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I found a WWI thread but couldn't see a WW2 thread. If there is one could someone please merge?
I found this video that takes another look at Hitler's most befuddling decisions and gives an incredibly logical explanation for them. It blew my mind and completely rewrote my comprehension of the entirety of the Second World War. I was so keen to share it here that I thought I would make a new thread for this and other materials related to it.
If you're going through hell, keep going. - Winston Churchill
You don't decide your future. You decide your habits, and your habits decide your future.
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power. - Abraham Lincoln.
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I found this video that takes another look at Hitler's most befuddling decisions and gives an incredibly logical explanation for them. It blew my mind
???
I've listened this guy, but he didn't say anything radically new. German oil thirst and desire to capture the Caucasus (as source of this oil) was described in my school textbooks. Other hand, I don't think Red Army was supplied any better than Germans and reducing everything to oil is just another oversimplification. Not any better than "we would definitely win, but harsh winter..."
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???
I've listened this guy, but he didn't say anything radically new. German oil thirst and desire to capture the Caucasus (as source of this oil) was described in my school textbooks. Other hand, I don't think Red Army was supplied any better than Germans and reducing everything to oil is just another oversimplification. Not any better than "we would definitely win, but harsh winter..."
On your first pints--It's a variable I've never encountered before. The narrative I've heard was that Hitler continually defied the competent advice of his capable military leadership and for irrational reasons diverted the Moscow army group south, losing the military's momentum for a far less strategically important objective. In short, I've always heard about Hitler's irrational strategic decision making. Attacking the Soviets when he did was another; "Hitler shouldn't have opened a second front. That was irrational etc". This blew my mind because it offers a totally different take on why he made some of these choices.
On the second--even though the video is literally titled 'The MAIN reason Germany lost ww2' he makes it clear that it's not the only reason for Germany's loss and it wasn't enough by itself. It was hover the cause for the rush in opening the Soviet front in 1941. So while this isn't reducing the entire war into a univariate equation, he is again explaining just how important oil was in setting the schedule for WW2 and the rationale for Hitler's most notorious strategic decisions.
It also gave me a newfound admiration for Churchill. He was a hell of a man.
If you're going through hell, keep going. - Winston Churchill
You don't decide your future. You decide your habits, and your habits decide your future.
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power. - Abraham Lincoln.
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The narrative I've heard was that Hitler continually defied the competent advice of his capable military leadership and for irrational reasons diverted the Moscow army group south, losing the military's momentum for a far less strategically important objective. In short, I've always heard about Hitler's irrational strategic decision making. Attacking the Soviets when he did was another; "Hitler shouldn't have opened a second front. That was irrational etc".
The decision to attack the USSR (by that time, the fair and responsible trade partner which was already supplying Germany with resources) was fully rational, in its own way. Hitler just did not take Russia seriously and hoped for a quick and relatively easy victory that would allow him to turn against the "main" enemy.
He's not the first who made such a fatal mistake. In early XVIII century, Swedish king Charles XII, being already at war with Russia, after the very first successful battle with "Muscovite hordes" distracted to "real" and "stronger" enemies like Poland and Saxony. And just one decade later Swedish greatness and ambitions were fully destroyed (not by Poles or Saxonians, of course). But this Charles XII wasn't the champion strategist, there were even more brilliant plans:
Operation Pike was the code-name for a strategic bombing plan, overseen by Air Commodore John Slessor, against the Soviet Union by the Anglo-French alliance... The plan was designed to destroy the Soviet oil industry, to cause the collapse of the Soviet economy and deprive Nazi Germany of Soviet resources.
