Nazis, or just Misunderstood?

[Oldman731]

Continued from "Aircraft and Vehicles" thread entitled "The orgin of the blue swastikas in the AH's Bf-109G-2."

(Oldman pushes in through the doors, kicking a small dog on his way in.)

From what you write, you seem to have an awful lot of knowledge about how and why Luftwaffe personnel fought and died in wwii. Let me start out by asking you if you have any kind of source for your statements, or if you are writing on a gut feeling here. Or perhaps you are using some abstract way of thinking here...lets start in this direction: What where the ideals of the nazi party that these men fought and died for? And how do you know the personal motivation behind the "Luftwaffe personnel"? No offence, but to me your statement sounds like an enormous generalization that undoubtedly is true in some cases, but false in many many more.

Heh heh.  I look up the thread a bit, and I see:

“Few British night bomber crews pictured themselves firebombing women and children. They were either dropping on a target, or bombing nazis. The fact that the target was a city or town full of civilians, or the fact that women and children are just that, regardless of political orientation was ignored....In a war, people fight for alot of reasons. Some out of ideology, some out of love or hate, but most people fight simply because they have to. When your country is at war, for whatever reason, you will find yourself fighting in that war, regardless of what you think is right or wrong.”

So, yes, both of us are engaging in speculation and generalization.  There is really nothing very unusual about this: it forms much of what we know as “history.”  The trick, of course, is in whether your generalizations appear to be accurate and based on fact.

Support for Hitler was massive back in 38-40. But you have to realize and understand that the true horrors of nazism hadnt shown its face yet...that started later, in 1941, and it wasnt something that was shown on the newsreels in Germany either. But what is your point with that "fact"? Suppose I show you some newsreels from 1941 where US troops put japanese americans in barbed wire camps, and people cheering that. Would that prove anything whatsoever?

If the “true” horrors of Naziism are confined to the death camps, I imaging this is accurate.  Embarking upon continental conquest strikes me as pretty horrific in itself.  And the German (or was it the Nazi?) treatment of the Jews before 1941 has not generally been recognized as a model approach to ethnic minority issues.  The fact is that support for Hitler was “massive” so long as the Nazis were winning.

I would be grateful if you could show me newsreels of Americans cheering the internment of Japanese-Americans.  I’ve never seen them.  The episode is uniformly treated as one of the most shameful in our history - and, you know what, we don’t try to blame it on the Democratic Party, either.

Are you building some kind of argument here along the lines "The Germans cheered for Hitler in 34-41, therefore they were all nazis and, aware of it or not, in on his plot to murder millions of people". Please clarify what you are trying to say.

Well....yes, I suppose that’s what I’m arguing.  Although I think I’d change the dates from 34-41 to 34-44.

In 39-43 they were pretty much winning all the time, no one gets disillusioned by that. 44-45 it was a struggle for the very survival of themselves, their families, indeed their entire nation. This is especially true on the eastern front. You dont go sulk in a corner then, that option is closed.

My point exactly.  So long as things are going well, everyone’s a Nazi.  When the tidal wave is poised over your head, Naziism seems a perfect tragedy, which all good Germans abhor, but just couldn’t manage to stop.  Spare me.  Even the Italians managed to overthrow their dictator.

You tell me what the difference was between an average German soldier and an average US soldier in feb 1945. Besides the flag they fought under.

Well, OK, although you’re stacking the deck with your February, 1945 date.  The average US soldier in February, 1945 was prepared to die, if necessary, in order to rid the world of Naziism, in its broadest sense, and to free the people in the countries which had been conquered and enslaved by the Nazis.  The average Nazi soldier in February, 1945 was prepared to die to stop that from happening.  Note that this was even more so in February, 1943, and I’ll bet we could even agree that in February, 1940 the German soldier didn’t feel so bad about the prospect of invading France and/or Russia.

Do you actually think that German soldiers in wwii fought for the sake of nazism?

Sure do.  Do you actually think they were fighting to impress their friends, or to meet girls?  Naziism WAS Germany.

