Point well taken, Imperious, but neither were the Soviets during the Afghanistan invasion.
+++The German defeat really destroyed the entire generation that thought about human progress in terms of a struggle of nations with highter and lower “races”. In fact WW1 was the start and WW2 basically killed off all that thought…so your answer in the short form is The “Stalin” system of total subjucation and control wasnt present in the 1980’s so massive exterminations of Afgans could not be possible because the international enviroment would not stand for it.
It would be extremely difficult to represent on a boardgame, but I could forsee a scenario where in the late 40’s/early 50’s, an occupied France becomes a hotbed of resistance to the Germans, with the resistance supplied by either the Western or Communist Allies. The Germans would not want to slaughter the French population wholesale, as 1: they needed the manpower to operate French industries and 2: wiping out an entire indigenous population is much, much harder to do than ostracize a minor ethnic group, especially when the French were well aware of the disappearance and highly suspicious of the fate of the Jewish population. Were the Germans to attempt to wipe out the French altogether, it would prove likely to be their undoing. Even if it took half a century. I can just imagine Reagan making a proclamation on the cliffs of Dover, “Mister Kohl, tear down this (Atlantic) Wall.”
+++ I dont think French peasants were earmarked for extermination, while the lands of Ost Reich would have Slavic peasants toiling the fields of New German colonies. Other than that I dont think for a second that Germania would have stopped at a mere empire from Eire to the Urals. They wanted to stamp humanity with a German culture triumphant. Nothing less that the total subjugation of all the worlds continents was the grand plan, eventually war with Japan would have broken out…that is after the Americas were under the nazi’s thumb. Their would be no Ronald Reagan…he and others would have be permitted to have the education necessary to count past 100.
if d-day had not happened, the russians might have taken berlin 2 months later
Actually some historians estimate that without a D-day the war could have lasted until 1948. The Russians tactics weren’t very good their sheer manpower was enough to beat the Germans (at a heavy cost). Without the Western allies all of the German army would have been able to slowly delay the massive Red Army. When D-day happened evil Hitler had to send many of his soldiers and tanks to France. When the Germans fought the Western Allies they surrendered more willingly because they knew they’d get better treatment in the prisons than from the Commies. The Germans fighting on the Eastern front were not so willing to surrender. Some German POWs were not released from Siberia until the 1960’s.
Also to be noted, we knew the war was being won, we just wanted to speed it up to save lives. But mostly because of the nuclear threat, if Russia reached Berlin before we did they would obtain nuclear information (which still ended up happening). Another worse threat was that if Russia could not end the war quick enough the Nazi would develop nuclear capabilities.
Sorry if this was a little off topic and long winded, but when someone make’s a point about D-day not being important, it kinda becomes insulting. Many young men lost there lives at Normandy, and countless others maimed and emotionally traumatized. The allied commanders would not have risked D-day if Russia would have simply “taken Berlin two months later.”
If D-Day never occurred the Soviets would have won the war anyway after the German mistakes of late 1941 and 1942. Only we would have created a communist France ( they are getting close to this anyway… admittedly) because Stalin would have swept his “buffer zone” to all of western Europe and southern Europe. We could have just let the Soviets take out Japan too… the result would be world communism… So we did what we did to maintain the status quo so that the future would turn out as it did.
For the most part thats what I just said. To sum it up we did D-day not for Germany but for the USSR. And yes I specifically said Germany would not have won the war but it would have been delayed more than just 2 months if we didn’t do D-day.
@Imperious:
Only we would have created a communist France ( they are getting close to this anyway… admittedly)
What are you talking? France is a democracy and the ruling party is not the communist. You could explain us how you can identify a democracy with a communist dictatorship, please? (And no, i’m not Frech).
But maybe you are just joking anyway :mrgreen:
They are fully Socialist and thats closer to commie-land than democracy. They are walking down the path and they have adherents who actually celebrate May day. Thats close enough in my book.Next they sing the Internationale:
Arise, the damned of the earth,
Arise, prisoners of hunger,
For reason thunders in its crater,
It is the last eruption!
Let us discard the past,
Army of slaves, arise, arise!
The world is changing at the base,
We who have been nothing, let’s be everything!
It is the final struggle
Let us gather, and tomorrow
The Internationale
Will be mankind!
Good greif! … everything about this is like nails on a chalkboard! But i can hear Chirac singing this before his cup of warm milk and his Commie Jammies.
