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On February 12 2011 09:24 Genome852 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 10 2011 19:16 emc wrote:On February 10 2011 14:07 travito wrote:On February 10 2011 14:02 Alexhandr wrote:On February 10 2011 14:01 Eskii wrote:On February 10 2011 13:54 Silidons wrote:
If I say it, I'll probably get banned. Fine, if you don't say it, I will... THE HOLOCAUST! Oh... only absolute morons deny such things. You can't hide the deaths of 11 million innocent people. =/ Despite the atrocities of the holocaust, Hitler was a brilliant leader. He can be credited with huge a economic boom during his time, as well as military success. My question is why is he painted as the posterboy for evil when Stalin and Mao both killed thousands more people under their rule? I am in no way trying to undermine the horrors of the holocaust, but I don't really understand why Stalin or Mao don't get the same negative attention that Hitler does. :/ big difference, hitler intentionally killed people through holocaust and war, under stalins rule you can argue that the people just died due to the conditions of the environment and time they were in. It's like saying Obama should be held accountable for deaths that occur every day in the US. I'm not comparing Stalin to Obama, but this is why there is a difference between hitler and these other guys. I agree though, stalin and mao are pretty bad people but still don't really compare to what hitler did. Agreed. Deaths caused by Stalin and Mao were largely indirect, as opposed to the Holocaust (how can people even deny this happened?)
That's a myth youknow. Stalin had more deathcamps than Hitler and also targetted Jews at the end of his life.
Truth be told most westerners know atrociously little about how and why most crimes against humanity came to be. Most people don't even know who Pol Pot was or how he came to power (America's CIA is the biggest culprint, followed by Russia and China).
EDIT: Sorry, somehow missclicked and doubble posted.
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On February 12 2011 12:31 Aurocaido wrote:Show nested quote +On February 12 2011 12:27 Aurocaido wrote:On February 12 2011 06:22 jello_biafra wrote:On February 12 2011 06:12 DrTJEckleburg wrote:On February 12 2011 05:59 Krohm wrote:
Another people tend to forget is that France and Britain declared war on Germany first. Germany was well aware that France and Britain were going to declare war on them upon invading Poland. A clumsy response and mobilization by France and Britain then resulted in Germany conquering Poland relatively unscathed. As long as were around that time period, a lot of people already know about Neville Chamberlain being famous for his policy of appeasement towards Germany. However, he wasn't trying to simply keep Europe out of a state of war like many may think, he was trying to delay Germany in order to prepare for the inevitable Battle of Britain. Although this is completely irrelevant too since because he allowed Czechoslovakia to be taken by Germany. At that time the Czechs held the second strongest army in the world behind France(yes); Germany was allowed to take the country with zero casualties and absorb an incredible amount of equipment and supplies. Had Chamberlain refused to comply with Hitler's demands, Germany could not win a three-pronged war from Czechoslovakia, France, and Poland(not to mention the Soviet Union was allied with Czechoslovakia.) It wasn't so much a clumsy response from France and Britain as simply having outdated technology, Germany learned a lot of lessons from the first world war, how to use tanks and planes properly, made loads of them and implemented blitzkrieg to devastating effect. The British and French were cocky from victory in WW1 and didn't focus on the development of their military as heavily as the Germans. France's attempt at invading Germany in September 1939 did not go well... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saar_Offensive Most of this is in fact incorrect and one of the many reasons you should never quote wikipedia as a source. At the onset of the Second World War France had a much larger and more advaced military than Germany at that time. The German army was small by comparision and their tanks were far inferior to the French. It is only latter in the war where German Tiger II and Panther tanks were develped. The French tanks were more advanced at the onset of war, what wasn't more advanced however were their military tactics. France had a tendancy to take things to the extreme. In WW1 there was what is now called the "Cult of the Offensive." French generals believed in all out attack as the best stategy and this cost them dearly. Charging into barbed wire and machine gun fire was never going to end well. From the experiences of WW1 France saw their offensive actions as the cause of the huge losses they suffered and became dead set that the defensive was the best way to win a war. This was articulated in the Maginot Line, and was one of the primary reasons France decided not to attack Germany even thought they outmubered them 110 divisions to 23 on the Western Front in 1939. A high ranking Nazi official at the Nuremburg Trials testified that Germany should have collapsed in 1939 from an allied attack that never came. The strategy of France was also comepletly outdated. Instead of consentration of armour and the use of aircraft for ground support, they would evenly distribute tanks and planes between divisions. The French and British were simply unprepared to deal with the highly advanced military tactics utilized by the German Wehrmacht. There are also other factors that contributed to the fall of France stemming from internal desent that I will not get into. However France greatly outnumbered the German army in terms of men and armour, not the other way around which is commonly believed.
Ok you're right, it was the tactics, not the technology that was outdated.