Planners identified the dependence by Nazi Germany on oil imports from the Soviet Union as a vulnerability that could be exploited. Despite initial opposition by some politicians, the French Government ordered General Maurice Gamelin to commence a "plan of possible intervention with the view of destroying Russian oil exploitation"
Do you see? This is the same logic of Charles XII: war against USSR is a less significant factor than chance to "weaken" Germany. And these suicidal plans were already on the way to real implementation:
As of 1 April, four squadrons comprising 48 Bristol Blenheim Mk IV bombers were transferred to the Middle East Command, supplemented with a number of single-engined Wellesley bombers for night missions. A French force of 65 Martin Maryland bombers and a supplementary force of 24 Farman F.222 heavy bombers were allocated for night operations during the campaign. The French were preparing new air fields in Syria which were expected to be ready by 15 May. The campaign was expected to last three months and over 1,000 short tons (910 t) of bombs were allocated to the operation.
It was only the German blitzkrieg in France that sent this plan to the trashbasket of history. Otherwise, the whole course of WW2 would be very different from what we know today: after the very first Anglo-French attack, USSR would enter the war on German side. And few months (or years) later, sitting in German (or Soviet) concentration camp, those British and French strategists would have enough time to curse themselves for what they did...
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Yes, It Could Happen Here: When Nazis Came to New York
https://www.commondr...s-came-new-york
Entire Article (less photos and video):
(Common Dreams) With Trump's latest crime against the poor, the brown, the other - wherein immigrants may have to choose between food or housing and a green card - it's a good time to consider a new book detailing the threat of a "21st-century master of divisive rhetoric" whose toxic mix of fear, lies, greed and racism uncannily echos an earlier monster, and whose virulent skillset could prevail over a deeply flawed political system. In When at Times the Mob Is Swayed: A Citizen’s Guide to Defending Our Republic, civil liberties attorney Burt Neuborne argues America's allegedly invincible checks and balances - weakened by today's unrepresentative Congress, skewered Electoral College and right-wing Supreme Court majority - may not be able to withstand Trump's abuses of power. Using 20 points of comparison, Neuborne outlines how Trump parrots not just longtime policies of authoritarian dictators - fake news/invasions/grievances - but the rhetoric of Hitler's early playbook, which he famously studied. Above all, he describes the "demagogic spells" cast by a dangerous narcissist who increasingly can't control the hate and havoc he's unleashed: "The Nazis did not overthrow the Weimar Republic. It fell into their hands thanks to Hitler’s satanic ability to mesmerize enough Germans to trade their birthright for a pottage of scapegoating, short-term economic gain, xenophobia, and racism."
For those clinging to the belief it can't happen here, watch "A Night At the Garden," a short chilling film by Marshall Curry and Field of Vision documenting the night in 1939 when 20,000 New Yorkers came to Madison Square Garden to cheer on Fritz Kuhn, head of the Nazi German-American Bund, as he urged them to join "fellow American patriots" in demanding "our government (be) returned to the American people who founded it” to preserve a "white, Gentile-ruled United States." "The point is less an indictment of bad things Americans have done in the past than it is a cautionary tale about the bad things we might do in the future," Curry notes. "These were 20,000 New Yorkers who loved their kids and were probably nice to their neighbors, came home from work that day, dressed up in suits and skirts, and went out to cheer and laugh and sing as a speaker dehumanized people who would be murdered by the millions in the next few years" - and as he sold "an ideology that hundreds of thousands of Americans would die fighting against." The film's power lies in its sights and sounds - the huge swastikas flanking George Washington and the U.S. flag, the marching thugs, the roar of the crowd as a young Jewish protester is savagely beaten. "We'd like to believe that there are sharp lines between good people and bad people," says Curry. "But I think most humans have dark passions inside us, waiting to be stirred up" - by, say, a monstrous buffoon who taunts a mob into chanting, "Send Her Back."
The principles of justice define an appropriate path between dogmatism and intolerance on the one side, and a reductionism which regards religion and morality as mere preferences on the other. - John Rawls
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France marks 75 years since 'the other D Day' began
https://www.thelocal...her-d-day-began
Introduction:
(The Local) It's the lesser-known D-Day, one launched two months after the Normandy landings on the other side of France, with French forces this time playing a premier role.