Do you actually think that a majority of Germans in 33-45 were pro-nazi?

Sure do.  I’ll start with the notion that Hitler was popularly-elected, and end with Heinz Guderian’s statement that the vast majority of Germans were pro-Hitler and very much against the 20 July assassination plot.  

(key question to follow) How many Germans do you think would have supported the nazis had they known about what Hitlers real plans were?

You assume that “Hitler’s real plans” were a big secret.  Goldhagen and others have proved, to my satisfaction at least, that they couldn’t possibly have been kept secret.  Common sense tells one that it is fantasy to assume that a state-sponsored extermination plan of the size and scope actually implemented by the Nazis could be concealed from so many people.  The state-sponsored euthanasia program, for example, was discontinued because popular opposition to it was so pronounced.

But: Do I think that the Germans would have supported the Nazis if they knew what the “real plans” were?  Of course I do.  He wrote Germany’s best-selling book that announced most of the things he was going to do.  His actions throughout the 1930s were perfectly consistent with his book - and there was NO MEANINGFUL OPPOSITION from the German people.  How am I to assume otherwise than that they fully agreed with everything he did?

And before you answer that, read your sentence about dehumanizing groups of people up there again.

Oops.  Sorry.  There I go, dehumanizing the Nazis again.

- Oldman

[AKSWulfe]

Actually you got this from "Aces High Gen DIscussion".. but since you are an Oldman I'll let it slide.

Although I don't believe all Germans were Nazis, I believe that most were during WWII. And I don't believe all LuftWaffe pilots were nazis, hell some of 'em weren't even German.

Maybe some of 'em joined with no inclination of actually fighting for Hitler, but just to be a fighter pilot for their country. Then war broke out, and they had two choices: keep fighting or the Gestapo will have a field day torturing you, imprisoning you and whatever else they did.

I'm not supporting their actions, I just don't believe everyone who fought for Germany WAS a Nazi... but most certainly were.
-SW

[Dowding]

I agree with Swulfe. Not all, but most subscribed to the Nazi viewpoint.

As a kind of aside, many Germans upon hearing about atrocities simply said 'If only Hitler knew', as if the great man himself was somehow ignorant of the events and would have been equally appalled.

The belief in Hitler as leader, in the general populace, was very strong throughout the majority of the war. I'm sure this was mirrored in the military.

[AKSWulfe]

I believe Dowding is correct in stating that most believed Hitler was a good leader- simply because at the time, Germany was in ruins. They had to ration food using food stamps and their country was still rebuilding itself after WWI. Hitler came along and did some things to bring their country out of their depression and therefore the populace praised him.. many didn't know his true colors, then again a good deal did. So it's kind of a double sworded blade. He was an awful man, but to them he was a great leader because he did so much for their country...

and then history repeated itself, Germany was once again in a depression after WWII and even during the war, the German people didn't have to ration their food (well atleast not until towards the end) and the people were living a better life than they were before he was leader.

Again, I do not support anything he did or the Nazis did... these are just some things I picked up from the History channel.

-SW

[miko2d]

The main difference between most of the amreican soldiers and german soldiers was that the former were lucky to be born in USA while the latter were unlucky to be born in Germany.
 Neither had full knowlege of what their government was doing but was raised in the belief that their government was doing the right thing.

 I talked to some ukrainian people who survived german occupation and most of them agreed that german soldiers and officers they met were decent, civilized and disciplined people.

 Most of the german army were not SS or hadrcore nazi - no more then the soviet army soldiers were communists.

 miko

[K West]

I though about replying earlier to this topic, then thought twice about it til I saw a sig from another AH player in a post on the General Forumn.

""As long as I can shoot down the enemy, adding to the honor of the Richthofen Geschwader and the success of the Fatherland, I will be a happy man. I want to fight and die fighting, taking with me as many of the enemy as possible." -Helmut Wick Staffelkapitän of 3./JG 2 "Richthofen"

 IMO this guy may not have been an actual Nazi but he is just as guilty for EAGERLY supporting them.  He could have flown to a neutral country if what he was doing he felt was wrong. He did not and neither did many others.

