The greatest myths about WWII
Jussi Jalonen
breeding ground for many myths and erroneous beliefs. From
time to time, these myths have even overcome the actual
history. I seem to regularly meet people who are convinced
that Poles utilized light cavalry against Wehrmacht, that
USSR invaded Poland "without firing a shot", that Soviet
forces attacking Finland were "ill-equipped" and that Warsaw
Ghetto was the "only" incident when Jews took up arms
against Germans. And of course there are many fringe groups
who advocate totally crazy conspiracy theories - there even
seems to be people who believe that FDR knew about Pearl
Harbor beforehand.
In your opinion, what are the most common myths about WWII
and WHY they have existed? And how much damage have these
myths done to the actual research?
=====
Moderator's Note: This is *not* an invitation for any form of holocaust
denial, no matter how mild. If you do not understand what we regard as
"holocaust denial", check the FAQ.
Yau-ming Chiam
Popular Myth 1: The big main guns at the British base in Singapore could
only point out toward the sea and couldn't fire "backwards" or landward at
the attacking Japanese Army in Malaya.
Debunk 1: Apparently the British main guns could be turned 180 degrees and
fired "backwards". Some of them kept rapidly firing until they were
completely worn out.
Cheers,
YM
Louis Johnson
: seems to be people who believe that FDR knew about Pearl
: Harbor beforehand.
that one.
I have to bite my lip every time I hear that wacko notion that
fdr 'knew' and thus 'wanted' it to happen as an 'excuse' to
commence open warfare in the pacific.
well, if he 'knew' then a LOT of others 'knew'. so if they
all 'knew' then we may as well all go bananas and jump in a volcano.
or something.
well, ahem, if he 'knew' then MAYBE they shoulda-coulda MOOOOVED
just a *few* more ships out of the !^@#%@#&# harbour BEFOREHAND!!!
anyway, I think pearl harbour was an, ummm, ....... alien conspiracy.
ya. thats it.
and fdr was in on it .........
Cub driver
The greatest myth of World War II in Europe is that it was fought on
the Axis side by the Nazis, with occasional help from the Italians,
Hungarians, and Romanians--and the Luftwaffe, of course.
- Dan Ford
Nothing New About Death: http://danford.net
Tony Whitaker
have existed? And how much damage have these myths done to the actual
research?"
Well, it's not a very significant myth, but it's one I believed until very
recently thanks to information on this newsgroup - the myth that Sherman
tanks caught fire easily because they were fueled with gasoline. I'm not
sure where I first heard this myth. Maybe it was in that movie about the
Battle of the Bulge? I doubt it's done much damage to any research.
Polar
<yau...@pleasedonotsendmejunkmail.bigpond.net.au> wrote:
>Popular Myth 1: The big main guns at the British base in Singapore could
>only point out toward the sea and couldn't fire "backwards" or landward at
>Debunk 1: Apparently the British main guns could be turned 180 degrees and
>fired "backwards". Some of them kept rapidly firing until they were
>completely worn out.
>
Hmmm...I just toured the big historical museum in Singapore. Their
display still maintains, IIRC, that the guns were mounted to fire
seaward, due to British complacency/stupidity/preoccupation
with the war in Europe..
What is the source of your "debunk" statement?
--
Polar
casita
> In your opinion, what are the most common myths about WWII and WHY they
have existed?
Politics. Pure and simple. Politics = Money. After the war America and
Russia wanted to show themselves as the German workers best friend.
Germans
wanted to get along. Hang a few token Nazis, rehabilitate people like Von
Braun for the winning team. Hitler was no longer flavour of the week. Now
it was Uncle Sam. They could point to what was left of Germany's cities and
say "Look at what those British bastards did to you." Let's do business
and
rebuild from the rubble.
>And how much damage have these myths done to the actual research?
The air war over Germany, next to the Holocaust, is the Revisionists
favorite. Oddly, the killing of Japanese civilians on a scale of much
greater intensity rates hardly a sholder shrud in comparison.
Yama
-Germans lost BoB because they had no four-engined bombers, they
switched targets to London and because Bf 110 was useless as a
fighter.
-fighter-bombers destroyed large amount of tanks.
-German generals were always right.
-Bismarck was the most powerful battleship of the war.
-Me 262 failed to save Germany because Hitler wanted to change it to
bomber.
-Zero, P-51, Me 262 and FW-190 were ultimate superfighters.
-Buffalo, P-38, P-39, P-40, I-16 were lousy, inferior fighters.
-Sherman was a lousy tank.
-Strategic bombing won the war for Allies.
-Strategic bombing was useless.
Stan Pierce
says...
>
>"In your opinion, what are the most common myths about WWII and WHY they
>research?"
For fifty years I thought we (the British) had it over the Germans as
far as getting spies dropped into France,do their work, and getting back
safely. Now I discover that one 'Derincourt' supposedly working for the
British, had come to an 'arrangement' with the Germans to allow the British
spies to be flown in by Lysander and to let them fly home again, but all their
mail was to be photographed without the agents knowing. The Germans thought
when the time came they would get the date of the invasion. Stan Pierce.
M.J.Powell
>Hmmm...I just toured the big historical museum in Singapore. Their
>display still maintains, IIRC, that the guns were mounted to fire
>seaward, due to British complacency/stupidity/preoccupation
>with the war in Europe..
>
>What is the source of your "debunk" statement?
The war in Europe hadn't started when the guns were installed.
The source of my 'debunk' is a letter in my scrapbook cut from a
newspaper and written by the engineer who installed the artillery.
Mike
(Hi Polar!)
Mike
--
M.J.Powell
Charles Wain
>>Popular Myth 1: The big main guns at the British base in Singapore could
>>only point out toward the sea
>I just toured the big historical museum in Singapore. Their
>display still maintains, IIRC, that the guns were mounted to fire
>seaward,
I read a memoir some years ago that asserted that these guns could fire
inland
but that those in command panicked and order the guns spiked. But since I
can't remember either the author or the title of this book, I refrained
from
replying.
There is a significant body of prisoners of the Japanese memoirs and this
was
one of those, with the bulk of the book taken up with the author's PoW
experiences. Perhaps a look in a big city or university library under that
subject heading would turn up the volume.
One thing I do remember is that the author was furious because the British
government did not undertake a thorough investigation of the reasons for
the
loss of Singapore with, in the author's opinion, those in power only
interested
in covering up what really happened.
Charles Wain
Polar
>"Jussi Jalonen"
>> In your opinion, what are the most common myths about WWII and WHY they
>have existed?
[...]>
>The air war over Germany, next to the Holocaust, is the Revisionists
>favorite. Oddly, the killing of Japanese civilians on a scale of much
>greater intensity rates hardly a sholder shrud in comparison.
One thing on which I would beg this Hon. Group's input is the matter
of unnecessary daylight bombing over Europe.
I can't get out of my mind a reference from many years ago in which is
was maintained that the extremely dangerous daylight bombings had
become unnecessary with the development of the Norden bombsight (was
that the reason?) and that they were continued only at the instance of
"macho" British officers.
I realize this is very vague, and that I am not offering a time frame,
but if there's any place where I can get clarification, this is it.
--
Polar
Rich Rostrom
>I can't get out of my mind a reference from many years ago in which is
>was maintained that the extremely dangerous daylight bombings had
>become unnecessary with the development of the Norden bombsight (was
>that the reason?) and that they were continued only at the instance of
>"macho" British officers.
This sounds pretty confused.
1) The Norden bombsight was of use _only_ in daylight bombing.
2) Day bombing was "extremely" dangerous only when attempted
without fighter protection or adequate defensive guns. It was
more dangerous than night bombing, but the Germans developed
nightfighter methods and flak batteries that made night
bombing dangerous too.
3) The RAF tried day bombing in the early part of the war, lost
a lot of planes, and thereafter did its strategic bombing at
night. They couldn't hit specific factories that way, but they
could devastate whole cities, which seemed almost as good.
4) It was the USAAF that championed day bombing. Initially they
believed that the B-17 "Flying Fortress" was a real "flying
fortress" that could defend itself against fighters without
help - unlike the less-armed British planes. The USAAF also
believed that with the Norden sight, they could hit small but
valuable targets. The USAAF lost a lot of bombers on day
missions in 1943. In 1944, using long-range P-51 escorts, they
tried again, with much greater success.
Note: the above discussion applies to strategic bombing by large
4-engine planes. The British did some daylight bombing against very
small targets (e.g. Gestapo offices) with high-speed Mosquito bombers
doing individual hit-and-run attacks.
--
It seemed incredible that the petty manipulations | Rich Rostrom
we had done so quietly in the dark could result in |
such a glorious catastrophe. | rrostrom@
--- Vladimir Peniakoff, _Popski's Private Army_ | 21stcentury.net
Osmo Ronkanen
comes from the movie Patton. In it they claim the Germans used diesel
engines which is not true.
Osmo
Dave Gower
Rich Rostrom <rros...@21stcentury.net> wrote in message
news:rrostrom-F07372...@news.21stcentury.net...
....The British did some daylight bombing against very
> small targets (e.g. Gestapo offices) with high-speed Mosquito bombers
> doing individual hit-and-run attacks.
I recall a documentary on low-level Mosquito attacks. I believe the target
was Gestapo headquarters in Copenhagen. One of the pilots was flying over
the city when he felt a bump. He looked out and saw a chimney top embedded
in one wing. Then he looked over at his wingman and saw that the other plane
was flying BELOW him. Yikes.
Osmo Ronkanen
>-fighter-bombers destroyed large amount of tanks.
>
They had gun cameras, tanks, bazookas or artillery did not. That is one
danger of using film as source.
I would add: "<insert your favorite> changed the outcome
of the war and prevented axis victory."
One can insert bombing on Peenemunde, the destroying of the heavy water
plant in Norway, breaking of the Enigma code etc. between < and >
Osmo
Tony Whitaker
B-17. The Lancaster was able to carry heavier bomb loads only because, as a
night bomber, it did not need as heavy a load of guns, ammo, armor, the ball
turret, and (3) extra crewmen.
>From "Fighting Aircraft of World War II" by Bill Gunston:
B-17G Empty Weight = 32,720-35,800 lbs
B-17G Max. Loaded Weight = 65,600 lbs
**Max. - Empty = 32,880-29,800 lbs**
Lancaster Empty Weight = 36,900 lbs
Lancaster Max. Loaded Weight = 68,000 lbs
**Max. - Empty = 31,100 lbs**
The Lanc and the Fort were virtually equal in lifting ability.
pkmb
> In your opinion, what are the most common myths about WWII
> and WHY they have existed? And how much damage have these
> myths done to the actual research?
Polish cavalry charging at tanks (It was discussed many times so I won't
write much about it).
Polish air forces destroyed on their airfields (while in reality Polish
squadrons had moved into field airfields before the invasion. The only
planes destroyed on the ground were auxiliary ones and those which
couldn't be moved to the field airfields because they were damaged).
Polish Air Forces shot out of the sky during the first day of the
fighting (when in fact for three days Luftwaffe was taking heavy
casualties and was forced to change it's strategy which was now designed
to use the speed of German bombers to avoid meeting the Polish fighters
code named "Wasps" by the Germans).
I don't really know why these myths existed (and still exists). Any
ideas?
Marcin B.
--
Marcin Bugajski citizen of Poland. NATO member since March the 12th 1999
This message may not be used for commercial purposes without
the author's written consent
Terence O'Brien
> >>Popular Myth : The big main guns at the British base in Singapore could
> >>only point out toward the sea
I am surprised that some people seem actually to believe that story
about the fall of at Singapore being due to a blunder about the siting
of the naval guns on the island. The guns were installed to protect the
harbour against naval attack and so, like the guns at Dover for example,
they were sited to shoot towards the sea - it being assumed that any
naval attack would be launched from water and not from jungle. This was
surely not a blunder, to many it must seem to have been quite a
reasonable assessment. There were at the same time certain defences
planned against any land attack - garrisons and airfields in the
peninsula stretching right up to the Siamese border - and in the event
these were not effective, but the siting of the naval guns protecting
the harbour of Singapore was completely irrelevant to that failure and
the fall of the garrison.
Given more resources, and a more efficient command, the island certainly
could have held out a little longer but to do so was to spend human
lives merely to delay briefly the inevitable. From the moment the
Japanese landed on the peninsula the island was doomed - by geography.
It was not an England-type island with over twenty miles of open sea
between its south coast and a Calais, the nearest launching point for
invasion from the mainland; Singapore in this circumstance was more
like Long Island, with just a few hundred yards separating it from
Manhattan where the enemy was conveniently massing to attack, and the
island's water supply was already at the mercy of his artillery. In
fact, leading in a flight of Hudsons in the final days the first news I
had on landing was that the squadron would be retreating to Sumatra as
soon as possible; in the event we got away just five days later.
That was not the end of retreat, of course. We lasted just a fortnight
there, then our remnant withdrew to Java and there we finally lost the
last one of our aircraft. And meanwhile the army was in worse confusion,
some troops being actually landed on the island in that last month, some
following us in retreat, some dithering about at sea awaiting decision.
There were 3,500 Australian troops on board the Orcades due to be landed
on Sumatra and their commander, General Laverack, was caught in the
signals battle between Churchill who wanted to involve their whole
division in heroic defeat and the Australian premier Curtin who wanted
the division to return for defence of the homeland. I took Laverack up
on a reconnaissance of the Sumatra area where the Orcades men might have
been landed, and in talking to him about the possibility of Australian
troops becoming involved he answered obliquely: "Our nearest base is
Perth, and that's about two thousand miles away." He did manage to stop
the nonsense of landing them on Sumatra but he could not prevent the
group being off-loaded in Java where they were presently included in the
final surrender and became prisoners of war without ever firing a shot.
I doubt that had a few naval guns at Singapore been able to fire wildly
into the jungle on the peninsula it would have made any difference to
the collapse of our resistance in the Far East. Since Pearl Harbour that
had simply been waiting to happen.
Terence O'Brien
Emmanuel.Gustin
: Some myths one sees floating around:
I would add:
* B-17s shot down more German fighters than any other Allied type...
* The A6M "Zero" was superior to all Aliied fighters...
* Hitler was just a madman and Goering a buffoon...
Emmanuel Gustin
Lech K. Lesiak
On 28 Apr 2000, Dave Gower wrote:
> I recall a documentary on low-level Mosquito attacks. I believe the target
> was Gestapo headquarters in Copenhagen. One of the pilots was flying over
Don't recall ever reading about that one. There was a famous low level
Mossie attack on a German jail in Belgium, I believe.
Cheers,
Lech
Cub driver
>One thing on which I would beg this Hon. Group's input is the matter
>of unnecessary daylight bombing over Europe.
Well, here we have one of the great myths--that daylight bombing was
unnecessary.
You can bomb by day and you can bomb by night. If you bomb both by day
and by night, you can put a lot more bombers over the target, you can
pull more enemy fighters and ack-ack guns back from the front lines,
and even if you can't hit the factories you can burn out the workers'
homes and deprive them of sleep. All these, in the context of WWII,
were perfectly valid war aims, and established as routine by the
Japanese over Chongqing and the Germans over Rotterdam, among other
cities. And they did work, after a fashion, and certainly they worked
a lot better than some approaches that were tried, such as a
large-scale commando raid on Dieppe.
If daylight bombing were unnecessary, why did the Dutch surrender
after Rotterdam, explicitly to spare the remaining cities?
all the best - Dan Ford
Annals of Military Aviation http://www.delphi.com/annals
Michael Horak
>write much about it).
Sorry to say that but I read it in many books. Also the russians
attacked tanks with cavalry.
>Polish air forces destroyed on their airfields (while in reality Polish
>squadrons had moved into field airfields before the invasion. The only
>planes destroyed on the ground were auxiliary ones and those which
>couldn't be moved to the field airfields because they were damaged).
Now I want to know why there are no reports of fights between the
Luftwaffe and the Polish Air Foce? (or not very much) Or did Poland
surrender before their planes were ready to fight??? A fact is that
the polish "aces" left Poland to fight on the allied side in the Royal
Air Force.
>Polish Air Forces shot out of the sky during the first day of the
>fighting (when in fact for three days Luftwaffe was taking heavy
>casualties and was forced to change it's strategy which was now designed
>to use the speed of German bombers to avoid meeting the Polish fighters
>code named "Wasps" by the Germans).
One day... three days! Can you explain the first tactic of the Germans
and the second (successful) tactic of the Germans? I think they
changed their tactic because the polish air force was already down.
Why should they send more fighters if there are no enemy fighters to
shoot down?
Michael Horak
casita
> The Lanc and the Fort were virtually equal in lifting ability.
The Lancaster carried more bombs per crewman to Berlin than the B 17. When
figuring weights and manpwer for a B 17, you must also add in the fighter
planes that had to stick to them like glue.