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Heinrich Schliemann probably planted Agamemnon's death mask. The style of mustache of the mask was quite popular around the time of Schliemann. Also, the gold that the mask was made out of could easily be tested to determine the origin, but the Greek government refuses to do so. Some hypothesize that the reason they won't let people do the test is because they already have, and it's indeed a fake.
Not to discredit Heinrich Schliemann's awesome find of (probably) Troy, although he kinda destroyed all sorts of stuff.
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On February 12 2011 18:10 Krehlmar wrote:Show nested quote +On February 12 2011 09:24 Genome852 wrote:On February 10 2011 19:16 emc wrote:On February 10 2011 14:07 travito wrote:On February 10 2011 14:02 Alexhandr wrote:On February 10 2011 14:01 Eskii wrote:On February 10 2011 13:54 Silidons wrote:
If I say it, I'll probably get banned. Fine, if you don't say it, I will... THE HOLOCAUST! Oh... only absolute morons deny such things. You can't hide the deaths of 11 million innocent people. =/ Despite the atrocities of the holocaust, Hitler was a brilliant leader. He can be credited with huge a economic boom during his time, as well as military success. My question is why is he painted as the posterboy for evil when Stalin and Mao both killed thousands more people under their rule? I am in no way trying to undermine the horrors of the holocaust, but I don't really understand why Stalin or Mao don't get the same negative attention that Hitler does. :/ big difference, hitler intentionally killed people through holocaust and war, under stalins rule you can argue that the people just died due to the conditions of the environment and time they were in. It's like saying Obama should be held accountable for deaths that occur every day in the US. I'm not comparing Stalin to Obama, but this is why there is a difference between hitler and these other guys. I agree though, stalin and mao are pretty bad people but still don't really compare to what hitler did. Agreed. Deaths caused by Stalin and Mao were largely indirect, as opposed to the Holocaust (how can people even deny this happened?) That's a myth youknow. Stalin had more deathcamps than Hitler and also targetted Jews at the end of his life. Truth be told most westerners know atrociously little about how and why most crimes against humanity came to be. Most people don't even know who Pol Pot was or how he came to power (America's CIA is the biggest culprint, followed by Russia and China). EDIT: Sorry, somehow missclicked and doubble posted.
Not that I agree with him that deaths caused by Stalin were indirect, but I already posted numbers that show that number of deaths in gulags is much lower than those in nazi death camps. Also gulags were more prisons/labor camps, germans had those too, but nazis had also real death camps.
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On February 12 2011 17:13 mcc wrote:Show nested quote +On February 12 2011 12:18 woowoo wrote:On February 12 2011 10:12 Kimaker wrote:
4. Bronze age Greece is akin to the Mayans. They just sorta...disappeared. The only records from that time speak of an alliance of "People from the sea" or "People of the sea" that set out to conquer the known world. Phoneticians are believed to be descendants of those conquerors. The supposed invasion force was eventually stopped in Egypt by...eh...I'll have to recheck this but I think it was Ramses the....third? O_o? Eh, not much survives from that period so the whole things sorta up in the air.
Anyway, just some neat historical points that tend to rile people up and get people talking. I read in a science newspaper we recently discovered traces of cocaine in severals mummies, I don't remember the datation. How can we find cocaine in egyptian mummies?? (coca was unkown until the discovery of america) Unless you point to a historical paper there is no reason to believe it.
here it is
It seems the cocaine found in the mummies aren't linked to coca from south america but another plant found in India.
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On February 13 2011 01:09 woowoo wrote:Show nested quote +On February 12 2011 17:13 mcc wrote:On February 12 2011 12:18 woowoo wrote:On February 12 2011 10:12 Kimaker wrote:
4. Bronze age Greece is akin to the Mayans. They just sorta...disappeared. The only records from that time speak of an alliance of "People from the sea" or "People of the sea" that set out to conquer the known world. Phoneticians are believed to be descendants of those conquerors. The supposed invasion force was eventually stopped in Egypt by...eh...I'll have to recheck this but I think it was Ramses the....third? O_o? Eh, not much survives from that period so the whole things sorta up in the air.
Anyway, just some neat historical points that tend to rile people up and get people talking. I read in a science newspaper we recently discovered traces of cocaine in severals mummies, I don't remember the datation. How can we find cocaine in egyptian mummies?? (coca was unkown until the discovery of america) Unless you point to a historical paper there is no reason to believe it. here it isIt seems the cocaine found in the mummies aren't linked to coca from south america but another plant found in India.
I hoped for a paper(as in scientific, reviewed one) but this still seems reasonable. Probably does not indicate contact between Eurasia and Americas, but still cool though, thanks.
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I'm sorry but I can't link a french newspapers (made with real paper) which is just the translated Scientific American newspaper. I had to find internet material.