 Because the Germans, lead by the Nazi party, started the war millions lost thier lives and for that I don't care to make any distinction between eager Nazi and someone reportely just "doing thier duty" while feigning ignorance of the cruelties and murders being commited.

  Guys like this, as well as millions of other Germans, Italians and Japanese (just to name the three leadin Axis powers), freely took up arms and supported repressive, murderous and evil causes.

 Period.

    Westy

[Furious]

When you are poor, hungry and bored, a war sounds like a good idea.

Boy oh boy, us Americans sure do love to throw stones.



F.

[Charon]

I have to agree with Oldman, and there's not much sense in reposting his well-developed arguments. I do get a kick out of the "defending the homeland" crowd. Yeah, they were bravely defending the homeland in Poland, the Low Countries, France, BOB, Greece, N. Africa and Russia...

The overwhelming support for Hitler and his general policies among the German people, party members and otherwise, is well documented. The documentation consists not only of secondary sources but by primary sources including town records, Gestapo records, film, audio and many Germans from the era who are alive today. This popular support may have waned somewhat by 1945, but it never collapsed. You can clearly look at countries where it did (Italy springs to mind) and draw a direct comparion.

Some, of many, interesting books to read on the rise of Nazism are: "The Nazi Seizure of Power - The Experience of a Single German Town 1930-1935" by William Sheridan Allen and "Himmler" by Peter Padfield. Now, these are not as interesting and filled with daring-do like "The First and the Last," for example, being filled with dry research and such, but they do tell what the Nazi's and the Greman people were all about. Try them sometime (and again, any number of others dealing with the rise of Nazi power). A former co-worker's father could also be a resource, I suppose, since he felt Hitler had the right idea until the day he died. I don't think he was a party member.

With the German military, well, they made a deal with Hitler that guaranteed his support of them by their support. The LW cannot be excluded, and while there may have been some differences between the level of Rudel's Hitler worship and Galland's Hitler worship, they supported a war of domination based on mythological racial theory and the greed for territority.

The senior officers hid/hide behind that "Oath of Honor" to explain why they couldn't do anything to stop Hitler. Canaris was a real hero, however, and showed that at least someone in high military/intelligence circles had a true sense of honor. The assassination conspirators eventually somewhat regained German military honor, though on train of though strongly suggests that it wouldn't have happened had Germany been doing better in the war under Hitler's leadership.

Were the German people too afraid of the evil Gestapo to stand up? The much maligned "Intellectual Elite" minority soon learned not to speak too loudly, though the members of The White Rose stood up for their principals and paid for it. The White Rose. However, the vast, well-documented historical record suggests they were the minority and had more to fear from their neighbors than some boogey man in a leather jacket.

Gestapo records show that they functioned primarily as collectors, who acted mainly on leads sent in by the local citizens. Here's a link that covers it in greater detail:Gestapo Records

I saw a History Channel documentary (I believe produced by Germans) on this as well. They took one record, of an "odd" woman who looked a bit too masculine and had "unusual" friends that visited her regularly -- the implication being that she was a lesbian. After enough of these complaints came in (there were more than a few) they acted and she went to one of the camps, where she was exterminated. The German crew interviewed one of the people who filed a complaint. The sweet looking, elderly grandmother just couldn't understand why she was being persecuted by the film crew. She said something like, "Why are you bothering me? I didn't kill her!"

That kinda sums this revisionist attitude up for me. "Oh no, It wasn't me! What choice did I have! I just went along with the program!" Bull toejam.

To get back on topic, Finland was allied with Germany, but it had tough choices to make and faced a clear threat from the Soviet Union. The historical record suggests that Finland, while cooperating with the Nazis to fight the USSR, clearly worked to deflect the "Aryan" supremacy and Jewish deportation efforts that were encouraged by Germany (unlike some of the occupied counties, who participated willingly in some cases). They further managed to avoid becoming a full satellite communist nation after the war, which shows a real talent for threading a needle.