Charles Wain
> In
>fact, leading in a flight of Hudsons in the final days the first news I
>had on landing was that the squadron would be retreating to Sumatra
Question: Were you involved in the Feb 15 1942 air attack on disembarking
Japanese troops? Do you know if it was as effective as reported, or are the
reports overblown? I understand the main attackers were Blenheims, Hudsons and
Hurricanes.
Charles Wain
David Thornley
>Polish cavalry charging at tanks (It was discussed many times so I won't
>write much about it).
>
against Polish cavalry, I've been getting a different mental image
of tanks vs. horses. (Hint: less favorable to the Panzers.)
>Polish Air Forces shot out of the sky during the first day of the
>fighting (when in fact for three days Luftwaffe was taking heavy
>casualties and was forced to change it's strategy which was now designed
>
This is particularly impressive, considering the performance of some
of those Polish fighters.
--
David H. Thornley | If you want my opinion, ask.
da...@thornley.net | If you don't, flee.
http://www.thornley.net/~thornley/david/ | O-
Louis Capdeboscq
> If daylight bombing were unnecessary, why did the Dutch surrender
> after Rotterdam, explicitly to spare the remaining cities?
As a matter of fact, the Dutch surrendered BEFORE Rotterdam, not after.
That's why there was all that fuss about the bombing.
pkmb
>
> >Polish cavalry charging at tanks (It was discussed many times so I won't
> >write much about it).
>
> attacked tanks with cavalry.
Then those books were wrong. Polish cavalry was very well equipped in AT
weapons (by Polish standards of course) like UR anti-tank rifles which
could stop the vast majority of German tanks and armored cars plus very
good 75mm cannons. That myth has been debunked here many many times so
try searching Dejanews for discussions about it as I don't want to bore
the regs of this group with repeating myself. (I found an url in my
bookmarks so here you go)
http://mops.uci.agh.edu.pl/~rzepinsk/1939/index2.htm
> Now I want to know why there are no reports of fights between the
> Luftwaffe and the Polish Air Foce? (or not very much) Or did Poland
> surrender before their planes were ready to fight???
:))))))))))))) You forced me into it :)). I should give you a complete
list of Polish air victories divided by Escadrilles but decided that I
shouldn't waste the bandwidth of other people with that so I will
provide you with an url to go to:
http://ornak.waw.pdi.net/~robertp/aviation.html
So go and don't sin no more :)
> A fact is that
> the polish "aces" left Poland to fight on the allied side in the Royal
> Air Force.
Polish pilots left Poland after there was no means of successful fight
over the skies of Poland and only when they received an order from the
HQ which decided that Polish soldiers would better contribute to the
victory over Hitler if they go to France (and then to the UK). The HQ
was right.
> One day... three days! Can you explain the first tactic of the Germans
> and the second (successful) tactic of the Germans?
Of course I can. Initially the tactic was similar to the one used by the
Germans in the Bob that is big bomber groups protected by fighters.
Poles massed their fighter squadrons in the Brygada Poscigowa and for
the three days managed to stop most German organized attacks on Warsaw
as firstly Polish fighter planes were more maneuverable than the German
ones and secondly Polish fighter pilots were superior to the German ones
(which they really showed in the BoB when they got equipment comparable
or even better to the German ones).
When the German HQ realized that Polish fighter planes are slower than
the German bombers they divided them into small groups which using their
speed avoided the Poles and sneaked above Warsaw. After that German
planes were shot down mostly when they were surprised and when the Poles
had the advantage of height. But victories still happened.
> I think they
> changed their tactic because the polish air force was already down.
Think again.
Lasse Smidt
Lech K. Lesiak <lkle...@calcna.ab.ca> skrev i en
nyhedsmeddelelse:Pine.A41.4.05.100042...@srv1.calcna.ab.ca
...
>
> On 28 Apr 2000, Dave Gower wrote:
>
> > I recall a documentary on low-level Mosquito attacks. I believe thetarget
> > was Gestapo headquarters in Copenhagen. One of the pilots was flyingover
It was March 20th. 1945 if I remember correctly, that "Operation Carthage"
took place - the low level attack by Mossies at Gestapo HQ in Copenhagen.
The HQ was destroyed, but so were several civilian houses including a
school
with children and teachers.
I have never heard of the story with the chimney, but it is very likely to
have happen, as the Mossies were flying very very low in Copenhagen that
day.
All the best
Lasse Smidt
l...@ami.dk
Gavin Bailey
wrote:
>> I recall a documentary on low-level Mosquito attacks. I believe the target
>> was Gestapo headquarters in Copenhagen. One of the pilots was flying over
>
>Don't recall ever reading about that one. There was a famous low level
>Mossie attack on a German jail in Belgium, I believe.
There were numerous low-level Mosquito attacks, originally by 105 and
139 Squadrons in 2 Group in late 1942, including numerous attacks on
targets in France, Belgium and Holland, but also including attacks as
far afield as Flensburg in Germany and Oslo in Norway. Long range
low-level Mosquito raids by 2 Group culminated with a raid on Jena in
May 1943. These raids were continued in 1944 by other Mosquito
squadrons after the original squadrons were retained in 8 Group,
Bomber Command and included further attacks on Gestapo buildings and
other targets throughout western Europe as well as the raid on Amiens
jail. IIRC the Copenhagen raid took place in 1945, involved Air-Vice
Marshal Broadhurst and was actually filmed.
Gavin Bailey
R SVEINSON
I believe the target
> > was Gestapo headquarters in Copenhagen. One of the pilots was flying over
> Don't recall ever reading about that one. There was a famous low level
> Mossie attack on a German jail in Belgium, I believe.
Mosquitos bombed the prison at Amiens, at the request of the French
resistance. The purpose was to kill Germans, destroy Gestapo records,
and
to breach the walls so that prisoners could escape. The raid was
successful.
Mosquitos destroyed the Gestapo records of the Dutch resistance in
the KUNSTZAAL KLEIZKAMP in The Hague.
On 31 Oct. Mosquitos destroyed Gestapo HQ and records at Aarhus
Denmark.
On 21 March, 1945 Mosquitos destroyed Gestapo HQ, Gestapo records
in Shellhaus in Copenhagen. 18 prisoners escaped, 26 Nazis, and 30
Danish collaberators
were hilled.
Gestapo HQ in Oslo Norway was destroyed.
Jussi Jalonen
Horak) wrote:
> Polish cavalry charging at tanks (It was discussed
> many times so I won't write much about it).
> Sorry to say that but I read it in many books. Also
> the Russians attacked tanks with cavalry.
A-ha! I knew someone had fallen for it! It is really a
myth. There was ONE occasion where a Polish cavalry
squadron was surrounded by German armours and they tried to
break out. The film "Lotna" by Andrzej Wajda - a really
good movie, might I add - pictures this incident.
But the myth that Poles had mounted offensive large-scale
cavalry attacks on German tanks IS just that, a myth, and
it was discussed on this DG some time ago. Nothing much to
add on that one...
> Now I want to know why there are no reports of fights
> between the Luftwaffe and the Polish Air Foce? (or not
> very much)
??? There are reports. Read any history books. I can't
remember the exact number of German planes that Poles
downed, but it was - in my opinion - pretty impressive.
But thanks for info, all of you! You managed to demonstrate
that I myself had many false impressions (frex. about
Singapore, and - uh, I'm ashamed to admit - even I had
fallen for that myth about flammable Shermans)
* Sent from AltaVista http://www.altavista.com Where you can also find related Web Pages, Images, Audios, Videos, News, and Shopping. Smart is Beautiful
Tony Whitaker
Shermans"
They were flammable, but it wasn't the gasoline engine that was the culprit.
It was the ammunition propellant. By storing the ammo in water-jacketed
enclosures, flammability was dramatically reduced. (I'm repeating what I've
learned on this NG - I haven't read anything about the subject myself.)
pkmb
>
> In article <8eij3e$ch@beast>, pkmb <pk...@catv.retsat1.com.pl> wrote:
> >Polish cavalry charging at tanks (It was discussed many times so I won't
> >write much about it).
> >
> against Polish cavalry, I've been getting a different mental image
> of tanks vs. horses. (Hint: less favorable to the Panzers.)
Yes. Cavalry was the elite of the Polish army. It was like I've said
before well equipped in anti-tank weapons and it's fighting spirit was
exceptional. It proved that in the battle of Mokra where Wolynska
Brygada Kawalerii destroyed over 100 tanks and armored cars. It was one
of the few battles in which cavalry won a battle against tanks. Germans
also while laughing at the "silly idea" of using cavalry seemed to have
been very scared of being charged. One should remember that after the
charge of Krojanty a whole Panzer Grenadier Division had to be
personally stopped by Guderian from fleeing even though the charge ended
in defeat (sort of) when German armored cars reached the battlefield
after the 18th Pomorski Cavalry Regiment destroyed a German infantry
battalion. The day when two Polish Cavalry Regiments charged the Germans
at Wolka Weglowa thus opening a way for the remainders of the encircled
after the battle of Bzura "Poznan" and "Pomorze" armies to Warsaw is
probably the last incident when cavalry achieved sort of a strategic
success. It is no wonder that cavalry is the army formation Polish
people are most fond of. Nowadays cavalry squadrons are being recreated
for parade purposes.
> This is particularly impressive, considering the performance of some
> of those Polish fighters.
Exactly. Considering the kind of planes Polish fighter pilots were
flying it serves as a great example of their skill and bravery that they
managed to down and damage so many German airplanes. IT also shows that
the fame Polish fighter pilots enjoyed in Britain and in every other
front they fought was well deserved.
http://www.miramex.com.pl/jwsoft/1939/eindex.htm
This is a page covering Polish aviation construction of the pre-war
period and plans plus prototypes of future planes which never got the
chance of being built. It is a very good page I recommend it. And That
Ladies and Gentlemen concludes my session of bookmark sharing :)). Happy
Polish Constitution Day!
sophia
b.ca>, Lech K. Lesiak <lkle...@calcna.ab.ca> writes
>
>On 28 Apr 2000, Dave Gower wrote:
>
>> I recall a documentary on low-level Mosquito attacks. I believe the target
>> was Gestapo headquarters in Copenhagen. One of the pilots was flying over
>
>Don't recall ever reading about that one. There was a famous low level
>Mossie attack on a German jail in Belgium, I believe.
It was the Shell House, an office block in Copenhagen, which the Gestapo
had taken over as a prison. The attack happened in 1945 and, while it
was successful in that many prisoners escaped and the German records
(the main objective) were destroyed, a local school was also hit
accidentally, killing many Danish children and their teachers.
>
--
Sophia
David Thornley
Lancasters bombed at night. This meant that they needed defensive
armament much less (probably the most useful thing the extra crew
supplied was eyes, since a Lanc could usually evade a night fighter
if somebody saw it in time). They didn't have to fly in formation,
and therefore didn't need that reserve performance. They didn't
have reason to fly as high (and, in fact, couldn't). They could
have used escorts at times, but there really was no way to escort
a bomber stream at night.
The result was that they were defeated over Berlin, and could not
resume deep penetration raids until the USAAF and Allied ground
forces had cleared the way for them.
The Fortresses bombed during the day. This had the potential of
greater accuracy under some conditions, and this potential was sometimes
realized. The USAAF was spending more effort per ton of bomb delivered,
but was able to make deep penetration raids without excessive losses
against the German defenses at their best.
So, basically, the Lancaster had a better bomb bay and better fuel
economy, but could not fly as high. The other differences are due
to tactical use.
Terence O'Brien
> Question: Were you involved in the Feb 15 1942 air attack on disembarking
> Japanese troops? Do you know if it was as effective as reported, or are the
> reports overblown?
The Japanese attack on Sumatra started on the 13th. At that time time
the allies had left about 40 bombers (perhaps few more Hudsons than
Blenheims) and about 15 Hurricanes - two aerodromes, Pelambang proper
(P1) which was under frequent attack and the jungle P2 about 50 miles
away which they never did discover, and where most of our aircraft were
lodged. On the 13th we had reports that P1 was captured by paratroops,
but in fact that attack had not been entirely successful, as we
discovered later. A large escorted naval force was reported off the
river mouth, too late for us to launch an attack - command never
authorised any night attack in the whole campaign, as far as I know.
I have down the 14th as the main attacking day on the landing force,
comprising ships off the river mouth and the landing barges coming up
the river to the oil tanks and the town. Our Hudson unit, some fifteen
which had arrived from England over the previous three weeks, still had
nine left by then and we lost three in the attacks on the naval force
that day, none on the barge attacks. Casualties had been inflicted of
course but to say the attacks were effective denies the outcome. By mid
afternoon reports were coming in that P1 had been taken by the Japanese,
it was decided to salvage what we could from P2, further strikes were
cancelled and I was ordered to take our remaining six aircraft to Java
and there contact Air Commodore Staton for orders. We lost one aircraft
in the process.
Next morning at Bandoeng, the 15th, I could get no sensible orders from
the depleted command (Staton could not be nfound), but on the field a
Dutch pilot from P2 had landed, and assured me the field had not yet
fallen. With the officer in charge of the seven Australian Hudsons I
discussed returning to pick up men still there, he said we should stay
for orders, but I decided to take my five back to check out the field.
(Too complicated to go into details, the arguments are in my book if
anyone is interested.) And so, avoiding the town area, we approached P2
carefully that morning, could see that our people were still in
untroubled possession, landed, then flew back to Java grossly overloaded
with men and equipment. The others left at P2 pulled out that night by
road to the southern port and crossed safely by boat to Java.
The end followed quickly thereafter. On the 16th we lost two on
reconnaissance flights over the Java Sea, and another the following day.
That meant two of us were still active (I had been lucky), the
Australians with us at Buitenzorg had about six left
and the Blenheims elsewhere about five. But the Japanese knew where we
were. I had made only one flight from the airfield when they attacked on
the 18th and finished us off. The Australians lasted only a day or so
more, then their remaining three flew out to Darwin, carrying in the
fuselage some 40-gallon drums of fuel which they pumped into the wing
tanks in passage and so managed to reach their destination.
Terence O'Brien.
John
>
> terence O'Brian writes
>
> Question: Were you involved in the Feb 15 1942 air attack on
> disembarking Japanese troops?
In this latter regard, was this the air attack (recently mentioned) in
which, IIRC, Hudsons, Blenheims and Hurricanes strafed/bombed both the
ships and the landing troops in their assault boats as well as in the
water ? And didn't at least one contributor to the NG take umbrage with
this, (especially going after the troops in the water), as a callous
disregard of the 'rules of war', or some such, thus extending several
other threads on the general theme of "Allied atrocities", e.g. Chuck
Yeager, the USS Wahoo, shooting surrendering soldiers, and so on ?
In any case, I don't recall getting much of a reaction from the group
regulars on the question, specifically, of whether or not, in "all out
war", killing survivors of ships, in lifeboats or in the water, is
conscienable or atrocious. Huh ?
John Brookes
Carl Alex Nielsen
<392fa87e...@mail.nsw.dialix.com.au>...
> It was March 20th. 1945 if I remember correctly, that "Operation
Carthage"
> took place - the low level attack by Mossies at Gestapo HQ in Copenhagen.
> The HQ was destroyed, but so were several civilian houses including a
> school
> with children and teachers.
The accident happened because one of the aircraft in the first wave hit
a lamp post which resultet in it crashing at the school.
Then aircraft from the following waves mistok the crash site for the
intended target - and unfortunately they did not all realize the mistake in
time to abort and/or engage the proper target.
All of the aircraft that attacked the proper target also hit it.
--
Carl Alex Friis Nielsen
Love me - Take me as I think I am
Gerard
> If daylight bombing were unnecessary, why did the Dutch surrender
> after Rotterdam, explicitly to spare the remaining cities?
An Application: Attrition vs. Maneuver Warfare
In the field of strategy and tactics the impact and influence of the Wind
of Hate have been widely overlooked. Numerous tacticians and strategists
advocate attrition warfare theories, in which the will of the enemy forces
is destroyed through the application of long-range artillery and bombing.
The advocates of such theories persist in such beliefes even in the face of
evidence, such as the post-World War II US Strategic Bombing Survey, which,
in the words of Paul Fussell, ascertained that "German military industrial
production seemed to increase-just like civilian determination not to
surrender-the more bombs were dropped." Psychologically, aerial and
artillery bombardments are effective, but only in the front lines when they
are combined with the Wind of Hate, as manifested in the threat of the
personal infantry attack that usually follows such bombardments.
This is why there were mass psychiatric casualties following World War I
artillery bombardments, but World War II's mass bombings of cities were
surprisingly counterproductive in breaking the enemy's will. Such
bombardments without an accompanying close-range assault, or at least the
threat of such an assault, are ineffective and may even serve no other
prupose than to stiffen the will and resolve of the enemy!