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He can be credited with huge a economic boom during his time, as well as military success. My question is why is he painted as the posterboy for evil when Stalin and Mao both killed thousands more people under their rule? I am in no way trying to undermine the horrors of the holocaust, but I don't really understand why Stalin or Mao don't get the same negative attention that Hitler does
Because neither Stalin nor Mao caused World War 3?
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Initially, I was very interested in reading this thread. I enjoy learning new facts and the methods used to obtain them. New perspectives when proven with factual evidence can often cause one to reexamine their perspectives on many things.
However, far too many of these posters are the kind of moron who believes we never really went to the moon. I hate the conspiracy theorist psycho-babble that uninformed people spout out like lawn sprinklers in a trailer park.
You can go outside on a clear night with a cheap telescope purchased at Wal-mart and SEE the things we left there. (moon).
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On February 10 2011 14:07 travito wrote:Show nested quote +On February 10 2011 14:02 Alexhandr wrote:On February 10 2011 14:01 Eskii wrote:On February 10 2011 13:54 Silidons wrote:
If I say it, I'll probably get banned. Fine, if you don't say it, I will... THE HOLOCAUST! Oh... only absolute morons deny such things. You can't hide the deaths of 11 million innocent people. =/ Despite the atrocities of the holocaust, Hitler was a brilliant leader. He can be credited with huge a economic boom during his time, as well as military success. My question is why is he painted as the posterboy for evil when Stalin and Mao both killed thousands more people under their rule? I am in no way trying to undermine the horrors of the holocaust, but I don't really understand why Stalin or Mao don't get the same negative attention that Hitler does. :/
Depends what you call a brilliant leader. He led his country into the worst area of crime and madness and to disastrous wars which ended in an equally disastrous defeat.
Hitler was not a glorious leader. He was just a bit nuts, incredibly mean, and came at the right time. He was also a poor military leader as he personaly took several decisions against the advices of all his generals which led to disaster such as the defeat of Stalingrad, the success of the D-Day or the escape of the english army from France.
There is nothing to be admired from Hitler. He was not even intelligent. I've read Mein Kempf, it's justa paranoic delirium awfully badly written.
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What are debatable accounts of history?
The Bible. It claims to be a historical text but legitimate historical sources tend to prove it wrong time and time again. One example is how the Bible depicted Plato as the thoughtful Roman governor who respected Jewish traditions when a legitimate source in Josephus records many acts of cruelty and thoughtlessness when it comes to Jewish traditions or religious practices.
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On February 13 2011 10:05 Biff The Understudy wrote:Show nested quote +On February 10 2011 14:07 travito wrote:On February 10 2011 14:02 Alexhandr wrote:On February 10 2011 14:01 Eskii wrote:On February 10 2011 13:54 Silidons wrote:
If I say it, I'll probably get banned. Fine, if you don't say it, I will... THE HOLOCAUST! Oh... only absolute morons deny such things. You can't hide the deaths of 11 million innocent people. =/ Despite the atrocities of the holocaust, Hitler was a brilliant leader. He can be credited with huge a economic boom during his time, as well as military success. My question is why is he painted as the posterboy for evil when Stalin and Mao both killed thousands more people under their rule? I am in no way trying to undermine the horrors of the holocaust, but I don't really understand why Stalin or Mao don't get the same negative attention that Hitler does. :/ Depends what you call a brilliant leader. He led his country into the worst area of crime and madness and to disastrous wars which ended in an equally disastrous defeat. Hitler was not a glorious leader. He was just a bit nuts, incredibly mean, and came at the right time. He was also a poor military leader as he personaly took several decisions against the advices of all his generals which led to disaster such as the defeat of Stalingrad, the success of the D-Day or the escape of the english army from France. There is nothing to be admired from Hitler. He was not even intelligent. I've read Mein Kempf, it's justa paranoic delirium awfully badly written.
Intelligence can be in a lot of things. Hitler was a political genius and he was charismatic. He raised Germany from a poor country to a world power in a matter of years. He just applied everything very poorly and was a megalomaniac. He lead the Germany army to total defeat as well as you stated. But you can't deny what he did for his country initially was no small feat.
I also don't mean to split hairs here, but Hitler killed approximately 6 million Jews. The other 5 million that were exterminated were of other backgrounds.
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On February 13 2011 15:05 NEWater wrote:
What are debatable accounts of history?
The Bible. It claims to be a historical text but legitimate historical sources tend to prove it wrong time and time again. One example is how the Bible depicted Plato as the thoughtful Roman governor who respected Jewish traditions when a legitimate source in Josephus records many acts of cruelty and thoughtlessness when it comes to Jewish traditions or religious practices.
The Bible does not present Plato as a roman governor at all (neither does Josephus) Pilate is not depicted as particularly respectful of Jewish traditions in the Bible other than that
1. he gave them a gesture at Passover
2. he dealt with the local elites
3. he was afraid of the mob
All seems like the acts of someone who could be cruel and thoughtless when it comes to traditions/practices.