Charon

I'll restate my views here as well. I'll also add, in response to a "clarification" presented in the other thread about the Gestapo used to "discredit" an argument. Although the Gestapo and SD were somewhat different from a mission statement standpoint, in practice the distinction was blurred both in Germany and the occupied territorities and far less distinct then, say, the difference between the SD and SA. Gestapo is used somewhat generically, but then there is a certain amount of justification for that beyond convenience.Nuremberg Tribunal

Some missing links from the quote above:
White Rose Gestapo Record

[AKSWulfe]

I'll tell you what, I don't know what MY government is doing half the time- until they make a press release (if they do) or it somehow gets leaked out and they are forced to face the music.

I don't see how every German supported Hitler and his National Socialist party, which is what my point is. Sure, most were Nazis or in someway supported them... but I'm certain that there were quite a few, even serving in the military, that had different ideals.

Did they know what was going on? I don't know. We may never know because this war occured over 50 years ago and therefore there are very few vets from either side to clarify the stories.

Do you disagree with what I said Charon?
-SW

[Hortlund]

So, yes, both of us are engaging in speculation and generalization. There is really nothing very unusual about this: it forms much of what we know as “history.” The trick, of course, is in whether your generalizations appear to be accurate and based on fact.


Granted...we are both guilty of using the blunt weapons speculation and generalization  hehe:)
However, I’d still like an answer to the two questions up there. What where the ideals of the nazi party that these men fought and died for? The glory of the Reich? Racial domination? What in your opinion was “the ideals of the nazi party”? The reason I’m asking this is to see if you can come up with something there that would be worth fighting a war for to the average German.

If the “true” horrors of Naziism are confined to the death camps, I imaging this is accurate. Embarking upon continental conquest strikes me as pretty horrific in itself. And the German (or was it the Nazi?) treatment of the Jews before 1941 has not generally been recognized as a model approach to ethnic minority issues. The fact is that support for Hitler was “massive” so long as the Nazis were winning.

Aggressive war is “bad” yeah, so is state sponsored racism. HOWEVER the difference between wars of aggression, racism, and the holocaust are so enormous it feels wrong to talk about them in the same sentence. So yeah, I am saying that nazism didnt show its true face until 1941. And you must remember that racism was viewed differently then than it is now. Back then being racist was the normal state. Heck, all European countries were more or less racist back then, so was the US.


I would be grateful if you could show me newsreels of Americans cheering the internment of Japanese-Americans. I’ve never seen them. The episode is uniformly treated as one of the most shameful in our history - and, you know what, we don’t try to blame it on the Democratic Party, either.

Nor am I trying to pin the blame for the internment on the entire US population living in the years between 1941-45 either.

Are you building some kind of argument here along the lines "The Germans cheered for Hitler in 34-41, therefore they were all nazis and, aware of it or not, in on his plot to murder millions of people". Please clarify what you are trying to say.

Well....yes, I suppose that’s what I’m arguing. Although I think I’d change the dates from 34-41 to 34-44.

I checked your profile (I admit, I got curious), now since we seem to be colleagues here, let me ask you this: Why are you so hell bent on painting the world in black or white, when you know that it is more complex than that? You wont find that black or white anywhere, only various shades of gray. What happened to that tiny detail we call intent?

Let me try to abstract things:
Suppose person A is ordered by organization C to murder person B. The order from C to A is completely unlawful and it is considered as a crime against humanity to give the order, or to carry out the order. A shoots B. Meanwhile person D is in another country and is fighting in a war. D has no knowledge of the order from C to A, neither has D any knowledge of what A is planning to do with B. Person D is a part of organization C, but person D has different orders than A. The order from C to D is completely within the rules of war.

Can person D be held responsible for what A does to B?

If D does not know about the murder of B, neither does D know about the order to kill B. How could person D be responsible for something that he has no knowledge of? I dont think there is any legal system in the world that would make D responsible for A’s action in this case.

