# German or Nazis?



## v2 (Jun 14, 2015)

At May, 20th, 75 years ago, German Nazis brought to the newly built Auschwitz concentration camp a group of 728 Polish political prisoners from the prison in Tarnów. This date is considered to be the day when the camp began to operate.
It is estimated that around 75,000 Polish political prisoners were murdered in Auschwitz by the Germans. On the whole, during WW2, the Germans murdered around six million Polish citizens, half of which were Jewish and the other half were Catholic. 
Today we are witnessing the rewriting of history, as the victims, namely the Polish people, are being blamed for the Nazi crimes which were perpetrated by the German people during WW2.
US president Barack Obama called the German built concentration camps on Polish soil "Polish death camps", while the head of the FBI Blamed Poles and other nationalities for the crimes of the Nazis.
In Europe the French President, François Hollande, called the German people "victims of the Nazis", and very recently the German parliament thanked the allies for "liberating" Germany from the Nazis. 
Here's a reminder of just who exactly the Nazis were.

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## fubar57 (Jun 14, 2015)

A touchy subject but I understand what you are saying V2. You cannot rewrite history just to be PC. It is what it is and to say different is a crime in itself.



Geo


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## tomo pauk (Jun 15, 2015)

v2 said:


> ...
> US president Barack Obama called the German built concentration camps on Polish soil "Polish death camps", while the head of the FBI Blamed Poles and other nationalities for the crimes of the Nazis.





> In Europe the French President, François Hollande, called the German people "victims of the Nazis", and very recently the German parliament thanked the allies for "liberating" Germany from the Nazis.
> Here's a reminder of just who exactly the Nazis were.



The things listed in second quote I can swallow (not lightly), the ones in the 1st quote I cannot - if true it's really outrageous.


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## pbehn (Jun 15, 2015)

The defeat of Nazi Germany allowed all other countries in western Europe to indulge themselves in the fantasy that they never had any sympathy or sympathisers with the Nazi cause. Laughably Italy invaded Africa under what it now calls its "war of occupation", the French set up its Vichy administration and even Austria, Adolphs homeland somehow never had anything to do with anything remotely "Nazi"


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## gumbyk (Jun 15, 2015)

pbehn said:


> The defeat of Nazi Germany allowed all other countries in western Europe to indulge themselves in the fantasy that they never had any sympathy or sympathisers with the Nazi cause. Laughably Italy invaded Africa under what it now calls its "war of occupation", the French set up its Vichy administration and even Austria, Adolphs homeland somehow never had anything to do with anything remotely "Nazi"



Lets not forget that Nazi's were to be found in every country at the time.






The National Socialist type of movement from which Nazism originated could (and still can) be found anywhere you look. I think, at its height, Nazism was bigger than just Germany. 

As for the allies liberating the German population. I have no doubt in my mind that a number of them _were_ liberated. Living under a tyrannical dictator tends to make people fall into line, even if they don't agree with him.


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## syscom3 (Jun 15, 2015)

gumbyk said:


> Lets not forget that Nazi's were to be found in every country at the time.
> 
> View attachment 295029
> 
> ...



The Nazi's in the USA amounted to nothing. They were roundly hated and despised by nearly everyone.


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## buffnut453 (Jun 15, 2015)

Not entirely sure the Duquesne spy ring "amounted to nothing". Some of the info they are credited with obtaining and passing to Germany seems pretty harmful to British, if not American, war interests.


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## gumbyk (Jun 15, 2015)

syscom3 said:


> The Nazi's in the USA amounted to nothing. They were roundly hated and despised by nearly everyone.



The point was more that Nazis were more than just German...


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## pbehn (Jun 15, 2015)

gumbyk said:


> The point was more that Nazis were more than just German...


Exactly, at the time there was a European and possibly world wide ideological conflict between Fascism and Communism. Hitlers ideas certainly had supporters in 1930s UK even in the mainstream national press. If people argue that France Italy Belgium and the Netherlands only found out what Naziism meant when it was too late then you must accept the same argument for the German population. The Nazis are also referred to as Fascists which is an italian term, I have no idea how Italy is allowed to walk away from the movement, Mussolini DEMANDED to be allowed to attack the UK during the Battle of Britain. France started rounding up Jews for deportation without being asked. I am British not German and make no apology for the Nazis or what happened to them but it sticks in my craw how so many who were obvious sympathisers not only had a cushy war but built successful political careers after the war. I worked in Europe for 15 years between 1990 and 2014 the most overtly and openly anti semitic were certainly not the Germans.

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## nuuumannn (Jun 15, 2015)

> The Nazi's in the USA amounted to nothing. They were roundly hated and despised by nearly everyone.



There were many non-nazi Germans before the war that felt exactly the same way and thought that the NSDAP too would amount to nothing. Underestimating how devious the nazis could be cost the lives of millions. Their ability to rally support by playing on basic fears was a powerful weapon that they used to devastating effect and it gained them plenty of support world wide. This also explains how even today nazi parties still exist in many societies. Nazism isn't dead, sadly and it is not a uniquely German thing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-Nazism


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## michaelmaltby (Jun 16, 2015)

Austria got virtually a free pass at the end of WW2 ... although leaders like Adolph and Herman were Austrians.


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## stona (Jun 16, 2015)

There is too much generalising of the term 'Nazi' to cover other right wing nationalist organisations going on in this thread. There were many such across Europe, like our own British Union of Fascists, but these were not Nazis any more than the Italian fascists were. 

All Germans were obviously not Nazis, but they lived in a Nazi state where it took courage that most people, from wherever they come, don't have in order to stick their heads over the parapet. Neither were all Nazis Germans. The Nazi movement was 100% German.

Cheers

Steve


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## wiking85 (Jun 16, 2015)

Not all Nazis were German, not all Germans were Nazis. The Nazi party was one of many German political parties, but it happened to get power through a quirk of history and used the apparatus of state to force itself on the people of Germany and Europe. Ultimately if found many collaborators throughout Europe and in the West, so the OP is not being 100% honest with the situation. There were many Germans there were Nazis, but the reality is that the Nazis were only ever a minority of Germans and they took over Germany; modern Germany is right to say they were liberated from their government and a awful regime that they really didn't have a say putting into power. Looking at the last free election in 1932 saw that they got a minority of the overall votes, with left parties combined getting over 50%; Hitler was appointed to the head of a minority government with the implicit goal of destroying the Left in Germany by its president, Hindenburg. You cannot honestly say the Germans were Nazis, but you can say some Germans were Nazis and forced the rest to go along or else. Its not a mystery why they did when 3.5 million Germans spent time in prisons/concentration camps for anti-regime activities:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_concentration_camps


> Between 1933 and the fall of Nazi Germany in 1945, more than 3.5 million Germans were forced to spend time in concentration camps and prisons for political reasons,[12][13][14] and approximately 77,000 Germans were executed for one or another form of resistance by Special Courts, courts-martial, and the civil justice system. Many of these Germans had served in government, the military, or in civil positions, which enabled them to engage in subversion and conspiracy against the Nazis.[8]



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_resistance_to_Nazism

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## stona (Jun 16, 2015)

The 'quirk of history' that brought the Nazis to power was 37.4% of the electorate voting for them in 1932 and then 43.9% (more than 17 million Germans) voting for them in 1933. Any idea that the Nazi party somehow hi-jacked the electorate is revisionism of the most insidious kind. It didn't need to, it was the most popular party in Germany. 

The Germans only became victims as the war ended and then post war. German minorities, notably in Czechoslovakia and Poland but also other 'eastern' European states suffered considerably. Their treatment was not unlike that previously meted out by the Nazi state to other nations during the war. These Germans were not victims of the Nazis but other nationalistic groups in territories that the Germans had occupied and/or conquered. Other Germans certainly were victimised by the Allied armies, most notably the Soviet Union's, but others were not blameless.

I absolutely refute the idea that the German people were victims of the Nazi party. They took their cake and tried to eat it, it just didn't work out the way that those millions of voters had all hoped or assumed. This does not make the violence perpetrated against German civilians okay, neither does it justify what we would now call the ethnic cleansing of eastern territories, but the German people have to shoulder a large part of the responsibility for what happened. The ethnic cleansing of 3.5 million Germans from the roughly 25% of German territory forfeit at the end of the war was referred to at Potsdam as "orderly and humane population transfer", but a blind eye was turned to the methods used to carry this out.

Steve

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## wiking85 (Jun 16, 2015)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_federal_election,_November_1932 


> After the election, Chancellor Papen urged Hindenburg to continue to govern by emergency decrees. Nevertheless, on 3 December he was superseded by his Defence Minister Kurt von Schleicher who in talks with the left wing of the Nazi Party led by Gregor Strasser tried to build up a Third Position (Querfront) strategy. These plans failed when in turn Hitler disempowered Strasser and approached Papen for coalition talks. Papen obtained Hindenburg's consent to form the Hitler Cabinet on 30 January 1933.




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_von_Hindenburg#The_Machtergreifung


> Papen, for his part, was determined to get back into office, and on 4 January 1933 he met Hitler to discuss how they could bring down Schleicher’s government, though the talks were inconclusive largely because Papen and Hitler each coveted the Chancellorship for himself. However, Papen and Hitler agreed to keep talking. Ultimately, Papen came to believe that he could control Hitler from behind the scenes and decided to support him as the new Chancellor. Papen then persuaded Meissner and the younger Hindenburg of the merits of his plan, and the three then spent the second half of January pressuring Hindenburg into naming Hitler as Chancellor. Hindenburg was most loath to consider Hitler as Chancellor and preferred that Papen hold that office instead.
> 
> However, the pressure from Meissner, Papen, and the younger Hindenburg was relentless, and by the end of January the President had decided to appoint Hitler Chancellor. After Schleicher as well had despaired of his efforts to get hold of the situation, he accepted his resignation, with the words: "Thanks, General, for everything you have done for the Fatherland. Now let's have a look at which way, with God's help, the cat will keep on jumping." Hitler threatened Hindenburg to make him chancellor or to make him leader of Reichstag. Finally, the 84-year-old Hindenburg agreed to make Hitler Chancellor, and on the morning of 30 January 1933, Hindenburg swore him in as Chancellor at the Presidential Palace.[1]
> 
> ...



Also its not like the Nazis were shy about the fact that they did not come to power by democratic means, they called their rise the Machtergreifung, the seizure of power:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_Seizure_of_Power


> In the German federal election of July 1932, the Nazi Party gained the largest number of seats in the Reichstag. After all of Papen's attempts to reach a coalition government had failed, federal elections were again held in November 1932, with the Nazis facing some losses but without any chance for Papen to reach a majority. He finally resigned, and though twenty representatives of industry, finance, and agriculture had signed the Industrielleneingabe, a petition requesting that Hindenburg make Hitler chancellor, on 2 December the president appointed Minister Schleicher. The new chancellor tried to gain the support of an anti-democratic Third Position alliance of DNVP and Nazis led by Gregor Strasser, along with national conservative pressure groups like Der Stahlhelm, referring to the joint efforts during the referendum of 1929 or the Harzburg Front of 1931. However these plans failed, and behind his back on 4 January 1933, Hitler met Papen, who agreed to join a Hitler Cabinet as vice-chancellor. Along with State Secretary Otto Meissner and Hindenburg's son Oskar, Papen could finally persuade the reluctant president to appoint Hitler. Papen and DNVP chairman Alfred Hugenberg trusted Hindenburg, who was able to depose the chancellor if necessary, and they were reassured by the fact that only two ministers in Hitler's cabinet, Hermann Göring and Wilhelm Frick, were Nazi Party members.