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On February 10 2011 20:34 Jayme wrote:Show nested quote +On February 10 2011 19:53 emythrel wrote:On February 10 2011 19:48 Jayme wrote:On February 10 2011 14:07 travito wrote:On February 10 2011 14:02 Alexhandr wrote:On February 10 2011 14:01 Eskii wrote:On February 10 2011 13:54 Silidons wrote:
If I say it, I'll probably get banned. Fine, if you don't say it, I will... THE HOLOCAUST! Oh... only absolute morons deny such things. You can't hide the deaths of 11 million innocent people. =/ Despite the atrocities of the holocaust, Hitler was a brilliant leader. He can be credited with huge a economic boom during his time, as well as military success. My question is why is he painted as the posterboy for evil when Stalin and Mao both killed thousands more people under their rule? I am in no way trying to undermine the horrors of the holocaust, but I don't really understand why Stalin or Mao don't get the same negative attention that Hitler does. :/ Not quite sure. Hitler was one of those people that have so much impact on history...more so than Stalin or Mao could ever dream of. WW2 started pretty much on the agenda of one man...one man pretty much initiated WW2. That sort of influence is unheard of. Also people tend to be more sensitive when the genocide is...race related or the like. Stalin killed people to extend his own governmental power. If you weren't communist then you were as good as dead to Stalin. HItler killed Jewish people just because he could really. Hitler was a brilliant POLITICAL leader. He knew propaganda and how to use it. His fault was that he simply wasn't a military genius. If he had kept out of running the military and instead just told them who to invade and left his generals to it the war probably would have turned out VERY VERY differently. Thankfully he was arrogant to a fault. actually until the allies began to push the germans back, Hitler had been a very good military leader. Tyrant or not, he was the mastermind behind their german advance that swept though europe. The tide only turned when the US joined the fight and we had the man power to push him back, we won the war.... Hitler didn't lose it (if you catch my meaning). it was only when things got really bad that Hitler became more and more desperate and stopped thinking straight (well by his standards lol). Hitler was always a kneejerk reactionary military leader. The blitzkrieg was a collaboration thing and relied very heavily on surprise and their superior tank technology. This had little do with Hitler and more to do with common sense. The siege of Stalingrad was one of the biggest tactical blunders to ever grace an attacking army. As if attacking the Soviet Union wasn't enough, doing so in the winter, as well as allowing the lions share of your army to be surrounded in Stalingrad when Hitler had MULTIPLE chances to retreat and cut his losses dramatically is almost hilarious in its ridiculousness. Almost all of Hitler's generals told him point blank that Stalingrad was going to turn into a death trap if he didn't GTFO. He didn't GTFO and it turned into a death trap, and then the Soviet Union steam rolled Germany. That was when the tide changed in the war. It had little to do with the US. The US's main contribution in WW2 occurred in the Pacific theater. The European theater was dominated by the British crippling the Luftwaffe and the Soviet Union picking over half of Germany's available army to pieces. The US helped with Normandy and all that but by that time all the signs for a German collapse was already there because of Hitlers stubborn and frankly retarded attack on Stalingrad. If Germany had never attacked Russia, or if they had retreated from Stalingrad... the war would have turned out differently. I'm not saying that Germany would have won, but the Allied breakout after Normandy would have been much more difficult than it already was if the red army wasn't breathing down Germany's neck at the same time. If Germany had won or just not been completely steam rolled on the eastern front they may have had the time necessary to either develop a weapon of mass destruction, or some sort of stalemate. Hitler's arrogance is why the German army collapsed as quickly as it did. The German military commanders were scary good, the world is lucky Hitler was arrogant.
The Germans had INFERIOR tank tech vs the French and British in 1940:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOMUA_S35
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Char_D2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matilda_I_(tank)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matilda_II
These tanks were also the reason behind the Germans adapting the 8.8cm FlaK cannon as an AT weapon:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8.8_cm_FlaK_18/36/37/41
In fact, Charles De Gaulle's tank battalion pre-war was comparable to the Panzer III and IVs that were the heaviest tanks to be outfitted for combat by the Germans (they even had radio communications); maintenance and reliability problems crippled more of the heaviest French tanks than were knocked out by enemy action.
As for the capability to defeat the Germans in the East, it would have been much more difficult for the Soviets to have defeated the Germans without the help of American Lend Lease, which varied from full fighters like the P-39 Airacobra and P-63 Kingcobra (American exports contributed up to a fifth of total airplane usage in the Eastern Front and were viewed very favorably by their top aces), to the Studebaker US6 and Dodge WC Series 1/2 ton trucks, which formed the backbone of the supply system of their push to Germany, and twelve thousand locomotives and railcars and rails to go along with them.