One might argue against this though, and say that A and D are a part of the same organization C. And the leader of organization C has repeatedly claimed that B does not deserve to live and should be shot. When D has the knowledge, that C wants to kill B, and D is a part of C doesnt this make D responsible in some way for A’s killing of B? After all, D has reason to suspect that C indeed would want to give an order to A or someone else to kill B, and since D still stays in organization C rather than leave this organization, doesnt this mean that D has some responsibility for A’s action? No, the first argument still stands, collective guilt is something that no legal system upholds  it is impossible to hold someone responsible for something that he has not taken any part of, nor has had any knowledge of.


Well, OK, although you’re stacking the deck with your February, 1945 date. The average US soldier in February, 1945 was prepared to die, if necessary, in order to rid the world of Naziism, in its broadest sense, and to free the people in the countries which had been conquered and enslaved by the Nazis. The average Nazi soldier in February, 1945 was prepared to die to stop that from happening. Note that this was even more so in February, 1943, and I’ll bet we could even agree that in February, 1940 the German soldier didn’t feel so bad about the prospect of invading France and/or Russia.

I think you are oversimplifying. If you take a look at German soldiers behavior on the eastern and western fronts you will notice quite large differences. In 44-45 the war had become a war of survival for Germany. Knowing full well what they had done inside the USSR, they knew that the revenge should the commies reach German soil would be horrible (and indeed it was). The average soldier has no choice, he HAS to fight. The war is not a war about good or bad, right or wrong. It is a war about survival. His own survival, and the survival of his family. In the west, the Germans surrendered readily, and deserted in numbers. In the east this was practically unheard of. In the east they kept fighting against hopeless odds, more often to the death than not. All the way back into Berlin, heck some units even kept fighting after the official cease fire in may 45 in order to break through to the west and capitulate to the western allies. Now I ask you: Why? If all German soldiers were motivated by the notion of the higher good of nazism, shouldnt they fight equally hard on both fronts?


You assume that “Hitler’s real plans” were a big secret. Goldhagen and others have proved, to my satisfaction at least, that they couldn’t possibly have been kept secret. Common sense tells one that it is fantasy to assume that a state-sponsored extermination plan of the size and scope actually implemented by the Nazis could be concealed from so many people. The state-sponsored euthanasia program, for example, was discontinued because popular opposition to it was so pronounced.

You tell me, how could the average German citizen, or average German soldier possibly know or even suspect what was going on in the east?


But: Do I think that the Germans would have supported the Nazis if they knew what the “real plans” were? Of course I do. He wrote Germany’s best-selling book that announced most of the things he was going to do. His actions throughout the 1930s were perfectly consistent with his book - and there was NO MEANINGFUL OPPOSITION from the German people. How am I to assume otherwise than that they fully agreed with everything he did?


On what page in Mein Kampf does Hitler write: “And then I shall construct large extermination camps and murder over 8 million innocent civilians?” Or is this something that can be read between the lines?

But again you oversimplify things. Take a look at the situation in Germany in 1933, a snapshot in history if you will. Then take another snapshot at 1938. The difference between those two images are enormous, and THAT is what nazism meant to the average German in 1938. What would the opposition focus on?


Oops. Sorry. There I go, dehumanizing the Nazis again.


No, you are dehumanizing the Germans when you keep insisting that they all were nazis.

I wonder if you even realize this.

Steve

[R4M]

Originally posted by K West

""As long as I can shoot down the enemy, adding to the honor of the Richthofen Geschwader and the success of the Fatherland, I will be a happy man. I want to fight and die fighting, taking with me as many of the enemy as possible." -Helmut Wick Staffelkapitän of 3./JG 2 "Richthofen"

 IMO this guy may not have been an actual Nazi but he is just as guilty for EAGERLY supporting them.  He could have flown to a neutral country if what he was doing he felt was wrong. He did not and neither did many others.
 