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_Germany#Nazi_seizure_of_power


> Although the Nazis won the greatest share of the popular vote in the two Reichstag general elections of 1932, they did not have a majority, so Hitler led a short-lived coalition government formed by the NSDAP and the German National People's Party.[14] Under pressure from politicians, industrialists, and the business community, President Paul von Hindenburg appointed Hitler as Chancellor of Germany on 30 January 1933. This event is known as the Machtergreifung (seizure of power).[15] In the following months, the NSDAP used a process termed Gleichschaltung (co-ordination) to rapidly bring all aspects of life under control of the party.[16] All civilian organisations, including agricultural groups, volunteer organisations, and sports clubs, had their leadership replaced with Nazi sympathisers or party members. By June 1933, virtually the only organisations not in the control of the NSDAP were the army and the churches.[17]



The 1933 election was rigged:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_federal_election,_March_1933


> The election took place after the Nazi Machtergreifung of 30 January when President Paul von Hindenburg had appointed Hitler Chancellor, who immediately urged the dissolution of the Reichstag and the arrangement of new elections. In early February, the Nazis "unleashed a campaign of violence and terror that dwarfed anything seen so far." Storm troopers began attacking trade union and Communist Party (KPD) offices and the homes of left-wingers.[1] In the second half of February, the violence was extended to the Social Democrats, with gangs of brownshirts breaking up Social Democrat meetings and beating up their speakers and audiences. Issues of Social Democratic newspapers were banned.[2] Twenty newspapers of the Centre Party, a party of Catholic Germans, were banned in mid-February for criticizing the new government. Government officials known to be Centre Party supporters were dismissed from their offices, and stormtroopers violently attacked party meetings in Westphalia.[3]
> 
> Six days before the scheduled election date, the German parliament building was set alight in the Reichstag fire, allegedly by the Dutch Communist Marinus van der Lubbe. This event reduced the popularity of the KPD, and enabled Hitler to persuade President Hindenburg to pass the Reichstag Fire Decree as an emergency decree according to Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution. This emergency law removed many civil liberties and allowed the arrest of Ernst Thälmann and 4,000 leaders and members of the KPD[4] shortly before the election, suppressing the Communist vote and consolidating the position of the Nazis. The KPD was "effectively outlawed from 28 February 1933", although it was not completely banned until the day after the election.[5] While at that time not as heavily oppressed as the Communists, the Social Democrats were also restricted in their actions, as the party's leadership had already fled to Prague and many members were acting only from the underground. Hence, the fire is widely believed to have had a major effect on the outcome of the election. As replacement, and for 10 years to come, the new parliament used the Kroll Opera House for its meetings.
> 
> The resources of big business and the state were thrown behind the Nazis' campaign to achieve saturation coverage all over Germany. Brownshirts and SS patrolled and marched menacingly through the streets of cities and towns. A "combination of terror, repression and propaganda was mobilized in every... community, large and small, across the land."[6] To further ensure the outcome of the vote would be a Nazi majority, Nazi organizations "monitored" the vote process. In Prussia 50,000 members of the SS, SA and Stahlhelm were ordered to monitor the votes as deputy sheriffs by acting Interior Minister Hermann Göring.


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## wiking85 (Jun 16, 2015)

The Nazis bullied their way into power, but even for the voters that did vote for him did so on the message of economic revitalization, ending the treaty of versailles, and fighting communism in Germany. They did not vote for war, genocide, or pretty much most of the horrible stuff Hitler did. He talked constantly about being a man of peace and wanting to avoid war, just to make Germany strong again and end the economic suffering caused by the ToV and Depression, while ensuring the communists didn't try to overthrown the government yet again. Its not like they knew what Hitler had in store, he kept that pretty well hidden and in the early years had a lot of international acclaim for being a 'man of peace'. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Lloyd_George#Appeasement_of_Germany


> The Germans welcomed him as a friend in the highest circles of British politics. In September 1936 he went to Germany to talk with the German dictator Adolf Hitler. Hitler said he was pleased to have met "the man who won the war"; Lloyd George was moved, and called Hitler "the greatest living German".[122] Lloyd George also visited Germany's public works programmes and was impressed. On his return to Britain he wrote an article for The Daily Express praising Hitler; he wrote, "The Germans have definitely made up their minds never to quarrel with us again."[123] He believed Hitler was "the George Washington of Germany"; that he was rearming Germany for defence and not for offensive war; that a war between Germany and Russia would not happen for at least ten years; that Hitler admired the British and wanted their friendship but that there was no British leadership to exploit this.[123] However, by 1938, Lloyd George's distaste for Neville Chamberlain led him to disavow Chamberlain's appeasement policies.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_Party#Rise_to_power:_1925.E2.80.931933


> During 1931 and into 1932, Germany's political crisis deepened. In March 1932 Hitler ran for President against the incumbent President Paul von Hindenburg, polling 30.1% in the first round and 36.8% in the second against Hindenburg's 49 and 53%. By now the SA had 400,000 members, and its running street battles with the SPD and Communist paramilitaries (who also fought each other) reduced some German cities to combat zones. Paradoxically, although the Nazis were among the main instigators of this disorder, part of Hitler's appeal to a frightened and demoralised middle class was his promise to restore law and order. Overt antisemitism was played down in official Nazi rhetoric, but was never far from the surface. Germans voted for Hitler primarily because of his promises to revive the economy (by unspecified means), to restore German greatness and overturn the Treaty of Versailles, and to save Germany from communism.
> 
> Chancellor Franz von Papen called another Reichstag election in November, hoping to find a way out of this impasse. The electoral result was the same, with the Nazis and the Communists winning 50% of the vote between them and more than half the seats, rendering this Reichstag no more workable than its predecessor. But support for the Nazis had fallen to 33.1%, suggesting that the Nazi surge had passed its peak – possibly because the worst of the Depression had passed, possibly because some middle-class voters had supported Hitler in July as a protest, but had now drawn back from the prospect of actually putting him into power. The Nazis interpreted the result as a warning that they must seize power before their moment passed. Had the other parties united, this could have been prevented, but their shortsightedness made a united front impossible. Papen, his successor Kurt von Schleicher, and the nationalist press magnate Alfred Hugenberg spent December and January in political intrigues that eventually persuaded President Hindenburg that it was safe to appoint Hitler as Reich Chancellor, at the head of a cabinet including only a minority of Nazi ministers—which he did on 30 January 1933.


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## stona (Jun 16, 2015)

What's your point? That somehow the Germans didn't vote for the NSDAP? In the UK we just got a Conservative government who polled 36.9% of the vote, slightly less than the NSDAP in 1933. Nobody has suggested that the Conservative party has not been duly elected to form a government.

Cheers

Steve

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## wiking85 (Jun 16, 2015)

stona said:


> What's your point? That somehow the Germans didn't vote for the NSDAP? In the UK we just got a Conservative government who polled 36.9% of the vote, slightly less than the NSDAP in 1933. Nobody has suggested that the Conservative party has not been duly elected to form a government.
> 
> Cheers
> 
> Steve


2/3rds of Germans didn't vote for Hitler and had him forced on them by an elite clique trying to cling to power, who were then overthrown by Hitler after getting them to agree to the Enabling Act. The UK and German electoral systems are different and got a different result. Whatever the minority of voters that did go for the Nazis in 1932 were thinking, they did not want what ended up happening, which is why when Hitler declared war on Poland even pretty anti-German journalists like William Shirer noted that the German people were despondent and didn't bother to show up to Hitler's speeches.

And hasn't there been protests in Britain precisely against the Conservative government because of the election system?


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## stona (Jun 16, 2015)

But at least a third of Germans did vote for the NSDAP. Somewhere around 30% of the vote will typically win a party power, even as the main party in a coalition in elections with proportional representation, in democracies around the world. Parties have formed governments with considerably less.
Two thirds of the British electorate did not vote for the Conservative party, but that's what we got to form our government. It's how a democracy works, irrelevant in Germany post 1933, but relevant in the 1933 elections.

The German people who became victims after the war, not just the 3.5 million at whose ethnic cleansing the Allies connived, but the estimated 12 million ejected from eastern Europe (at least 250,000 died) were also not victims of the Nazis. They were victims of other nations whom they had oppressed in the name of the Nazi party. The vast majority, but it would be foolish to suppose all, were entirely innocent victims.

Cheers

Steve


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## wiking85 (Jun 16, 2015)

But again the 1/3d that did vote for the Nazis were either doing it as a protest vote, for his policies on welfare that were not in the context of international communism, ending versailles, no other option, etc. They weren't voting for war and Hitler kept his policies more focused on fixing what was wrong in Germany rather than fixating on racial issues or external expansion. Ultimately Hindenburg chose the Nazis and gave them unlimited power with the Enabling Act, not the German people, so trying to characterize the majority of Germans as getting what they deserved when Hitler did what he did is just bunk and frankly bigoted.


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## stona (Jun 16, 2015)

They didn't vote for a war, the people who voted for Blair's Labour party didn't vote for an Iraq war and have more reason to be surprised than a German who voted for the NSDAP. The Nazis were surprisingly frank about many other objectives, including the future of the democratic process in Germany. I don't characterise the Germans as 'getting what they deserved', in fact I said that whatever was done in their name did not justify the abuses they later suffered. I said that the Germans had to shoulder the responsibility for what they did. 
I don't see too many unhappy German faces in the enormous crowds as the victory over France was being celebrated. They might not have voted for a war, but to imagine that the initial successes (and the Anschluss with Austria) were not greeted with enthusiasm by a majority of German people would be naïve. 
The German equivalent of mass observation shows that the first real shock to German morale on the home front was not, as the British fondly imagine, set backs in North Africa, or even the catastrophe at Stalingrad (though this did produce some 'defeatist comments') but the bombing of Hamburg (where I am currently working). That wasn't until July 1943.
Cheers
Steve


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## rochie (Jun 16, 2015)

Maybe those at Nuremberg instead of defending themselves by saying they were only following orders should of then said we were only voting for Adolf out of protest but were then too lazy to do anything but go along for the ride !

They might have got off with it.


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## stona (Jun 16, 2015)

About 6 million ethnic Germans were forced west of the Oder when East Prussia became Western Poland. Tens, maybe hundreds of thousands perished. Whose fault was that? The Nazis? The Allies? There is no black and white answer. The hundreds or thousands of orphaned German children fending for themselves in the forests of Lithuania in 19*46* were forced there by whom? There are no easy or trite answers. 

It was, as George Orwell wrote, an enormous crime but though the Nazi regime did bring terrible and unnecessary (through its late war nihilism) destruction to the German people, it does not bear that responsibility alone. It is shared with the German people amongst others. That's really my point.

Steve


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## Marcel (Jun 16, 2015)

Hmmm, it is always easy to judge afterwards, especially now, 70 years later. Back at the time in the '30ies things were not so clear and the nazi's offered great advantages to most people in Germany and other countries. What would you have done at that time, in Germany, not knowing what we know now? Maybe we should not judge that fast.
And like in Germany it was in other countries as well. The difference is that they didn't get as much power in other countries. Here in the Netherlands we had Dutch SS'ers, the NSB as well as Dutch resistance. I'm pretty sure things were the same in Poland, France and other occupied countries as well. I'm pretty sure many warcrimes in the name of the nazi's were committed by Polish people, just like most warcrimes in the Netherlands were performed by Dutch SD agents. And I could have taken any nationality with that last statement.

But after the war, everybody was in the resistance, were they not?

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## wiking85 (Jun 16, 2015)

Marcel said:


> Hmmm, it is always easy to judge afterwards, especially now, 70 years later. Back at the time in the '30ies things were not so clear and the nazi's offered great advantages to most people in Germany and other countries. What would you have done at that time, in Germany, not knowing what we know now? Maybe we should not judge that fast.
> And like in Germany it was in other countries as well. The difference is that they didn't get as much power in other countries. Here in the Netherlands we had Dutch SS'ers, the NSB as well as Dutch resistance. I'm pretty sure things were the same in Poland, France and other occupied countries as well. I'm pretty sure many warcrimes in the name of the nazi's were committed by Polish people, just like most warcrimes in the Netherlands were performed by Dutch SD agents. And I could have taken any nationality with that last statement.
> 
> But after the war, everybody was in the resistance, were they not?



Actually the Poles were the only nation to have virtually no collaborators, enforced by a death decree by the Home Army:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaboration_with_the_Axis_Powers_during_World_War_II#Poland


> Unlike in most European countries occupied by Nazi Germany—where the Germans sought and found true collaborators among the locals—in occupied Poland there was no official collaboration either at the political or at the economic level.[66][67] Poland also never officially surrendered to the Germans.[68] Under German occupation, the Polish army continued to fight underground, as Armia Krajowa and forest partisans – Leśni. The Polish resistance movement in World War II in German-occupied Poland was the largest resistance movement in all of occupied Europe.[69] As a result, Polish citizens were unlikely to be given positions of any significant authority.[66][67] The vast majority of the pre-war citizenry collaborating with the Nazis was the German minority in Poland which was offered one of several possible grades of German citizenship.[70]
> 
> There is a general consensus among historians that there was very little collaboration with the Nazis among the Polish nation as a whole, compared to other German-occupied countries.[66][67][71] Depending on a definition of collaboration (and of a Polish citizen, based on ethnicity and minority status), scholars estimate number of "Polish collaborators" at around several thousand in a population of about 35 million (that number is supported by the Israeli War Crimes Commission).[72] The estimate is based primarily on the number of death sentences for treason by the Special Courts of the Polish Underground State. Some estimates are higher, counting in all members of the German minority in Poland and any former Polish citizens declaring their German ethnicity (Volksdeutsche), as well as conscripted members of the Blue Police, low-ranking Polish bureaucrats employed in German occupational administration, and even workers in forced labor camps (ex. Zivilarbeiter and Baudienst). Most of the Blue Police were forcibly drafted into service; nevertheless, a significant number acted as spies for Polish resistance movement Armia Krajowa.[71] John Connelly quoted a Polish historian (Leszek Gondek) calling the phenomenon of Polish collaboration "marginal" and wrote that "only relatively small percentage of Polish population engaged in activities that may be described as collaboration when seen against the backdrop of European and world history".[71]


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## Marcel (Jun 16, 2015)

Well recently a couple of publications dismissed that. Needless to say these publications were highly disputed, but having read a couple of books from Dutch prisoners having fled through Poland, I'm inclined to think there really were collaborators in Poland. I think it would be naive to say that any of the occupied countries were free from collaborators. How many there were in Poland compared to other countries, I do not dare to say.
It is a very sensitive subject. I know here in the NL, not many would like to admit the amount of collaboration ding WW2. I can only imagine in Poland it would be the same.


