Death Of Otto Kretschmer
Pyers Symon
who has died at the age of 86. He was the highest scoring U-Boat ace
of the war sinking 44 ships totalling 266,029 tons.
Pyers Symon
Dave Powell
No way.. that sucks. He was a hell of a tactician and a commander. I hope
things go well for him with the Lord, even though he was on the wrong side
of history.
David Powell
Agincourt
>Today's London Daily Telegraph carries the obituary of Otto Kretschmer
>who has died at the age of 86. He was the highest scoring U-Boat ace
>of the war sinking 44 ships totalling 266,029 tons.
>
Hurray!!!
One less miserable Nazi!
--
H King, EWC, SW, USN (ret.)
Historical Forensic Extremis
agincourt<at>mindspring<dot>com
AlumsHubby
Allegemeine SS booting 'undesirables' into the waterless showers, after
all...he died an 86-year-old man who survived World War Two, same as my dad.
On the other hand, if it's celebrating you want, maybe you'd care to borrow my
old tap shoes so you can dance on the casket...
Bill McClain (Alums...@aol.com)
--- "nomenclature is destiny" ---
TMOliver
>
> Pyers Symon wrote in message <35DC0A...@boat.bt.com>...
> >Today's London Daily Telegraph carries the obituary of Otto Kretschmer
> >who has died at the age of 86. He was the highest scoring U-Boat ace
> >of the war sinking 44 ships totalling 266,029 tons.
> >
>
> Hurray!!!
>
> One less miserable Nazi!
>
> --
He wasn't quite that bad, and when I was a boot Enswine back
in the early 60s, he was on ACDU with the new KrautMarine
(West) and visited 6th Fleet units on some sort of NATO
flail. His English was OK, and his briefing on fleet ASW
capabilities (somewhere betwixt "0" and "None" in his
estimation) was revelatory (although he did claim that the
Sovs rated low on the performance scale, but would whup our
butts if they let the OstKrauten build and crew a bunch of
boats).
I was sort of impressed to meet a guy who had (a) sunk about
a fleet and a half of tonnage and (b) survived. Given his
age at his demise (86), he would have been barely over 50 in
'63, still a young man full of vigor and vim (but older in
'39-40 that a lot of Uboat skippers). I thought he looked
old (but it could have been being rode hard and put up
wet)....
--
TMOliver - el pelon sinverguenza
<>-<>-<>
An Artillerist's Prayer....
"Lord,
May the enemy awake to a cannonade,
Roused from his sleep by shellbursts all about him,
To breakfast on roundshot,
To lunch on a cup of grape and a can of case,
And to sup on the cold steel of me sergeant's
spontoon!"
Cpt. C.N. Nebulart
: Pyers Symon wrote in message <35DC0A...@boat.bt.com>...
: >Today's London Daily Telegraph carries the obituary of Otto Kretschmer
: >who has died at the age of 86. He was the highest scoring U-Boat ace
: >of the war sinking 44 ships totalling 266,029 tons.
:
: Hurray!!!
:
: One less miserable Nazi!
Kretschmer, like many U-boat captains of the first years, was _not_ a Nazi,
rather a sailor bound by his _oath to his COUNTRY_ to fight for it.
As one captain in WW2 once said:
"My country right, my country wrong, my country"
Note: _country_
Speak nothing but good of the dead, for they can't rise to defend
themselves....
--
- Cpt. C.N. Nebulart <nebu...@solnoid.xs4all.nl>
Homepage located at http://www.anime.net/~nebulart/
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gall Force * Bubble Gum Crisis ** XB-70A Valkyrie * VentureStar [X-33] **
Supporter of the VentureStar project - breaking the cost barrier to Space
All PC standards are manufacturer-dependent.
Agincourt
>He wasn't quite that bad, and when I was a boot Enswine back
>in the early 60s, he was on ACDU with the new KrautMarine
>(West) and visited 6th Fleet units on some sort of NATO
>flail. His English was OK, and his briefing on fleet ASW
>capabilities (somewhere betwixt "0" and "None" in his
>estimation) was revelatory (although he did claim that the
>Sovs rated low on the performance scale, but would whup our
>butts if they let the OstKrauten build and crew a bunch of
>boats).