Yes, all links from Wiki, but all well-sourced articles; read the articles linked for further reading.
On February 12 2011 02:26 Krohm wrote:Show nested quote +On February 12 2011 02:13 Aurocaido wrote:On February 11 2011 18:19 Jayme wrote:On February 11 2011 10:10 UberThing wrote:
Dresden bombing in WW2 and the atomic bombs in Japan.
These were arguably "atrocities" by any definition as it involved the mass killing of primarily civilians.
History has a tendency to lose focus of this. History is written by the winners? Yes.
The systematic firebombing of any German city of note was not so much targeted at civilians but because a fair few of them had a whole lot of war industry in them. Please remember that this was a war. As much as people wanted to be humanitarian within it....when a worlds survival is at stake there are going to be bad points to it. You cannot avoid this. While they could have been more PRECISE in their bombing and they could have avoided strategic targets with heavily civilian presence...I don't think they quite qualify as atrocities. You could say war as a whole is an atrocity if you want, that I would be far more willing to agree with. The atomic bombs are FAR FAR more complicated. For some reason people tend to believe that the atomic bombs on Japan were a complete unnecessary loss of life and that they were an unneeded overkill. I highly doubt that a land invasion would have been any "better." In fact going by evidence, culture, and how difficult it would be to invade Japan I can fairly safely say that a land invasion would have had far more civilian casualties...hell casualties in general than the atomic bombs did. The Japan of WW2 is the same country that invented the Kaiten suicide submarine and had absolutely no qualm about flying their airplanes into ships and sacrificing themselves. They would have fought to every last man, woman, and probably child if it came down to it. The ONLY reason Japan even surrendered after that second atomic bomb was because they falsely believed we had more bombs to use and the military still threatened a coup because they were so pissed off at the surrender. Japan was more than willing to fight to the absolute death instead of surrendering. Do you honestly believe this would have been a better outcome? War sucks. A lot of people die in them. Any alternative leads to death. There is in my mind no question that events such as the fire bombing of Desden, Tokyo, and Cologne and the droping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not just attrocities but war crimes. The holocaust is considered particularily "evil" (if something can be classified as such) not just because of the number of people that died, but the deliberate and systematic way in which it was done by an industrialized modern state. Many people condone the carpet bombing of Germany and Japan by claiming it was to target military targets. However, it is well known that it was allied policy to directly target civilian targets in order to crush the fighting spirit of the Axis states. What is the difference between the Nazi targeting of Jews and Slavs and the allied targeting of civilians? Sure, many will argure that the Nazis needed to be stopped and I agree whole heartedly with that. Yet the manner in which the allied war effort was conducted leads me to question the superior morality of the allied nations. There is a fundamental difference between the deaths of soldiers and of innocent women and children. There is the argument as well stateing that if these bombings of civilian targets had not occured the war would have been dragged out for years. This is an assumption from the years I have spent studying history to be exagerated. Even before the all out allied bombing campain against civilian targets, the Soviet Red Army had the German Wehrmacht in full retreat. It is estimated that upwards of eighty percent of Germanys fighting capacity was focused on the eastern front. It seems unlikely that the allied bombing of civilian targets contributed to the speady collapse of Germany in any way except morale. Which at that time point German public support was already going against the Nazis. I have never been a firm believer in the end justifies the means. Especially if the means is in no way morally superior to the present circumstance. That is just my take on it. Yeah that's something about WWII that has always bothered me. The Axis powers are permanently flagged as "evil" and they are known for killing innocent people. But no one seems to remember the firebombings of all major German and Japanese cities. Cities full of civilians. Tokyo was practically leveled, especially the residential areas. The atomic bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima is debatable as well. Now I'm not condoning what the Axis powers did, it's just there is really two sides of evil. The Allies won though and are regarded as heroes.
Geez, some people have not quite examined how production methods in both Japan and Germany differed. Japan's war industry was by the time of the fireboming raids by B-29s, was not concentrated solely in factories anymore. Much of the smaller segments of production were done in individual homes, which also housed the people doing the production along with their families. What made firebombing even more destructive was that Japanese homes were made primarily of wood, and the population density of these houses resulted in streets and areas that were vulnerable not just to the fire from the bombs, but also collateral burning from uncontrolled flames jumping across narrow streets.
Germany's production never quite descended into the every home a workshop level, but what made it even more difficult for the Allies was that they were actively disguising production facilities as no-target facilities like hospitals (there are cases of factories being painted with the Red Cross sign to dissuade targeting) and that they were hiding it in the most unlikely of places e.g. inside forests, air-raid bunkers and caves. Also adding to the mess was the activity of German anti-bombing defenses, resulting in carpet bombing having much less of an impact (misses IIRC were more prevalent than hits) on heavily defended sectors.