Today a few pioneering authors such as William Lind and Robert Leonhard
have focused their research and writings on the field of maneuver warfare,
in which they attempt to refute the advocates of attrition warfare and
understand the process of destroying the enemy's will [this word is
emphasized by author] to fight rather than his ability [this word is
emphasized by author] to fight. What maneuver warfare advocates have
discovered is that over and over in history, civilians and soldiers have
withstood the actuality [this word is emphasized by author] of fear,
horror, death, and destruction during artillery bombardments and aerial
bombardments without losing their will to fight, while the mere threat
[this word is emphasized by author] of invasion and close-up interpersonal
aggression has consistently turned whole populations into refugees fleeing
in panic.
This is why putting unfriendly troop units in the enemy's rear is
infinitely more important and effective than even the most comprehensive
bombardments in his rear or attrition along his front. We saw this in the
Korean War, in which, during the early years of the war, the rate of
psychiatric casualties was almost seven times higher than the average rate
for World War II. Only after the war settled down, lines stabilized, and
the threat of having the enemy in the rear areas decreased, did the average
rate go down to slightly less than that of World War II. The potential
[this word is emphasized by author] of close-up, inescapable, INTERpersonal
hatred and aggression is more effective and has greater impact on the moral
of the soldier than the presence [this word is emphasized by author] of
inescapable, IMpersonal death and destruction.
On Killing. Grossman, David. paperback edition. pp. 80-81.
--
I could also be wrong, I've been full of crap before.
Donald Phillipson
> . . . In the field of
>strategy and tactics the impact and influence of the Wind of Hate have
>been widely overlooked. Numerous tacticians and strategists advocate
>attrition warfare theories, in which the will of the enemy forces is
>destroyed through the application of long-range artillery and
>bombing. . . .
>Psychologically, aerial and artillery bombardments are effective, but
>only in the front lines when they are combined with the Wind of Hate,
>as manifested in the threat of the personal infantry attack that
>usually follows such bombardments.
This appears to mistake both theory and strategy.
1. Strategic Theory A: because 20th century war was
"industrialized," destruction of the enemy's productive industries and
infrastructure would bring victory. "Hate" did not figure in this
theory.
Psychological Theory B: because 20th century governments are
(more or less) democratic, deliberately inflicting psychological
stress on the mass of the enemy population (by bombing) would prompt
them to insist that their government surrender, or at least negotiate
an armistice. ("Hate" did not figure in this theory either.)
Modern theories of attrition appear to date from Verdun in 1916
(cf. Alistair Horne's book, 1964.) Bombing theories of 1918-1940 were
obviously designed to escape from the "prison" of attrition (as
practised 1916-1918 on the Western Front.)
2. Neither of these two theories was "combined with the Wind of Hate,
as manifested in the threat of the personal infantry attack that
usually follows such bombardments." No infantry attack usually
followed either "strategic bombing" or "terror bombing" as German
propagandists described it.
>This is why there were mass psychiatric casualties following World War I
>artillery bombardments, but World War II's mass bombings of cities were
>surprisingly counterproductive in breaking the enemy's will. Such
>bombardments without an accompanying close-range assault, or at least the
>threat of such an assault, are ineffective and may even serve no other
>prupose than to stiffen the will and resolve of the enemy! . . .
Same error repeated: the point of having specialized bomber aircraft
is that you can (strategically) attack the enemy far beyond the reach
of "close-range assault" and (tactically) achieve surprise against his
thinly-spread defences (if any.)
No theory current during WW2 asserted "bombardments without an
accompanying close-range assault, or at least the threat of such an
assault, are ineffective." (This doctrine seems to apply to city
seiges -- which occurred on the Russian Front but even then were rare,
e.g. Stalingrad and Sebastopol.)
>This is why putting unfriendly troop units in the enemy's rear is
>infinitely more important and effective than even the most comprehensive
>bombardments in his rear or attrition along his front. We saw this in the
>Korean War, in which, during the early years of the war, the rate of
>psychiatric casualties was almost seven times higher than the average rate
>for World War II.
Gerard does not tell us the link in this example. Did he mean that
Korean War psychiatric casualties were sevenfold higher than in WW2
because North Korean troops were behind the UN armies, or because UN
troops were behind the North Korean/Chinese front? Neither happened
much and neither seems correlated with "psychiatric casualties."
Korean War analysis and WW2 analysis seem to agree that "battle
fatigue" follows either bad training or long engagement in combat
without relief. It is not correlated with being encircled or attacked
from the rear. (The worst American losses in WW2 were in frontal
assaults, e.g. Omaha, Hurtgen Forest, Bulge. When Americans were
actually encircled, e.g. Bataan or Wake Island, there seems no reason
to suppose battle fatigue contributed more to defeat than lack of
food, ammunition, room to manoeuvre etc. This is probably why staff
colleges study supply and room to manoeuvre but not trainng or morale,
which is supposed to be the responsibility of other parts of the
military machine.)
--
| Donald Phillipson, dphil...@trytel.com |
| Carlsbad Springs, Ottawa, Canada |
Maikel Weyers
Louis Capdeboscq <Louis.Ca...@wanadoo.fr> schreef in berichtnieuws
3926a810...@mail.nsw.dialix.com.au...
> Cub driver wrote:
>
> > If daylight bombing were unnecessary, why did the Dutch surrender
> > after Rotterdam, explicitly to spare the remaining cities?
>
>
> That's why there was all that fuss about the bombing.
>
This is not exactly true. The commander of Rotterdam Colonel Scharroo got a
message with a utimatum. The consequence of not surendering was the complete
destruction of Rotterdam The message was signed with "The commander of the
German forces". Since the German assault on Holland was loaded with
infiltration the Dutch commander was sceptic about it. Pressuming anybody
could have written the message the Dutch commander send the message back
with the question to sign it with a name and rank. A new ultimatum was given
at 12:35 by General Schimdt who also signed the message. In the mean time
the German bombers were already airborne. The Dutch negotiater Captain
Backer went back for the Dutch lines at 13:20. Before reaching them the
bombers appeared and started the bombardment at 13:30. They had missed the
flares which announced that the airstrike had been canceled.
Gerard
Phillipson) wrote:
> Gerard does not tell us the link in this example. [snip]
I only provide the citation as a basis for argument on daylight bombing. I
have made no conclusions or assumptions on the validity of the Wind of Hate
a la Grossman.
The entire post is from the Grossman book.
Belphégor
Everybody could know than jewish were burnt.
HCALTMANN
>The worse we could hear about WW2 is "we didn't know".
>Everybody could know than jewish were burnt.
Did you know? Were you there? I was there, a German soldier, and I did not
know. You may think I am lying, and if you do, that is your privilege.
-- Heinz
HCAl...@aol.com (Heinz Altmann)
"I have no desire to win, only to get things right." A.J.P. Taylor
Donald Phillipson
>
>>The worse we could hear about WW2 is "we didn't know".
>>Everybody could know than jewish were burnt.
HCALTMANN (hcal...@aol.com) writes:
> Did you know? Were you there? I was there, a German soldier, and I did not
> know. You may think I am lying, and if you do, that is your privilege.
Extracts from the Klemperer diary show that
a 60-year-old (Jewish Protestant) civilian in Dresden
knew in Jan. 1942:
(a) at least some Polish Jews had been massacred,
(b) German Jews were currently being deported, and
those deported from Dresden never returned and
never wrote to their friends or relatives.
Tony Whitaker
> >From: Belphigor JACQUES.HAI...@wanadoo.fr.invalid
"I was there, a German soldier, and I did not know [about the murdering of
Jewish people]."
I've seen television shows where clips from Nazi propaganda films were shown
in which Jewish people were hatefully characterized as "rats" and "vermin".
Did you not see any of this type of propaganda? How did you personally feel
about Jewish people at the time? Although you say you did not "know", did
you ever suspect? How did an ordinary German man arrive at the conclusion
that it was not morally wrong to invade other countries? You must have heard
news of ChristalNacht (I don't know how to spell it). How did you feel about
that? You must have seen the Jewish people walking the streets with the Star
of David displayed on them. What did you think about that?
casita
> Did you know? Were you there? I was there, a German soldier, and I did not
> know. You may think I am lying, and if you do, that is your privilege.
I only know what I read in the books and from those who were there.
I have spoken to my father and MANY Canadian WW2 vets. The top Canadian
vets on the telly have said the same thing. They knew Jewish people were
having a rough time of it in Europe, but they did not know things were as
bad as they were. There is no reason to believe the typical German
soldier - citizen has much more info than than anyone else. It wasn't till
the Concentration Camps were Liberated that people understood the dreadful
reality.
mfe...@iisc.com
> How did an ordinary German man arrive at the conclusion
> that it was not morally wrong to invade other countries?
Out of curiousity, WHICH nations have shown any real compunctions about
invading other countries?
Certainly Britain, France, the Netherlands had extensive colonial possessions
at the time. They did not acquire them via gentle suasive means. Poland
had taken the opportunity to acquire portions of Russia/the USSR immediately
following the Russian revolution. Lessee, Finland also invited themselves to
some Russian territory, the US for some reason found itself with a couple
valuable pieces of Pacific real estate, which were to play a large role
getting them entangled with Japan, which actually sat in that part of the
world.
In short, when did ANY "ordinary" citizen of ANY country "arrive at the
conclusion that it was not morally wrong to invade other countries?"
Sorry, but that one's a red-herring.
Mike
HCALTMANN
>I've seen television shows where clips from Nazi propaganda films were shown
>in which Jewish people were hatefully characterized as "rats" and "vermin".
>Did you not see any of this type of propaganda?
Oh, yes, I did. But that did not describe the killing of Jews en masse. There
was a full-length feature film, "Jud Suess." All this was known to be
propaganda. Do you believe all that is said in TV commercials? Do you
consider Hollywood output authentic history?
>How did you personally feel
>about Jewish people at the time?
I was told not to like them, to hate them, and I did. I was wrong. Not just
"morally wrong," but dead, plain wrong.
>Although you say you did not "know", did
>you ever suspect?
Did I ever suspect what? That millions of Jews were being killed in camps in
Poland? That I did not know nor suspect. That there were concentration camps
in Germany and Austria, and that they were not places I wanted to be in, that I
did not only suspect but knew. That the war in the East was inhumane, and that
I was very grateful that I did not have to serve there, that I did fully know.
>How did an ordinary German man arrive at the conclusion
>that it was not morally wrong to invade other countries?
Here we go again, with the "morally wrong." At the time, the world was
different, and the invasion and conquering of other countries had been
practiced by others for decades (e.g. colonialism, the Boer War, the invasions
of Germany by Napoleon and Louis XIV, etc.) Now it was Germany's turn, and her
turn to fight for a place in the sun. That was the rationale.
In retrospect, it was wrong. Then, it seemed right to a teenager.
> You must have heard
>news of ChristalNacht (I don't know how to spell it). How did you feel about
>that?
It is spelled Kristallnacht. I was twelve years old at the time, and I thought
it was fascinating.
>You must have seen the Jewish people walking the streets with the Star
>of David displayed on them. What did you think about that?
Again, I was quite young then. Also, if I recall correctly, by the time Jews
were made to wear the emblem, there were not many Jews left in Germany, so not
many were seen. I must have thought: There goes a Jew, and I want nothing to
do with him.
With respect -- Heinz
John Halliwell
<ad...@freenet.carleton.ca> writes
>Extracts from the Klemperer diary show that
>a 60-year-old (Jewish Protestant) civilian in Dresden
>knew in Jan. 1942:
>(a) at least some Polish Jews had been massacred,
>(b) German Jews were currently being deported, and
>those deported from Dresden never returned and
>never wrote to their friends or relatives.
There is a difference between 'knowing' and 'suspecting'. Of course many
people knew the Jews were being rounded up and persecuted, but did not
know the full extent of the horrors that were occurring.
During the war, Churchill risked betraying the Ultra secret by
announcing that the Jews were indeed being treated much worse than
anyone suspected. He received this information from Enigma decodes, but
thought it important enough to take the risk (it gave the Allied
civilians another reason to keep supporting the war effort). Of course,
the contents of these decodes were known only to very few people.
The big outcry came when the Allies liberated the camps and found the
actual conditions far worse than anyone ever suspected (including
Churchill). I've been to Dachau, it's a horrible place. At first, I
thought the locals must have known, many might have suspected, but I
wouldn't be surprised if very few actually knew. Even if they did know,
under Hitler's regime, it was probably safer just to ignore it.
To Germany's credit, they accept the horrors that the Nazis subjected
the Jews and others to (and we must always remember it was the Nazis).
--
John
Preston, Lancs, UK.
mfe...@iisc.com
> The worse we could hear about WW2 is "we didn't know".
> Everybody could know than jewish were burnt.
Really?
Then could explain, please, why Shirer indicates that people were told to
keep their mouths shut about the murders or they would be executed?
Or why Gilbert documents soldiers executed for not being quiet about the
murders taking place on the Eastern Front?
Should be too difficult, for an intellectual giant...
Mike
Ralph Baumfalk
Dear Sirs,
think about that:
Why were not a mass riot of the jews
againgst the mass murder?
Because they didn't know!
Sound that logical?
Or do You think they were cowards?
They were very brave in WI.
They fought for germany,
because they were german (with another religion).
With respect
Ralph
Andrew Clark
> Then could explain, please, why Shirer indicates that people were told to
> keep their mouths shut about the murders or they would be executed?
> Or why Gilbert documents soldiers executed for not being quiet about the
> murders taking place on the Eastern Front?
The Nazi regime tolerated no political opposition. *Protesting* about the
murder of Jews and Poles in the East, or indeed the murder and torture of
Germans in Germany, was harshly punished. But *talking* about the murder of
Jews and Poles in the East, especially in an approving tone, was not
punished at all. The cases you cite relate to *protestors*. The idea that
the Nazi regime maintained the secrecy of the genocide in the East by terror
is a convenient fiction.
mfe...@iisc.com
>> Then could explain, please, why Shirer indicates that people were told to
>> keep their mouths shut about the murders or they would be executed?
> The Nazi regime tolerated no political opposition. *Protesting* about the
> murder of Jews and Poles in the East, or indeed the murder and torture of
> Germans in Germany, was harshly punished. But *talking* about the murder of
> Jews and Poles in the East, especially in an approving tone, was not
> punished at all. The cases you cite relate to *protestors*. The idea that
As usual, you seem to be incorrect, Mr Clark.
Now, I did not relate the specific case I had in mind WRT to Shirer.
Could you please be so good as to relate the details of it, or some others,
please? Page numbers would be nice as well.
After all, for you to make a statement like that, you must have thoroughly
read Shirer cover-to-cover, yes? (But then please explain why Shirer says
the EARLIEST of Hitler's pronunciations about the Jews' public extermination
came in 1939, and even that was lodged in somewhat circumspect language.)
Oh, and also relate all the incidents in Gilbert to which I referred.
Thanks ever so much.
Mike
Andy O'Neill
<JACQUES.HAI...@wanadoo.fr.invalid> writes
> The worse we could hear about WW2 is "we didn't know".
>Everybody could know than jewish were burnt.
I think it's highly unlikely that most people knew, vanishingly unlikely
that everybody knew.
The official line was to avoid words like "gas chamber", "killing" or
"murder" and use euphemisms instead. This is in internal documents
which are available for scrutiny today.
There is newsreel film which was shot in order to show what relocation
camps were like. This of course was a pack of lies, and the people
shown were all dead by the time the film was even screened.
But it took some effort to shoot.
Why bother?
Nazi Germany was a police state, chock full of informers.
If the populace knew what was going on then the state would have known
they knew.
Why bother with faking films and using euphemisms if you know everyone
knows?
Besides this, I believe Heinz.
What's he got to lose.
All he had to do was not post.
I believe the old codgers I've talked to who were there.
They also had nothing to lose.
Vets interviewed for TV are now remarkably open.
Freely admit to all sorts of acts which were pretty bad.
When you get pretty old you stop caring about covering things up which
happened 50 years back.
Andy O'Neill
www.l-25.demon.co.uk/index.htm
Liverpool Wargames Association
www.l-25.demon.co.uk/LWA.htm
jann...@hotmail.com
mfe...@iisc.com wrote:
>Out of curiousity, WHICH nations have shown any real compunctions
>about invading other countries?
>(...)Lessee, Finland also invited themselves to some Russian territory.
Yes, under the excuse that the Soviet Union had started the war by
bombing (in the days following the German invasion) Finland who had
declared her neutrality...
Yes, but stopping short of announcing the occupied areas as a part of
Finland...
Yes, I know...
> In short, when did ANY "ordinary" citizen of ANY country "arrive at
> the conclusion that it was not morally wrong to invade other
> countries?"
Oh, there were several occasions on which Finnish soldiers, usually
reservists, refused to cross the old (pre-1940) border into the Soviet
Union. The largest mass refusals included were of company sized units.
However, there was, naturally, no effect on the campaign; it was enough
to put another company (often of younger conscripts) to spearhead, and
the rest followed after a while. The few individuals who wouldn´t budge
could be sent to the rear, noo need even to read aloud any chapters of
the Military Law...