On August 15, 1944, thousands of French soldiers set foot on home soil for the first time in years as Allied forces staged an ambitious assault on Mediterranean beaches, taking a direct hand in the fight to free Europe of Nazi Germany's grip.
Besides accelerating the German retreat, this second landing was hugely symbolic for a French nation eager to emphasise its role in its own liberation.
Only a handful of French soldiers had taken part in the Normandy landings a few weeks earlier - General Charles de Gaulle snubbed the operation after being largely excluded from its planning.
The Mediterranean offensive included the remnants of France's free forces, including tens of thousands of soldiers from its African colonies, whose contribution remained little known, let alone celebrated, for decades after the war.
French troops landing in St Tropez.
Photo: AFP
The principles of justice define an appropriate path between dogmatism and intolerance on the one side, and a reductionism which regards religion and morality as mere preferences on the other. - John Rawls
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The teenage girls who flirted with Nazis before luring them into woods and shooting them
Red lipstick and shiny eye shadow were unlikely but important weapons deployed by members of the Dutch resistance when taking on Nazi soldiers.
Freddie and Truus Oversteegen, two sisters, and their best friend Hannie Schaft would put on their best clothes and fastidiously apply their make-up before going into bars to seek out unsuspecting targets.
The young girls, who were active in the Dutch resistance during the Second World War, would then strike up conversations with Nazi soldiers or Dutch collaborators. They would giggle and bat their eyelashes as they cajoled them into disclosing classified information.
Then they would lure them into the woods on the pretext of a “romantic walk” – and shoot them dead.
https://www.independ...t-a9188306.html
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The Liberation of Auschwitz: January 27, 1945
https://blog.fold3.c...x69RSSdxgZ5BPRA
Introduction:
(Fold3) On January 27, 1945, 75-years ago this month, the Soviet Army pried open the gates of Auschwitz concentration camp in German-occupied Poland and liberated some 7,000 emaciated prisoners. About 58,000 others had been hurriedly marched westward before the Soviet Army approached. Auschwitz, the German word for the Polish town of Oswiecim, was the site of the largest Nazi concentration camp during WWII. It consisted of a concentration camp, a labor camp, and large gas chambers and crematoria. More than 1.3 million people were sent to Auschwitz between 1940-1945. Some 1.1 million of them were killed. Nine in 10 were Jews.
During WWII, the Nazi regime imprisoned an estimated 15-20 million people who they perceived as a political threat or inferior, especially Jews. They were held in camps and ghettos across Europe and subjected to abominable conditions, brutality, and murder in what has become known as the Holocaust.
Auschwitz was the largest of these death camps and was divided into three main camps: Auschwitz I, Auschwitz-Birkenau, and Auschwitz III. Auschwitz I housed prisoners in abandoned Polish army barracks. Some were subjected to inhumane medical experiments carried out by SS doctors. Auschwitz II, also known as Auschwitz-Birkenau, held the greatest number of prisoners and also housed large gas chambers and crematoria. Auschwitz III was a work camp that housed prisoners working at a synthetic rubber factory. Other smaller sub-camps also existed.
The Nazis experimented with Zyklon B gas to kill prisoners at Auschwitz I. These tests were deemed successful and the program greatly expanded at Auschwitz-Birkenau. When new deportees arrived at Auschwitz-Birkenau, they immediately underwent selection. Some were saved to be used as forced labor, while others went directly to the gas chambers. This process tore families apart, and separated family members would typically never see one another again.
The principles of justice define an appropriate path between dogmatism and intolerance on the one side, and a reductionism which regards religion and morality as mere preferences on the other. - John Rawls
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Yes, even 75 years later, we are still finding WW2 bombs around the UK.
This one is right in the heart of central London.
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MAY 9, THE 75th ANNIVERSARY OF GREAT VICTORY
Time goes by, the last veterans passing away, the whole Second World War moves from "living memory" to "written history". However, the value and the meaning of Victory does not decreasing. This was the day that shaped the course of history for decades to come.