Meanwhile I'd like to point out the atrocity of mass deportation of both Poles and Germans by the Soviets; that's a larger refugee crisis than anything that ever happened in Africa; with the whole of Prussia virtually depopulated of Germans.
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On February 13 2011 15:20 Krohm wrote:Show nested quote +On February 13 2011 10:05 Biff The Understudy wrote:On February 10 2011 14:07 travito wrote:On February 10 2011 14:02 Alexhandr wrote:On February 10 2011 14:01 Eskii wrote:On February 10 2011 13:54 Silidons wrote:
If I say it, I'll probably get banned. Fine, if you don't say it, I will... THE HOLOCAUST! Oh... only absolute morons deny such things. You can't hide the deaths of 11 million innocent people. =/ Despite the atrocities of the holocaust, Hitler was a brilliant leader. He can be credited with huge a economic boom during his time, as well as military success. My question is why is he painted as the posterboy for evil when Stalin and Mao both killed thousands more people under their rule? I am in no way trying to undermine the horrors of the holocaust, but I don't really understand why Stalin or Mao don't get the same negative attention that Hitler does. :/ Depends what you call a brilliant leader. He led his country into the worst area of crime and madness and to disastrous wars which ended in an equally disastrous defeat. Hitler was not a glorious leader. He was just a bit nuts, incredibly mean, and came at the right time. He was also a poor military leader as he personaly took several decisions against the advices of all his generals which led to disaster such as the defeat of Stalingrad, the success of the D-Day or the escape of the english army from France. There is nothing to be admired from Hitler. He was not even intelligent. I've read Mein Kempf, it's justa paranoic delirium awfully badly written. Intelligence can be in a lot of things. Hitler was a political genius and he was charismatic. He raised Germany from a poor country to a world power in a matter of years. He just applied everything very poorly and was a megalomaniac. He lead the Germany army to total defeat as well as you stated. But you can't deny what he did for his country initially was no small feat. I also don't mean to split hairs here, but Hitler killed approximately 6 million Jews. The other 5 million that were exterminated were of other backgrounds.
He definitely did not raise Germany from a poor country to world power. Germany was never a poor country relative to other countries of the time, quite the opposite. He seems to have done few small things that compounded with the natural end of Great Depression made him look as economic genius.
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On February 13 2011 17:06 Ciryandor wrote:Show nested quote +On February 10 2011 20:34 Jayme wrote:On February 10 2011 19:53 emythrel wrote:On February 10 2011 19:48 Jayme wrote:On February 10 2011 14:07 travito wrote:On February 10 2011 14:02 Alexhandr wrote:On February 10 2011 14:01 Eskii wrote:On February 10 2011 13:54 Silidons wrote:
If I say it, I'll probably get banned. Fine, if you don't say it, I will... THE HOLOCAUST! Oh... only absolute morons deny such things. You can't hide the deaths of 11 million innocent people. =/ Despite the atrocities of the holocaust, Hitler was a brilliant leader. He can be credited with huge a economic boom during his time, as well as military success. My question is why is he painted as the posterboy for evil when Stalin and Mao both killed thousands more people under their rule? I am in no way trying to undermine the horrors of the holocaust, but I don't really understand why Stalin or Mao don't get the same negative attention that Hitler does. :/ Not quite sure. Hitler was one of those people that have so much impact on history...more so than Stalin or Mao could ever dream of. WW2 started pretty much on the agenda of one man...one man pretty much initiated WW2. That sort of influence is unheard of. Also people tend to be more sensitive when the genocide is...race related or the like. Stalin killed people to extend his own governmental power. If you weren't communist then you were as good as dead to Stalin. HItler killed Jewish people just because he could really. Hitler was a brilliant POLITICAL leader. He knew propaganda and how to use it. His fault was that he simply wasn't a military genius. If he had kept out of running the military and instead just told them who to invade and left his generals to it the war probably would have turned out VERY VERY differently. Thankfully he was arrogant to a fault. actually until the allies began to push the germans back, Hitler had been a very good military leader. Tyrant or not, he was the mastermind behind their german advance that swept though europe. The tide only turned when the US joined the fight and we had the man power to push him back, we won the war.... Hitler didn't lose it (if you catch my meaning). it was only when things got really bad that Hitler became more and more desperate and stopped thinking straight (well by his standards lol). Hitler was always a kneejerk reactionary military leader. The blitzkrieg was a collaboration thing and relied very heavily on surprise and their superior tank technology. This had little do with Hitler and more to do with common sense. The siege of Stalingrad was one of the biggest tactical blunders to ever grace an attacking army. As if attacking the Soviet Union wasn't enough, doing so in the winter, as well as allowing the lions share of your army to be surrounded in Stalingrad when Hitler had MULTIPLE chances to retreat and cut his losses dramatically is almost hilarious in its ridiculousness. Almost all of Hitler's generals told him point blank that Stalingrad was going to turn into a death trap if he didn't GTFO. He didn't GTFO and it turned into a death trap, and then the Soviet Union steam rolled Germany. That was when the tide changed in the war. It had little to do with the US. The US's main contribution in WW2 occurred in the Pacific theater. The European theater was dominated by the British crippling the Luftwaffe and the