Janne Glad
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Tony Whitaker
just "morally wrong," but dead, plain wrong."
Did you obediently hate Jewish people because you were afraid to be
disobedient, or because you wanted to hate them? Actually, from your posts
it sounds like you were just a child during that period. If so, I don't
think you're the right person to be asking these questions.
HCALTMANN
>Did you obediently hate Jewish people
No. As I said, I did not hate them. I disliked them. Why? Because that was
the politically correct thing to do at the time (not only in Germany, either)
>because you were afraid to be
>disobedient
No again. Yes, I wanted to obey, but disliking the Jews was not a matter of
obeying or not obeying. It was a natural thing to do.
>or because you wanted to hate them?
I wanted to be a good German and follower of Hitler. He disliked the Jews, so
did most Germans of the time, so it was the natural thing for me to do also.
>I don't think you're the right person to be asking these questions.
I am not asking any questions, I am trying to answer them.-- Heinz
sh...@aol.com
a great many of Wehrmacht not knoy knew, but even assisted the SS in excecuting
huge numbers of Jewish women and children, i.e Babi Yar, etc.
And given the way word travels in tight places like an Army, it would be hard
to accept that the German atrocities committed by the Waffen SS, Eisengratzen
(sp?), Nazi Party officials at the frontlines, and Werhrmacht would not be
generally known.
HCALTMANN wrote:
> >From: BelphE9gor JACQUES.HAI...@wanadoo.fr.invalid
>
> >The worse we could hear about WW2 is "we didn't know".
> >Everybody could know than jewish were burnt.
>
Glenn A. Steinberg
> <mfe...@iisc.com> wrote
> > (But then please explain why Shirer says
> > the EARLIEST of Hitler's pronunciations about the Jews' public extermination>
> > came in 1939, and even that was lodged in somewhat circumspect language.)
>
> Does he? I need look no further than Chapter One of Shirer to prove you wrong.> Shirer points out that Mein Kampf, written in 1924, includes, among hundreds
> of other anti-Semitic things, Hitler's rather un-circumspect phrase: "the
> nightmare of the seduction of thousands of girls by repulsive, crook-legged
> Jew bastards".
And what on earth does that phrase have to do with what Mike Fester
asked for?
Fester asked for evidence of "the EARLIEST of Hitler's pronunciations
about the Jews' public extermination"
You quote an anti-Semitic statement of Hitler's from Mein Kampf about
"the nightmare of the seduction of thousands of girls by repulsive,
crook-legged Jew bastards."
Does that anti-Semitic statement say *anything* about the
*extermination* of the Jews? I don't see anything in the statement
that says anything about the extermination of the Jews.
What you seem unable to comprehend is that there is a difference
between anti-Semitism and genocide. Someone can be *very* anti-Semitic
and still not want or intend to murder every single Jew in the world.
Someone can be *very* racist without wanting or intending to kill a
single black person.
The intent and ability to commit mass murder is what made the Nazis so
very different from -- and so much worse than -- any other group of
bigoted people in history. That's what sets the Nazis apart and makes
their actions so much more heinous than virtually anything anyone else
has committed in all of history.
So, why do you insist on taking any sign of public anti-Semitism and
blowing it up into a clear indication of the Nazis' intent to
exterminate the Jews of Europe? Public anti-Semitic statements are
evidence of nothing but anti-Semitism on the Nazis' part. They're
*not* evidence of a publicly announced intention to murder every Jew in
Europe. On the contrary, the Nazis kept that intention as secret as
possible.
In addition, how many times do you have to be told that Hitler and the
Nazis themselves didn't even come to an official decision about whether
or not to exterminate the Jews until late 1941? They had killed many
Poles and Gypsies and Polish Jews before that date, but the decision to
engage in genocide was not made until late 1941. Read the Oxford
Companion to World War II or any reputable historian of the Holocaust.
According to The Oxford Companion to World War II (under the entry on
the "Final Solution"), for example, "From 1933 until the outbreak of
war in 1939, the official policy of the German government [with respect
to the Jews] permitted, and even encouraged, emigration.... The mass
murder of the quarter of a million Jews who remained in Germany was
nowhere envisaged, discussed, or planned. Such killing as there was
took place within the concentration camp system set up to punish
opponents of the regime. In the years 1933 to 1938 fewer than a hundred
Jews were... murdered in concentration camps.... With the annexation of
Austria in March 1938 and of Bohemia and Moravia in March 1939...
[s]till there was no policy of mass murder. Such violence as there was
remained on a relatively small scale."
Or let's look once again at Christopher Browning: "Hitler and the
leading Nazis were initially quite serious about solving the Jewish
question through resettlement.... [and] Hitler was the key decision
maker in authorizing the Lublin and Madagascar resettlement schemes"
(p. 89). According to Browning, even historians who place Hitler's
decision to exterminate the Jews at the very earliest possible date
place the decision "in early 1941 -- 'months earlier than the juncture
most specialists have selected'" (p. 93).
So, answer Fester's question: "please explain why Shirer [as well as a
host of expert sources] says the EARLIEST of Hitler's pronunciations
Lech K. Lesiak
On 18 May 2000, HCALTMANN wrote:
> Again, I was quite young then. Also, if I recall correctly, by the time Jews
> were made to wear the emblem, there were not many Jews left in Germany, so not
> many were seen. I must have thought: There goes a Jew, and I want nothing to
> do with him.
Just finished a book by an American woman of German parentage whose family
went to Berlin from Stratford, New Jersey in 1939 when she was nine. She
spent most of the time in Berlin up to 1946 when she, her father, and
brother who were US citizens returned to the US. The only mention of Jews
she makes is an incident on the Berlin subway when her older brother gave
his seat to an old Jewish woman and was bawled out by another passenger
for doing so. She writes that they knew not to criticize the regime or to
indulge in defeatist talk lest they be arrested and sent off somewhere.
Her father was questioned by the Gestapo on several occasions after being
reported by fellow workers for insulting the Reich. He got off only
because the head of his department and a retired Berlin cop vouched for
him.
She writes that she and her family only learned of the death camps after
the war ended. She also talks about being strafed by both US and Russian
aircraft.
"Eleanor's Story - An American Girl in Hitler's Germany", Garner, Eleanor
Ramrath; Peachtree Publishers, Atlanta, 1999.
Cheers,
Lech
Sawfish
>You personally may not have known, but the books I have strongly indicated that>a great many of Wehrmacht not knoy knew, but even assisted the SS in excecuting>huge numbers of Jewish women and children, i.e Babi Yar, etc.
>And given the way word travels in tight places like an Army, it would be hard
>to accept that the German atrocities committed by the Waffen SS, Eisengratzen
>(sp?), Nazi Party officials at the frontlines, and Werhrmacht would not be
>generally known.
I think you're looking at this as a digital phenomenon: the German
people/army, etc. either knew NOTHING; or they knew everything. You seem
to want to further simplify the situation by thinking that Germany was
monolithic: that ALL Germans either knew everything or nothing. You are
then properly finding evidence that some Germans knew some facts about the
extermination camps, and expanding it into the false assumption that all
Germans knew everything.
In my opinion, it was more likely that many people in Germany recognised
that the Jewish population was gradually disappearing. They were told,
perhaps, that the Jews were being relocated to somehow enhance the war
effort. Sounds suspicious, especially since no one had ever heard of
these missing Jews again, but so what? I, as loyal German, don't
particularly like these missing individuals, I cannot find out more about
them unless I ask some questions, and this might be personally dangerous
for me. In the meantime, my city is being bombed day and night, and many
of my own relatives in the armed forces have not been heard from for
several months.
Under these circumstances, just how interested would YOU be in trying to
find out what happened to a missing, marginalized minority? For me, I'd
just find a way not to think about it. I'd hunker down and try hard to get
through the war alive. Sorry, but I'm a human, not a saint.
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"The food at the new restaurant was awful--but at least the portions
were large!" --Sawfish
Donald Phillipson
hcal...@aol.com (HCALTMANN) wrote May 18
>>From: "Tony Whitaker" tony...@mindspring.com
>>
>>How did an ordinary German man arrive at the conclusion
>>that it was not morally wrong to invade other countries?
>
>Here we go again, with the "morally wrong." At the time, the world
>was different, and the invasion and conquering of other countries had
>been practiced by others for decades (e.g. colonialism, the Boer War,
>the invasions of Germany by Napoleon and Louis XIV, etc.) Now it was
>Germany's turn, and her turn to fight for a place in the sun. That
>was the rationale. In retrospect, it was wrong. Then, it seemed right
>to a teenager.
This is an interesting indicator of the success with which Nazified
Germany erased from the culture the 1920s-style peacemaking of the
League of Nations in which Germany had been an eager participant only
a decade earlier i.e. well within living memory.
This bears on "appeasement." After 1918 all European powers agreed
that, whoever and however the First World War began, it had been
unnecessary, economically ruinous, politically disastrous, and/or
morally suicidal. They put a lot of effort into "postmodern"
diplomacy to prevent war, e.g. organised plebiscites in disputed
territory with mixed populations etc. The fundamental aim was to
break completely with the past (of Napoleon, Boer Wars, Balkan wars
etc.) by new methods of negotiation, backed up by economic sanctions
(trade boycotts etc.)
Generally this idea of "collective security" seemed to work OK in the
1920s (one of the proofs being that defeated Germany, in chaos in
1919, rapidly recovered and was allowed to join the League of Nations,
the new international organization.) Generally the negotiation ethic
failed in the middle 1930s. Economic sanctions failed to stop Italian
aggression in Ethopia and Japanese aggression in China, and Germany
and Italy refused to obey the "quarantine" of the Spanish Civil War.
(I.e. the world polarized between new-type dictatorships and
democracies which appeared "old-fashioned" about things like
morality.)
Even so, postwar politicians (Chamberlain, Daladier, etc.) tried as
late as 1937 to make the negotiation ethic work (thus readjusted
frontiers between Germany and Czechoslovakia, because of the German
majority population in the Sudetenland.) They gave up (and started
rearming) only when suspicious that Hitler was not playing the same
game: and their failures were then obvious enough that critics
condemned it as "appeasement."
It is thus interesting to see how completely German history 1920-37
was unknown to a German teenager in the 1940s.
This is not a unique case. E.g. the whole school system of Quebec
Province was run by the Catholic church from about 1870 until the
1960s, when it was rapidly secularized as part of the "Quiet
Revolution:" all teachers in French-language primary schools were
nuns up to about 1966, when they suddenly vanished from the classroom.
In 1981 or 1982, talking to a young postgrad student, I suddenly
realized she did not know the Catholic church ever had anything to do
with schools. She confirmed this by asked directly. During at least
15 years in Quebec public education (continuously from kindergarten to
the BA graduation) no one ever told her the church had run the the
schools her parents and grandparents had attended. The RC church had
in fact been the dominant influence in Quebec for 300 years (e.g. in
labour unions, family law, etc) but in 1980 this was just not in the
history curriculum or the current political folklore.
This is why I am not completely surprised that Altmann believed in
1943 that no countries had ever refrained from fighting for what they
wanted, so that Germany was in 1939 merely taking its turn. When you
feel you are taking part in a great reform movement, it is common to
forget all past history as a waste of time. Revolutionists Lenin and
Hitler both repudiated "bourgeois morality": they may have differed
in how many ordinary people they could persuade to do the same.
Andrew Clark
Andy O'Neill <An...@l-25.dont-spam-me.demon.co.uk> wrote
> Nazi Germany was a police state, chock full of informers.
> If the populace knew what was going on then the state would have known
> they knew.
> Why bother with faking films and using euphemisms if you know everyone
> knows?
There are two points to note about these propaganda films. Firstly, their
primary audience was neutral foreigners and allies, with whom Hitler wished
to maintain good relations. Lying to them, and particularly the Swiss Red
Cross (who visited the model Jewish camp featured in the films) was just
part of Hitler's diplomacy. And secondly, there were many within Germany
who
did not believe or just as importantly *did not wish to believe* the very
widespread rumours, stories and occasional piece of eyewitness evidence
about the mass killings in the East. The films helped people like that to
stay calm and loyal to Hitler, which he naturally wanted.
Not many Gestapo files of public opinion survived the war. Those that did
tend to indicate that the fate of the Jews and the mass killing project in
the East was a more or less open secret in the Reich. SS and police files,
much more of which survive, also tend to confirm that picture.
mfe...@iisc.com
> <mfe...@iisc.com> wrote
>> Now, I did not relate the specific case I had in mind WRT to Shirer.
>> Could you please be so good as to relate the details of it, or some
>> others, please? Page numbers would be nice as well.
> How about you produce a specific cite for that supposed British resolution
> from the 1930's which condemned all Asians as inferior? Then I'll wade
1920's.
The British introduced a resolution to declare Asians an inferior race.
One can check Beasley's _The Rise of Modern Japan_ for the roots of this,
if one wishes.
>> After all, for you to make a statement like that, you must have thoroughly
>> read Shirer cover-to-cover, yes?
> Yes. And I remember his conclusions very well,
No, Mr Clark, you do not. In fact, it is obvious you have not read Shirer.
> including his conclusion that
> protest was punished, but talk was not.
Then you'll have no problems producing a page number to that effect.
Thanks.
Oh, btw, should you actually READ Shirer (a stretch), you will find, on
page 1259, Himmler's quote: "...I also want to talk to you quite frankly on
a
very grave matter. Among ourselves it should be mentioned quite frankly,
and
yet we will never speak of it publicly... I mean... the extermination of
the
Jewish race..."
Oh, and on page 1278:
"But the professor was a little nervous about the whole thing. 'Peter', he
said
to Herypierre, 'if you can't keep your trap shut, you'll be one of them.'
(meaning a victim of experiments.)
> (But then please explain why Shirer says
>> the EARLIEST of Hitler's pronunciations about the Jews' public
> extermination
>> came in 1939, and even that was lodged in somewhat circumspect language.)
> Does he?
He does.
Do you constantly have reading problems, Mr Clark?
It appears so.
> phrase: "the nightmare of the seduction of thousands of girls by repulsive,
> crook-legged Jew bastards".
I'm looking, but I'm not finding any account of "extermination".
Do you know what the word means?
>> Thanks ever so much.
> My pleasure.
You do indeed have problems with your reading.
Now, you DO realize that none of what you have written mentions
extermination,
do you not?
No?
I see "seduction" and "repulsive". A standard dictionary will inform you
that those are NOT synonymous with "to be exterminated".
Now, as you seem unable to actually READ Shirer, I quote (and provide page
numbers, which you also seem unable to do)
"As it worked out, the 'final solution' was what Adolf Hitler had long had
in
mind an what he had publically proclaimed even before the war started. In
his speech to the Reichstag in January 30, 1939, he had said:
" If the international Jewish finaciers... should again succeed in plunging
the
nations into a world war the result will be... the annihilation of the
Jewish
race throughout Europe."
Shirer, _The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich_, page 1256.
Note, Mr Clark; even then Hitler does not claim *HE* will exterminate them.
Now, Mr Clark, you're being called: please produce a quote from Shirer
showing
the Hitler is publically announcing a plan to kill all the jews that
predates
this.
Thank you.
Mike
Andrew Clark
Glenn A. Steinberg <gste...@TCNJ.EDU> wrote
> Fester asked for evidence of "the EARLIEST of Hitler's pronunciations
> about the Jews' public extermination
1. Mein Kampf, 1925: "The Jews [and the Slavs] are chaff, and like chaff
they must be burnt" [one of several similar statements referring directly to
the need to eliminate the Jews].
2. Hitler, the Buergerbraukeller, 27 February 1925: "the Jews [and the
Slavs] are our enemy and the enemy of Germany. ... Either the enemy passes
over our bodies or we will pass over theirs!".
3. Point 3 of the German Workers Party (later NSDAP) programme, 24 February
1924: All Jews in the Reich are to be "first deprived of citizenship" then
"eliminated as a factor in the future of Germany".
These three connected public statements by Hitler, all made within months of
each other, taken together, clearly establish that from 1925 the
extermination of Jews by killing was Nazi policy.
> In addition, how many times do you have to be told that Hitler and the
> Nazis themselves didn't even come to an official decision about whether
> or not to exterminate the Jews until late 1941? They had killed many
> Poles and Gypsies and Polish Jews before that date, but the decision to
> engage in genocide was not made until late 1941. Read the Oxford
> Companion to World War II or any reputable historian of the Holocaust.
I think you are forgetting that you are not actually qualified to "tell" me
anything, unless you are a WW2 or Holocaust historian or historical
researcher whose published work has been subject to peer review and general
approval.
According to the "reputable historian[s] of the Holocaust", the situation is
relatively straightforward. Hitler and the Nazi party began by stating their
intention to kill the Jews quite overtly. A few years later, Hitler went
respectable and became more cautious in order to woo potential supporters.