Sorry, you are wrong. Socialism is not communism. Not all french are socialist. Chirac is not socialist. Is democristian. I don’t think he sing the international. If he’d do it would be right. He could because this is a democracy and you are free to choose your beliefs but not to force others believe same as you.Sometimes socialists rule in France. Sometimes democristians rule in France. Ruling party is chosen by the people in free elections. So France is a democracy. Socialist party in fact rule in various countries of Europe. Those countries all have democracies. In Spain May day is also celebrated. Socialist party is the ruling party now. Sometimes the ruling party is the democristian.We choose our rulers in free elections. So Spain is a democracy. Not a communist dictatorship. We even have a king (without real power), so hardly is a communist regime. My natal city is now governed by the communist party. They are not ogres eating childs. The streets are calm and the people lives free. But sometimes is ruled by the democristian party. Right too. Things go well too. When communist party loses the elections in my city, they accept the results and nothing goes wrong. A democracy.
So, socialism is not communism.
You can have a communist party ruling a democracy.
You can have a democristian party ruling a democracy.
The problem is when a party tries destroy a democracy. Then is called a dictatorship. This is not the case in France. Nor in Spain. Nor in any European Union country. No pal, France is not a communist dictatorship regime. Is not anyway near a dictatorship.Is a democracy. I really really hope you had joking. If you are not joking, try informate of the situation in France and in the rest of European Union. I’m not trying offense of course. I only think you are wrong. Not more.
Nice response. It’s interesting to watch an informed person shut down ignorance.
Strange that there was no reply to that last post…
@Anonymous:
It is of course very interesting to indulge in these ideas but I would like to be the bucket of cold water here.
It was attributed to Stalin (rightly or wrongly) that the Soviets brought men to the war, the Americans equipment and resources and the British time. This was an acknowledgment of the fact that in summer 1940 it was only Britain and its empire and the commonwealth which stood against a German dominated Europe.
The point which I think is to be kept in mind is that it was, of course, the Germans who declared war on Russia in 1941. As is sort of suggested in the first piece, Stalin was hoping to have time to build up.
Another aspect to be considered is that whilst many talk about those terror weapons and new technologies remember that it was only at the end of the war that some of these began to come on line. Hitler had dismissed rocket projects in 1940 as he believed the war would be over before they could be employed. This went to the extent of sending the various technicians and scientists into the army to serve as soldiers.
It was only after the war had expanded to include the USA (on whom war was declared by Germany) (again taking the initiative) and the USSR that the Germans began to track down their former experts (some of whom were serving on the Eastern Front as infantrymen so not exactly a recognition of their potential war-winning skills) and kickstart their program back into life again. Remember also that Hitler continued to interfere throughout. When the very effective Me-262 was looking like a viable jet fighter (in 1945 a group of these planes caused considerable damage to a USAF bombing group which had massive fighter protection and yet still took no losses themselves) and yet Hitler requested it be changed into a plane with bomber characteristics to be able to attack England. This hindered and delayed development.
However, this notwithstanding, clearly it was the weight of the Soviets which prevented the Germans from deploying themselves totally to the West. But evenso, it was again Hitlers desire to hold territory in the East rather than withdraw. It was his wish to keep most of the German army in Russia.
The personality of the fuhrer and his interference is what prevented many of the programs taking place. Of course, would there still have been a war without him is something else entirely.
As regards Japan. Well, yes they certainly enjoyed great success. But again we are ignoring one factor: in 1941 the USA had an army of 170,000 and still had huge numbers of unemployed. As I understand it, its economy had not properly recovered from the Depression either. There was enormous capacity in the USA. This should not be underestimated. At wars start the USA had a handful of carriers. (About 9). By 1945 there must have been at least 40 in the Pacific alone and all the time production methods were getting better, industry was turning out more and more and more. THis was something the Axis powers could not have hoped to compete with. What they needed was a USA which would have no stomach for a long fight. Thank goodness they were wrong.
As for an Italian carrier and that German fleet which is very interesting by the way, I’m not at all convinced they would have been able to have executed a link up in the first place.
Ok, thats my killjoy bit done.If the ME-262 was used as a bomber in england then that would have been very good,but yes i would have to say it would be better used as a fighter/intersepter.But if they could have used it as a strategic bomber of there own it would be almost perfect because of it’s highspeed and it could be loaded down with HE/IN weapons and used on English Industrie.just useing like 20 or 30 of them for this perpose would be a good research project for Germaney.If Germaney was able to develope a early kind of SAM and have it in position near the German front lines this could both protect German forces and there people.and use the ME-262 for bombing then this would have been a problem in it’s self.
you responded to a post over 2 years old? why?
Why shouldn’t he? If only to annoy you Imp, it was worth it! :)
GG
actually he didn’t even respond to a post…he just reprinted a post over 5 years old and didn’t comment on anything which is even more crazy.
yea that did annoy me, but in a scratch my head type of way. :-(