Soviet Union picking over half of Germany's available army to pieces. The US helped with Normandy and all that but by that time all the signs for a German collapse was already there because of Hitlers stubborn and frankly retarded attack on Stalingrad. If Germany had never attacked Russia, or if they had retreated from Stalingrad... the war would have turned out differently. I'm not saying that Germany would have won, but the Allied breakout after Normandy would have been much more difficult than it already was if the red army wasn't breathing down Germany's neck at the same time. If Germany had won or just not been completely steam rolled on the eastern front they may have had the time necessary to either develop a weapon of mass destruction, or some sort of stalemate. Hitler's arrogance is why the German army collapsed as quickly as it did. The German military commanders were scary good, the world is lucky Hitler was arrogant. The Germans had INFERIOR tank tech vs the French and British in 1940: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOMUA_S35http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Char_D2http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matilda_I_(tank)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matilda_IIThese tanks were also the reason behind the Germans adapting the 8.8cm FlaK cannon as an AT weapon: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8.8_cm_FlaK_18/36/37/41In fact, Charles De Gaulle's tank battalion pre-war was comparable to the Panzer III and IVs that were the heaviest tanks to be outfitted for combat by the Germans (they even had radio communications); maintenance and reliability problems crippled more of the heaviest French tanks than were knocked out by enemy action. As for the capability to defeat the Germans in the East, it would have been much more difficult for the Soviets to have defeated the Germans without the help of American Lend Lease, which varied from full fighters like the P-39 Airacobra and P-63 Kingcobra (American exports contributed up to a fifth of total airplane usage in the Eastern Front and were viewed very favorably by their top aces), to the Studebaker US6 and Dodge WC Series 1/2 ton trucks, which formed the backbone of the supply system of their push to Germany, and twelve thousand locomotives and railcars and rails to go along with them. Yes, all links from Wiki, but all well-sourced articles; read the articles linked for further reading. Show nested quote +On February 12 2011 02:26 Krohm wrote:On February 12 2011 02:13 Aurocaido wrote:On February 11 2011 18:19 Jayme wrote:On February 11 2011 10:10 UberThing wrote:
Dresden bombing in WW2 and the atomic bombs in Japan.
These were arguably "atrocities" by any definition as it involved the mass killing of primarily civilians.
History has a tendency to lose focus of this. History is written by the winners? Yes.
The systematic firebombing of any German city of note was not so much targeted at civilians but because a fair few of them had a whole lot of war industry in them. Please remember that this was a war. As much as people wanted to be humanitarian within it....when a worlds survival is at stake there are going to be bad points to it. You cannot avoid this. While they could have been more PRECISE in their bombing and they could have avoided strategic targets with heavily civilian presence...I don't think they quite qualify as atrocities. You could say war as a whole is an atrocity if you want, that I would be far more willing to agree with. The atomic bombs are FAR FAR more complicated. For some reason people tend to believe that the atomic bombs on Japan were a complete unnecessary loss of life and that they were an unneeded overkill. I highly doubt that a land invasion would have been any "better." In fact going by evidence, culture, and how difficult it would be to invade Japan I can fairly safely say that a land invasion would have had far more civilian casualties...hell casualties in general than the atomic bombs did. The Japan of WW2 is the same country that invented the Kaiten suicide submarine and had absolutely no qualm about flying their airplanes into ships and sacrificing themselves. They would have fought to every last man, woman, and probably child if it came down to it. The ONLY reason Japan even surrendered after that second atomic bomb was because they falsely believed we had more bombs to use and the military still threatened a coup because they were so pissed off at the surrender. Japan was more than willing to fight to the absolute death instead of surrendering. Do you honestly believe this would have been a better outcome? War sucks. A lot of people die in them. Any alternative leads to death. There is in my mind no question that events such as the fire bombing of Desden, Tokyo, and Cologne and the droping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not just attrocities but war crimes. The holocaust is considered particularily "evil" (if something can be classified as such) not just because of the number of people that died, but the deliberate and systematic way in which it was done by an industrialized modern state. Many people condone the carpet bombing of Germany and Japan by claiming it was to target military targets. However, it is well known that it was allied policy to directly target civilian targets in order to crush the fighting spirit of the Axis states. What is the difference between the Nazi targeting of Jews and Slavs and the allied targeting of civilians? Sure, many will argure that the Nazis needed to be stopped and I agree whole heartedly with that. Yet the manner in which the allied war effort was conducted leads me to question the superior morality of the allied nations. There is a fundamental difference between the deaths of soldiers and of innocent women and children. There is the argument as well stateing that if these bombings of civilian targets had not occured the war would have been dragged out for years. This is an assumption from the years I have spent studying history to be exagerated. Even before the all out allied bombing campain against civilian targets, the Soviet Red Army