There are a lot of books and articles describing the unimaginable horrors if fascism won the war. Their authors are both right and wrong. Indeed, our world would have been much worse, but inside this alternate fascist world, this wouldn't be perceived as something horrible or even something qualitatively new compared to old good world of XIX century.
Modern Western historiography portrays Hitler and Fascism as a terrible and unexpected deviation on the long road to progress, freedom, and humanism. Reality is far from that. The unpleasant and "politically incorrect" truth is that Fascism didn't bring anything really new. Genocide, concentration camps, biological justification of social inequality, idea of superior and inferior races, eugenics, forced sterilization of the "weak and unfit" - this all was the respectable and mainstream set of ideas and real social practice of those days. Fascism as system of government was, indeed, something new and fresh, but was perceived by Western ruling class with curiosity rather than disgust.
Other words, Fascism wasn't the ugly bastard of Western civilization, it was the legitimate and loved son. It was a great luck for mankind that Fascism was defeated by Soviet Union (the socialist society despite all its obvious flaws), and not by USA or Britain (imperialist predators, essentially not much different from Germany). Writing this, I'm not going to deny or belittle the feats of British or American soldiers, but such is the truth of history. The fact that racism and eugenics are now considered terrifying, that outright aggressive wars are no longer in fashion, and so on, was not the logical result of the Western own development. It was the result of Soviet (and only Soviet) victory that pushed the whole world on the new and better road.
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Although Nazi Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union led to the defeat of the Nazis, you only need to know about the Winter War to understand why the invasion happened. The Winter War was between Finland and the Soviet Union. The Soviets should had have crushed Finland, but that didn't happen. Unsurprising, Stalin's purges of the senior ranks of the military had the effect of greatly weakening the Soviet military. So, the Finns were defeating the Soviets, and it was only after the Soviet army underwent re-training that they were able to defeat Finland. The Soviet military's performance was not lost on Adolf Hitler. The opening stages of Operation Barbarossa only made the Soviet military look even worse, even though there were obvious warning signs that an invasion was about to happen.
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The purges had a very mixed effect. It's widely accepted that they mainly caused problems for the Winter War, but for World War II itself, by the end it seems more likely that the purges saved the Soviet Union from having a fifth column of potentially treacherous generals (and there was a fair amount of evidence to suggest that some generals weren't as loyal to their country as they should have been). The purges were excessive, but they did save the Soviet Union from suffering the same fate as France or the Netherlands where fifth columns within the elite surrendered to Nazi Germany very quickly. Perhaps the Soviet Union wasn't at the same risk as countries in Western Europe, but having generals with dubious loyalties would certainly have hindered their war effort and made defeat much more likely.
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I'm not going to deny or belittle the feats of British or American soldiers, but such is the truth of history. The fact that racism and eugenics are now considered terrifying, that outright aggressive wars are no longer in fashion, and so on, was not the logical result of the Western own development. It was the result of Soviet (and only Soviet) victory that pushed the whole world on the new and better road.
I don't know how you can on the one hand write that you are "not going to deny or belittle the feats of British or American soldiers" and then in the very next sentence write "it was the result of Soviet (and only Soviet) victory." It is a bit like saying "I am not going to ignore the role of the West in defeating Nazi Germany" and then go on to ignore the role of the West in defeating Nazi Germany.
Having said that, I will agree that the undeniably important role of Russia in defeating Hitler is often down played in the West. Not so much by historians, but in Hollywood movies. Often, the Eastern Front is mentioned in passing, but almost all of the action of these movies focuses of the role of Western countries. On the heroism of Western soldiers, etc. Heck, even the French underground is given more emphasis than the Eastern Front. I can only recall one movie (sorry but I cannot remember the title) that was actually set in Russia.
The principles of justice define an appropriate path between dogmatism and intolerance on the one side, and a reductionism which regards religion and morality as mere preferences on the other. - John Rawls
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I'm not going to deny or belittle the feats of British or American soldiers, but such is the truth of history. The fact that racism and eugenics are now considered terrifying, that outright aggressive wars are no longer in fashion, and so on, was not the logical result of the Western own development. It was the result of Soviet (and only Soviet) victory that pushed the whole world on the new and better road.