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## mikewint (Jun 16, 2015)

The Poles seem to stand alone in that respect. Unlike in most European countries occupied by Nazi Germany—where the Germans sought and found true collaborators among the locals—in occupied Poland there was no official collaboration either at the political or at the economic level. Poland also never officially surrendered to the Germans. Under German occupation, the Polish army continued to fight underground, as Armia Krajowa and forest partisans – Leśni. The Polish resistance movement in World War II in German-occupied Poland was the largest resistance movement in all of occupied Europe. As a result, Polish citizens were unlikely to be given positions of any significant authority. The vast majority of the pre-war citizenry collaborating with the Nazis was the German minority in Poland which was offered one of several possible grades of German citizenship. In 1939, before the German invasion of Poland, 800,000 people declared themselves as members of the German minority in Poland mostly in Pomerania and Western Silesia. During the war there were about 3 million former Polish citizens of German origin who signed the official list of Volksdeutsche. People who became Volksdeutsche were treated by Poles with special contempt, and the fact of them having signed the Volksliste constituted high treason according to the Polish underground law


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## GrauGeist (Jun 16, 2015)

A question may be asked of everyone in this day and age:
What would YOU do under those circumstances? Would you speak out against the government, knowing that there was a strong chance of a black sedan pulling up at your door at 3 a.m.?

Would you make the best of it, trying to keep the status quo? Would you breathe a sigh of relief when you find out you and your family have the proper religion and/or ancestry that lets you "squeek by" even though your family's friends for several generations were being loaded into the back of a guarded truck.

It happened under an alarming number of governments, called by various labels (Nazis, Communists, Socialists, Fascists, etc) and they people allowed it. Some may say that the people were "powerless" to stop it, but this has been proven wrong on several cases, such as Romania overthrowing (eventually) Ceaușescu's regime, or the Italians (eventually) ousting Mussolini, Poland eventually shaking off Soviet rule, and so on.

In the meantime though, what does a person do? Some want to survive and will do what eveer it takes...many collaborators thought there was no way out, that the occupiers were there to stay.

It seems to me that the best policy for current book authors, is to stick with actual records and first-person interviews to keep in contact with the darkness and misery that was to be had in those times, instead of publishing their opinions offered under the disguise as fact.

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## mikewint (Jun 16, 2015)

Dave, excellent post, excellent post. At 19 I was strongly anti-Vietnam War. Several of my friends at school had burned their draft cards and then left for Canada. Maybe one or two had stood their ground, said NO, and ended in Federal Prison. When my 2S was cancelled and Uncle said "Boy we need You" I thought long and hard and decided I was too pretty for Federal Prison besides I could become a Medic and we all know Medics don't fight or get shot at, right, we're the good guys. So beautiful Vietnam and I had a date. Helluva thing! They didn't want me there and I didn't want to be there...we were in perfect agreement.
Lots of US ultra-right winger state the old bumper sticker "If you want my gun you'll have to pry it from my cold dead hand". The Molon Labe stand. But when two Cobra gun-ships hover and four APCs and an Abrams pull up Watcha Gonna Do.

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## pbehn (Jun 16, 2015)

Marcel said:


> But after the war, everybody was in the resistance, were they not?



Except for the young women who were beaten shaved stripped and paraded for consorting with the people their elders had accepted into their country.

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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Jun 16, 2015)

GrauGeist said:


> A question may be asked of everyone in this day and age:
> What would YOU do under those circumstances? Would you speak out against the government, knowing that there was a strong chance of a black sedan pulling up at your door at 3 a.m.?
> 
> Would you make the best of it, trying to keep the status quo? Would you breathe a sigh of relief when you find out you and your family have the proper religion and/or ancestry that lets you "squeek by" even though your family's friends for several generations were being loaded into the back of a guarded truck.
> ...



Agreed. It is very easy 70+ years later to sit behind a safe computer and say they would do differently. Hind site is always 20/20.

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## Marcel (Jun 17, 2015)

pbehn said:


> Except for the young women who were beaten shaved stripped and paraded for consorting with the people their elders had accepted into their country.



True, one of the most shamefull episodes in the history of my country. But it illustrates what I want to say. Those people who did this usually were mostly not people from the resistance. 

Another example. Of my two grandfathers, one was with the Northernlight group, a communist resistance group in Groningen. He barely escaped the war with his life. My other grandfather had a bicycle shop and sold to Germans and repaired their bikes. But guess who was the loudest after the war....


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## meatloaf109 (Jun 17, 2015)

I have stated this before, my paternal grandmother was an "American bundist". She died a nazi apologist. I remember as a child about 8 or 9 years old watching the "World at War" episode that dealt with the death camps. She was standing behind me and said, "Ach, no one remembers the good things he (Hitler) did!" I am pretty sure that the only reason she wasn't deported at the end of the war, (other than money, and they had a bunch...) was that my father was a WW2 navy veteran who fought to keep her here. She was a mean, hard old woman. I was written out of her will for marrying my first wife, a jewish girl. I was written out of my parents will because I am an Atheist. Go figure....
I am a proud German-American with no illusions of the past, only hopes for the future.

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## stona (Jun 17, 2015)

mikewint said:


> The vast majority of the pre-war citizenry collaborating with the Nazis was the German minority in Poland which was offered one of several possible grades of German citizenship. In 1939, before the German invasion of Poland, 800,000 people declared themselves as members of the German minority in Poland mostly in Pomerania and Western Silesia. During the war there were about 3 million former Polish citizens of German origin who signed the official list of Volksdeutsche. People who became Volksdeutsche were treated by Poles with special contempt, and the fact of them having signed the Volksliste constituted high treason according to the Polish underground law



More than contempt. After the war they were abused and suffered a fate similar to that the Germans had inflicted on many Poles. They were dispossessed, summarily executed, beaten to death, put into camps, starved and worked to death. There were even a couple of that old standby the 'death march'. Eventually the survivors, along with millions of others from other areas of Europe found their way to Germany. It is one of the great catastrophes of modern history, but most are unaware that it even happened. It was ethnic cleansing on a huge scale, nothing since has come close.
It has been estimated that between 20% and 25% of the current German population is descended from 'ethnic' Germans who lived in areas outside modern day, unified, Germany and outside the larger Third Reich.
Cheers
Steve


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## pbehn (Jun 17, 2015)

Marcel said:


> True, one of the most shamefull episodes in the history of my country. But it illustrates what I want to say. Those people who did this usually were mostly not people from the resistance.
> 
> Another example. Of my two grandfathers, one was with the Northernlight group, a communist resistance group in Groningen. He barely escaped the war with his life. My other grandfather had a bicycle shop and sold to Germans and repaired their bikes. But guess who was the loudest after the war....


I wasnt thinking about the Netherlands (or any country) in particular. It is easy to judge that a collaborator deserves what they get but the best spies and resistance workers live very close to the enemy.
Many British spies were decorated by the Nazis and so you could say they deserve execution as traitors if their other activities were not known, the local peasants in a village obviously wouldnt know otherwise the nazis would too.

The lives of Eddie Chapman and Dagmar Lahlum illustrate this perfectly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Chapman
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagmar_Lahlum


Any Dutchman with a bicycle shop would be angry in 1945 suddenly living in a land with no bicycles.


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## Capt. Vick (Jun 17, 2015)

I have to say this is an incredibly eye opening discussion, with many points of view that I had not considered. Not at all black and white as I suspected.


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## GrauGeist (Jun 17, 2015)

Capt. Vick said:


> I have to say this is an incredibly eye opening discussion, with many points of view that I had not considered. Not at all black and white as I suspected.


It's actually a very complex situation.

On the part of the collaborators, many just assume they were azzholes but no one really knows why they were "traitors". Were they just rotten a-holes or natural cowards? Did they have a family to feed? Was their family in peril if they didn't co-operate? Perhaps fortune-seekers wanting to be on the "high-side" when the dust settled?

It's hard to say...we don't know what was going on in their heads let alone what was going on in their lifes...we just see a general picture and drop them all into one group.

Some of you may recall me mentioning that many years ago, I worked with a former SS panzergrenadier. I asked him point blank why the hell he would want to join the SS. His reply was interesting: He was six foot six, blone hair and blue eyed and it was suggested he join the SS even though he wanted to join the Kreigsmarine. When he declined the "suggestion", it became more of a "strong invitation". When he realized it was not a good idea to refuse, especially since his father was a prominent businessman, he "joined".

Or perhaps this example: in Bulgairia, my Fiancee's Grandfather was a critic of the Communists. He had served under the Tsar and remained loyal to the crown. His critisism earned him beatings that ranged from a "roughing up" to severe, requiring a hospital stay. Eventually, they got him to be quiet when they made trouble with my Fiancee and her brother when they were children. Things like being forced to be last in the lunch line, exclusion from youth activities, and even being harrassed between school and home (down to even having a sedan follow them slowly as they walked wherever). He is fortunate that he was very well liked in his town and many people were keeping an eye on events...otherwise he may have gone the way of countless other people...

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## michaelmaltby (Jun 17, 2015)

Overlooked in this discussion was that National Socialism and Nazis celebration of German "blood" was culturally _highly seductive_ to the German people ... the state created great pop imagery, like this version of the universal Nazis theme song ... The Horst Wessel Song ... and it had an agreed enemy ... the brawling Communists.


_View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pinxdGZe5aY_

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## stona (Jun 18, 2015)

michaelmaltby said:


> ... The Horst Wessel Song ...



Often described as 'Germany's second national anthem' at that time. Everyone knew it by heart.

Steve


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## yulzari (Jun 18, 2015)

Trivia:

Horst Wessel. A song about a dead pimp set to a fine German naval tune. 

Deutchland Uber Alles was composed on British soil (Heligoland). The poor Heligolanders had their loyalty to Britain rewarded by being given away to Germany for Zanzibar and then large portions of their island blown up by Britain after the war.

A secret policeman of Stalins time commented that, when they picked up their victims off the street, none called out to passers by for help. "We had nothing to show that we had authority" he said. "If the passing public had sided with the suspects we would have had to go away. But they never did. They turned their eyes aside and walked on glad that it was not them and the victims followed us like sheep".

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## stona (Jun 18, 2015)

yulzari said:


> Horst Wessel. A song about a dead pimp set to a fine German naval tune.



Who was a pimp? Not Wessel, whatever else he may have been. He was a musician but you are right that the melody is based on an older folk tune, like the naval tune you refer to, and the idea that Wessel wrote it was Nazi myth making.

Cheers

Steve


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## GrauGeist (Jun 18, 2015)

There's been quite a number of songs that have been used for newer renditions...