had the German Wehrmacht in full retreat. It is estimated that upwards of eighty percent of Germanys fighting capacity was focused on the eastern front. It seems unlikely that the allied bombing of civilian targets contributed to the speady collapse of Germany in any way except morale. Which at that time point German public support was already going against the Nazis. I have never been a firm believer in the end justifies the means. Especially if the means is in no way morally superior to the present circumstance. That is just my take on it. Yeah that's something about WWII that has always bothered me. The Axis powers are permanently flagged as "evil" and they are known for killing innocent people. But no one seems to remember the firebombings of all major German and Japanese cities. Cities full of civilians. Tokyo was practically leveled, especially the residential areas. The atomic bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima is debatable as well. Now I'm not condoning what the Axis powers did, it's just there is really two sides of evil. The Allies won though and are regarded as heroes. Geez, some people have not quite examined how production methods in both Japan and Germany differed. Japan's war industry was by the time of the fireboming raids by B-29s, was not concentrated solely in factories anymore. Much of the smaller segments of production were done in individual homes, which also housed the people doing the production along with their families. What made firebombing even more destructive was that Japanese homes were made primarily of wood, and the population density of these houses resulted in streets and areas that were vulnerable not just to the fire from the bombs, but also collateral burning from uncontrolled flames jumping across narrow streets. Germany's production never quite descended into the every home a workshop level, but what made it even more difficult for the Allies was that they were actively disguising production facilities as no-target facilities like hospitals (there are cases of factories being painted with the Red Cross sign to dissuade targeting) and that they were hiding it in the most unlikely of places e.g. inside forests, air-raid bunkers and caves. Also adding to the mess was the activity of German anti-bombing defenses, resulting in carpet bombing having much less of an impact (misses IIRC were more prevalent than hits) on heavily defended sectors. Meanwhile I'd like to point out the atrocity of mass deportation of both Poles and Germans by the Soviets; that's a larger refugee crisis than anything that ever happened in Africa; with the whole of Prussia virtually depopulated of Germans.
Agree with you mostly on the tanks, although I would say Panzer IV's were comparable with allied tanks, definitely with British ones, but it's true that the best of Panzer IV came with later upgrades. But Germans had very little of P IV in France.
As for deportations of Poles and Germans by the Soviets, they were pretty bad, but nowhere near a lot of stuff happening in Africa in last 50 years.
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Climate change is not exactly a lie, but it is being used by corrupt supra-national governmental institutions to lie to the people in order to grab tax-payer's money.
All so called hockey stick diagrams are rigged, mix in real data with estimated data and different forecasts. They make all their proposals based on their current state of this models, which is constantly changing.
It's like an EA sports series of sports games, where they bring out a new game every year and the producer keeps telling you that this year's game is the best, most accurate etc.
The difference is that climate science tries to model complex non-linear systems and to compute outcomes of the future. They haven't done it correctly, so it's pretty much worthless for any forecasts and policy proposals. But institutions like the IPCC still want to be the people in charge (in employment) for it, so they keep telling us their myths instead of scientific bullet-proof facts.
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On February 13 2011 22:02 Perscienter wrote:
Climate change is not exactly a lie, but it is being used by corrupt supra-national governmental institutions to lie to the people in order to grab tax-payer's money.
All so called hockey stick diagrams are rigged, mix in real data with estimated data and different forecasts. They make all their proposals based on their current state of this models, which is constantly changing.
It's like an EA sports series of sports games, where they bring out a new game every year and the producer keeps telling you that this year's game is the best, most accurate etc.
The difference is that climate science tries to model complex non-linear systems and to compute outcomes of the future. They haven't done it correctly, so it's pretty much worthless for any forecasts and policy proposals. But institutions like the IPCC still want to be the people in charge (in employment) for it, so they keep telling us their myths instead of scientific bullet-proof facts.
Actually recent models are very good and have already passed some predictions testing.
EDIT: By very good I mean compared to what some people think about them.
linky
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How was the data recorded and in what intervals? Who tells me that the data is not rigged?
The editor of that posting is only talking and doesn't use any applied mathematics / statistics, nothing quantifiable. Besides it links to a site with data from 1860 to 2000.
And how is such a model assembled? Which variables are factored in?
That's exactly what I was talking about. They think of the citizen as a small child, which needs to be enlightened by stupid essays, but most people want to get to know and understand the complex connections.
Pages like that possess the quality of primary school homework. I'm not convinced.
edit: I really don't know why you talk about recent models and then post a link to a page which summarizes models which are outdated for 10 years.
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EPT