>
>I was sort of impressed to meet a guy who had (a) sunk about
>a fleet and a half of tonnage and (b) survived. Given his
>age at his demise (86), he would have been barely over 50 in
>'63, still a young man full of vigor and vim (but older in
>'39-40 that a lot of Uboat skippers). I thought he looked
>old (but it could have been being rode hard and put up
>wet)....
I have no respect for anyone who supported a regime that was not satified
with the industrialization of Genocide until they determined a means of
making it profitable. Thanks to the people that Otto sae fit to support,
the world now knows how many feet of barbed wire is required to constuct a
concentration camp. Thanks to the like of O.K. we now know how to extract
the highest amount of profit from a murder victim. Otto Kretschmer didn't
get to be a U boat commander by being an avid supporter of democracy. He
was a dyed in the wool Nazi. Him and his kind are directly responsible for
the deaths of upwards of 50 million people. He may not have thrown them in
the gas chamber himself, but he was on a first name basis with those who
did.
I wouldn't dance on his grave. And though, I feel that his corpse would
sully a cesspool, I have no reservations about pissing on his head stone.
Agincourt
>Agincourt (none@seesigline) wrote:
>: Pyers Symon wrote in message <35DC0A...@boat.bt.com>...
>: >Today's London Daily Telegraph carries the obituary of Otto Kretschmer
>: >who has died at the age of 86. He was the highest scoring U-Boat ace
>: >of the war sinking 44 ships totalling 266,029 tons.
>:
>: Hurray!!!
>:
>: One less miserable Nazi!
>
>Kretschmer, like many U-boat captains of the first years, was _not_ a Nazi,
>rather a sailor bound by his _oath to his COUNTRY_ to fight for it.
>
>As one captain in WW2 once said:
>"My country right, my country wrong, my country"
>
>Note: _country_
If my country decided to systematically killed off a portion of it's
population, solely based on it's ethnic origin, I would be the first one to
fight against that government. I personally find it an embarrassment that a
person who claims the status of Captain would defend genocide, on the basis
of "my country, right or wrong". Kretschnmer was a member of the Nazi
Party. Same with Erwin Rommel, Adolph Galan and Eric Hartmann.
Bill Rhodes
>
> If my country decided to systematically killed off a portion of it's
> population, solely based on it's ethnic origin, I would be the first one to
> fight against that government.
Chief, I love ya, but...your country (and mine too) DID just that. How
many Indians are there running around the plains these days?
gws
. . .
>I wouldn't dance on his grave. And though, I feel that his corpse would
>sully a cesspool, I have no reservations about pissing on his head stone.
ROFL. That's better, Chief. Now you are showing some restraint. :>)
Grey Satterfield
gws
>Pyers Symon wrote in message <35DC0A...@boat.bt.com>...
>>Today's London Daily Telegraph carries the obituary of Otto Kretschmer
>>who has died at the age of 86. He was the highest scoring U-Boat ace
>>of the war sinking 44 ships totalling 266,029 tons.
>
>Hurray!!!
>
>One less miserable Nazi!
I don't know whether he was a Nazi, Chief, but I do know that he was one
hell of a fighting sailor.
Grey Satterfield
Agincourt
Bill Rhodes wrote in message <35DC4C6D...@panix.com>...
I also agree that the United States was very wrong in it's treatment of the
native americans, and that in many instances I see justification of the
title of "War Crimes". I would have opposed this as much as I opposes what
happen in Europe. I don't hold General G.A. Custer in a very positive light
either.
Cpt. C.N. Nebulart
: Cpt. C.N. Nebulart wrote in message ...
: >Agincourt (none@seesigline) wrote:
: >: Pyers Symon wrote in message <35DC0A...@boat.bt.com>...
: >: >Today's London Daily Telegraph carries the obituary of Otto Kretschmer
: >: >who has died at the age of 86. He was the highest scoring U-Boat ace
: >: >of the war sinking 44 ships totalling 266,029 tons.