I don't know how you can on the one hand write that you are "not going to deny or belittle the feats of British or American soldiers" and then in the very next sentence write "it was the result of Soviet (and only Soviet) victory." It is a bit like saying "I am not going to ignore the role of the West in defeating Nazi Germany" and then go on to ignore the role of the West in defeating Nazi Germany.
OK, I'll repeat: Historical results of WW2 were as they were due to Soviet (and only Soviet) victory. With no USSR and with German vs Anglo-Saxon blocs only, they could have been qualitatively different and our modern world would be in much greater extent the continuation of "old good" XIX century.
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OK, I'll repeat: Historical results of WW2 were as they were due to Soviet (and only Soviet) victory. With no USSR and with German vs Anglo-Saxon blocs only, they could have been qualitatively different and our modern world would be in much greater extent the continuation of "old good" XIX century.
My point is that it was a joint effort of the allies to defeat Germany. Whether that victory may not have been possible had the Soviets been neutral, or worse yet allied with the Nazis, is beside the point. If the Soviets did achieve victory, it may very well have been because the allies opened up a second front, first in North Africa, then Italy and France. Thus complicating Hitler's war effort.
The principles of justice define an appropriate path between dogmatism and intolerance on the one side, and a reductionism which regards religion and morality as mere preferences on the other. - John Rawls
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Modern Western historiography portrays Hitler and Fascism as a terrible and unexpected deviation on the long road to progress, freedom, and humanism. Reality is far from that. The unpleasant and "politically incorrect" truth is that Fascism didn't bring anything really new. Genocide, concentration camps, biological justification of social inequality, idea of superior and inferior races, eugenics, forced sterilization of the "weak and unfit" - this all was the respectable and mainstream set of ideas and real social practice of those days. Fascism as system of government was, indeed, something new and fresh, but was perceived by Western ruling class with curiosity rather than disgust.
Other words, Fascism wasn't the ugly bastard of Western civilization, it was the legitimate and loved son. It was a great luck for mankind that Fascism was defeated by Soviet Union (the socialist society despite all its obvious flaws), and not by USA or Britain (imperialist predators, essentially not much different from Germany).
Another thing I find incorrect about this line of analysis is that it suggests that the Soviets and their Communist allies were very clear eyed about the Fascist threat, while the West received fascism "with curiosity rather than disgust."
First, there was the Soviet-Nazi non-aggression pact signed in August 1939.
Second, there was the partnership between the Communists and the Nazis to destroy the German Republic. Specifically, in July 1932 the Communists of Germany helped the Nazis to paralyze Berlin in transport strikes. Further, in the Prussian Landtag, the communists supported a Hitlerite motion to oust the socialist administration of Otto Bruan.*
So, it was not just in the West that the Fascist danger was initially underappreciated.
*See Marxian Socialism in the United States, Daniel Bell, pages 139 and 152.
The principles of justice define an appropriate path between dogmatism and intolerance on the one side, and a reductionism which regards religion and morality as mere preferences on the other. - John Rawls
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Another distortion of facts:
First, there was the Soviet-Nazi non-aggression pact signed in August 1939.
Wrong, first there were the same pacts signed between Nazi Germany and future "allies" and Munich treaty of 1938 which gave a green light for German invasion in Czechoslovakia. And the only great power willing to really fight for Czechoslovakia was... yes, exactly... but all the Soviet efforts to create the new anti-German alliance were knowingly and systematically undermined by British-French-Polish diplomacy. And soon afterwards, Poles were in turn invaded by Germans and betrayed by British and French...
Soviet leaders weren't fools. Soviet-German pact was an act of despair to delay the clash for another few months, no more. The only thing Soviet leaders weren't sure was who exactly - German or Anglo-French block - is their bigger enemy?
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