• good ol’ ADOLF HITTLER


  • @Pvt.Ryan:

    Okay so this is a kinda controversial question but an interesting one. Do you think the acts of the people of the countries (I mainly mean the Axis but the Allies could be included too) were right?

    Example: You are living in Germany in 1939, a citizen of the Third Reich. Poland has been invaded and war has been declared between Britain-France and Germany. What do you do? Join the army? Thats a great contribution. Maybe stay in the country and work in the economy building things from domestic products like furniture, food products, or even rifles and bombs. Or do you flee the country all together?

    If you’re interested in knowing more how the average German saw the war I’d advise this book: The Third Reich At War, by Richard  J. Evans (it is the last of a trilogy that starts with The Coming of the 3rd Reich and the 3rd Reich in Power).

    The author follows throughout the series several people and how they saw the Nazis and the war, through their diaries and letters, as well as the main protagonists (Hitler, Speer, Goering, etc.) and through secret reports of the SS regarding the attitude of the Germans. Most Germans were not members of the Nazi party or even had voted for Hitler when he came to power, so there were a lot of different attitudes regarding the war.


  • Most Germans were not members of the Nazi party or even had voted for Hitler when he came to power, so there were a lot of different attitudes regarding the war.

    I agree on that…The Siblings SCHOLL for example as well who even didn´t wanted Hitler at all…  (I messed up quoting  ups)

  • '12

    Like the Baath party in Iraq and Syria, you had to be a member if you wanted to advance in your field.  I doubt there were many high level professionals who were not Nazis, and I imagine alot of them hated having to be Nazis to advance in their field.  I also would imagine anyone evil would use the excuse ‘I had to be a member to keep my job’


  • Yeah but not all Germans who weren’t Nazis neccisarily opposed Hitler’s actions. Look at Rommel. A decent man he did eventually try to kill Hitler but still was a German Field Marshal.


  • @Pvt.Ryan:

    Okay so this is a kinda controversial question but an interesting one. Do you think the acts of the people of the countries (I mainly mean the Axis but the Allies could be included too) were right?

    Example: You are living in Germany in 1939, a citizen of the Third Reich. Poland has been invaded and war has been declared between Britain-France and Germany. What do you do? Join the army? Thats a great contribution. Maybe stay in the country and work in the economy building things from domestic products like furniture, food products, or even rifles and bombs. Or do you flee the country all together?

    Many people seem to find it difficult to put themselves in the places of citizens of Axis nations. Your thought-provking question requires us to do exactly that.

    John Toland’s book Adolf Hitler was praised by the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Newsweek, Library Journal, and other media organizations. Below is a quote.

    pp. 566 - 567


    While the professional and amateur diplomats were grasping for a peaceful solution, the program for war proceeded relentlessly. That noon Hitler issued the second order for invasion, driven to this extremity (according to A. I Berndt, his liaison man with the DNB) by a gross lie. Berndt thought the reported number of German nationals killed by the Poles too small and simply added a nought. At first Hitler refused to believe such a large figure but, when Berndt replied that it may have been somewhat exaggerated but something monstrous must have happened to give rise to such stories, Hitler shouted, “They’ll pay for this! Now no one will stop me from teaching these fellows a lesson they’ll never forget! I will not have my Germans butchered like cattle!” At this point the Fuhrer went to the phone and, in Berndt’s presence, ordered Keitel to issue “Directive No. 1 for the Conduct of the War.”


    It would appear that Hitler believed that large numbers of German nationals were being killed within the portion of Germany under Polish occupation. If Hitler himself believed this, it seems reasonable to assume that his government attempted to convince the German populace of the same thing.

    To put ourselves in the Germans’ place, we need to imagine that a portion of our own nation’s homeland had been placed under foreign control. And we need to imagine what it would be like if we believed that some of the people in the occupied area were being killed. Under such circumstances, would we feel justified in supporting a war to reclaim those areas for our nation?


  • A decent man he did eventually try to kill Hitler but still was a German Field Marshal.
    Rommel never try to kill Hitler…In fact, no one knows exactly if Rommel was a conspirator in the plot to kill Hitler.


  • France was behind WW2, They were behind WW1 and the war in 1871, and Napoleonic wars of 1798-1815 too.

    Why? because they knew they were losing their place and position in Europe and the world and once they started deteriorating and Prussia and England got stronger, they began to lose land, and tried to regain it fighting a series of wars where they look like victims, but are the perpetrators of underpinning nations into falling into a trap, then looking like they had nothing to do with it and fighting on the same side as the victors ( this was planned all along so they can regain lost land) and exacting the new balance of power arrangement at the end of French diplomats and bayonets. So what they fail in war they gain by standing over the vanquished and defeated with the blood of all the other peoples who actually fought for a “french victory” .

    This is how they maintain power, then History advances and even in peace France gets weaker and the natural powers in Europe shows their hand.

    So it didn’t work out for France…National jealousy is not a substitute for being a world power.

    The story in Europe is something like the story of Atlas Shrugged.  Germany and England :the principle players make the products from their own creative efforts and take all the risk, while the “State” played by France wants to take all this built up potential and “distribute” it to all the little players so that everybody gets a cut from the surplus of the two breadwinners. The effect is one of making the two major powers weaken since all their surplus was given away and now they can never get ahead because French Jealousy wont allow it…and they wont work for it either.