: >:
: >: Hurray!!!
: >:
: >: One less miserable Nazi!
: >Kretschmer, like many U-boat captains of the first years, was _not_ a Nazi,
: >rather a sailor bound by his _oath to his COUNTRY_ to fight for it.
: >
: >As one captain in WW2 once said:
: >"My country right, my country wrong, my country"
: >
: >Note: _country_
:
: If my country decided to systematically killed off a portion of it's
: population, solely based on it's ethnic origin, I would be the first one to
: person who claims the status of Captain would defend genocide, on the basis
: of "my country, right or wrong". Kretschnmer was a member of the Nazi
: Party. Same with Erwin Rommel, Adolph Galan and Eric Hartmann.
Has it occurred to you he might not have known ?
If Kretschmer were the war criminal you paint him, why wasn't he brought to
court in Neurenberg ?
If you found out your country had been killing its civilians, without you
taking part in it, without you knowing it, would you like to be painted as you
paint Kretschmer ?
Guess not ..
SHIPFIXR
>I have no respect for anyone who supported a regime that was not satified
>with the industrialization of Genocide until they determined a means of
>making it profitable. Thanks to the people that Otto sae fit to support,
>the world now knows how many feet of barbed wire is required to constuct a
>concentration camp. Thanks to the like of O.K. we now know how to extract
>the highest amount of profit from a murder victim. Otto Kretschmer didn't
>get to be a U boat commander by being an avid supporter of democracy. He
>was a dyed in the wool Nazi. Him and his kind are directly responsible for
>the deaths of upwards of 50 million people. He may not have thrown them in
>the gas chamber himself, but he was on a first name basis with those who
>did.
Yes.....it's a well known fact that all members of the German armed
forces in WW II were rabid, slavering nazi's and fought only to support
Germany's right to have extermination camps.....
>
>I wouldn't dance on his grave. And though, I feel that his corpse would
>sully a cesspool, I have no reservations about pissing on his head stone.
>
Strange how the men who actually fought against men like O.K. don't
universally share your feelsings.....
DN
SHIPFIXR
>population, solely based on it's ethnic origin, I would be the first one to
>fight against that government. I personally find it an embarrassment that a
>person who claims the status of Captain would defend genocide, on the basis
>of "my country, right or wrong". Kretschnmer was a member of the Nazi
>Party. Same with Erwin Rommel, Adolph Galan and Eric Hartmann.
>
Officer could talk such drivel. Please give us your source that either O.K.
or Adoph Galland were members of the nazi party. I wouldn't swear that Rommel
was either but can't prove otherwise.......I honestly don't know who the hell
the other guy is.....
DN
Gene Styer
Agincourt <none@seesigline> wrote:
>
>[snip]
>
>If my country decided to systematically killed off a portion of it's
>population, solely based on it's ethnic origin, I would be the first one to
>fight against that government. I personally find it an embarrassment that a
>person who claims the status of Captain would defend genocide, on the basis
>of "my country, right or wrong". Kretschnmer was a member of the Nazi
>Party. Same with Erwin Rommel, Adolph Galan and Eric Hartmann.
But in saying this, don't forget that not every German (or for that matter,
not every Nazi) was the same. There were a lot of people holding anti-semetic
views, but that doesn't mean they supported genocide. Also don't forget that
the Germans didn't exactly announce the genocide either.
I am reminded of the book "Iron Coffins", written by [Werner?] a sub sailor
who eventually became a CO. When his dad ended up in jail for harboring (and
also having an affair with) a Jewish girl, he went to the jail and arranged for
his dad to be released. He couldn't/didn't get the girl released, but as I
remember she did survive. But the overall tone of the book is that he was
suprised by the revelation of the concentration camps, and did not support
them.
In summary, the mere fact someone fought for Germany does not imply they
knew of or supported genocide.
Eugene Styer
Agincourt
Gene Styer wrote in message <6rhuak$70g$1...@eagle.eku.edu>...