The 19th century American song: "My Country 'Tis of Thee" comes to mind


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## mikewint (Jun 18, 2015)

Horst was the son of a doctor and Lutheran Pastor and his mother came also from a long line of Lutheran Pastors. Horst's father wanted him to become a Pastor but Horst rebelled and enrolled in Law school. Intelligent but he had a very violent temper. Dropping out of Law school he joined the Black Reichswehr paramilitary forces which under Roehm soon comprised the SA, Sturmabteilung troops of the Nazi Party. He soon came to the attention of Goebbels who made him his protege. In 1929 at 22 he met Erna Janicke, an 18YO prostitute. He soon moved in with her at her apartment. The landlady, Elisabeth Salm, was the widow of a man who had been an active Communist in the KPD. When a violent argument erupted between Wessel and Salm over either unpaid or a rent increase, Salm went not to the Police (she feared the legal consequences of renting to a prostitute) but to the KPD for help. Seeing a chance to get rid of Wessel and avenge his attacks on them, two men, Ali Höhler, a tough with underworld connections, and Erwin Rückert, an active party member, went to Wessel's apartment. When he opened the door for them, Höhler shot him in the head.
Both Communists and Nazis jumped on the propaganda bandwagon. It was the Communists who portrayed Wessel as a pimp while the Nazis stated that Wessel had saved Janicke by introducing her to the Nazi Party and its values. Hohler was arrested and given 6 years in prison. Goebbels organized a martyr's funeral for Wessel which was attended by 30,000 people. Wessel had musical talent and had founded an "SA" band, which provided music during SA events. In early 1929, Wessel wrote the lyrics for a new Nazi fight song Kampflied , which was first published in Goebbels's newspaper as Der Unbekannte SA-Mann. The song later, after Wessel’s death, became the "Horst-Wessel-Lied" (Lied, perhaps he did, but in this case, Lied is German for SONG). The Nazis made it a co-national anthem of Nazi Germany, along with the first stanza of the Deutschlandlied.
"Deutschlandlied" or "Das Lied der Deutschen" is the title of the song while the first stanza is “Deutschland, Deutschland über alles,” Music by Joseph Haydn in 1797 and lyrics by August Hoffmann which he vacationed on Heligoland in 1841. Hoffmann intended the lyrics to be a call to the 35 German monarchical states and 4 free cities to give up their tiny states and become a unified Germany. In 1922 Deutschlandlied became the German national anthem. After reunification this was changed to just the 3rd stanza, which begins " Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit " the official German motto.
When I first read Heligoland it sounded so familiar, then it clicked: Werner Heisenberg first formulated the equation underlying his picture of quantum mechanics while on Heligoland in the 1920s. While at Munich in the early 1920s, Heisenberg first met the Danish physicist Niels Bohr. He and Bohr went for long hikes in the mountains and discussed the failure of existing theories to account for the new experimental results on the quantum structure of matter. Heisenberg plunged into several months of intensive theoretical research, but met with continual frustration. Finally, suffering from a severe attack of hay fever, he retreated to the treeless (and pollenless) island of Heligoland in the summer of 1925. There he conceived the basis of the quantum theory.

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## mikewint (Jun 18, 2015)

Bitte um Entschuldigung, ich stottert

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## pbehn (Jun 18, 2015)

yulzari said:


> A secret policeman of Stalins time commented that, when they picked up their victims off the street, none called out to passers by for help. "We had nothing to show that we had authority" he said. "If the passing public had sided with the suspects we would have had to go away. But they never did. They turned their eyes aside and walked on glad that it was not them and the victims followed us like sheep".



By the time "Stalins time" came to pass the communist regime had taken control of the levers of power held for years by an absolute monarchy.


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## stona (Jun 19, 2015)

pbehn said:


> By the time "Stalins time" came to pass the communist regime had taken control of the levers of power



You can see the same thing happen today in North Korea. For those of us who have grown up in democracies the way such states work and the malign effect such fear and control can have on their peoples are almost incomprehensible.
The Nazi state shared many things in common with other totalitarian regimes, not least the cult of a personality. See schoolgirls thunderstruck at the sight of Hitler, Stalin, Kim Jong-un or his father. Mussolini never quite carried it off 

Orwell, ever perceptive, once wrote that an army will only goose step in a nation whose people are afraid to laugh at it.

Cheers

Steve


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## yulzari (Jun 19, 2015)

GrauGeist said:


> There's been quite a number of songs that have been used for newer renditions...
> 
> The 19th century American song: "My Country 'Tis of Thee" comes to mind



The Loyalist "Union Cruiser" also comes to mind and might puzzle a few Texans.

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## gjs238 (Jun 27, 2015)

v2 said:


> At May, 20th, 75 years ago, German Nazis brought to the newly built Auschwitz concentration camp a group of 728 Polish political prisoners from the prison in Tarnów. This date is considered to be the day when the camp began to operate.
> It is estimated that around 75,000 Polish political prisoners were murdered in Auschwitz by the Germans. On the whole, during WW2, the Germans murdered around six million Polish citizens, half of which were Jewish and the other half were Catholic.
> Today we are witnessing the rewriting of history, as the victims, namely the Polish people, are being blamed for the Nazi crimes which were perpetrated by the German people during WW2.
> US president Barack Obama called the German built concentration camps on Polish soil "Polish death camps", while the head of the FBI Blamed Poles and other nationalities for the crimes of the Nazis.
> ...



Was Erwin Rommel a german or a Nazi?


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## Maximowitz (Jun 27, 2015)

gjs238 said:


> Was Erwin Rommel a german or a Nazi?



The answer is yes.

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## stona (Jun 27, 2015)

gjs238 said:


> Was Erwin Rommel a german or a Nazi?



He was a German and willing servant of the Nazi German state. He was a man who served a king and realised too late that he was the devil. Even then he was never a member of the clique who led the July plot. He did, like many, turn a deaf ear and blind eye to it. His disillusionment owed much to the fact that he knew the war was lost, rather than any political or moral differences with the government.

How do you define a Nazi? A member of the NSDAP? Rommel never joined. A supporter of the Nazi regime? Rommel was a Nazi under that definition.

Cheers

Steve


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## pbehn (Jun 27, 2015)

In Rommels defence I offer the following:-

The last Labour government in the UK was democratically elected and initially had a massive majority. They were elected on the promise of operating an "ethical foreign policy" (google it) within the term of the governments second parliament the same Labour government engaged in what is now widely regarded as an illegal war in Iraq despite massive public protests and opposition in parliament. Many people think Tony Blair should be in the dock for his part, that is politics which probably shouldnt be gone into to much. The point I am making is that I have never heard anyone say the British generals Air commodores and admirals should be brought to book, in a democracy a military leader must do as the government bids or resign/be removed. In a totalitarian regime a military leader must do what the despot demands or usually pay with his life. The German and Soviet regimes were much better at killing their own high commands than their enemies were. A British general who opposed Churchill would be removed, if he plotted to assassinate Churchill he would be hanged.


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## GrauGeist (Jun 27, 2015)

pbehn said:


> ...engaged in what is now widely regarded as an illegal war in Iraq...


Only widely regarded as such by hipsters, hard-core liberals and unicorns that sh!t rainbows...


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## pbehn (Jun 27, 2015)

GrauGeist said:


> Only widely regarded as such by hipsters, hard-core liberals and unicorns that sh!t rainbows...



I supported the Gulf war after the invasion of Kuwait but Mr Blairs adventure there had no justification, even when he started it there was no way of ever saying what a victory meant.
Removing Saddam was supposedly not the aim but it was and no one had any clue as to what to do when he was removed. I am not a hard core liberal or hipster I just worked in the middle east for years, a leader ther has two qualities, he speaks and knows the word of god so disagreeing is heresy and has a lot of supporters who can recite a book but little else apart from carrying and using a kalashnikov.


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## GrauGeist (Jun 27, 2015)

The plan for post-Saddam Iraq was to install a democratic government that afforded the Iraqi people the ability to have a decent life without fear of ending up in a mass grave at the whim of their leader.

What the coalition planners did not count on, was the insurgents (most foreign) who jumped on the bandwagon at the request of local leaders who were nothing more than two-bit warlords hiding under the auspices of religion.

The war itself was not illegal, it was deliberated on and approved by, the UN and covered under several resolutions AND prior to the war, Saddam was given countless opportunities to comply with UN requests that would have alleviated this war from the onset. 

The Iraqi war was not an act of "leibensraum" or an act of "protecting Russian speaking minorities". The goal was to go in, clean house and leave.


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## pbehn (Jun 27, 2015)

The problem in the west is in not understanding that democracy is an alien concept in Islam. If your religious leader speaks and knows the word of God why would he not be your political leader.

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## gjs238 (Jun 27, 2015)

pbehn said:


> The problem in the west is in not understanding that democracy is an alien concept in Islam. If your religious leader speaks and knows the word of God why would he not be your political leader.



Is there a different version of this concept occurring in Russia?


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Jun 27, 2015)

GrauGeist said:


> The plan for post-Saddam Iraq was to install a democratic government that afforded the Iraqi people the ability to have a decent life without fear of ending up in a mass grave at the whim of their leader.
> 
> What the coalition planners did not count on, was the insurgents (most foreign) who jumped on the bandwagon at the request of local leaders who were nothing more than two-bit warlords hiding under the auspices of religion.
> 
> ...



I would bot say mostly foreign. In 2004 when I was there the majority of the insurgents where Iraqi. Either Sadr's Army or Sunni's in Fallujah.


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## GrauGeist (Jun 27, 2015)

Several of my buddies (Army and Marines) said they were encountering a good number of Syrians, Jordinians and even some Chechens along with some ex-Iraqi army mixed in with locals


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## pbehn (Jun 27, 2015)

gjs238 said:


> Is there a different version of this concept occurring in Russia?



I once read that in the time of the Tzars the best the Russians could hope for was a friendly Tzar. To me the communists took over the levers of power from the Tzars and the men behind the scenes have never let them go. If you say Magna Carta started England and the UK down the road of removing absolute monarchs then it has taken 800 years, if you try to do it in a few years then you just get a "king" with another name like Lord Protector Fuhrer or (like Napoleon) Emperor.


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## pbehn (Jun 27, 2015)

GrauGeist said:


> Several of my buddies (Army and Marines) said they were encountering a good number of Syrians, Jordinians and even some Chechens along with some ex-Iraqi army mixed in with locals



When you are dealing with people who are taught little more than reciting the Koran it is easy to convince them that the west is continuing its age old crusade. For Muslims the nationally recognised borders dont matter the land controlled by Shia and Sunny actions is what counts.


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## mikewint (Jun 27, 2015)

Pbehn - Let's make sure that we are using our terms correctly: Even though nearly every politician, teacher, journalist and citizen believes that our Founders created a democracy, it is absolutely not true. The Founders knew full well the differences between a Republic and a Democracy. They repeatedly and emphatically said that they had founded a Republic.
Article IV Section 4, of the Constitution "guarantees to every state in this union a Republican form of government".... Conversely, the word *Democracy* is not mentioned even once in the Constitution. Madison warned us of the dangers of democracies with these words,
"Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths...",
"We may define a republic to be ... a government which derives all its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people, and is administered by persons holding their offices during pleasure for a limited period, or during good behavior. It is essential to such a government that it be derived from the great body of the society, not from an inconsiderable proportion or a favored class of it; otherwise a handful of tyrannical nobles, exercising their oppressions by a delegation of their powers, might aspire to the rank of republicans and claim for their government the honorable title of republic." *James Madison, Federalist No. 10, (1787)*

"A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority. There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men." Henry David Thoreau

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## pbehn (Jun 27, 2015)

mikewint said:


> Pbehn - Let's make sure that we are using our terms correctly: Even though nearly every politician, teacher, journalist and citizen believes that our Founders created a democracy, it is absolutely not true. The Founders knew full well the differences between a Republic and a Democracy. They repeatedly and emphatically said that they had founded a Republic.
> Article IV Section 4, of the Constitution "guarantees to every state in this union a Republican form of government".... Conversely, the word *Democracy* is not mentioned even once in the Constitution. Madison warned us of the dangers of democracies with these words,
> "Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths...",
> "We may define a republic to be ... a government which derives all its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people, and is administered by persons holding their offices during pleasure for a limited period, or during good behavior. It is essential to such a government that it be derived from the great body of the society, not from an inconsiderable proportion or a favored class of it; otherwise a handful of tyrannical nobles, exercising their oppressions by a delegation of their powers, might aspire to the rank of republicans and claim for their government the honorable title of republic." *James Madison, Federalist No. 10, (1787)*
> ...



Fair comment Mike. By democracy I mean where you have one man one vote in a free and fair election. The founders of the USA were writing around the time of the French Revolution when the UK was an oligarchy. I have worked for a long time in France and the French say routinely "Vive la Republic" however the French and USA republics apart from having a President have little in common. Our old friend Saddam used to get 99% approval in his elections, the names mean nothing if the general will and freedom isnt there.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Jun 27, 2015)

GrauGeist said:


> Several of my buddies (Army and Marines) said they were encountering a good number of Syrians, Jordinians and even some Chechens along with some ex-Iraqi army mixed in with locals



Yes eventually, but not at first. 2003-2005 it was largely an Iraqi power struggle. Eventually the foreigners joined the "cause". In the end it was still a lot of people both Iraqi/Foreign.