His own public statements, while violently anti-Semitic, became more guarded
about Nazi intentions to kill the Jews. Only the wilder fringes of the Nazi
machine frequently made such promises - Hitler spoke in oblique language
with only the occasional overt public statement.
Until 1933, Hitler had no power to do anything about the Jews in Germany. On
illegally and violently seizing power, he then pursued a policy of
anti-Semitic violent persecution, robbery and humiliation in order to drive
out as many Jews as possible. A large majority of German Jews did in fact
emigrate. However, until 1939, Hitler still looked for international
respectability and eventual rapprochement with Britain and the US. This
constrained him from adopting the outright extermination of the Jews which
he had advocated in the beginning. After 1939, no such constraint existed.
Systematic, pre-planned mass killing of Poles, Slavs and Jews began days
after German armies marched into Poland, and continued ceaselessly until
1945. In 1941, a continent-wide procedure employing more efficient killing
methods and procedures was adopted following the Wannsee conference.
Which part of this don't you understand?
John Hodgson
Concentration Camps?
It has often been suggested that they knew nothing. That probability is as
unlikely as it is converse, that they knew everything.
It has been said, "You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of
the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time",
and there is an abundance of evidence that a large number of the Germans
knew a great deal about, what went on in concentration camps. There were
still more who had grave suspicions and perhaps even misgivings but who
preferred to lull their consciences by remaining in ignorance.
As the shortage of labour grew more acute it became the policy to free
German women criminals and asocial elements from the concentration camps to
work in German factories. It is difficult to believe that such women told no
one of their experiences. In these factories the forewomen were German
civilians in contact with the internees and able to speak to them. Forewomen
from Auschwitz who subsequently went to the Siemens sub-factory at
Ravensbruck had formerly been workers at Siemens in Berlin. They met women
they had known in Berlin and told them what they had seen in Auschwitz.
Is it reasonable to suppose that these stories were never repeated? Germans
who during the war indulged in careless talk used to be told "You had better
be
careful or you'll go up the chimney". To what could that refer but the
concentration camp crematoriums?
The concentration camp system had been in existence in Germany for several
years before the war and many Germans had had friends and relatives confined
in the camps, some of whom were subsequently released.
>From Buchenwald, prisoners went out daily to work in Weimar, Erfurt, and
Jena. They left in the morning and came back at night. During the day they
mixed with the civilian population while at work. Did they never converse,
and if they did, was the subject of concentration camps always studiously
avoided?
In many factories where parties from concentration camps worked, the
technicians were not members of the armed forces and the foremen were not SS
men. They went home every night after supervising the work of the prisoners
all day. Did they never discuss with their relatives or friends when they
got home what they had seen and heard during the day?
And what of the SS executive staff and guards. It is true that they had all
signed statements binding themselves never to reveal to anyone outside the
concentration camp service anything which they had seen inside their camp.
But is it reasonable to believe that none of them was human enough to break
that undertaking? The bully is ever a braggart.
In August 194I the Bishop of Limburg wrote to the Reich Ministries of the
Interior, of justice, and of Church Affairs as follows:
About 8 kilometres from Limburg in the little town of Hadamar, is an
institute where euthanasia has been systematically practised for months.
Several times a week buses arrive in Hadamar with a considerable number of
such victims. The local school children know the vehicle and say, "There
comes the murder box again." The children call each other names and say,
"You are crazy, you will be sent to the baking ovens in Hadamar." Those who
do not want to marry say "Marry? Never! Bring children into the world so
that they can be put into the pressure steamer?" You hear the old folks say,
"Do not send me to a state hospital. After the feeble minded have been
finished off, the next useless caters whose turn it will be are the old
people."
If the local inhabitants knew so much in Hadamar is there any doubt that the
inhabitants of Bergen, Dachau, Struthof, and Birkenau knew something of what
was happening at their very doors in the Belsen, Dachau, Natzweiler, and
Auschwitz concentration camps?
Hess himself said of Auschwitz, "the foul and nauseating stench from the
continuous burning of bodies permeated the entire area and all the people
living in the surrounding communities knew that exterminations were going on
at the concentration camp."
Day after day trainloads of victims travelled in cattle trucks over the
whole railway system of the Reich on their way to extermination centres.
They were seen by hundreds of railway workers who knew whence they had come
and whither they were going.
Whatever horrors have remained hidden behind the camp walls, such things as
these went on in broad daylight and all those Germans who had eyes to see
and ears to hear can have been in little doubt of what crimes were being
committed in their name throughout the land.
HCALTMANN
>Until 1933, Hitler had no power to do >anything about the Jews in Germany. On
>illegally and violently seizing power,
Hitler came to power quite legally, assuming the office of chancellor at the
call of the then persident of Germany, Paul von Hindenburg. The illegalities
started after he assumed the chancellorship.
He also did not violently seize power. The violence had been a quasi-civil war
on the streets betwen the thugs on the left and those on the right before
Hitler came to power. That Buergerkrieg stopped after Hitler came to power,
much to the relief of the German Buergers.
Sorry I have to correct a renowned historian, but I was there -- Heinz
David Thornley
Donald Phillipson <ad...@freenet.carleton.ca> wrote:
>hcal...@aol.com (HCALTMANN) wrote May 18
>>>From: "Tony Whitaker" tony...@mindspring.com
>>>
>>>How did an ordinary German man arrive at the conclusion
>>>that it was not morally wrong to invade other countries?
>>
>>Here we go again, with the "morally wrong." At the time, the world
>>was different, and the invasion and conquering of other countries had
>This is an interesting indicator of the success with which Nazified
>Germany erased from the culture the 1920s-style peacemaking of the
>League of Nations in which Germany had been an eager participant only
>a decade earlier i.e. well within living memory.
Yup. And the days when a sovereign nation was assumed to have the right
to wage war were also well within living memory. The League of Nations
had a short run, one not long enough to become any sort of tradition.
To put it another way, the League was set up with the aim of rendering
war unnecessary. It worked fairly well as long as nobody put any strain
on it. It was not able to deal with the grievances of the "have-not"
nations after WWI, including Italy. The "haves" had gained their
positions by various sorts of wars, and did not seem eager to renounce
these positions.
For example, the British colonial wars were within living memory
(Churchill, for one, had been involved). By waging these wars, the
British gained what they considered a very good empire, which they were
appearing reluctant to give up. (Yes, they were sympathetic to the
Indian independence movement, but Chamberlain directly said that the
British and French had the best parts of the world, and intended to keep
them.)
One way of looking at it is as an attempt to freeze the status quo,
with all its inequities. Britain had lots of colonies, and had taken
some from Germany after WWI. Britain had acquired these primarily by
fighting wars. Italy had few colonies, and its attempt to acquire one by
fighting a war was opposed by the League. If the League had been working
towards decolonization, that attitude might have worked.
>This bears on "appeasement." After 1918 all European powers agreed
>that, whoever and however the First World War began, it had been
>unnecessary, economically ruinous, politically disastrous, and/or
>morally suicidal. They put a lot of effort into "postmodern"
I'm straying from the charter and from areas I'm familiar with, but
something of the same happened after the Napoleonic wars. The Great
Powers put more or less formal mechanisms in place to deal with
disputes.
>diplomacy to prevent war, e.g. organised plebiscites in disputed
>territory with mixed populations etc.
Nor was this done fairly. The Allies essentially set up "good guys"
like Romania and "bad guys" like Hungary, and assigned areas with
mixed populations to the "good guys". This created a good many
complaints. While it was thought necessary to recreate Poland, and while
certainly plenty of land in pre-WWI Germany should have gone into Poland
under any reasonable rules, the Poles got more than they would have under
a strictly fair interpretation of the principles.
This led to more or less legitimate grievances that the League was
not able to deal with.
>Generally this idea of "collective security" seemed to work OK in the
>1920s (one of the proofs being that defeated Germany, in chaos in
>1919, rapidly recovered and was allowed to join the League of Nations,
>the new international organization.)
There were no real strains on the system. The victorious nations of WWI
had no desire to wage war, and the defeated nations were in no shape to
start one. Consequently, nobody was willing to go to war, even over
considerable grievances. It's easy to keep the peace under these
circumstances.
Generally the negotiation ethic
>failed in the middle 1930s.
As the "have-nots" found their grievances (which they thought
legitimate) ignored by the system, and as they were more able to do
something about it.
>(I.e. the world polarized between new-type dictatorships and
>democracies which appeared "old-fashioned" about things like
>morality.)
I'm not sure "old-fashioned" is correct here. The democracies were
trying to impose a new order on the world, although one based on what
might be seen as old-fashioned morality. (Not that this morality had
stopped some of them in the old days.) The chief moral problem was that
this new order favored the democracies that were imposing it, denying
the other nations the same opportunities for self-aggrandizement that
the democracies had taken.
It was a noble thing to try to do, but it was built on a basis of
hypocrisy, and therefore lacked moral authority.
>Even so, postwar politicians (Chamberlain, Daladier, etc.) tried as
>late as 1937 to make the negotiation ethic work (thus readjusted
>frontiers between Germany and Czechoslovakia, because of the German
>majority population in the Sudetenland.)
Under pressure of war. Chamberlain and Daladier didn't get cheered
because they had advanced the cause of national self-determination.
They got cheered because it looked like they had averted war. This
was not playing the League of Nations way, and the reason was that the
League would have prevented any border change.
They gave up (and started
>rearming) only when suspicious that Hitler was not playing the same
>game: and their failures were then obvious enough that critics
>condemned it as "appeasement
Rearmament started before the German annexation of Bohemia-Moravia,
fortunately, since it was only completely clear that Hitler was not to be
appeased in early 1939. It was a response to Hitler's armament and
more or less subtle use of military threat in diplomacy (sometimes
very much less subtle), rather than a belief that Hitler was going
to completely renounce peaceful diplomacy.
>It is thus interesting to see how completely German history 1920-37
>was unknown to a German teenager in the 1940s.
Not 1920-37; the commitment to peace had ended in Germany some time
earlier. And, to repeat, this wasn't obviously a commitment so much
as an experiment which failed. No serious problems were solved
under the League system, and so it was arguably reasonable to go
back to the older, more warlike, ways.
>This is why I am not completely surprised that Altmann believed in
>1943 that no countries had ever refrained from fighting for what they
>wanted, so that Germany was in 1939 merely taking its turn.
The other reason why I am not surprised is that there is a great
deal of truth in that statement. Britain kept fighting its
"little wars" consistently thorughout the 20s and 30s. Who was
it who was refraining for fighting for what they wanted during this
period?
--
David H. Thornley | If you want my opinion, ask.
da...@thornley.net | If you don't, flee.
http://www.thornley.net/~thornley/david/ | O-
Juha Veijalainen
tony...@mindspring.com says...
> I've seen television shows where clips from Nazi propaganda films were shown
> in which Jewish people were hatefully characterized as "rats" and "vermin".
> Did you not see any of this type of propaganda? How did you personally feel
> about Jewish people at the time?
Propaganda films made in USA during WWII used pretty much the same terms
about whole nations - Japanese, Germans. How did US soldiers personally
feel about their enemy? From what I've read from some veteran accounts
it seems some of the propaganda worked quite well is USA, too. The film
making teams had to tone down the hate factor when it seemed that
Germans/Japanese might be useful allies after the war - and guess what
happened to the heroic Soviets in the propaganda films?
Even though the methods were crude, propaganda was targeted for specific
audiences in WWII, too. If the films were shown to wrong audiences (or
made by incompetents), effects could be quite the reverse.
For example, in USA you could hid the propaganda among facts and humour,
in Germany you could use a more direct approach, in Finland you had to
use still another approach. In every country, if you let a
'fundamentalist' team to make propaganda, that probably did not
accomplism much.
The above is of course much simplified explanation, but for example from
what I've heard the Finnish soldiers during WWII regarded the German
propaganda films pretty much as comedy - except the few really nazi
minded.
--
Juha Veijalainen, Helsinki, Finland, http://www.iki.fi/juhave/
Some random words: cryptography, nuclear, steganography, reindeer
((Mielipiteet omiani - Opinions personal, facts suspect))
Juha Veijalainen
acl...@starcott.freeserve.co.uk says...
> The Nazi regime tolerated no political opposition. *Protesting* about the
> murder of Jews and Poles in the East, or indeed the murder and torture of
> Germans in Germany, was harshly punished.
Tell me a regime that does tolerate active protests during war time
conditions? I doubt UK, USA would have allowed massive "peace now"
protests in 1943, for example?
The methods used by the Nazi regime were extraordinary (well, not
compared to the Soviet Union), but the threat to a dissident citizen was
the same - be quiet or be prosecuted.
ken...@cix.compulink.co.uk
(John Hodgson) wrote:
> from the concentration camps to
It is important to remember the difference between concentration
camps and death camps. The deaths in concentration camps were
incidental and the result of disease and having to work on inadequate
rations. People may have known of deaths in concentration camps but
they would not of known of systemic extermination. As you said
yourself it was possible to be released from a concentration camp. I
do not know this for a fact but I have the impression that conditions
in the camps got worse from 1935 to 1945. It would be interesting to
compare death rates in the German camps with that in the Russian
Gulags.
Ken Young
ken...@cix.co.uk
Maternity is a matter of fact
Paternity is a matter of opinion
Donald Phillipson
> It is important to remember the difference between concentration
> camps and death camps. The deaths in concentration camps were
> incidental and the result of disease and having to work on inadequate
> rations.
This seems wrong. When camp inmates were assigned rations their
captors knew were inadequate, deaths were not "incidental" or
accidental but could be calculated in advance as part of the
total system. This appears to have happened. By 1943 or 44
KZ work rations were knowingly set as enough to keep people
at work for (say) 3 or 4 productive months, after which they
would become incapable of production and have to be replaced
by fresh (i.e. unstarved) internees (cf. books by and
about Speer.)
Andrew Clark
David Thornley <thor...@visi.com> wrote
Britain kept fighting its
> "little wars" consistently thorughout the 20s and 30s. Who was
> it who was refraining for fighting for what they wanted during this
> period?
While recognising the general force of your point that winning territory for
colonialisation by warfare was a common European pastime during the 19th
Century, I am still at a loss about which colonial wars were fought by
Western European nations in the 20th, other than the Boer war which
overlapped and the Italian campaign which caused the League crisis in the
1930's.
Andrew Clark
> Hitler came to power quite legally, assuming the office of chancellor at the
> call of the then persident of Germany, Paul von Hindenburg. The illegalities
> started after he assumed the chancellorship.
This is true and I have pointed this out in some of my posts. I was
summarising Hitler's rise to power as a whole which, apart from Hitler's
legal appointment to a Presidential cabinet as Chancellor, was entirely
illegal.
> He also did not violently seize power. The violence had been a quasi-civil war> on the streets betwen the thugs on the left and those on the right before
> Hitler came to power. That Buergerkrieg stopped after Hitler came to power,
> much to the relief of the German Buergers.
Hitler organised a good deal of the street violence to give him a good
reason to move against the communist and socialist parties and expel them
from the Reichstag. Hitler also arranged for most of the other Reichstag
deputies to be either intimidated by the threat of violence, beaten up,
killed, sent to concentration camps and otherwise deterred from appearing in
the chamber. That enabled him to pack the Chamber with Nazis and thus pass
supposedly-legitimate legislation giving him plenary power in Germany. It is
hardly surprising that the violence stopped after Hitler came to power - he
had no further use for it.
> Sorry I have to correct a renowned historian, but I was there -- Heinz
Heinz, I think we all value your unique and helpful insight as an eyewitness
of WW2 Germany (and your sarcasm!). But in 1933 you were only a small child
and your memories can be of only slight historical value, especially on the
big issues. True?
Andrew Clark
<mfe...@iisc.com> wrote
> The British introduced a resolution to declare Asians an inferior race.
> One can check Beasley's _The Rise of Modern Japan_ for the roots of this,
> if one wishes.
I don't have this book. Can't you produce a detailed quote and even, dare I
say it, specific page numbers?
> No, Mr Clark, you do not. In fact, it is obvious you have not read Shirer.
Oh dear. And I have the Pan one volume unabridged paperback version
published in London in 1964 here in front of me. Well-thumbed too. By the
way, a small tip: page numbers vary in different published versions of the
book.
> Oh, btw, should you actually READ Shirer (a stretch), you will find, on
> page 1259, Himmler's quote: "...I also want to talk to you quite frankly
on
> a very grave matter. Among ourselves it should be mentioned quite frankly,
> and yet we will never speak of it publicly... I mean... the extermination
of
> the Jewish race..."
If you leaf back a few pages, to chapter 18, the section headed "Nazi
Terror
in Poland - the First Phase", you will see a very detailed examination of
the debate between Himmler and the Wehrmacht generals on the invasion of
Poland and the associated systematic extermination of the Jews. In 1939,
not
1941, you note. Shirer establishes beyond any doubt that the Holocaust was
planned and begun *before* Poland, and a huge part of the German Army knew
about it from September 1939 onward.