>In article <6rhhfd$arr$1...@camel18.mindspring.com>,
>Agincourt <none@seesigline> wrote:
>>
>>[snip]
>>
>>If my country decided to systematically killed off a portion of it's
>>population, solely based on it's ethnic origin, I would be the first one
to
>>fight against that government. I personally find it an embarrassment that
a
>>person who claims the status of Captain would defend genocide, on the
basis
>>of "my country, right or wrong". Kretschnmer was a member of the Nazi
>>Party. Same with Erwin Rommel, Adolph Galan and Eric Hartmann.
>
>But in saying this, don't forget that not every German (or for that matter,
>not every Nazi) was the same. There were a lot of people holding
anti-semetic
>views, but that doesn't mean they supported genocide. Also don't forget
that
>the Germans didn't exactly announce the genocide either.
*******************
Page 474
From the practical and the propagandistic side, this was one of the major
features of life and death in wartime Germany and German controlled Europe,
As a German reporter wrote at the end of a three week long trip into the
occupied Ukraine in 1943: "We heard entirely clear and explicit
announcements about the Jewish question. Among the 16 million inhabitants
of the area controlled by the civilian administration in the Ukraine, there
used to be 1.1 million Jews. They have all been liquidated...One of the
higher officials of the administration explained the executions with the
words, 'the Jews are exterminated like roaches."
This was not only a central objective of the regime but one of which it was
inordinately proud.
Page 476
Wretchedly housed and fed, constantly harassed and mistreated, brutally
punished for real or imaginary offenses, the slave workers were Omni-present
in wartime Germany. Every town had its slave labor camps, every factory its
proportion of slave-laborers, ranging from 20 to 80 percent of the
workforce.
A WORLD AT ARMS
A global history of World War II
Gerhard L. Weinberg.
Cambridge University Press, 1994
*************************
Kind of hard not to know.
John Lansford
>I have no respect for anyone who supported a regime that was not satified
>with the industrialization of Genocide until they determined a means of
>making it profitable. Thanks to the people that Otto sae fit to support,
>the world now knows how many feet of barbed wire is required to constuct a
>concentration camp. Thanks to the like of O.K. we now know how to extract
>the highest amount of profit from a murder victim. Otto Kretschmer didn't
>get to be a U boat commander by being an avid supporter of democracy. He
>was a dyed in the wool Nazi.
No he was not. Most German Navy commanders were not Nazis; the German
Navy CinC resisted having Nazis command his ships and was largely
effective in accomplishing this.
> Him and his kind are directly responsible for
>the deaths of upwards of 50 million people. He may not have thrown them in
>the gas chamber himself, but he was on a first name basis
> with those who
>did.
Oh please. So was every other German soldier or airman who fought in
WWII, and they were hardly all Nazis either. Many of them fought for
their country and many, many of them were drafted just like many
Americans and British were.
John Lansford, PE
The unofficial I-26 Construction Webpage:
http://users.vnet.net/lansford/a10/
Agincourt
SHIPFIXR wrote in message
<199808201946...@ladder01.news.aol.com>...
>>f my country decided to systematically killed off a portion of it's
>>population, solely based on it's ethnic origin, I would be the first one
to
>>fight against that government. I personally find it an embarrassment that
a
>>person who claims the status of Captain would defend genocide, on the
basis
>>of "my country, right or wrong". Kretschnmer was a member of the Nazi
>>Party. Same with Erwin Rommel, Adolph Galan and Eric Hartmann.
>>
Petty
>Officer could talk such drivel. Please give us your source that either
O.K.
>or Adoph Galland were members of the nazi party. I wouldn't swear that
Rommel
>was either but can't prove otherwise.......I honestly don't know who the
hell
>the other guy is.....
Adolph Galland started of the early in the Nazi party, and swore his oath of
allegiance not to Germany, but to Adolph Hitler. Due in part to his Party
connections we was given the chance to gain combat experience in Spain
fighting Spanish Nationalist for Franciso Franco. Later his close
relationship with Adolph Hitler would shield him from Hermann Goering who
was angry with Adolph Galland, as General of Fighters, for his failure to
stem the growing tide of Allied bombers.. Hitler later permitted him to
form his "Squadron of Experts", using the ME-262 as it's main fighter.