In the end why where the foreign fighters there? Because we where there. We caused the insurgency. Don't take me wrong. I supported the war in Iraq, and firmly believe he had WMD's based off of things I saw with my own eyes. Fact remains however that our piss poor planning caused the chaos known as Iraqi "Freedom".

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## mikewint (Jun 27, 2015)

pbehn, agreed and I also agreed with much of what you posted. The US had been working for 200+ years at becoming a republic before the Revolution. Not to mention many more hundreds of years of English traditions and common laws that were already a part of the colonies. Throwing out Saddam was never in doubt but there was no plan to win the peace. With Saddam gone there was a power vacuum and you cannot wave a wand and create a republican government where one has never existed before.
As Jefferson said: “The government you elect is the government you deserve.” "When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.

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## stona (Jun 28, 2015)

pbehn said:


> A British general who opposed Churchill would be removed, if he plotted to assassinate Churchill he would be hanged.



Same for a German General. If he was prepared to stand by his morals he could, without fatal consequences. Many Germans justified their blind obedience (orders are orders) by the oath they had taken to Hitler, but some did draw a moral line and it did of course impinge upon their career.

Goldenhagen cites one SS officer who refused to take part in the massacre of a (I think from memory) Polish village (thought it might have been one of the Baltic states). He instead put in command of the detachment securing the perimeter, not exactly innocent but he had drawn a moral line. That man later commanded one of the SS training colleges.

Until WW2 both the US and British military put the onus of an unlawful order on the officer giving the order, but after Nuremberg this changed, putting a soldier in an almost impossible situation of having to make a legal/moral judgement of any order and then decide whether he should follow it or not. 

There were examples in WW2 where unlawful orders were not followed. Anthony Miers, who finished up a Rear Admiral with a Victoria Cross, when in command of the submarine HMS Torbay, ordered two men, his second in command Lt. Paul Chapman and then a Corporal Sherwood of the Special Boat Section (now Service), to machine gun German survivors and both refused. The survivors were disposed of one way or the other, probably just thrown into the sea. Miers got away with it, but so too did Chapman and Sherwood. This was not the only atrocity committed by Miers.

British officers, under Queen's Regulations, are required to _"prevent breakdowns in standards, ethics and the law." _

Sometimes this didn't happen and sometimes such a "breakdown" might be purposeful. A German soldier testified that the infamous Malmedy massacre came as a result of a meeting of his commanders at which it was decided that _"we should act towards the enemy in such a way that we create amongst them panic and terror and that the reputation for panic and terror should precede our troops."_ Any officer in any army would like his men to act in that way. The German officer(s) were only convicted on a technicality, that they had not given specific orders concerning the disposition of prisoners and had thus allowed the decision to be made by subordinates as to how to dispose of prisoners in a manner that would not jeopardise their mission.

Nothing is black and white. 

Cheers

Steve


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## pbehn (Jun 28, 2015)

stona said:


> Sometimes this didn't happen and sometimes such a "breakdown" might be purposeful. A German soldier testified that the infamous Malmedy massacre came as a result of a meeting of his commanders at which it was decided that _"we should act towards the enemy in such a way that we create amongst them panic and terror and that the reputation for panic and terror should precede our troops."_ Any officer in any army would like his men to act in that way. The German officer(s) were only convicted on a technicality, that they had not given specific orders concerning the disposition of prisoners and had thus allowed the decision to be made by subordinates as to how to dispose of prisoners in a manner that would not jeopardise their mission.
> 
> Nothing is black and white.
> 
> ...



The post I made was about Rommel, what was specifically Nazi about his actions in North Africa and Europe I thought he was a good General who conducted his campaigns on sound military principles. Rommel gained the Iron cross second class in 1914 and firt class in 1915, I would imagine the political fanatics and "hitler youths" were as alien to him as they were to our forefathers, he was a professional soldier.


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## stona (Jun 29, 2015)

Does being 'a professional soldier' justify fighting for a regime, whose excesses you are most certainly aware of? I'm sure Rommel was aware of the genocidal nature of the regime towards European Jewry, though how much detail is debateable. I know absolutely that he was aware of atrocities committed on the Eastern front, because other officers told him about them. Despite this he chose to hide behind an oath to his Fuhrer and the cloak of a 'professional soldier' something in which he was certainly aided by the British who had their own reasons for maintaining his reputation.
I'm not saying that this makes him better or worse than other German officers or even officers in other armies. I'm saying that to continue fighting for the devil, even if you signed up to fight for a saviour, once that devil has revealed himself, raises some serious moral questions. Everyone has choices, they may be unpalatable (ending an illustrious career for example) and most don't have the courage to make them.
Cheers
Steve


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## mikewint (Jun 29, 2015)

On 14 Aug 1934, after the death of Hindenburg, a plebiscite was held. The question was to approve the combining the offices of President and Chancellor. By a vote of 89.9% in favor Hitler became: *Führer und Reichskanzler *
On August 20, 1934, the cabinet decreed: *Gesetz über die Vereidigung der Beamten und der Soldaten der Wehrmacht* A new oath for all soldiers and civil servants.
The oath was not a Hitler idea. It was written by Defence Minister General Werner von Blomberg and General Walther von Reichenau in an effort to tie Hitler closer to the military and away from the NSDAP. After the war Blomberg stated that he had not quite thought the whole thing through.
THE OATH
"Ich schwöre bei Gott diesen heiligen Eid, daß ich dem Führer des Deutschen Reiches und Volkes Adolf Hitler, dem Oberbefehlshaber der Wehrmacht, unbedingten Gehorsam leisten und als tapferer Soldat bereit sein will, jederzeit für diesen Eid mein Leben einzusetzen."
The Wehrmacht Oath of Loyalty to Adolf Hitler, 2 August 1934
"I swear by God this sacred oath that *to the Leader of the German empire and people, Adolf Hitler, supreme commander of the armed forces, I shall render unconditional obedience* and that as a brave soldier I shall at all times be prepared to give my life for this oath."
Thousands called in sick to avoid the oath but on their return they were forced to take the oath. By swearing loyalty to the person of Adolf Hitler rather than the nation or the constitution, the officers and men of the armed forces found themselves honor-bound to obey him, even after Hitler had set Germany down the path to war and ordered the Wehrmacht to commit war crimes.


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## stona (Jun 29, 2015)

That oath was used as a defence or justification by may officers.

A British officer swears an oath of allegiance to the Queen, but I'd hope that if the Queen somehow ordered him to murder hundreds of thousands of British subjects, who might even have a different religion to most of us, he would feel free to break that oath. 
Nazism disorientated the moral compass of an entire nation.

It's easy to sit here seventy years later and pass retrospective judgement on the difficult choices faced by Germans at the time, but to deny that there were choices is not helpful either. The 'I'd have been shot/sent to a KZ if I hadn't done it' defence does not generally hold up in the face of the evidence.

Think of this. Otto Hahn, the great German physicist, was overheard saying in one of the Farm Hall transcripts that he loved his country, and that is why he had hoped for its defeat. He was not the only one who felt this way.

Cheers

Steve


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## mikewint (Jun 29, 2015)

Yes, there are indeed brave men who draw a moral line and stand by it. Just as in Vietnam there were those who ran to Canada to avoid the draft, those who stood firm and went to federal prison, and those who took the easy road and were drafted regardless of their beliefs. Here I make no mention of those who willing joined to support their country right or wrong. While Federal Prison is not a country club it is nothing as to the punishments German's faced for refusing.
To name just a few:
Karl Barth (Swiss theologian); Consequences: loss of professorship
Kurt von Fritz (university professor); Consequences: forced relocation to retirement
Martin Gauger (probationary judge as a state prosecutor in Wuppertal); Consequences: forced retirement of his position as a state prosecutor
Franz Heckenast (Austrian Officer of the Army), after the connection of Austria to the German Reich; Consequences: forced retirement
Franz Jägerstätter (Austrian conscientious objector); Consequences: execution in 1943
Erica Küppers (theologian in Hessen); Consequences: forced retirement
Josef Mayr-Nusser (from Bozen), after call-up for duty in the Waffen-SS; Consequences: Death penalty, died on the way to the Dachau concentration camp
Franz Reinisch (Pallottines padre from Austria), after call-up for duty in the German Wehrmacht; Consequences: execution by beheading in 1942
Theodor Roller (Member of the Young Men's Christian Association from Tübingen); Consequences: compulsory hospitalization in a psychiatric hospital
Joseph Ruf (de) („Brother Maurus“ of the Christkönigsgesellschaft (rel.)), Consequences: Death penalty followed by execution
Rudolf Towarek (major general of the Austrian Army), after the connection of Austria to the German Reich; Consequences: forced retirement
Ernst Volkmann (Guitar maker from Bregenz), after call-up for duty into the German Wehrmacht; Consequences: Death penalty followed by execution
Ludwig Walz (mercantile man and burgomaster), after call-up for duty into the German Wehrmacht; Consequences: Death penalty followed by execution
Heinz Welke (theologian from Frankfurt), refused enrollment as a student in a university
Ingeborg Willrich (teacher); Consequences: forced retirement without being entitled to get retirement pension


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## pbehn (Jun 29, 2015)

The idea that everyone who served in the commonwealth forces was loyal to the king is laughable, many wanted independance from British rule but saw common cause. My father was anti royalist to the day he died but served in the Pacific and was proud to say Mountbatten was his C/O.
Before the second world war kicked off Communism in Russia was already well known for mass exterminations many saw the war as fascist against communist and there are no good guys in that fight.

So far as Rommel is concerned, in N Africa when the position was hopeless he tried to get Hitler to understand the situation he was replaced and the Afrika Corps ordered to fight to the last man and bullet. At what point should Rommel "resign" and do you think he would ever be allowed to live? As it was he was obliged to take his own life 18 months later.


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## pbehn (Jun 29, 2015)

stona said:


> A British officer swears an oath of allegiance to the Queen, but I'd hope that if the Queen somehow ordered him to murder hundreds of thousands of British subjects, who might even have a different religion to most of us, he would feel free to break that oath.
> Nazism disorientated the moral compass of an entire nation.



Please read about the Peterloo massacre and Bloody Sunday, there were actually two bloody Sudays both involving Troops opening fire on civilians one in Derry NI 1972 in my lifetime and the other in Liverpool in 1911.


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## stona (Jun 30, 2015)

pbehn said:


> Please read about the Peterloo massacre and Bloody Sunday, there were actually two bloody Sudays both involving Troops opening fire on civilians one in Derry NI 1972 in my lifetime and the other in Liverpool in 1911.



There are many more instances when British forces have committed massacres against civilians. The same goes for every army that ever fielded troops. We all have more than one My Lai or Amritsar (Jallianwala Bagh) in our history. That is not the same as implementing an official genocidal government policy in the 20th century.

Genocides may have been committed one way or another by Europeans against other races in the Americas and elsewhere from Pizarro and Cortez (unintentionally) to Tasmania (possibly less unintentional, though again disease was the major killer).

The penalty for any kind of active resistance in Nazi Germany was death, almost invariably. The penalty for soldiers, particularly officers, who tried to draw a moral line was almost invariably not. A forum answer is hardly the place to trawl through the conclusions of the Nuremberg trials, but the evidence is there.

British historian Andrew Roberts has summed it up nicely:

_"Every German general knew that the war in the east was to be one of extermination rather than a conventional military engagement; the oral and in some cases written orders, and indeed the very notion of Lebensraum, brooked no alternative explanation.

... the reasons why so many outwardly dignified professional officers served the Nazis so efficiently and seemingly enthusiastically were many and complicated. Their fathers and grandfathers had shot French francs-tireurs without mercy in the Franco-Prussian War and had ill-treated Belgian and French civilians in the Great War, so the supposedly noble Prussian military tradition was always something of a myth. The oath they swore to Hitler personally could not excuse them. Their motives included natural ambition, criminal complicity, genuine patriotism, lack of an alternative, professional pride, an understandable desire to protect their loved ones from Bolshevik vengeance, a desperate hope for unexpected victory, Nazi faith in many cases, but probably above all simple loyalty to their men and brother officers.

Yet the German generals who argued with, stood up to or even disobeyed Hitler were not particularly ill-treated, unless of course they had been involved in the Bomb Plot. They were dismissed, reassigned or retired for a few months, but they did not face the ultimate sanction, as anyone who displeased Stalin certainly did.