> Now, Mr Clark, you're being called: please produce a quote from Shirer
showing
> the Hitler is publically announcing a plan to kill all the jews that
predates this.
Please see my other post to Glenn Steinburg.
Glenn A. Steinberg
> I do not know this for a fact but I have the impression that conditions
> in the camps got worse from 1935 to 1945.
Conditions most certainly got worse between 1942 and 1945. In 1942,
Russian POWs began to be murdered (a few at a time by hanging) in camps
such as Buchenwald. Before 1942, relatively few concentration camp
prisoners were executed outright (although some were starved to death or
experimented on medically).
As the Russians advanced on Germany in 1944-1945, the death camps in
Poland were no longer available for use by the Germans, and the larger
concentration camps in Germany (e.g., Buchenwald) became overcrowded with
prisoners moved there from the East and with prisoners kept there because
there were no longer any death camps in the East to send them to. In the
midst of the overcrowding, significantly more disease and starvation
began occurring, creating the many horrible scenes of walking skeletons
that Allied soldiers saw when the camps were liberated.
I think that Buchenwald got its first oven (for doing away with human
remains) in late 1943. By 1945, when Buchenwald had become a
full-fledged death camp, there were, I think, three massive ovens at
work.
David Thornley
Andrew Clark <acl...@starcott.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>
>David Thornley <thor...@visi.com> wrote
>
>Britain kept fighting its
>> "little wars" consistently thorughout the 20s and 30s. Who was
>
>Western European nations in the 20th, other than the Boer war which
>overlapped and the Italian campaign which caused the League crisis in the
>1930's.
Britain did not fight wars to increase its holdings in this time, but
during most years of those two decades it was involved in some sort
of peacekeeping mission, where the peace that was being kept meant
that the British continued to run things. (I'm sure I can dig up
a year-by-year listing of where the Brits were fighting if you
really want me to.)
It's not clear to me that waging a war to conquer an area for a
colony is all that much different from waging a war to suppress those
people who may have the novel concept that their part of the world
should be run by its inhabitants, not by the British. It may not
have been clear to various people in Europe, either.
You are, of course, free to point out any part of the world that you
think the British wanted to conquer at this time and refrained from
due to ethical considerations.
Given that, I think the post-WWI idea of collective security and
not waging aggressive war can be looked at similarly to the Anatole
France quote: "The law, in its magestic equality, forbids the rich
as well as the poor from sleeping under bridges and stealing bread."
ken...@cix.compulink.co.uk
acl...@starcott.freeserve.co.uk (Andrew Clark) wrote:
> I am still at a loss about which colonial wars were fought by
> Western European nations in the 20th
He is probably thinking about India. There was almost constant
skirmishing on the NW frontier, plus I think some action in Somalia
and Sudan. I would not consider this a war though. Natives would raid
British controlled territory and the British would go and burn a
native village. Casualties would be minimal on both sides with mainly
damage to material.
blackdog
the fact that general Rommel knew nothing of the atrocities until after the
afrika korp. surrendered and he returned to Germany. that is when he joined
the plot to get ride of Hitler.
--
jimi g.
barkin...@yahoo.com
when you want to trade, first visit the 1/6th scale INF. at :
http://www5.50megs.com/blackdog/index.html
Glenn A. Steinberg
> Hitler organised a good deal of the street violence to give him a
> good reason to move against the communist and socialist parties and
> expel them from the Reichstag.
True enough (although no one could be sure of this at the time). There
were wild accusations from both left and right about who was
responsible for the violence.
> Hitler also arranged for most of the other Reichstag deputies to be
> either intimidated by the threat of violence, beaten up, killed, sent
> to concentration camps and otherwise deterred from appearing in the
> chamber. That enabled him to pack the Chamber with Nazis and thus pass
> supposedly-legitimate legislation giving him plenary power in Germany.
This, unfortunately, is all wrong. Only the KPD deputies were arrested
before the Enabling Act. All other parties were intact, and no other
deputies were sent to concentration camps (which didn't even exist
before the Nazi seizure of power anyway) or to prisons of any sort. No
one but the communists were detained from appearing in the Reichstag
for the Enabling Act vote. There were no more Nazis "packed into the
Chamber" than had rightfully been elected, and all other parties
besides the KPD were fully represented by their deputies.
As for the deputies' being intimidated, the day before the vote on the
Enabling Act, Hitler and Goebbels staged a very civilized public
relations coup by having a big celebration for Potsdam Day that made it
appear as if all strata of society, including the German Army, the
Crown Prince of Prussia, and Hindenburg, were giving their approval to
Hitler's regime and party (although most of the people used in this
public relations stunt had no idea that their attendance at the
celebration would be so used). The entire show also implied that
Hitler was going to act merely as a humble conduit for a Hohenzollern
restoration (although he privately never had any intention of restoring
the imperial German monarchy).
No thugs. No beatings. Roehm and his SA officers were actually quite
nauseated by Hitler's effeminate "cowardice" in not calling for a
violent revolution on the spot.
In the vote itself, the deputies to the Reichstag voted along strictly
partisan lines -- that is, *all* the SPD deputies in the Reichstag
voted *against* the Enabling Act and, as the largest party in the
Reichstag, made the vote rather close for comfort.
Surely the Nazis would have worked rather hard to intimidate the SPD,
their traditional electoral enemy *if* they had wanted to intimidate
anyone. Were the SPD deputies all so incredibly courageous that they,
as a body, ignored all Nazi intimidation and voted against the Enabling
Act anyway? How else do you explain their vote? Could it be that the
Nazis actually did very little to intimidate the Reichstag deputies at
all?
To repeat, the only deputies removed from the vote were the
communists. And their removal was formally legal given the special
powers of the Reich President under the Weimar Constitution.
> It is hardly surprising that the violence stopped after Hitler came
> to power - he had no further use for it.
This also is true enough.
--
soc.culture.japan.moderated Moderator on duty
scj...@eyrie.org
pkmb
> During the war, Churchill risked betraying the Ultra secret by
> announcing that the Jews were indeed being treated much worse than
> anyone suspected.
BS. The Allies got information about the Shoah from AK couriers who
traveled from occupied Poland to the UK (then they went to the US to
contact Roosevelt). Both Churchill and Roosevelt knew perfectly well
about the Holocaust. They didn't tell or do anything about it and Ultra
wasn't the reason for it.
Marcin B.
--
Marcin Bugajski citizen of Poland. NATO member since March the 12th 1999
This message may not be used for commercial purposes without
the author's written permission
Donald Phillipson
> . . . Allies got information about the Shoah from AK couriers who
> traveled from occupied Poland to the UK (then they went to the US to
> contact Roosevelt). Both Churchill and Roosevelt knew perfectly well
> about the Holocaust. They didn't tell or do anything about it and Ultra
> wasn't the reason for it.
Well:
1. The British Parliament debated these reports (Dec. 1942)
and Churchill announced those responsible would be tried
for their crimes after the war.
2. The United Nations issued a public declaration
condemning genocide (Jan. 1943; this may have been
the first official action of the UN.)
3. Then Churchill and Roosevelt met at Casablanca and got on
with the defeat of Germany.
Not many historians would agree "they didn't tell or
do anything about it." (Special action concerning
the Holocaust was discussed, judged presently unfeasible
(since most took place in eastern Europe), and the
strategic decision agreed that the best use of Allied
resources was to defeat Germany in the field as quickly
as possible (rather than divert resources for other
purposes.))
Lech K. Lesiak
On 30 May 2000, pkmb wrote:
> BS. The Allies got information about the Shoah from AK couriers who
> traveled from occupied Poland to the UK (then they went to the US to
> contact Roosevelt). Both Churchill and Roosevelt knew perfectly well
Just to clafify in case you are confusing two different people. There
were at least two different AK officers who made trips to the Allied side.
"Jan Nowak" went to London twice, and then returned to Poland where he
took part in the 1944 Warsaw uprising. He never made it to the US during
the war.
"Jan Karski" did get to the US where he met with FDR, among others.
Both have published books about their experiences. "Karski" is still
alive and living in the Boston area, I believe.
Cheers,
Lech
Andrew Clark
David Thornley <thor...@visi.com> wrote
> Britain did not fight wars to increase its holdings in this time, but
> during most years of those two decades it was involved in some sort
> of peacekeeping mission, where the peace that was being kept meant
> that the British continued to run things.
> It's not clear to me that waging a war to conquer an area for a
> colony is all that much different from waging a war to suppress those
> people who may have the novel concept that their part of the world
> should be run by its inhabitants, not by the British. It may not
> have been clear to various people in Europe, either.
I think your politics are showing! And I'll refrain from pointing out that
the US was the only power in WW2 to increase its colonies... Or, indeed,
that every recent colonial war has arisen because a group of powerful people
inside the nation (or a third party sponsoring power) wanted to run the
country themselves, without any concept of giving the "inhabitants" any say
in government.
Your basic thesis is that Hitler thought he could get away with a colonial
war in Europe in 1940 because the British & French had fought many colonial
wars in Africa & Asia in the 19th Century and had held on to their
possessions by "police actions" during the 20th Century. Now, if you said
that the colonial principle was supported by Britain and France (and the US
which had lots of colonies and wanted to keep them), you might be right. You
might even be right if you said that Hitler would be allowed to acquire
colonies in Africa and Asia at the expense of the smaller colonial powers
like the Dutch. But you are plain wrong if you think that Britain & France
would view the German colonisation of Poland, Ukraine, Austria, Hungary,
Czechoslovakia and all the other eastern European nations as acceptable. It
is not the principle of colonisation that counts: it is the nations being
colonised and the subsequent impact on the balance of power in Europe.
mfe...@iisc.com
> <mfe...@iisc.com> wrote
>> The British introduced a resolution to declare Asians an inferior race.
>> One can check Beasley's _The Rise of Modern Japan_ for the roots of this,
>> if one wishes.
> I don't have this book.
Then obtain it, please.
>> No, Mr Clark, you do not. In fact, it is obvious you have not read Shirer.
> Oh dear. And I have the Pan one volume unabridged paperback version
Then you have no excuse for not having seen the quote I provided. I provide
it again:
"In his speech to the Reichstag on January 30, 1939..." etc.
> published in London in 1964 here in front of me. Well-thumbed too. By the
A pity it's apparently not well-read, instead.
> 1941, you note. Shirer establishes beyond any doubt that the Holocaust was
> planned and begun *before* Poland, and a huge part of the German Army knew
> about it from September 1939 onward.
Odd, your claim was that ALL the German people knew about it and at
least tacitly approved it.
Indeed, you CLAIMED Shirer supported your view.
Now, please provide the necessary quotes.
> Please see my other post to Glenn Steinburg.
No, I ask you to produce them.
If you cannot, simply admit it.
Mike
Andrew Clark
Glenn A. Steinberg <gste...@TCNJ.EDU> wrote
> This, unfortunately, is all wrong. Only the KPD deputies were arrested
> before the Enabling Act. All other parties were intact, and no other
> deputies were sent to concentration camps (which didn't even exist
> before the Nazi seizure of power anyway) or to prisons of any sort. No
> one but the communists were detained from appearing in the Reichstag
> for the Enabling Act vote. There were no more Nazis "packed into the
> Chamber" than had rightfully been elected, and all other parties
> besides the KPD were fully represented by their deputies.
I can't agree. Goering had been put in charge of the electoral fiddle:
ensuring that the Nazi enabling act received the two-thirds majority it
needed under the Weimar constitution. Neither the Nazi alliance with the
nationalists nor eliminating the 81 communist members by arrest was enough.
The Social Democrats had won 108 seats at the election on 5 March 1933, but
only 84 voted in the Kroll Opera House on March 23. The electorally
significant remainder had been arrested by Goering's police on trumped up
charges before the vote.
The Opera House was packed with Nazis: over 700 were present although only
288 had a vote. The SA and SS lined every aisle, carrying heavy sticks and
with threatening expressions: in Shirer's words (he was there) "indicating
that no nonsense would be stood from the representatives of the people".
> As for the deputies' being intimidated, the day before the vote on the
> Enabling Act, Hitler and Goebbels staged a very civilized public
> relations coup by having a big celebration for Potsdam Day that made it
> appear as if all strata of society, including the German Army, the
> Crown Prince of Prussia, and Hindenburg, were giving their approval to
> Hitler's regime and party
True. But this had no impact on voting and was not intended to have any
impact on voting, It was a certainly a display for PR purposes, but not
those you suggest. The intimidation of other delegates had already
happened:
the arrest and subsequent release of about 170 delegates from all parties,
the seizure of newspapers and party assets, the burning down of the homes
of
three Catholic Centre Party leaders. Bully-boy tactics against individual
delegates, such as having the SA following them in the street with jeers
and
shoves, were commonplace. All this helped ensure the passage of the
Enabling
Act, but IMO it supports my contention that the Reichstag was coerced, and
therefore that the Act was illegally passed.
(although most of the people used in this
> In the vote itself, the deputies to the Reichstag voted along strictly
> partisan lines -- that is, *all* the SPD deputies in the Reichstag
> voted *against* the Enabling Act and, as the largest party in the
> Reichstag, made the vote rather close for comfort.
The vote was, in Bullock's words, "overwhelming": the Act was passed by 441
votes to 84 against.
Were the SPD deputies all so incredibly courageous that they,
> as a body, ignored all Nazi intimidation and voted against the Enabling
> Act anyway? How else do you explain their vote? Could it be that the
> Nazis actually did very little to intimidate the Reichstag deputies at
> all?
No. The SPD delegates were very courageous. The Catholic and nationalist
parties were intimidated and greedy. Shirer says that the whole voting
process was "accompanied by extraordinary terror to achieve Nazi aims".
mfe...@iisc.com
>> It's not clear to me that waging a war to conquer an area for a
>> colony is all that much different from waging a war to suppress those
> I think your politics are showing!
Actually, I believe it is yours. Are you claiming that it is OK to wage a
war to subjugate the colonized, and that it is qualitatively different
from waging a war to colonize?
>And I'll refrain from pointing out that
> the US was the only power in WW2 to increase its colonies...
No, please point out all colonies the US acquired as a result of WWII.
Please be complete.
Mike
David Thornley
Andrew Clark <acl...@starcott.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>
>David Thornley <thor...@visi.com> wrote
>
>> Britain did not fight wars to increase its holdings in this time, but
>> during most years of those two decades it was involved in some sort
>> of peacekeeping mission, where the peace that was being kept meant
>> that the British continued to run things.
>I think your politics are showing!
And yours, too, since we seem to disagree here.
And I'll refrain from pointing out that
things that we generally agree on....
>Your basic thesis is that Hitler thought he could get away with a colonial
>war in Europe in 1940 because the British & French had fought many colonial
>wars in Africa & Asia in the 19th Century and had held on to their
>possessions by "police actions" during the 20th Century.
Um, no. I don't know whose basic thesis that is, but not mine.
I was addressing the attempt by the victorious Allies (and Co-Belligerent)
to establish a world without war. My basic thesis was that it could
easily be seen as an attempt to enforce the status quo, and to
prevent other nations from using warfare to achieve the same sort of
power and status that the victorious nations had achieved through
warfare. The League of Nations approach had not been in effect nearly
long enough to be a tradition, was morally dubious, and therefore
it was reasonable, in the 1930s, to believe that aggressive war was
the prerogative of a sovereign nation.
The British pretty much had what they wanted in the world, having
conquered it in the last couple of centuries, and were interested
in hanging on to it. (If you like, I can dig up a Chamberlain quote
in illustration.) Given that, the reaction to the Japanese attacks
in Manchuria and the Italian in Ethiopia seems overblown. A reaction
based on national interests would have been traditional. A reaction
based on moral principles newly enshrined at an opportune time, which
is pretty much what happened, at least verges on the hypocritical.
Now, if you said
>that the colonial principle was supported by Britain and France (and the US
>which had lots of colonies and wanted to keep them), you might be right.
The US much less so. The US had one major colony, the Philippines, and
was working towards an early independence. I'm not sure about Puerto
Rico; during my memory, that place has always had significant parties
that want independence or statehood (that's two different parties), and
a somewhat larger status quo party. The US did have some island bases
here or there, acquired and administered without much regard for the
natives, and had of course engaged in one of the biggest colonial
endeavors in history in the Nineteenth Century, with the colonists
virtually replacing the natives.
You
>might even be right if you said that Hitler would be allowed to acquire
>colonies in Africa and Asia at the expense of the smaller colonial powers
>like the Dutch.
Possibly, although the League response to Italy in Ethiopia and
Japan in Manchuria seems to indicate otherwise. (This is, I claim,
the fundamental problem with the League as moral arbiter. It
tried to enforce the status quo, without reference to how equitable
it was or how it came about.)