I sincerely wish you never served in the armed forces of your nation. Because if you did you'd be not just a scumbag but also a potential desserter.

and we all know the kind of punishment the desserters receive.


Many people devoted to the armed forces of their countries love their country, love their machines and love their job. If a war starts ,I'm sure as hell that they will also love fighting a war to defend  the interests of their nations.

So now being a patriot makes you a scumbag because your nation has had the disgrace of having Hitler as leader, and Goebbels as Propaganda minister, and you have had the disgrace to think and believe that they are doing the best for your nation.

Now being a patriot makes you a nazi. Now fighting the ones who you are told are a threat for your nation is to be as low as scum. Now, summing it up, ANYONE who didn't dessert from the German armed forces during WWII was a nazi scumbag.

Damn right. What a fediddlein idiot you are. You're full of toejam up to your last hair, Mr. Westy. Your'e an idiot who has no clue.

And I'd love to see you repeating that kind of statements before a living Luftwaffe ace...say, Franz Stigler, for instance. I think I recall recall reading that he punched someone who called him nazi once. That says it enough.

[Charon]

Not at all SWulfe. I think you sum it up pretty well. Nor do I transfer my opinions to modern Germany and its citizens. Nazi Germany provides a valuable lesson for any society, ours included, but only as long as the full lesson is remembered.

My issue is with the sentimentality that some have, because they've read more war stories than history, and somehow fail to connect the Nazi war machine with the rest of Nazism. There seems to be the "gallant knight defending the homeland" concept that is accepted more than the "I'm an Aryan god fulfilling my greater destiny." Both perspectives are valid, to a greater or lesser extent, depending upon whether it was 1939 or 1944. For the record, I have similar issues closer to home with sentimental remembrances of the Indian Wars in the Old West, and the antebellum South of the Civil War.

Most Nazis, though ardent supporters of Hitler, were actually shocked by Hitler's invasion of Poland. Most were shocked by the death camps. But why should they have been? Hitler was very clear about Germany's greater destiny in the East. He was also clear (out of his own mouth) about the value of the "untermensch" and what would happen to the Jews if they "... drove Germany into another world war." The local German people may not have known that their neighbors were going to a factory-style extermination camp, but a great many sure seemed to cheer and jeer an awful lot while their neighbors were being hauled away at gunpoint for parts and fates unknown. Ignorance is dangerous, particularly when a society decides to act from a position of ignorance.

Charon

[Hortlund]

Originally posted by K West
 Guys like this, as well as millions of other Germans, Italians and Japanese (just to name the three leadin Axis powers), freely took up arms and supported repressive, murderous and evil causes.

 Period.

    Westy

Can you define the phrase "freely took up arms" please?

Also, do you think they felt they were supporting "repressive, murderous and evil causes"?

The world is not black or white, and hindsight is 20/20...please realize this.

[Hortlund]

Originally posted by Charon
Ignorance is dangerous, particularly when a society decides to act from a position of ignorance.

Charon

You are an American right? *bites tounge*

[R4M]

Originally posted by Hortlund


Can you define the phrase "freely took up arms" please?

Also, do you think they felt they were supporting "repressive, murderous and evil causes"?

The world is not black or white, and hindsight is 20/20...please realize this.

Hortlund, don't waste your time with him. Is clearly losing it for nothing.


Also please note he has talked about Germans, Italians (many of them never held any kind of real faith in Mussolini as leader) ,or about Japan (where Bushido was the leading rule of everyone's life...I love how this guy understand's the culture of other nations at that stage of history)...

BUT HE HAS SAID NOTHING ABOUT THE SOVIETS?!

tell me westy, should Kozhedub have deflected to Germany?. And Pokhriskin?. Maybe Rechkalov? (or however they were named?)


Should the WHOLE Red Army have deflected to the Germans because stalin was a mass murder? (in a scale MUCH HIGHER than Hitler?)

no, of course. Ironically thanks to the russians fighting the germans WWII ended with an allied victory...so you easily forget about them

As I said, Westy, you're full of toejam.