Erwin Rommel. Early Party member, originally started out his career as head
of Hitlers personal bodyguard. He was a avid admirer of Hitler and was given
command of the Afrika Corp in North Africa. Thanks in part to his early
connections to the party. Hitler pulled "his favorite General" out of
Africa a nearly at the last minute, to prevent his capture. When he was
implicated in the plot to kill Hitler, we was the only one to be offered the
chance to commit suicide, and given a state funeral.
Eric Hartmann, Highest scoring fighter ace in history, racking upwards of
352 air victories. So trusted by Adolph Hitler, that he was the only person
allowed to carry a side arm in Hitlers presence. Captured by the Soviets,
spent 12 years in prison for his role of strafing civilians on the Eastern
Front.
One of the particular requirements of being an Officer in the German armed
forces was the necessity to swear allegiance, not to Germany, but to Adolph
Hitler. As it has been noted in a previous post, The number of Killing
center, Labor Camps, ghettos, Concentration camps with in Germany proper,
make the very idea on "not knowing" nearly impossible.There was in fact over
200 of them through out Germany.
The U-boat pens that Otto Kretschmer would have walked through on his way
to his command was heavily stocked with slave laborers. The ship yards that
built his boats were manned by slave laborers. Not knowing would have been
a feat of monumental effort. The local press had announcements of the
killings in the occupied areas of Europe. Hitlers book, Mein Kampf,
mentions of his hatred of Jews and his intent to destroy Jewry through out
Germany and Europe.
As I quote:
Page 474
From the practical and the propagandistic side, this was one of the major
features of life and death in wartime Germany and German controlled Europe,
As a German reporter wrote at the end of a three week long trip into the
occupied Ukraine in 1943: "We heard entirely clear and explicit
announcements about the Jewish question. Among the 16 million inhabitants
of the area controlled by the civilian administration in the Ukraine, there
used to be 1.1 million Jews. They have all been liquidated...One of the
higher officials of the administration explained the executions with the
words, 'the Jews are exterminated like roaches."
This was not only a central objective of the regime but one of which it was
inordinately proud.
A WORLD AT ARMS
A global history of World War II
Gerhard L. Weinberg.
Cambridge University Press, 1994
I sir, have on occasion picked up a book. I recommend that you look past
the television and do the same.
Agincourt
John Lansford wrote in message <35dea25c....@news.vnet.net>...
>"Agincourt" <none@seesigline> wrote:
>
>>I have no respect for anyone who supported a regime that was not satified
>>with the industrialization of Genocide until they determined a means of
>>making it profitable. Thanks to the people that Otto sae fit to support,
>>the world now knows how many feet of barbed wire is required to constuct a
>>concentration camp. Thanks to the like of O.K. we now know how to extract
>>the highest amount of profit from a murder victim. Otto Kretschmer didn't
>>get to be a U boat commander by being an avid supporter of democracy. He
>>was a dyed in the wool Nazi.
>
>No he was not. Most German Navy commanders were not Nazis; the German
>Navy CinC resisted having Nazis command his ships and was largely
>effective in accomplishing this.
>
Adm. Karl Donitz, Risiting the Nazi's? Now that is a good one. The choosed
successor of Hitler was not a Nazi?
Agincourt
>:
>: If my country decided to systematically killed off a portion of it's
>: population, solely based on it's ethnic origin, I would be the first one
to
>: fight against that government. I personally find it an embarrassment
that a
>: person who claims the status of Captain would defend genocide, on the
basis
>: of "my country, right or wrong". Kretschnmer was a member of the Nazi
>: Party. Same with Erwin Rommel, Adolph Galan and Eric Hartmann.
>
>
>If Kretschmer were the war criminal you paint him, why wasn't he brought to
>court in Neurenberg ?
>
>If you found out your country had been killing its civilians, without you
>taking part in it, without you knowing it, would you like to be painted as
you
>paint Kretschmer ?
