

Okay, I am in the Republican party. If George Bush suddenly revealed that he had a final solution for Jews, I must be just as guilty as he is.  :roll:

Being a soldier in the SS does not make someone an evil person.

[Yahoshua]

That’s a very childish comparison M36.

Hitler had declared numerous times before that the Jews and other non-aryans should be considered sub-human ‘things’ not worthy of any compassion.

There had been countless individual incidents of state agression against Jews, Gypsies, and dissenters against the state. From the act of stripping German Jewry of their citizenship, to the forcible expulsion of Polish Jews near the Polish border, and the Kristalnacht pogrom.

One can hardly say that aggression against Jews was unheard of in Nazi Germany, or that rumors of camps geared toward exterminating Jews were being built and put into operation (ghettos were common knowledge by the time the death camps began their grisly work).

I have yet heard President Bush declare that if there were to be war in Iran that it would result not in the destruction of the United States, but the destruction of American Moslems. Have you? I have yet heard of widespread violent discrimination against moslems by burning out their mosques and shooting the head imam. Have you?

But I digress here. My point being that the SS cannot be held to being merely partially responsible, as they were formed for main purpose of “purifying” conquered territories. The Wermacht took a lesser role in this respect, yet each still bears blood on their hands for the atrocities that had been committed.

[Guest]

A childish conversion eh? It is a perfect comparison, which shows the absurdity of labeling everybody in a party just because the leaders of said party are megalomaniacs.

Soldiers cannot be held responsible for following their orders. This is what soldiers are trained to do.

[ajgundam5]

@Yahoshua:

That’s a very childish comparison M36.

Why?

[Yahoshua]

Read my post AJ, I already explained why.

M36, the chain of command does not shield you from personal and moral responsibility. Whether you choose to quietly go along with it and hope to survive whatever it is to come or if you decide to desert and refuse to follow orders that would undoubdetly be considered war crimes is up to you.

State indoctrinated hatred of Jews, Gypsies, and dissidents was well known in Nazi Germany, I have yet seen the same type of behavior here in the U.S.

[cyan]

@Yahoshua:

State indoctrinated hatred of Jews, Gypsies, and dissidents was well known in Nazi Germany, I have yet seen the same type of behavior here in the U.S.

where? if you have there probably the family of Nazi’s who fled to America to become spies.

[Yahoshua]

You misread my post.  :-D

[Yemble]

i find it unlikely that ss units didn’t know what was going on.

[Guest]

Well, it is the truth. The SS was simple an elite organization of the Whermacht, kind of like MFR is to us, or the Rangers are to the Army.

Hitler had different ideas, however, and employed the SS in his extermination campaign.

[Yemble]

Hitler created the SS.  As a matter of fact he started with two “special forces” units.  The SA andd SS.  He had the SS arrest and kill the leaders of the of the SA.  The SS was then indoctrinated with Nazi ideology.  How many examples of SS atrocities would it take to convince you that the SS was a special forces unit which in large part carried out the fuhrer’s orders?

[Guest]

How many accounts of SS soldiers who committed no atrocities, but simply did their job as soldiers will it take to convince you that the SS was not an evil organization?

[Yemble]

Perhaps its because of the reason for their existance.  Their purpose.  I feel that if those Germans wanted to defend their nation, then the wehrmacht was the way to go, not hitlers personal guard.  in my mind, join hitlers personal guard and you ascribe to his political agenda.

[General ZOD]

Only if Japan had attacked in the Far East (and perhaps had not expanded into the Paciific) would Germany have had a chance at totally taking out the Soviet Union…also if Hitler had let the Generals totally run the operation!

[balungaloaf]

ah, the classic axis and allies solution.

[ajgundam5]

@General:

Only if Japan had attacked in the Far East (and perhaps had not expanded into the Paciific) would Germany have had a chance at totally taking out the Soviet Union…also if Hitler had let the Generals totally run the operation!

Japan had a few battles with the Soviet Union before it decided to go against the US … it was either war with USSR or the Pacific and after losing terribly against the Soviets they decided to go for the Pacific resources rather than the Siberian ones it needed.

[NoMercy]

It would have went differently for Japan the next time around if they had decided to go the Siberian route because the Germans were on Moscow’s door.

I Personally think Japan was stronger in the Pacifici then on Land.
Japan was trained and suited for Jungle fighting & Navy
I don’t recall them having any great equipement on land (there tanks wern’t that great?)

But yes if Japan had helped relieved Germany a bit it would have made a huge difference, I mean especially at the crucial points in the war…them extra million Japaneese soldiers with 1,000+ zeros would have gotten some attention from the Soviet Union.

[Yemble]

I have no doubt the Japanese would have made significant inroads into Russia, but I do not think that they would have been able to maintain supply roads far into the interior of the Soviet Union.  My only question is one concerning the personality of Stalin….how much if at all would he direct to oppose a japanese invasion?  Or would he put up minimal resistence and let the supply lines strech till gurrillas could cut harrass them so much the japanese could not move any farther?

[Imperious Leader]

HUH???

This is not true at all. Japan had no answer for the greater mechanization and adept training of the Army facing the Kwangtung Army. The country is totally inhospitable and useless for any economic value in the short term This idea of Japan having some great capability to push deep into the vast interior of Soviet eastern territories is total bunk. The Kwangtung Army could barely feed itself and make any progress in China after 1941. The only strategic value to anybody was Vladivostok which was at least sometimes a warm water port. Their could never be any Japanese push into the Urals unless Japan could find its way into a modern army. The only thing they had going for them was that navy and half of that was old British battle cruisers and old converted carriers. The best thing was those pilots and the lance torpedo and decent night action training… but once our pilots started training at a huge advantage in quantity over Japan it was only a matter of time before we got better at aerial combat.

Thats why Japan went for USA. They considered what they needed to win the war and Russia didn’t offer any prospect for the Japanese point of view. Japan needed oil and the Soviet far east offered none. The American fleets were what stood in the way of that oil ( and the embargo) so… the enemy became easy… to defeat America was all that was needed to establish her Empire as they saw it.

[bobthefish]

IL is exactly right there would have been no advantage or purpose for the Japanese to invade Russia outside of maybe bragging rights at most.  If the Germans would have commited to a complete invasion of Russia they would have been successful.  The Russian people  origonally welcomed the German forces with open arms until the SS came along and started murdering and destroying everyone and everything in there way.  The reality of it is if as many of ya’ll have said Hitler had left it to his commanders and if the SS hadn’t ticked everyone off the Russian people would have been much happier under German rule and the Germans would have conquered Russia easily.  Back to the SS issue mentioned earlier by some of ya’ll, the SS was not an eliete part ot the Wermacht.  It was a unit filled with guys who in most cases were nothing short of maniacs.  They were murders while the Wermacht was only doing what its nation called it to do.  The SS was just a group of guys so deathly loyal to hitler that they could be asked to do anything that Hitler claimed was for the benifit of Germany (or him) and they would do it no questions asked.  Which is why we had the Holocaust and is why an entire part of my family disapeared.  Saying the SS was an eliete branch of the wermacht is completly inaccurate.