But you are plain wrong if you think that Britain & France
>would view the German colonisation of Poland, Ukraine, Austria, Hungary,
>Czechoslovakia and all the other eastern European nations as acceptable.
Fortunately, then, I don't think so.
It
>is not the principle of colonisation that counts: it is the nations being
>colonised and the subsequent impact on the balance of power in Europe.
>
Right. I have, on occasion, felt hindered in my writing about the
actions of some of the Axis states. I have not been able to point to
some of them as unique in the world, but rather unique in that they
were being done in Europe. It seems somewhat arbitrary to say that
what may be done to non-European peoples may not be done to European
peoples, but that was the prevailing view at the time in Europe.
However, the point I was trying to make is that the abolishment of
aggressive war was not seen as anywhere near equitable. Many Germans
seem to have considered WWI to be French and Russian aggression
against Germany, and Britain had recently fought little wars to
expand its colonies, and did not accept that aggressive war was
suddenly outlawed, effectively freezing the status quo, after
a thorough defeat of Germany.
Glenn A. Steinberg
> Goering had been put in charge of the electoral fiddle: ensuring that the
> Nazi enabling act received the two-thirds majority it needed under the Weimar
> constitution. Neither the Nazi alliance with the nationalists nor eliminating
> the 81 communist members by arrest was enough.
Really? If the SPD had only 108 seats (as you say below), and the Centre,
DNVP, and other conservative parties were pretty certain to vote for the
Enabling Act, why wouldn't the Nazis have had more than enough votes? The
Act
(as you yourself say below) "was passed by 441 votes to 84 against." Why
on
earth would 24 SPD deputies make such a tremendous difference that they
needed
to be arrested and kept from the Reichstag chambers in order to clinch the
vote? Even if all 108 SPD deputies voted against the Act, Hitler would
still
have had somewhere in the range of 80% of the vote in favor. Last time I
checked 80% was quite a bit more than 2/3.
> The Social Democrats had won 108 seats at the election on 5 March 1933, but
> only 84 voted in the Kroll Opera House on March 23. The electorally
> significant remainder had been arrested by Goering's police on trumped up
> charges before the vote.
When I went digging in my sources, I discovered that I was wrong earlier
when I
assumed that all the SPD deputies voted against the Enabling Act. I found
in
Shirer, for example, that only 84 deputies voted against the Act, and all
84
who voted against were SPD -- but Shirer does *not* say that all the SPD's
deputies voted against the Act. So, the missing 24 SPD deputies may well
have
been present and have voted *for* the Act.
What would be your source for the claim that 24 SPD deputies had been
arrested
and were not present for the vote? Could you quote the relevant
information
for us? If you have an authoritative, reliable source for this
information,
I'll believe it, but otherwise, my own sources do not lead me to believe
that
any SPD deputies at all were kept from the vote.
And even if they were, the Reich President's decree of February 28, 1933,
allowed Hitler, as the President's proxy, to arrest anyone that he deemed a
danger to the nation. Under the Weimar Constitution, the President could
constitutionally make such arrests (and could even call out the armed
forces
for the purpose). Hitler was using the President's decree to serve his own
ends, but as far as anyone at the time knew or could know, he was doing
nothing
illegal. He had the President's decree.
> The Opera House was packed with Nazis: over 700 were present although only
> 288 had a vote. The SA and SS lined every aisle, carrying heavy sticks and
> with threatening expressions: in Shirer's words (he was there) "indicating
> that no nonsense would be stood from the representatives of the people".
Very impressive. As I recall, in earlier Reichstags when the SPD had been
the
largest party in the Reichstag, the SPD's Red Banner militia lined every
aisle. Would you also charge them with violating the Weimar Constitution?
> The vote was, in Bullock's words, "overwhelming": the Act was passed by 441
> votes to 84 against.
This is true. I hadn't looked the numbers up again until after I wrote my
response to you. (but as you'll note, I was also wrong to claim that
"*all*
the SPD deputies in the Reichstag voted *against* the Enabling Act.")
> No. The SPD delegates were very courageous. The Catholic and nationalist
> parties were intimidated and greedy. Shirer says that the whole voting
> process was "accompanied by extraordinary terror to achieve Nazi aims".
This, except perhaps the last statement, I can certainly agree with. I
have
always argued that Hitler became dictator through the cowardice,
shortsightedness, and arrogance of the politicians of the Weimar Republic.
Even German voters who voted for the Nazi Party in the last free election
of
1933 were not necessarily voting for a Nazi dictatorship. Many (perhaps
most)
were simply voting for one party among many on the assumption that the
Nazis
would go on to form a coalition government with other parties (as had been
the
norm in Weimar politics for nearly 15 years). What happened in the
Reichstag
on March 23, 1933, was not necessarily expected or appreciated by the
populace
at large.
But it wasn't unconstitutional as far as I can tell.
Andrew Clark
Glenn A. Steinberg <gste...@TCNJ.EDU> wrote
> What would be your source for the claim that 24 SPD deputies had been
> arrested and were not present for the vote? Could you quote the relevant
> information for us? If you have an authoritative, reliable source for
this
> information, I'll believe it, but otherwise, my own sources do not lead me
to believe
> that any SPD deputies at all were kept from the vote.
Well, Shirer himself mentions that 12 deputies were arrested and detained so
as to prevent their presence in the chamber. And Reimann, the authoritative
biographer of Goebbels, Funk and other second-rank Nazis, mentions a further
12.
> And even if they were, the Reich President's decree of February 28, 1933,
> allowed Hitler, as the President's proxy, to arrest anyone that he deemed
a
> danger to the nation. Under the Weimar Constitution, the President could
> constitutionally make such arrests (and could even call out the armed
> forces for the purpose). Hitler was using the President's decree to serve
his own
> ends, but as far as anyone at the time knew or could know, he was doing
> nothing illegal. He had the President's decree.
I have to take issue with your interpretation of the Weimar constitution.
The Reich Chancellor could act for and represent the President in the event
of his death or illness, yes, but there is nothing to say that this clause
permitted one person to hold both posts on an indefinite basis, without
making any attempt to stage elections for the Presidential post as required
in other clauses. The constitution, read as a whole and in the context of
precedent in the Reich and in the larger German principalities does not
support your contention that Hitler was acting legally in usurping the role
of President. I still feel (having read Lohr's commentary on this very
subject) feel that the balance of opinion is that Hitler was acting
illegally in taking the permanent role of President.
> > The Opera House was packed with Nazis: over 700 were present although
only
> > 288 had a vote. The SA and SS lined every aisle, carrying heavy sticks
and
> > with threatening expressions: in Shirer's words (he was there)
"indicating
> > that no nonsense would be stood from the representatives of the people".
>
> Very impressive. As I recall, in earlier Reichstags when the SPD had been
> the largest party in the Reichstag, the SPD's Red Banner militia lined
every
> aisle. Would you also charge them with violating the Weimar Constitution?
As I recall, you said: "There were no more Nazis "packed into the Chamber"
than had rightfully been elected", and "Could it be that the Nazis actually
did very little to intimidate the Reichstag deputies at all?". Both of these
statements are now demonstrably incorrect, and whether or not the SPD was
also guilty of intimidation is neither here nor there.
> What happened in the Reichstag on March 23, 1933, was not necessarily
expected or appreciated by the
> populace at large. But it wasn't unconstitutional as far as I can tell.
It appears that the historians think that coercion, bullying, and illegal
arrest and detention were all used to influence the vote, and that by
usurping the President's role, Hitler was acting in an illegal way. Both
things make Hitler's rule entirely unconsititutional.
Andrew Clark
> I was addressing the attempt by the victorious Allies (and Co-Belligerent)
> to establish a world without war. My basic thesis was that it could
> easily be seen as an attempt to enforce the status quo, and to
> prevent other nations from using warfare to achieve the same sort of
> power and status that the victorious nations had achieved through warfare.
It was very much a mechanism to enforce the status quo. I don't see the
relevance to the League of Nations to the your original point, which was
that Hitler was somehow justified in thinking that the British and French
would accept his territorial acquisitions in Europe. If Hitler thought the
League was a means to stop Germany getting uppity, then he had even less
reason to think that Britain & France, the main powers of the League, would
accept his territorial acquisitions. I think you are arguing against
yourself here.
Mark Brandt, Ph.D.
Steinberg <gste...@TCNJ.EDU> wrote:
> What would be your source for the claim that 24 SPD deputies had been
> arrested and were not present for the vote? Could you quote the relevant
> information for us? If you have an authoritative, reliable source for this
> information, I'll believe it, but otherwise, my own sources do not lead me to believe
> that any SPD deputies at all were kept from the vote.
I don't have exact figures, but there is little doubt that a number of
the SPD leaders were arrested. My grandfather, Gerhart Seger, was one
of them; he was arrested March 12, 1933 in Leipzig. He was transferred
to a prison in Dessau the next day, and was held there for some time
before being sent to the Oranienburg concentration camp
As for "authoritative, reliable source", you may have to do some
looking. My grandfather wrote several books about his experiences after
his escape from Oranienburg. Some of the University of California
libraries have his book "Oranienburg; erster authentischer Bericht
eines aus dem Konzentrationslager Geflüchteten". (Finding it outside of
a library may be difficult; it is long since out of print.) I believe
that there was an English translation of the book, but I have never
seen it; my grandmother told me that the English translation was very
poorly done.
>
> And even if they were, the Reich President's decree of February 28, 1933,
> allowed Hitler, as the President's proxy, to arrest anyone that he deemed a
> danger to the nation. Under the Weimar Constitution, the President could
> constitutionally make such arrests (and could even call out the armed
> forces for the purpose). Hitler was using the President's decree to serve his own
> ends, but as far as anyone at the time knew or could know, he was doing
> nothing illegal. He had the President's decree.
The problem with this statement is that Reichstage deputies had
immunity; arresting them was therefore illegal under German law of the
time.
[snipped]
> But it wasn't unconstitutional as far as I can tell.
Arresting the leaders of an opposition party does not normally fall
into the category of a constitutional action. I suppose that it is
possible to state that, since the Reichstag was not in session on March
12, the arrests were legal. However, the arrested SPD members
(including my grandfather) received their credentials while in prison,
and the Reichstag *was* in session during the vote on the Enabling Act.
Without the SPD leaders, it was much more difficult for the SPD members
to make the political deals necessary to fight the Enabling Act vote.
While it is possible that the vote would have gone the same way had the
arrests not occurred, it seems much more likely that the absence of the
SPD leaders (not to mention the threat of arrest) played a major role
in the outcome of the vote.
--
Mark Brandt, Ph.D.
My opinions are my own, but I give them away freely to anyone who fails to flee
fast enough.
Glenn A. Steinberg
> Shirer himself mentions that 12 deputies were arrested and detained so as to
> prevent their presence in the chamber. And Reimann, the authoritative
> biographer of Goebbels, Funk and other second-rank Nazis, mentions a further
> 12.
I'm still dubious. I don't see any mention of 12 deputies detained from the
vote on the Enabling Act in Shirer. You couldn't cite a page number, could you?
On the other hand, I certainly don't have proof that no such arrests took place
(and another poster in this thread claims to be the son of an arrested SPD
deputy).
But, as usual, you've dodged the real questions here:
1.) Why did 24 deputies make a tremendous difference in the vote, so much so
that they had to be arrested, when, even with them present and voting, Hitler
would have had an 80%% majority?
2.) How would their arrest be unconstitutional? Hitler had the Reich
President's decree of February 28, 1933. Under the Weimar Constitution, the
Reich President could arrest whomever he wanted to arrest -- if he considered
the person a threat to the saftey and order of the nation. According to the
Constitution itself, the Reich President could even call upon the armed forces
to carry out such arrests. How was it unconstitutional, then, for the Reich
President to call upon the Chancellor (rather than the armed forces) to make the
arrests he deemed fit in a very volatile political situation (in which the
Reichstag building had been torched, allegedly as a rallying cry to all
discontents in the nation to rise up in revolution)?
As I've said before, Hitler was unscrupulous and secretly did illegal acts in
his quest for power. But as far as anyone at the time could know, Hitler was
doing nothing unconstitutional in arresting the KPD deputies to the Reichstag
(and the same holds true for any SPD deputies he may or may not have arrested).
> I have to take issue with your interpretation of the Weimar constitution. The
> Reich Chancellor could act for and represent the President in the event of his
> death or illness, yes, but there is nothing to say that this clause permitted
> one person to hold both posts on an indefinite basis, without making any
> attempt to stage elections for the Presidential post as required in other
> clauses. The constitution, read as a whole and in the context of precedent in
> the Reich and in the larger German principalities does not support your
> contention that Hitler was acting legally in usurping the role of President. I
> still feel (having read Lohr's commentary on this very subject) feel that the
> balance of opinion is that Hitler was acting illegally in taking the permanent
> role of President.
First, *I* have said that Hitler's act of combining the officers of President
and Chancellor was his first public illegal act. Don't pretend that *you're*
correcting *me* again.
My point, which you seem to miss despite my having repeated it several times
now, is that Hitler was *legally* acting President from the moment of
Hindenburg's death. The Weimar Constitution is clear on that point. What
President, then, was supposed to remove him from office for violating the
constitution? Hitler himself was acting President -- as specified in the Weimar
Constitution.
You could argue that he automatically forfeited all his offices by his illegal
move to combine the offices of President and Chancellor indefinitely, but you
can't argue that Hindenburg should have removed him from office for committing
an unconstitutional act that he didn't even commit until *after* Hindenburg was
dead. Hindenburg may have been a titan (to paraphrase Wheeler-Bennett), but he
hardly had the power to come back from the grave to remove Hitler from office.
But in Hindenburg's absence, who, constitutionally speaking, had the authority
to remove Hitler from office? The Weimar Constitution does not explicitly give
anyone that authority. And the plebiscite that Hitler staged on the issue of
combining the offices of President and Chancellor would have seemed to have
given Hitler quite a bit of authority to remain in office (although in
hindsight, we have reason to believe that the plebiscite was rigged -- again, a
secret crime for which even we have inadequate proof to know for sure that a
crime was committed).
Perhaps the Commander-in-Chief of the Army should have stepped forward and
staged a coup to remove Hitler for his unconstitutional act. But upon what
constitutional authority would he base his overthrow of the
Chancellor-President? He would be unable to justify his action with anything in
the Constitution. The Weimar Constitution did not include any provisions
allowing the C-in-C of the Army to remove Chancellors or Presidents from office.
So, who was supposed to remove Hitler?
In addition, by your reasoning, the Weimar Republic had never been the legal
government of Germany in the first place. There was nothing in the imperial
German constitution under the Hohenzollerns that allowed for the declaration of
a Republic. So, the declaration of the Weimar Republic was unconstitutional.
The people who declared it and stood for election in it were therefore all
committing unconstitutional acts, and as a result, none of their actions and
laws were legally binding. They never really held office legally.
Governments change. Constitutions change. If Hitler committed an
unconstitutional act by combining the offices of Chancellor and President, he
did so by the same power and with the same authority as that by which Ebert
declared Germany a Republic in 1919.
> As I recall, you said: "There were no more Nazis "packed into the Chamber"
> than had rightfully been elected", and "Could it be that the Nazis actually
> did very little to intimidate the Reichstag deputies at all?". Both of these
> statements are now demonstrably incorrect, and whether or not the SPD was also
> guilty of intimidation is neither here nor there.
Oh, but it *is* both here and there. I was mistaken when I wrote, "There were
no more Nazis 'packed into the Chamber' than had rightfully been elected," and
"Could it be that the Nazis actually did very little to intimidate the Reichstag
deputies at all?" I meant to write, "There were no more Nazis 'packed into the
Chamber' than SPD supporters had been packed into earlier Reichstag chambers,"
and "Could it be that the Nazis actually did nothing more to intimidate the
Reichstag deputies than the SPD and other parties had done in earlier years?"
If what the Nazis did was unconstitutional and merited removing Hitler from
office as Chancellor, then most of the Chancellors before him had also behaved
unconstitutionally and should have been removed from office. The fact that they
were not would seem to indicate that such actions were not deemed
unconstitutional at the time by the legal authorities of the German nation.
With our 20/20 hindsight, we might differ with them in this interpretation, but
it was their interpretation of their own constitution nonetheless.
> It appears that the historians think that coercion, bullying, and illegal
> arrest and detention were all used to influence the vote, and that by usurping
> the President's role, Hitler was acting in an illegal way. Both things make
> Hitler's rule entirely unconsititutional.
Odd. Most historians I've read (including Shirer) indicate that Hitler was
committing illegal acts secretly but that he maintained a public legality up to
and including at least his assumption of the office of President at the time of
Hindenburg's death.
Most people at the time clearly considered Hitler the rightful, legal head of
government in Germany. No one at the time seriously argued that Hitler's
government was illegal -- certainly not the British government that negotiated a
naval treaty with Hitler nor the international Olympic committee that scheduled
games in Germany. Hitler's dictatorship may have been brutal at times and may
have been rather aggressive in its foreign policy (not at all unlike Mussolini's
dictatorship in Italy), but it was the legal government of Germany.