  • Il that really doesn’t have anything to do with the Thread. Oh and yes I forgot. Many Rommel was ratted out by his friends but we don’t know if he actually tried to kill Hitler. He wanted Hitler to insead be arrested and brought to trial for his crimes. He did commit suicide however because many suspected him.


  • @KurtGodel7:

    @Pvt.Ryan:

    Okay so this is a kinda controversial question but an interesting one. Do you think the acts of the people of the countries (I mainly mean the Axis but the Allies could be included too) were right?

    Example: You are living in Germany in 1939, a citizen of the Third Reich. Poland has been invaded and war has been declared between Britain-France and Germany. What do you do? Join the army? Thats a great contribution. Maybe stay in the country and work in the economy building things from domestic products like furniture, food products, or even rifles and bombs. Or do you flee the country all together?

    Many people seem to find it difficult to put themselves in the places of citizens of Axis nations. Your thought-provking question requires us to do exactly that.

    It would appear that Hitler believed that large numbers of German nationals were being killed within the portion of Germany under Polish occupation. If Hitler himself believed this, it seems reasonable to assume that his government attempted to convince the German populace of the same thing.

    To put ourselves in the Germans’ place, we need to imagine that a portion of our own nation’s homeland had been placed under foreign control. And we need to imagine what it would be like if we believed that some of the people in the occupied area were being killed. Under such circumstances, would we feel justified in supporting a war to reclaim those areas for our nation?

    Your hypothesis seems difficult to support.  If this were true, why then the (re)taking of the Saar region, Austria, and Czechoslavakia (twice)?  How then to explain Hitlers declarations he was going to do these very atrocities (gassing of Jews, and Lebensraum) in Mein Kampf, written in  1925 (vol. 1) and 1926 (vol. 2)?  This was written well before Hitler rose to power in Germany and seems to be before these supposed killing of German nationals by the Poles.


  • Well the Germans did not like the Czechs. They believed them sub-humans. Funny cause my dad’s side is Bohemien and my Mom’s side is part German, part English. Funny huh?


  • @221B:

    Your hypothesis seems difficult to support.  If this were true, why then the (re)taking of the Saar region, Austria, and Czechoslavakia (twice)?  How then to explain Hitlers declarations he was going to do these very atrocities (gassing of Jews, and Lebensraum) in Mein Kampf, written in  1925 (vol. 1) and 1926 (vol. 2)?  This was written well before Hitler rose to power in Germany and seems to be before these supposed killing of German nationals by the Poles.

    The Saar was part of Germany, but was placed under French occupation after WWI. Hitler’s motive for restoring it to German rule was probably much the same as would have been the case for the leader of any nation in that situation. The annexation of Austria was done to strengthen Germany, and because of the theory that Europe’s Germans should live within a Greater Germany.

    Czechoslovakia is a more interesting case. The Sudetenland was part of Germany, but had been placed under Czech occupation after WWI. Hitler’s goal for reclaiming that was similar to his reason for wanting to reclaim the Saar. As for why he annexed the rest of Czechoslovakia: I imagine he had three motives. Czechoslovakia had signed a defensive alliance with the Soviet Union back in 1935. Annexing this nation sent a clear message to the leaders of other Eastern European nations who might otherwise have been tempted to take the Soviet side in the cold war between Germany and the Soviet Union. The second reason may have been to prevent Soviet troops from beginning any invasion of Germany on Czech soil. The third reason was probably to strengthen Germany and gain access to additional industrial capacity, labor, and raw materials.

    During WWI, Britain and France had imposed a food blockade on Germany; which resulted in about 750,000 or more hunger-related deaths in Germany and Austria. The blockade continued on into 1919 to force the German government to sign the Versailles Treaty. Due to the reparations payments and economic damage associated with the Versailles Treaty, the Weimar Republic did not always have the money required to purchase food imports. The concept behind Lebensraum was to conquer enough Soviet land so that Germany could feed itself, regardless of economic circumstances or the possible presence of an Allied food blockade.

    You mentioned that Hitler had written about his plans to gas the Jews in Mein Kampf. I’ve heard that idea thrown around a lot. But the one time I saw an actual quote from Mein Kampf in support of that view, it wasn’t nearly as convincing as I’d expected. Moreover,


    While Hitler made several references to killing Jews, both in his early writings (Mein Kampf) and in various speeches during the 1930s, it is fairly certain that the Nazis had no operative plan for the systematic annihilation of the Jews before 1941. The decision on the systematic murder of the Jews was apparently made in the late winter or the early spring of 1941 in conjunction with the decision to invade the Soviet Union.


    The above quote is from a Jewish website. While I have not examined this website enough to ascertain its overall level of credibility, their acknowledgement that there was no plan to exterminate the Jews prior to '41 is important. (And dovetails with what other sources have stated; though Tooze suggests that the extermination plan was not created until '42. Tooze also points out that Germany was in the midst of a food crisis caused by the British food blockade; and that killing the Jews was seen as a way of ensuring there were fewer mouths to feed.)

    Prior to WWII, Hitler’s plan for solving the so-called “Jewish problem” was through emigration. Due to Muslim and Palestinian unhappiness with the number of German Jews immigrating to Palestine, Britain responded by eliminating almost all further Jewish immigration into Palestine.


  • OMG… another thread on the Holocaust?

    You got to be kidding me with this.

    Kurt stop turning threads into Holocaust threads. Jeez.

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