>
>Guess not ..
As already posted, He most likely knew. Not knowing would have require
Herculean effort to look the other way. It was not in his interest to know.
Would I paint him as a war criminal......., Doneitz was, for unrestricted
submarine warfare, and did 10 years in prison. He seemed to fit that mold.
Agincourt
<199808210145...@ladder03.news.aol.com>...
>>As already posted, He most likely knew. Not knowing would have require
>>Herculean effort to look the other way. It was not in his interest to
know.
>>Would I paint him as a war criminal......., Doneitz was, for unrestricted
>>submarine warfare, and did 10 years in prison. He seemed to fit that
mold.
>>
>>
unrestricted
>submarine warfare??
>
>DN
My assertion was that Kretschmer was a piece of crap Nazi. But not that he
was a War Criminal. If we were willing to paint Donitz a war criminal for
unrestricted Submarine warfare, we should have issued the same charges
against C. Nimitz, who ordered the same against the Japanese in the Pacific.
Weather he was a Nazi or not, He directly contributed to the Nazi cause in
Europe and the suffering of Germany's European Neighbors. The Policies of
racial and ethnic cleansing were in place in 1939 as much as they were in
1943.
Agincourt
SHIPFIXR wrote in message
<199808210301...@ladder03.news.aol.com>...
>>Adolph Galland started of the early in the Nazi party, and swore his oath
of
>>allegiance not to Germany, but to Adolph Hitler. Due in part to his Party
>>connections we was given the chance to gain combat experience in Spain
>>fighting Spanish Nationalist for Franciso Franco.
>
>your source he was a nazi. He was a highly decorated fighter pilot.....is
this
>why he's a nazi? where do you get this information?? If at came from the
book
>you're quoting.....I'd suggest you toss the damned thing...it's getting you
in
>trouble.
*************************
I would assert that you are looking at it from an appologist point of view.
Adolph Galland was very much a Nazi. He was also a skilled pilot. One doe
not supersede the other. One is capable of being a both. He also took an
oath of allegence to Adolph Hitler. And thanks to both his skill as a pilot
and his connections to Hitler it saved his ass on a number of occassion
where Goering wanted him Court Martialed.
*************************
>>Erwin Rommel. Early Party member, originally started out his career as
head
>>of Hitlers personal bodyguard. He was a avid admirer of Hitler and was
given
>>command of the Afrika Corp in North Africa. Thanks in part to his early
>>connections to the party. Hitler pulled "his favorite General" out of
>>Africa a nearly at the last minute, to prevent his capture. When he was
>>implicated in the plot to kill Hitler, we was the only one to be offered
the
>>chance to commit suicide, and given a state funeral.
>>
> Irwin Rommel hardly "...started out his career as head of Hitler's
>bodyguard" he was a very highly decorated officer in WW I and was a full
>colonel when he commanded Hitler's bodyguard prior to WW II. He was given
the
>job in Africa after his spectacular performance as a panzer division
commander
>in the invasion of France in 1940....the African job wasn't looked upon as
a
>plum assignment, it was Hitler bailing out his Italian ally .....so nobody
was
>doing Rommel any favors by sending him there.....it was him that made the
job
>famous not the other way around...and he was pulled out long before the
final
>battles in North Africa partly because of his poor health and partly
because he
>was too famous in Germany by then to have his reputation tarnished by a
>defeat.......never forget Hitler was a politician.. As for his suicide,
again
>Hitler was too smart to take a chance with any public opinion given
Rommel's
>popularity. by the way....kind of a funny end for a rabid nazi isn't it??
>Trying to kill Hitler?? Miss a page or two in your book?
*****************************
Perhaps I chould have said, "Started out his carreer as a Nazi......" He was
a very good field commander, and a Nazi. Again one does not devorce itself
from the other. It he were alive after the end of the war, he most likely
would have spent a number of years in Prison. Or joined a number of other
Field Marshalls at the end of a rope.
*******************************************
>> The U-boat pens that Otto Kretschmer would have walked through on his way
>>to his command was heavily stocked with slave laborers. The ship yards
that
>>built his boats were manned by slave laborers.