... Just as no one was shot for refusing to execute a Jew, so German generals put only their jobs, rather than their lives, on the line when they crossed Hitler on a point of military principle. Very often they were brought back from enforced retirement to serve again, as happened to Rundstedt three times. They might therefore have been 'only obeying orders', but they were not doing so out of a well-founded fear for their lives."_

Cheers

Steve


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## mikewint (Jun 30, 2015)

Agreed but besides fear how about that other great motivator of men, Fame and Fortune(Greed).
On 19 July 1940 Hitler created 12 Field Marshalls, Germany's highest rank. German Field Marshals received a salary of $200,000 (in 2000 money) PLUS large tax-free sums to buy estates. Von Rundstedt and Keitel, for example, initially received $1 million tax-free and later on another $3 million. Von Rundstedt lived for over two years in a huge villa, St-Germain-en-Laye just outside Paris. The old field Marshall oversaw the occupation of France but really had no decisions to make as all was controlled by Hitler. The cynical von Rundstedt wrote that he, "could not even change the guard at his door without the approval of the "Bohemian Corporal". Ritter von Leeb received $500,000. Hans Guderian received a 947 hectare estate in east Germany. Hitler even bought his furniture and farm machinery. Major Generals received salaries of $100,000 at a time when a German factory worker made $140 per month. By 1944 there were 2,242 Generals not counting 150 Luftwaffe and senior commanders of the Waffen-SS
Now all was not roses for these Field Marshals and Generals. By 1944 over 500 had been killed or captured. 35 Corps and Divisional commanders had been sacked after Moscow in 1941. In fact, the sacking of a General was an almost weekly occurrence. If lucky they lived to return to their families in disgrace with no jobs or funds. Those who really displeased Hitler went to prison but none were killed until after the Bomb Plot in 1944. 35 Generals, who were not lucky enough to commit suicide were convicted in a show trial of treason, stripped naked, and hung with piano wire while being filmed. After that Hans Guderian was made OKH Chief of Staff and personally urged his fellow Generals to stay loyal.


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## pbehn (Jun 30, 2015)

mikewint said:


> Agreed but besides fear how about that other great motivator of men, Fame and Fortune(Greed).
> On 19 July 1940 Hitler created 12 Field Marshalls, Germany's highest rank. German Field Marshals received a salary of $200,000 (in 2000 money) PLUS large tax-free sums to buy estates. Von Rundstedt and Keitel, for example, initially received $1 million tax-free and later on another $3 million. Von Rundstedt lived for over two years in a huge villa, St-Germain-en-Laye just outside Paris. The old field Marshall oversaw the occupation of France but really had no decisions to make as all was controlled by Hitler. The cynical von Rundstedt wrote that he, "could not even change the guard at his door without the approval of the "Bohemian Corporal". Ritter von Leeb received $500,000. Hans Guderian received a 947 hectare estate in east Germany. Hitler even bought his furniture and farm machinery. Major Generals received salaries of $100,000 at a time when a German factory worker made $140 per month. By 1944 there were 2,242 Generals not counting 150 Luftwaffe and senior commanders of the Waffen-SS
> Now all was not roses for these Field Marshals and Generals. By 1944 over 500 had been killed or captured. 35 Corps and Divisional commanders had been sacked after Moscow in 1941. In fact, the sacking of a General was an almost weekly occurrence. If lucky they lived to return to their families in disgrace with no jobs or funds. Those who really displeased Hitler went to prison but none were killed until after the Bomb Plot in 1944. 35 Generals, who were not lucky enough to commit suicide were convicted in a show trial of treason, stripped naked, and hung with piano wire while being filmed. After that Hans Guderian was made OKH Chief of Staff and personally urged his fellow Generals to stay loyal.


That just seems like good management, keep generals sweet until they become a threat then replace the carrot with a stick.


Why are the same metrics not used for Italian generals and admirals? Russian generals and admirals. Somehow 70 years after the event it seems to come down to Rommel. If the vast majority of the Italian nation and a huge part of French society including their military were not initially sympathetic to the Fascist cause and they all knew what its aims were then Rommel would never have got to Africa. Von Rundstedt went to St Germaine en Laye, I didnt know, how appropriate, thats is where James II of England exiled himself all despots behave like the royals they replace. I am no apologist for any Nazi General but I refuse to go along with a history that says only Germans were responsible.


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## pbehn (Jun 30, 2015)

stona said:


> _"Every German general knew that the war in the east was to be one of extermination rather than a conventional military engagement; the oral and in some cases written orders, and indeed the very notion of Lebensraum, brooked no alternative explanation.
> 
> ... the reasons why so many outwardly dignified professional officers served the Nazis so efficiently and seemingly enthusiastically were many and complicated. Their fathers and grandfathers had shot French francs-tireurs without mercy in the Franco-Prussian War and had ill-treated Belgian and French civilians in the Great War, so the supposedly noble Prussian military tradition was always something of a myth. The oath they swore to Hitler personally could not excuse them. Their motives included natural ambition, criminal complicity, genuine patriotism, lack of an alternative, professional pride, an understandable desire to protect their loved ones from Bolshevik vengeance, a desperate hope for unexpected victory, Nazi faith in many cases, but probably above all simple loyalty to their men and brother officers.
> 
> ...



Hitler as a leader was probably the man who has the most unsuccessful assassination attempts against his name. Hitler needed to keep his military sweet because so many wanted to kill him. After the bomb plot mentioned he pretty much retreated to his bunker and insanity. Please remember Hitlers military from 1939 to 1941/42 were all conquering a huge part of Europe threw in their lot with him without a serious fight. All very well to explain what lebensraum means, the generals knew what it meant and so did the citizens of Germany who supported Hitler.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Jun 30, 2015)

I still think it comes down to this...

It is really easy to judge and condemn 70+ years later. People today can pretend to know what they would have done, tell people what they would have done, but in the end unless you where there to experience it you don't know.

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## stona (Jul 1, 2015)

Roberts didn't mention money as a motive but everyman has his price. A $200,000 salary plus perks seems to have been the going rate for a Field Marshall.

It would be easy to pass judgement today. There were nonetheless some men who did choose not to blindly follow and a few more who were prepared to attempt to change things. For this the latter group paid with their lives. The former group took no such risk.

Jodl claimed at Nuremberg that the German military leaders didn't _"serve the powers of Hell and they did not serve a criminal, but rather their people and their Fatherland."_ Nobody believed him and he was hanged anyway.

There is some idea prevalent that the Wermacht in some way was not complicit in the atrocities committed, particularly against European Jewry. Unfortunately a lot of evidence to the contrary exists. I will give just one of the dozens of documented examples available. The Germans were excellent book keepers. 
Franz Walter Stahlecker of Einsatzgruppe A wrote in September 1941 that Army Group North had been exemplary in co-operating with his men in murdering Jews and that relations with the Fourth Panzer Army commanded by General Erich Hoepner were _"very close, almost cordial". _

Manstein got away with a light prison sentence at the end of the war. He did have an issue about the actions of the Einsatzgruppen in his area in 1941, but not what one might expect. In a letter to Otto Ohlendorf he complained that since his men were so helpful in assisting Ohlendorf's men with murdering Jews it was unjustifiable that the SS should keep all the wrist watches of the murdered Jews for themselves instead of sharing with the Army. 
That's one way of serving 'the people and Fatherland.'

Nearly 60% of all the casualties of WW2 were 'allied', that is non-Axis, civilians. Axis civilians comprised about 5% of total casualties. That takes some explaining and can only be explained in terms of the genocidal, racial, war waged by Germany and her Allies. That war was directed, knowingly, by Germany's military leaders and they were all complicit to a greater or lesser extent in the results.

An estimated 3.5 million Soviet PoWs perished at the hands of who? The Wermacht. I suppose that's another way of serving 'the people and Fatherland.'

German? Nazi? It's not a distinction that could easily be made seventy years ago and is no easier to make today.

Steve


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## yulzari (Jul 1, 2015)

Though we like to think that we would have acted as would be right for those with a 21st century model conscience, if we had been born into a time when we were called up for the German army the reality is that most of us would have acted as they did. Germans are, and were, no different to the rest of us. That is no excuse for the atrocities of WW2, nor those of the French Army in taking Algeria nor the cruelties of enslavement by Algerians over generations. If we were born into those societies at those times we, sadly, would have acted as they did.

This does not excuse anyone. It was ordinary non front line Wermacht soldiers who took away the White Russians living in our village in 1942 and turned the Priory into an army brothel. Old villagers recalled that the German soldiers actually said that they were being taken away to be killed so they knew what they were doing.

Identify, blame and punish the perpetrators but do not forget that, but for an accident of birth, you might have been one of them. I like to think that I would have bravely stood up for the innocent but I fear that I would have meekly followed the herd.

Germans or Nazis? One could be both or neither. You can recruit concentration guards and death squads from any nation on earth. 

The condemnation must be of the individual or we fall into the same trap as the guilty of treating people as members of a group. Not as individuals. I fear that Americans are falling into that trap regarding Muslims. In the terrorist attack in France a little while ago there were as many Muslims risking their lives to save the innocent as were perpetrators. In Tunisia hundreds marched in Sousse to condemn the attack of one man.

People are guilty or not as individuals. Not as groups. Nazis or Germans is not the question. Guilty or Innocent is.

BTW. At a time of the 200th Anniversary of Waterloo (why name a battle after a railway station?) I want record my thanks to the men of the Kings German Legion who were Britain's best allies and troops in the fight to liberate Europe.

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## stona (Jul 1, 2015)

yulzari said:


> It was ordinary non front line Wermacht soldiers who took away the White Russians living in our village in 1942 and turned the Priory into an army brothel. Old villagers recalled that the German soldiers actually said that they were being taken away to be killed so they knew what they were doing.



A Police Battalion (Ordnungspolizei)? Usually composed of older men not called up for front line service (at that time). Usually married men, with children and rarely members of the NSDAP. Were they Nazis? They were certainly carrying out the objectives of the Nazi state, objectives both immoral and illegal by any normal standards.

A very difficult question.

Steve


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## mikewint (Jul 1, 2015)

stona said:


> objectives both immoral and illegal by any normal standards.
> 
> A very difficult question.
> 
> Steve


Not really, NORMAL STANDARDS, do they apply. Chris said it best. You can sit in your home today 2015 and ask "How could they do that?" Now, I do not know you at all but I do know that men/women in groups can and do things that alone they would never do and in a war you(pl) are a group and "they" are not. Mobs have little or no morality and what little they do have applies to their group not the non-human foe" As a soldier you are taught to obey orders: "*I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God."* Obviously you can refuse an order and state that it is "illegal" but that is YOUR opinion and may or may not, later on, be seen in that light. That momentary decision changes the entire course of your life. Do you take the chance? For these "family men" you mention that decision would also destroy their family.
As a young college student I protested the Vietnam war. I was totally against war and killing. "You can draft me but you cant make me kill" I said and believed. 
As a soldier I saw civilian women and children kill my friends. Shoeshine boys 7yo or so whose box is rigged with C4. Women with babies in arm laying on C4. 
Then it's your turn, a woman/child/both come towards you, in my best Vietnamese: "ZOONG LYE! DI DI MAOW" (stop go away fast) and they don't. What do you do? 
Several troop transports were blown up by mines buried in the roadway. We set-up an ambush in the bushes and watched. On the night of the second day, 3 figures crept up the road, stopped and began to dig and bury something in the road. We opened up and fired until all three stopped moving. At first light we moved out. Laying there was a woman and her 2 young daughters and a bag of Chinese land mines. We had known all three. They had a small stand just outside the base where they sold Cokes. Just about everyone stopped there and most paid extra for the small Cokes trying to help her out.
I do not excuse anything the Nazis did but most likely "There but for the Grace of God go I"

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## stona (Jul 1, 2015)

The point is it would not have destroyed their families. This is a myth. Goldenhagen argues that the Germans and German culture were infected with a particularly rabid antisemitism which he calls 'eliminationist antisemitism'. I don't buy that, I think it was not unique to the Germans but prevalent in European culture generally. It was exploited by the Nazis to the point where those middle aged policemen considered it at least acceptable, even laudable, to murder old Jewish men in their beds along with their women and children.
This is not equivalent to the sort of tragic accident you describe above. The men of those police battalions INTENTIONALLY murdered people who posed no military threat to them or their nation on ideological grounds. There was no mistaken identity, no accident of war. These were not what we now euphemistically describe as 'collateral damage', these were targeted victims of a genocidal regime.
There are rules of war. I'm certainly not stupid enough to believe that these are rigorously observed in the heat of battle but again, this is not what we are talking about. Aberrations (I mentioned Amritsar and My Lai) occur but neither the Americans nor the British were engaged in an intentional, racially motivated, war of annihilation against the Indian or Vietnamese people respectively.

