First Falk, I am going to assume that you are German because you say “us”. If you are not, I apolagize.
We started the invasion for the same reason you have had American troops in your country for the last 60 years. It is a strategic location. No war in History that I can think of has been fought for the reasons stated by the government. The civil war was not fought over slavery, it was fought over tariffs and tax apropriations. But doesn’t “free an enslaved people” sound so much nicer?
Democracy did not take hold in Germany because of American “feel good” mentality. If that is all it took than it would have done happened after WW1. The honest truth why the Germans gave up on National Socialism is because we utterly destroyed thier country. That was the plan at Yalta. No seperate peace. That is why civilian cities like Dresden were fire bombed. The allies knew the rhetoric that Hitler spouted off to get into office “We did not lose WW1, it was a stab in the back” blah blah blah. There is no doubt we won WW2, and that was the intent… This may be counter factual history, but I believe after the war was over… if allowed… the Germans probably would have voted in some Nazis if they were allowed to vote for whom they wanted. Esp around places like Nuremberg.
The US needs to have a presence in the middle east for the war on terrorism. Iraq is a very strategic location that we can respond to attacks from. I am not opposed to a “puppet government” if that is what it takes. But I am in the minority as far as that goes. Given time we will move more troops out, and pull our remaining forces into large heavily secured bases and let the Iraqi military handle its own stability problems (the fact there is only 1 combat ready brigade is insane, and someone should be held accountable). This is no more an occupation force than the occupation force you have in your country Falk. Did our military stike down the german government because they disagreed with us on Iraq? No. Disagreement is fine, polar f’d up radicalism is not. You can bet your sweet a$$ if there was another beer hall putsch (sp) the American forces there would come out to fix the situation.
And you are wrong about the nazis “could not care less about the workers”. It was psychotic and sad, but the whole concept of National Socialism revolved around being German. If anything, thier “love mania” was the whole root of it. Think of a stalker, he may “love” the one he is stalking… but that does not make him any less crazy.
Your SA thing still baffles me. The “leader” of the socialist arm of the Nazi party… Ernst Rohm, was a homosexual thug pedophile. Almost all historians agree that the regular members of the SA were little better than thugs in uniform. Hitler did not see Rohm as a threat, Rohm held some power yes… but few could really challenge his loyalty. So much so, that on the night of the long knives when he was dragged out of his bed by the SS he thought it was some kind of coup going on. He refused to believe Hitler would do that to him. He died with “Hiel Hitler” on his lips in the middle of a salute. The reason Hitler got rid of Rohm is because the Army would not cooperate with the Nazis while the SA existed. The ARMY saw it as a threat because the SA were a couple million strong, while the army was limited to only 100,000. The SA who were thugs, than went into the regular army and learned some disipline. Oh, and if you want to see the socialist mastermind of National Socialism look at Speer.
Germany was FAR from being bankrupt in 1939. Unemployment was almost non-existant in 1939. The reason those social programs I mentioned were put in place was to encourage people to work harder. Unlike FDR who tried to do social reforms first, and infrastructure second… Hitler built up Germany’s infrastructure first. Here is another key difference between left and right socialism. Between 33 and 39 the average salary of a man working 40 hours a week did not hardly change at all. What changed was that anyone could get a good job, and work almost unlimited OT if they wanted to. The 40 hours a week would keep you (and your family) fed and clothed and such. But to succeed you had it within your power to do so. When socialim is applied to the left you get a welfare state like France that prides itself for only having a 35 hour work week and huge unemployment.
Leader hit the nail on the head, so I won’t get into that.
I don’t know where you get your info from Falk. I would think being German you would have more info at your disposal, and that it would have been more focused on in school. I am not saying this to be insulting (honestly). If you learned some of these things in school, than the German school system has done its people an injustice. I am wondering too, if this is the type of thing that is taught in schools if that it was put in place to missinform Germans to exactly what the Nazi party was like. There is plenty of “evil” to be handed when it comes to the nazis. The German school system does not need to make things up.
And falk, you can probably tell I am a WW2 nut. In college I took every german history and world war class my univeristy offered. I only mention that so as to not sound like an extremist when I say I read “mien kamph” for refrences to a few pappers.
If “because we said so” does not work… than how come you have never been allowed to read it?