David Thornley
Andrew Clark <acl...@starcott.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>David Thornley <thor...@visi.com> wrote
>
>> I was addressing the attempt by the victorious Allies (and Co-Belligerent)
>> to establish a world without war. My basic thesis was that it could
>> easily be seen as an attempt to enforce the status quo, and to
>> prevent other nations from using warfare to achieve the same sort of
>> power and status that the victorious nations had achieved through warfare.
>
>It was very much a mechanism to enforce the status quo.
I don't see the
>relevance to the League of Nations to the your original point, which was
>that Hitler was somehow justified in thinking that the British and French
>would accept his territorial acquisitions in Europe.
The reasons Hitler thought Britain and France would accept his
acquisitions:
Initially, he thought they'd accept them because that was precisely
what they were doing. Chamberlain avoided war in 1938 by twisting
arms to give Hitler specifically what he asked for. According to
A.J.P. Taylor, German decrypts of Allied diplomatic messages indicated
that the Allies were getting pretty close to folding over Poland.
Later, he thought they'd accept them in exactly the same way I accept
having to wear glasses: because they had no choice. It turned out
he was wrong.
It might be worth noting that, after the fall of France, some people
in the British government were in favor of negotiating with Hitler.
Millett & Murray (who I'm reading now) quote Lord Halifax as saying
that the British should seek peace to avoid possible disaster.
Fortunately, Churchill had a belief in ultimate victory (I am very
carefully not saying whether it was rationally justified or not here),
and quickly forbade all such negotiation.
If Hitler thought the
>League was a means to stop Germany getting uppity, then he had even less
>reason to think that Britain & France, the main powers of the League, would
>accept his territorial acquisitions. I think you are arguing against
>yourself here.
Not necessarily. It depends on how wedded Hitler thought Britain and
France were to the League's way of doing things. It became obvious
in the 1930s that the League was not going to stop any of the revisionist
powers from attaining some of their goals by force, and, indeed, the
League had no role in stopping Hitler.
Hitler thought, somewhat mistakenly, that the West was going to confine
itself to moral lectures, diplomatic protests, and deliberately
ineffectual economic sanctions until war was forced upon them.
Andrew Clark
Glenn A. Steinberg <gste...@TCNJ.EDU> wrote
> 1.) Why did 24 deputies make a tremendous difference in the vote,
I'm not sure. I'm reporting what the published historians say. I'm trying to
work it out...
> 2.) How would their arrest be unconstitutional? Hitler had the Reich
> President's decree of February 28, 1933. Under the Weimar Constitution,
the
> Reich President could arrest whomever he wanted to arrest -- if he
considered
> the person a threat to the saftey and order of the nation.
Hitler was acting unconstitutionally as Reich President. He therefore had no
legal power to order the arrest of anyone. At a pinch, Hitler as Chancellor
might have been constitutionally justified in simultaneously arranging for
the election of a new President and, while the election was pending, taking
steps in the President's name solely to create peaceful conditions for the
election. In those circumstances, precedent in the German states strongly
suggests that a free vote in the Reichstag would have been appropriate to
confirm the Chancellor's exceptional use of a Presidential power.
However, Hitler didn't do any of this. He simply wielded Presidential powers
and disposed of anyone who might argue with him. He also arranged for a lot
of things to happen for which there was no legal sanction, such as
intimidation, torture and murder.
> My point, which you seem to miss despite my having repeated it several
times
> now, is that Hitler was *legally* acting President from the moment of
> Hindenburg's death. The Weimar Constitution is clear on that point.
My point, which you have missed entirely, is that this isn't the case. You
completely overlook the issue of motive. The clear intent of the
constitution read in context and in full is for the Chancellor to
temporarily act for the President *in the national interest pending the
election of a new President*. There is an official commentary to the
Constitution which makes this point abundantly clear. Hitler therefore had
the legal power to act for the President in the national interest pending
the election of a new President. Failing to organise a Presidential election
voided his constitutional right to act in the President's name. Failing to
act in the national interest voided his constitutional right to act in the
President's name. Therefore, Hitler was not legally acting President from
the moment he committed these two failures.
What
> President, then, was supposed to remove him from office for violating the
> constitution? Hitler himself was acting President -- as specified in the
Weimar
> Constitution.
He wasn't. He had a narrow right to act as President but he forfeited his
right by his actions. As decided by the Panel of Jurors on the German
Constitution in 1949, the position of President of the German Republic was
vacant from Hindenburg's death.
However, you rightly highlight the missing element in the Weimar
constitution: the lack of any power to enforce the de jure position. There
was no effective Constitutional Court along the lines of the US Supreme
Court; and the Army betrayed its role as the neutral arbiter in Germany in
pursuit of glory.
> In addition, by your reasoning, the Weimar Republic had never been the
legal
> government of Germany in the first place.
This is daft. As I have pointed out at at length to David Thornley, the
German Empire came to an end when the democratic assemblies of independent
sovereign states of Germany (Prussia, Saxony, Bavaria etc) adopted a new
republican constitution replacing the former (Bismarkian) Imperial
structure.
> Governments change. Constitutions change. If Hitler committed an
> unconstitutional act by combining the offices of Chancellor and President,
he
> did so by the same power and with the same authority as that by which
Ebert
> declared Germany a Republic in 1919.
This is also daft. Ebert declared the results of the votes of the German
states. He was therefore giving voice to the expressed will of the people of
Germany. Hitler was not.
>I meant to write, "There were no more Nazis 'packed into the
> Chamber' than SPD supporters had been packed into earlier Reichstag
chambers,"
> and "Could it be that the Nazis actually did nothing more to intimidate
the
> Reichstag deputies than the SPD and other parties had done in earlier
years?"
> If what the Nazis did was unconstitutional and merited removing Hitler
from
> office as Chancellor, then most of the Chancellors before him had also
behaved
> unconstitutionally and should have been removed from office.
Now you have said what you meant to say, I can say: nonsense. Intimidating
the Reichstag with these sorts of stunts is certainly improper, but I did
not say it was unconstitutional. Hitler behaved unconstitutionally and
illegally under the ordinary criminal and civil law of Germany, and voided
his office through that behaviour.
> Odd. Most historians I've read (including Shirer) indicate that Hitler
was
> committing illegal acts secretly but that he maintained a public legality
up to
> and including at least his assumption of the office of President at the
time of
> Hindenburg's death.
No. They say that Hitler *managed to maintain a public facade of apparent
legality*: in other words that the Nazi terror and propaganda machine
managed to suppress any hostile media coverage of his public illegalities.
The people of Germany were never told of Hitler's illegal acts in seizing
power, and those that cared were told that Hitler had the legal power to act
as President. Only a few hundred people, mostly senior civil servants and
state lawyers, knew the true position. Those that protested were threatened
and if necessary disposed of (thirteen federal judges were sent to camps in
1934); most simply quietly resigned. Terror won, not law.
> Most people at the time clearly considered Hitler the rightful, legal
head of
> government in Germany.
Yes. But he wasn't, was he?
>No one at the time seriously argued that Hitler's
> government was illegal -- certainly not the British government that
negotiated a
> naval treaty with Hitler nor the international Olympic committee that
scheduled
> games in Germany.
As a matter of fact, the British Foreign Office raised this very matter,
asking their legal department to look into whether a treaty could be legally
concluded with Germany "in view of the irregular constitutional position
there obtaining at the present time". The legal advice was that the treaty
was with the Republic of Germany, which still existed; and in international
law, a party having de facto valid accreditation from a nation state (as
Hitler did, having accredited himself) could validly bind the contracting
state notwithstanding that the accreditation was not "in all respects valid
de jure".
Andrew Clark
David Thornley <thor...@visi.com> wrote
(snip points about reasons, where we finally agree, mostly).
> Hitler thought, somewhat mistakenly, that the West was going to confine
> itself to moral lectures, diplomatic protests, and deliberately
> ineffectual economic sanctions until war was forced upon them.
I broadly agree with this analysis. However, I don't think Hitler was
justified by the facts in thinking this. I also note that this isn't your
original point, which I'm presuming you have withdrawn.
Glenn A. Steinberg
> > 2.) How would their arrest be unconstitutional? Hitler had the Reich
> > President's decree of February 28, 1933. Under the Weimar Constitution, the
>
> > Reich President could arrest whomever he wanted to arrest -- if he
> considered
> > the person a threat to the saftey and order of the nation.
>
> Hitler was acting unconstitutionally as Reich President. He therefore had no
> legal power to order the arrest of anyone. At a pinch, Hitler as Chancellor
> might have been constitutionally justified in simultaneously arranging for the> election of a new President and, while the election was pending, taking steps
> in the President's name solely to create peaceful conditions for the election.> In those circumstances, precedent in the German states strongly suggests that
> a free vote in the Reichstag would have been appropriate to confirm the
> Chancellor's exceptional use of a Presidential power.
Why would Hitler arrange for the election of a new Reich President in 1933, whenHindenburg, whose term as President was not yet over, was still alive and well?
What right would Hitler have, under the constitution, to depose the legally
elected President of the Republic?
I think you're confusing 1933 with 1934. Hitler was appointed Chancellor in
January 1933 and arrested the Communist deputies to the Reichstag in February
1933. The Enabling Act came up for vote in the Reichstag in March 1933.
Hindenburg was still alive and well and fulfilling his duties as Reich Presidentall through 1933. Hindenburg didn't die until August 1934, more than one year
*after* the vote on the Enabling Act.
Hindenburg, as President of the Weimar Republic, had the right, according to theWeimar Constitution, to suspend various articles of the Constitution and order
arrests of anyone he deemed a danger to the safety and order of the nation. In
a decree of February 28, 1933, Hindenburg exercised this right and authorized
Hitler, his legally appointed Chancellor, to arrest whatever left-wing agitatorsHitler considered to be involved in the Reichstag fire or the alleged coup
attempt that the Reichstag fire was allegedly supposed to spark among the
communists and socialists.
Hitler had this decree in hand. So, he was *not* "acting unconstitutionally as
Reich President" -- unless you mean to interpret the Weimar Constitution so
literally that only the Reich President could personally go and make the arrestsmentioned in the constitution (that is, that he could not even delegate that
authority to a policeman, but had to go himself in person to make the arrests).
Hindenburg delegated authority for the arrests to Hitler. Such delegation was
surely within the prerogatives of the Reich President. If he wanted to delegate
them to the Army, the constitution explicitly says that he could. Why wouldn't
he be allowed to delegate them to his legally appointed Chancellor?
Hitler *used* the decree purely for his own political purposes, but almost no
one at the time (other than Hitler and his own cronies) could have known that
Hitler was being so duplicitous. So, "de jure," his actions were illegal, but
"de facto," they were *perfectly* constitutional in form.
In August 1934, Hindenburg died, and Hitler became, de jure, acting President asspecified in the Weimar Constitution. Then and only then, he made his first
public unconstitutional move -- the move to combine the offices of President andChancellor indefinitely. But given that he followed this action with a
plebiscite on the matter, even this illegal action could be -- and was --
perceived at the time as constitutionally dubious but sealed with the approval
of the German people. So, Hitler appeared precisely to be following, as you put
it later, "the expressed will of the people of Germany." (We know, with 20/20
hindsight, that the plebiscite was probably rigged, but almost no one at the
time could have known for sure.)
> My point, which you have missed entirely, is that this isn't the case. You
> completely overlook the issue of motive. The clear intent of the constitution
> read in context and in full is for the Chancellor to temporarily act for the
> President *in the national interest pending the election of a new President*.
> . . . [Hitler] had a narrow right to act as President but he forfeited his
> right by his actions. . . . However, you rightly highlight the missing element> in the Weimar constitution: the lack of any power to enforce the de jure
> position. There was no effective Constitutional Court along the lines of the
> US Supreme Court. . . .
I did not miss your point at all. But I must admit we are talking at
cross-purposes here. You're talking about Hitler's "de jure" position, and I'm
talking about his "de facto" one. I would agree that the arrests of the
Communist deputies before the vote on the Enabling Act was de jure illegal
(because we know now that the Reichstag fire was not set by the communists as a
signal for a massive uprising, as was thought at the time, and we know Hitler
knew the communist threat was minimal -- so that the arrests were executed
purely out of Hitler's personal political motives, not out of a legal,
constitutional motive). I also agree that the Enabling Act was therefore de
jure illegal (because not all the legally elected deputies were present for the
vote on it). I also agree that Hitler's move to combine the offices of
Chancellor and President was de jure unconstitutional.
But all these actions on Hitler's part were *apparently* constitutional and
legal at the time. Very few people knew about Hitler's illegal abuse of his
office. As a result, his actions were not perceived or recognized as
unconstitutional (at least not until he combined the offices of President and
Chancellor indefinitely and maybe not even then).
The fact that you are addressing abstract legal and moral issues while I am
talking about concrete contemporary perceptions and Hitler's legalistic
manipulations has led us to mistake each other's purpose and meaning, I think.
> . . . [A]nd the Army betrayed its role as the neutral arbiter in Germany in
> pursuit of glory.
Hardly. The Army had no *right* to usurp the Reich President's power. Nowhere
in the Weimar Constitution is there anything about the Army's having the right
to overthrow the President or Chancellor if the Army deems the actions of said
President or Chancellor to be unconstitutional. Point to any article in the
constitution that gives the Army that kind of power. There is none.
To usurp such power would hardly have been considered the democratic or legal
thing to do.
> As I have pointed out at at length to David Thornley, the German Empire came
> to an end when the democratic assemblies of independent sovereign states of
> Germany (Prussia, Saxony, Bavaria etc) adopted a new republican constitution
> replacing the former (Bismarkian) Imperial structure.
I beg your pardon. The independent sovereign states of Germany (Prussia,
Saxony, Bavaria, etc.) were monarchies in 1918. They were monarchies longer
than the German Empire remained a monarchy. It wasn't until *after* the German
Republic was announced in Berlin that the monarchs of the states all abdicated
and fled, leaving a legal and constitutional shambles.
> Ebert declared the results of the votes of the German states. He was therefore> giving voice to the expressed will of the people of Germany. Hitler was not.
Oh, dear. You need to do a little reading about what happened in 1918 and 1919
in Germany. You're really quite wrong about this. The birth of the German
Republic was quite an event -- a socialist politician leaned out a window and
yelled to the drunken crowd gathered outside that Germany was now a republic.
Cheers from the drunken crowd.
> Hitler *managed to maintain a public facade of apparent legality*: in other
> words that the Nazi terror and propaganda machine managed to suppress any
> hostile media coverage of his public illegalities.
What "public illegalities"?
> The people of Germany were never told of Hitler's illegal acts in seizing
> power, and those that cared were told that Hitler had the legal power to act
> as President. Only a few hundred people, mostly senior civil servants and
> state lawyers, knew the true position.
Gee. I've been saying all along that "[t]he people of Germany were never told
of Hitler's illegal acts in seizing power." Why does it sound like you're
*correcting* me? I've been saying that all along.
> Those that protested were threatened and if necessary disposed of (thirteen
> federal judges were sent to camps in 1934); most simply quietly resigned.
> Terror won, not law.
Well, is it terror when only a handful of people are terrorized? You make it
sound like Hitler's thugs went around and terrorized every home in Germany. And
by the way, they didn't really terrorize much of anyone (except the SA radicals
*within* the Nazi movement) until Hindenburg was dead.
> As a matter of fact, the British Foreign Office raised this very matter,
> asking their legal department to look into whether a treaty could be legally
> concluded with Germany "in view of the irregular constitutional position there> obtaining at the present time". The legal advice was that the treaty was with
> the Republic of Germany, which still existed; and in international law, a
> party having de facto valid accreditation from a nation state (as Hitler did,
> having accredited himself) could validly bind the contracting state
> notwithstanding that the accreditation was not "in all respects valid de
> jure".
So, you're saying what? That the British government decided that, despite some
constitutional irregularities, Hitler's government was the valid, de facto,
legal government of Germany and could represent that nation in international
negotiations?
That's a long, long way from your claims earlier that nobody at the time
considered Hitler's government to be the legal government of Germany. Can I
take it that you've changed your mind since you made those earlier claims?
Chuck521
>
>> I am still at a loss about which colonial wars were fought by
>> Western European nations in the 20th
The Boer War qualifies, although perhaps just barely. Begun Oct. 1899,
British
declared it won in June 1900, but fighting went on for about two more
years.
Sparked by the discovery of vast deposts of gold in Boer territory.
Richard
Harding Davis, dubbed "the first war correspondent" (probably more
accurately
the first celebrity war correspondent), described it as being fought by "a
monster Empire" intent on seizing by brute force the newfound wealth of a
weak
and unthreatening small neighbor.