Steve


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## mikewint (Jul 1, 2015)

I was going a bit overboard with the term "destroy" but not by much: Let's assume Curt an Ordnungspolizei refuses a order to shoot, as you say "old Jewish men in their beds along with their women and children". The consequences to Curt, at the very best might be dismissal and public disgrace. In the culture of the time and place he becomes a pariah. If he has a job, it is gone; if he is renting a home, it is gone; friends are gone, and all officialdom would turn against him. He and his family would loose everything. Is that "destroyed"? Without a job, no money, no money, no food, clothes, shelter, ect for the whole family. 
Reverse all of that. In spite of all he believes he pulls the trigger. Again in the culture of that time and place he becomes a hero, fame and fortune are his and his family prospers as never before. In what direction will he head?
Antisemitism has occurred in every country and just about every time period running the gamut from expulsion, forced conversion, and execution
Consider Jews in Russia pre WWII. It is difficult to assess the scope of the pogroms during the civil war years and the number of victims they claimed. Partial data are available for 530 communities in which 887 major pogroms and 349 minor pogroms occurred; there were 60,000 dead and several times that number of wounded (according to S. Dubnow).
Moral compasses are fickle things very subject to outside feedback. The "Elvis Presley" syndrome: No matter what he did and no matter how outrageous his surrounding entourage assured him it was normal and natural. Or the similar "Michael Jackson" syndrome.
You go to War for your country but you fight for your friends. The "White Crow" is quickly eliminated.
General Westmoreland's term, by the way, was a war of Attrition ruled by "body count" (though I never heard that term until I got back). NVA/VC losses published by Hanoi in 1996 were 1,100,000 KIA and 600,000 WIA with 2,000,000 civilians killed.

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## GregP (Jul 1, 2015)

Not everyone who was a Nazi part member was a real Nazi. There was a time when you either joined or your family didn't get food. So you had the coice of joining or starving.

I've posted it in here before, but I had a very good friend whose wife was a 16 -year old German plane spotter when the war ended. Her job was one of two: 1) to sit in a tower and look for aricraft. If she saw one, she called in the position, estimatd altitude, estimated cousre and speed, and her best guess on the type; and 2) to cook for a military kitchen when she wasn't spotting.

If she had not joined the party when it was "requested," her family would not have gotten any food.

One of her guards at the time, just after the war, verified that claim himself and eventually wound up as her husband. She said her worst disobediance of orders was to leave the tower when it looked like it was going to get attacked. She went to the top of a nearby hill and continued spotting. The tower was bombed, so she was proven correct that it would be attacked. She was active for about 2 months before the war ended and was essentially a baby when Hitler was writing Mein Kampf.

Personally, I had and HAVE no trouble with her service s a cook or a plane spotter. Neither one was really a combat job. She has since passed on, but it gave me some pause for thought about the label "Nazi." When she was recruited at age 16, there was no alternative "political party" to follow and no possibility of escaping to anywhere. She was stuck where she was born and brought up, and was a product of whatever that resulted in.

No excuses, just stuck in a situation that was impossible to change at an age where taking a political stand against the way things were would bring dire consequence.

Anybody think they would have rebelled against cooking or plane spotting in lieu of a possible death sentence? It ain't exactly the same as being an SS Prison Guard.


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## GrauGeist (Jul 2, 2015)

There is also a "herd mentality" that people assume in many cases, which is hard to understand.

For example, currenty, there is an effort to remove the Confederate battle flag from a state Capitol building. It has since snowballed into a "feel food" witch hunt to ban the battle flag from stores, sporting events and even an old TV show "Dukes of Hazzard" which had the Confederate battle flag painted on the roof of the Dodge Charger.

Now, if that weren't bad enough, people are now calling for the removal of Confederate Monuments, changing the names of places, townships or military bases with Confederate leader's names and most recently, the removal of a Confederate war dead cemetary.

When some of these supporters were asked why they felt the need to have the monuments removed, they simply said they were showing support for the effort, but personally didn't care.

This is the herd mentality...a few people start the ball rolling and all the dumbasses jump on the bandwagon.


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## stona (Jul 2, 2015)

The consequences for 'Kurt' as demonstrated by the research carried out into Reserve Battalion 101 of the Ordnungspolizei (not just by Goldenhagen with whose conclusions I largely disagree incidentally) would have been a transfer to other duties. That was it. Several men did refuse to directly take part in the massacres. They were always found another detail, like the SS officer I mentioned earlier who commanded the unit charged with securing the perimeter whilst the murders were carried out by his unit.

I do agree with Graugeist about a herd mentality, or rather peer pressure. Individuals can justify what they know to be an immoral or illegal act to themselves on the grounds that everyone else is doing it. It needs strong character and conviction to resist the pressure to join in with everyone else and this is even more the case in military or para-military organisations. The fact is that there were men who were able to do so.

Steve


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## gjs238 (Jul 2, 2015)

pbehn said:


> Please read about the Peterloo massacre and Bloody Sunday, there were actually two bloody Sudays both involving Troops opening fire on civilians one in Derry NI 1972 in my lifetime and the other in Liverpool in 1911.



Quite a few on Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Sunday

- Marburg's Bloody Sunday (1919), a massacre of civilians of German ethnic origin in Maribor during the protest at the central city square

- Altona Bloody Sunday (1932), a bloody confrontation among the Sturmabteilung (SA) and Schutzstaffel (SS), the police, and Communist Party (KPD) supporters in Altona, Hamburg

- Bloody Sunday (1939), (Bromberg Bloody Sunday), a massacre of civilians of German ethnic origin in Bydgoszcz, Poland, at the onset of World War II


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## mikewint (Jul 2, 2015)

GrauGeist said:


> There is also a "herd mentality" that people assume in many cases, which is hard to understand.
> 
> For example, currenty, there is an effort to remove the Confederate battle flag from a state Capitol building. It has since snowballed into a "feel food" witch hunt to ban the battle flag from stores, sporting events and even an old TV show "Dukes of Hazzard" which had the Confederate battle flag painted on the roof of the Dodge Charger.
> 
> ...



Triple BINGO Dave, exactly and precisely and then no it is not hard at all. 
It is quite easy to see how having a herd instinct would cause an individual to feel more comfortable with many other herd member around it to protect it. The reason they would naturally be suspicious of anyone who didn't fit in or seemed different is fairly obvious. The herd member does not necessarily need to know the other herd members individually for any animal which looked or acted differently could well be a predator and thus a threat. It would follow that the herd instinct must provide two reciprocal behaviors. These are the individuals need to fit in to act like its fellow herd members, and the herds need to drive out anyone who seems different and thus possibly dangerous. One can see where change that does not involve whole herd would be very uncomfortable. The noise and bustle of the herd is very comforting to the herd members. The individual feels distinct discomfort any time it is separated from the herd.
It was the philosopher Hannah Arendt who argued that the atrocities of the Holocaust were not caused by psychopaths but by ordinary people placed under extraordinary pressure to conform. In actual fact, the pressure need not be extraordinary at all. In fact, it may not be experienced as pressure, but as relief. We return once again to the above, human beings are herd animals. We survive only in highly coordinated groups. Individually, we are designed to pick up social cues, coordinate and align our behavior with those around us. Recent research has shown that social disapproval provokes the brain's danger circuits. Conformity soothes.
Strangely enough, nonconformity is in itself a group phenomenon. Psychological research from Asch's to Milgram's has shown time and again that, quite ironically, the presence of allies is the best predictor of nonconformist behavior. Our individual courage is a manifestation of group convictions and affiliations. The visible courageous individual is but the tip of a social iceberg. When you go against the group, you do it not on your own, but in the name--and with the backing--of another group.
I once attended an musical event where some 2500 people had gathered. A percussion group were performing and they wanted the crowd to participate. Their leader stood and gave orders—clap, shout, stand, pat your knees—and 2500 men and women obeyed his commands. I myself declined to take part, but the elderly woman beside me, with shining eyes, followed every movement as though she had been waiting eighty years for instructions. She would have stood on her head if they asked.


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## pbehn (Jul 2, 2015)

gjs238 said:


> Quite a few on Wikipedia:
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Sunday
> 
> - Marburg's Bloody Sunday (1919), a massacre of civilians of German ethnic origin in Maribor during the protest at the central city square
> ...



Thanks, I was referring to the "impossibility" that troops would ever obey and order and commit a crime unless they were of themselves possessed by the evil of their commanders.


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## pbehn (Jul 2, 2015)

GrauGeist said:


> This is the herd mentality...a few people start the ball rolling and all the dumbasses jump on the bandwagon.



They dont have to be "dumb asses" recent examples of "herding":-

Climate change scientists ignoring any data that doesnt show that burning of fossil fuels is heating the planet. despite being "scientists" they are paid for research and their research generally reflects what their clients want.
The last UK election all pollsters predicted a hung parliament because the polling companies that got different (and correct) results ignored them so they didnt appear foolish.
The whole of western liberal politicians declaring Islam is a religion of peace but offering no evidence apart from 99% of Muslims do not wear explosive vests. Since I worked in Saudi Arabia in 1985 the region has been at war, in fact it has been at war since Mohammed died and the conflict is the same Shia against Sunni. No mainstream politician on either side of the pond will say anything to contradict this obvious falsehood.
The CERN reactor in Switzerland after some deliberation "proved" the existence of the higgs bosun particle and as a result of that a huge amount of money will be spent seeking to prove the existence of other "particles" Few people understand the theory fewer still understand the statistical proof but no one will ever declare this is complete BS which has no relevance in a continent drowning in debt.

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## pbehn (Jul 2, 2015)

mikewint said:


> It was the philosopher Hannah Arendt who argued that the atrocities of the Holocaust were not caused by psychopaths but by ordinary people placed under extraordinary pressure to conform. In actual fact, the pressure need not be extraordinary at all. In fact, it may not be experienced as pressure, but as relief. We return once again to the above, human beings are herd animals.



The holocaust was ordered by a regime that had ideas but didnt want to do the dirty work. Goebbels was keen to see an execution until he was spattered with the brains of a victim. The Nazis recognised from the early days of their final solution that it was damaging to the people involved no matter how enthusiastic they were at the start, shooting people in the back of the head or gassing in lorries drove them insane. The camps and gas chambers mechanised slaughter and also took German people, apart from a comparative few genuine psychos, out of the process. The running of the camps was generally handed over to people whos interest was to survive a little bit longer.


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## GrauGeist (Jul 2, 2015)

pbehn said:


> They dont have to be "dumb asses" recent examples of "herding":-
> 
> Climate change scientists ignoring any data that doesnt show that burning of fossil fuels is heating the planet. despite being "scientists" they are paid for research and their research generally reflects what their clients want.
> The last UK election all pollsters predicted a hung parliament because the polling companies that got different (and correct) results ignored them so they didnt appear foolish.
> ...


Well, in fact, you get a core of people perpetuating a movement and it will attract the masses. Individually, the people are most likely of average intelligence but once they fall into the stream, all common sense evaporates - leaving a dumbass behind. You can substitute "global warming"...err..."climate change" with "chemtrails", "Illuminati", "global zionist control" or "the confederate flag is the root of all racism" and you will find a common factor in the fact that people are willing to accept these "theories" or "movements" because the person next to them is. They don't have to understand what's going on, but if they think that everyone else is doing it, they feel compelled to jump aboard.

This is nothing new. I am sure that originally, a Roman Citizen was repulsed at the idea of seeing a wild animal rip a living human being to death. But once you fill an arena with tens of thousands of people, the spectacle takes on a different light. Once this brutal spectacle becomes commonplace, the victim(s) becomes a detached object.

We can open the history books and look throughout the ages and see examples from just about any time period and perhaps any continent. We had the Iquisitions, the Salem Witch trials, the French revolution, Mao's Cultural revolution and on and on.


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## tyrodtom (Jul 2, 2015)

GregP said:


> Not everyone who was a Nazi part member was a real Nazi. There was a time when you either joined or your family didn't get food. So you had the coice of joining or starving.
> 
> I've posted it in here before, but I had a very good friend whose wife was a 16 -year old German plane spotter when the war ended. Her job was one of two: 1) to sit in a tower and look for aricraft. If she saw one, she called in the position, estimatd altitude, estimated cousre and speed, and her best guess on the type; and 2) to cook for a military kitchen when she wasn't spotting.
> 
> ...



When you posted this before I pointed out contradicting facts to what you state, but you choose to ignore them, so i'll state them again.

The Nazi party , at it's peak,1944 had 8.5 million members. Germany's population in 1940, was over 80 million, that's including Austria, Memeland, and the Sudetenland territories.

If we consider that about half that population was adults, 40 million adults and only 8.5 million were Nazis ???

If what you're saying was true ( Join the Nazi party or starve) 4 out of 5 German adults made the conscious decision to starve instead of joining the Nazi party.

I don't think so.


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## gjs238 (Jul 2, 2015)

.


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## mikewint (Jul 2, 2015)

Tyrotom - consider this experiment:
Professor Krause, with PhD student John Dyer, conducted a series of experiments where groups of people were asked to walk randomly around a large hall. Within the group, a select few received more detailed information about where to walk. Participants were not allowed to communicate with one another but had to stay within arms length of another person.
The findings show that in all cases, the ‘informed individuals’ were followed by others in the crowd, forming a self-organizing, snake-like structure.
“We’ve all been in situations where we get swept along by the crowd,” says Professor Krause. “But what’s interesting about this research is that our participants ended up making a consensus decision despite the fact that they weren’t allowed to talk or gesture to one another. In most cases the participants didn’t realize they were being led by others.”
Other experiments in the study used groups of different sizes, with different ratios of ‘informed individuals’. The research findings show that as the number of people in a crowd increases, the number of informed individuals decreases. In large crowds of 200 or more, *five per cent of the group* is enough to influence the direction in which it travels.
Asch's work showed that people are reluctant to break with group norm even if the group is small, ad hoc, and made of complete strangers. But normative cues tend to be even more potent when they come from people whose friendship, love, and esteem we value. Hitler's cult of personality


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## tyrodtom (Jul 2, 2015)

The church that my family attended while I was a child sponsored two German families after WW2 to come to America.
4 adults and 5 children, Kurtz and Heseltine . Both men had fought in the Army, both wounded, one severe enough to be sent home mid war.

They often talked about their 3rd Reich experiences. Interesting talks, even to me as a young kid.

They were exposed to all the hazards, and temptations of any other German, but there was not one x party member among them.

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## stona (Jul 3, 2015)

Yet even in the most grim situations in the toughest camps there were people who refused to partake directly in the massacres and murders. Nicholas Wachsmann gives examples in his history of the Nazi concentration camps. Despite the official and unofficial incentives to work in the camps and undertake the unpleasant work (extra rations, particularly alcohol and a share in the booty of the rampant corruption) some asked to be transferred to the front. An SS man asking to go to the eastern front, where he would surely have gone, must have known what the consequences would be. Others were gradually talked around.
Some never did take part directly in the murders and nobody was ever forced to do so under pain of any serious consequence like death or imprisonment. 

A young SS physician, Dr.Hans Delmotte, suffered a breakdown after witnessing his first selection at Auschwitz. He appeared paralysed and had to be escorted to his quarters where he got drunk and demanded to be transferred to the front saying that he could not participate in mass slaughter. He was not transferred to the front. Under a bizarre sort of mentoring program he was placed under the wing of his experienced colleague, Dr Mengele, who gradually persuaded him of the necessity of the exterminations. The SS also arranged for his wife to travel to be with him. Within weeks he was carrying out selections himself, even earning commendations from his superiors. He was not sent to the front, he was not sent to a camp, he certainly wasn't shot.

Steve


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## yulzari (Jul 3, 2015)

tyrodtom said:


> The church that my family attended while I was a child sponsored two German families after WW2 to come to America.
> 4 adults and 5 children, Kurtz and Heseltine . Both men had fought in the Army, both wounded, one severe enough to be sent home mid war.
> 
> They often talked about their 3rd Reich experiences. Interesting talks, even to me as a young kid.
> ...



I cannot argue with what you found. However, they had experienced growing up in a society where you are careful in what you say. Modern German employers will recognise this in staff who grew up in DDR. 

I am of an age where I met many ex german soldiers. Curiously all bar one only fought on the Eastern Front. The exception had been taken as a prisoner by my father. I mentioned this to a Russian who had served in the DDR. He thought that I must have been mistaken as all the ex german soldiers he had met only fought on the Western Front.

My father, after fighting for 5 years, ended up in Italy fighting alongside, amongst others, the Polish Army. They had a very pragmatic view. If you were a German taken prisoner and could speak some Polish and claim to be Polish you mysteriously ceased to be a PoW but instantly became a Polish soldier. Thus Polish speaking german soldiers became articles of trade who could be 'sold' to the Polish Army in exchange for goods of unspoken origin.


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## pbehn (Jul 3, 2015)

yulzari said:


> My father, after fighting for 5 years, ended up in Italy fighting alongside, amongst others, the Polish Army. They had a very pragmatic view. If you were a German taken prisoner and could speak some Polish and claim to be Polish you mysteriously ceased to be a PoW but instantly became a Polish soldier. Thus Polish speaking german soldiers became articles of trade who could be 'sold' to the Polish Army in exchange for goods of unspoken origin.



I worked for years at a German company which moved to West Germany as soon as the construction of the wall started. The company has always been German but the place it was founded is now in Poland. Such things happen when politics moves borders.


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## tyrodtom (Jul 3, 2015)

These experiences are from 50 years ago, and memories can fade.

But I do remember both men had been drafted into the Wehrmacht, both were enlisted men, one became a NCO, and one fought on both fronts.

My congregation was a small one, only about 25 families. But over half of the male family heads were WW2 vets.

Most of the talks were about civilian life leading up to the war, and civilian life during the war, not the usual blood and guts war stories.

My impressions were these people spent years keeping their mouths shut, keeping their thoughts to themselves, even around their own young children. People were sent to the camps just for telling the wrong jokes .

But in all their talks, nobody mentioned they had to join the party to keep from starving, and the number of party members verses total population just doesn't support that excuse. Though everyone would have been aware that party members got preferential treatment when anything was in short supply. 

So my impression is that many Germans joined the Nazi party because they agreed with it's goals completely. But some joined because they thought it would make their life easier.


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## stona (Jul 3, 2015)

People were not sent to camps for telling the wrong jokes. Popular jokes were noted and recorded by the various organs of state, particularly the security police, but people rarely if ever got arrested for telling them. One report acknowledges that jokes about the allied bombing acted as a relief for hard pressed people at the same time as it acknowledged that the bombing made the people more reliant on the state, the exact opposite of what the Anglo-Americans were hoping for.
Open opposition to the regime or later defeatism could certainly get you into a world of s...trouble and to this extent people certainly did keep their mouths shut with all but trusted friends or family. The Nazi state was a police state. It has been compared to a snake, if you trod on its tail it would bite you.
Steve


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## tyrodtom (Jul 3, 2015)

stona said:


> People were not sent to camps for telling the wrong jokes. Popular jokes were noted and recorded by the various organs of state, particularly the security police, but people rarely if ever got arrested for telling them. One report acknowledges that jokes about the allied bombing acted as a relief for hard pressed people at the same time as it acknowledged that the bombing made the people more reliant on the state, the exact opposite of what the Anglo-Americans were hoping for.
> Open opposition to the regime or later defeatism could certainly get you into a world of s...trouble and to this extent people certainly did keep their mouths shut with all but trusted friends or family. The Nazi state was a police state. It has been compared to a snake, if you trod on its tail it would bite you.
> Steve



Go to the Axis History Forum, there's at least one instant, in the falbiel (guillotine) thread of the warcrimes section. A person was not only arrested but executed for a joke. 

After July 44 it didn't take much to get accused of "conduct detrimental to the Reichs morale", or however it was phrased.


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## GrauGeist (Jul 3, 2015)

Of the men I knew, who were involved in the German military, one joined the SS because of "a firm invitation" but was able to remain in combat units as a panzergrenadier.
The other joined the Luftwaffe (in the late 30's) because of the "_high spirits and a sense of adventure of the times_" and the other was actually a Czech, who as a young man, had a great love of aircraft and when a Luftwaffe base was established nearby, became a shop helper, eventually being employed by the Luftwaffe, learning to be a mechanic and machinist during his time there.

Three different people and three entirely different reasons for being involved with the military.


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## pbehn (Jul 3, 2015)

Hitlers regime enjoyed complete success from his rise to power until the invasion of Russia ground to a halt. How this was perceived and reported in Germany is a matter of debate. The disaster of Stalingrad wasnt reported to the German people until the beginning of 1943 and by the autumn of 1944 Hitler was withdrawing from the world of reason into his bunker. From a fruitcake empire that lasted for a matter of months controlling most of Europe a large part of North Africa and the Middle East. I am sure almost every opinion is possible from the most extreme to the most benign.


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## Lucky13 (Jul 3, 2015)

GrauGeist said:


> The Iraqi war was not an act of "leibensraum" or an act of "protecting Russian speaking minorities".



True, it was to secure and protect the bacon!


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## GrauGeist (Jul 3, 2015)

Lucky13 said:


> True, it was to secure and protect the bacon!


But there isn't any bacon in that region, which is probably why those people are so angry all the time...

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## Airframes (Jul 3, 2015)

Well, they would be, with no 'Baconzraum' to look forward to .......................


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## stona (Jul 4, 2015)

tyrodtom said:


> After July 44 it didn't take much to get accused of "conduct detrimental to the Reichs morale", or however it was phrased.



From July '44 onwards, but really by early '45 the 'justice' system, for what it was worth, was breaking down. Summary executions and the sentences of what amounted to no more than kangaroo courts are something different.

Steve


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## silence (Jul 30, 2015)

Harkening back to post #95, we have the Third Wave "experiment" of April, 1967:

"The Third Wave was an experimental social movement created by high school history teacher Ron Jones to explain how the German populace could accept the actions of the Nazi regime during the Second World War. While he taught his students about Nazi Germany during his "Contemporary World History" class, Jones found it difficult to explain how the German people could accept the actions of the Nazis, and decided to create a social movement as a demonstration of the appeal of fascism. Over the course of five days, Jones conducted a series of exercises in his classroom emphasizing discipline and community, intended to model certain characteristics of the Nazi movement. As the movement grew outside his class and began to number in the hundreds, Jones began to feel that the movement had spiraled out of control. He convinced the students to attend a rally where he claimed the announcement of a Third Wave presidential candidate would be televised. Upon their arrival, the students were presented with a blank channel and told his students of the true nature of the movement as an experiment in fascism, presenting the students with a short film discussing the actions of Nazi Germany." - Wiki (yes, its actually accurate!)

There's a novelized book, THE WAVE (
_View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICng-KRxXJ8_) - please look past the 1980s fashions!

And a German film adaptation: THE WAVE (DIE WELLE) (
_View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Psp3dGDGNgk_)

And a website, THE WAVE HOME (The Wave Home - The Wave, Die Welle, The Third Wave - Official Website)

Should you choose to look into The Wave, try to keep in mind that this took place over a period of only five days. Then consider that the Nazis had YEARS to keep hammering home their tenents to an entire nation.

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## stona (Jul 30, 2015)

I haven't watched that yet, but I doubt that Ron had the benefit of a terror apparatus to encourage those who might oppose his movement. During the revolution (and that's what it was) of 1933 nearly 200,000 political opponents to the NSDAP passed through the hundreds of early concentration camps. Most were released in days or weeks having been given a short and painful lesson by the SA thugs who ran the camps. Some were not released (the lawyer Hans Litten springs to mind) and some were killed or pushed to suicide. The majority of the victims of this so called protective custody were members of the two major parties of the left, the social democrats and communists, though many others got caught up in the terror.
Steve


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## GrauGeist (Jul 30, 2015)

The Political dissidents, the Intellectuals, the people who tend to be on the edge of the crowd: the ones that stand out - these are the ones that get rounded up first. The people see them whisked away and the herd tightens to avoid being next.

Then the ones that helped the regime come to power, they're next. Because they have already proven that they can be dangerous and the regime doesn't like that.

This method of controlling the people has worked remarkably well over the centuries


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## stona (Jul 30, 2015)

GrauGeist said:


> The Political dissidents, the Intellectuals, the people who tend to be on the edge of the crowd: the ones that stand out - these are the ones that get rounded up first. The people see them whisked away and the herd tightens to avoid being next.
> 
> Then the ones that helped the regime come to power, they're next. Because they have already proven that they can be dangerous and the regime doesn't like that.
> 
> This method of controlling the people has worked remarkably well over the centuries



In the post 1935 Himmler/Eicke/SS controlled concentration camps there were several categories of prisoner. The camps were most lethal to those that fell into one of the 'asocial' groups such as work shy or habitual criminals. This was pretty much the case up to WW2.
Steve


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