>
> First, one of the last places in Germany where they took the chance of
>using slave labor was the aircraft and shipbuilding
industries.....including
>the submarine bases in France that employed mostly FRENCH workers.... You
>talk of "knowing and not knowing" from a perspective of 50 years later
reading
>about things that weren't discovered until after the war by most.
**********************
Slave labor was used extensively in many very sensitive area's such as the
V-1 and V-2 programs. Why should be believe that the A/C and ship building
industry were any different. It was noted in a restoration of a ME-262 for
the Smithonian Institute that Slave labor was blamed for a number of
material deficencies in it's construction.
*******************************************
>
>>Hitlers book, Mein Kampf,
>>mentions of his hatred of Jews and his intent to destroy Jewry through out
>>Germany and Europe.
>>
> Mein Kampf mentions Hitler's feelings about the Jews and Slavic
>races.....nothing about any intent to destroy Jewry throughout
anything.....try
>starting on page 379 of the 1924 edition.....since you on occasion pick up
a
>book and think you have a corner on it. If the things you've been writing
on
>this subject are a result of your picking up said books...... .....I'd
strongly
>suggest you stick to television, stop just picking them up and start
reading
>them, OR take a night course in reading comprehension (so you can not only
read
>it, you can understand it too......).
**************************************
H, King
Bachlors Degree in History, University of Maryland, 1988
Master in Historical Forensic, New York University. 1996
'nough said.......
Agincourt
SHIPFIXR wrote in message
<199808210309...@ladder03.news.aol.com>...
>>
>>Otto fought the early 2 years of the war, having joined the Imperial
>>Navy long before the Nazi's took over the government. On numerous
>>occasions he showed kindness to torpedo victims in a manner unlike that
>>shown by some victor nations. He even took men aboard when found
>>floating alone. He did fight on the wrong side given all that came
>>later. But he was an honorable warrior and I am sorry to see him pass.
>>
> I agree with you totally....except I doubt an officer who dies at the age
of
>86 in 1998 was an officer in the Imperial Navy......he was in command of a
>U-boat when in his mid-20's.
>
>DN
He also commanded a Submarine as an Officer in the Navy of the 3rd Reich.
Does one prevent acknowledgement of the other. Or is that just making
things a bit too messy.
James Stutts
Speaking as someone who also has a master's degree:
A degree does not an educated man make.
Agincourt
bb9...@hotmail.com wrote in message <6riohk$8t$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>...
> >f my country decided to systematically killed off a portion of it's
> >population, solely based on it's ethnic origin, I would be the first one
to
> >fight against that government. I personally find it an embarrassment
that a
> >person who claims the status of Captain would defend genocide, on the
basis
> >of "my country, right or wrong". Kretschnmer was a member of the Nazi
> >Party. Same with Erwin Rommel, Adolph Galan and Eric Hartmann.
> >
>
>pretty well bashes the Nazi bigwigs & I believe (it's been a while since
I've
>read this, so I'm not 100% certain) he even mentioned he kept being asked
>to join and he kept making excuses why he hadn't.
>
>Wolves
Galland really hated how the air war was being run from Berlin. He and
Goering didn't see eye to eye. Goering wanted the fighters to focus on the
bomber and ignore the fighters. Galland saw this a suicide Later when
Goering demanded a Perimeter defense of the Reich, Galland fought him,
wanting an in-depth defense. The failure of both of Goering air defense
policies were dumped on Galland.
Hitler wanted the ME-262 built as a bomber, rather than as the fighter that
is was designed to be. Galland got his ME-262 fighter and created the
"Squadron of Experts" using the 262 as its primary fighter. But a year too
late. Unless you were manning a B-17 at the time, then a few months too
early.
Agincourt
James Stutts wrote in message <6ripas$pnh$1...@camel19.mindspring.com>...
>
>
>Speaking as someone who also has a master's degree:
>
>A degree does not an educated man make.
Interesting.
If he was a good commander, he couldn't have been a Nazi. If he had a
measure of education, He could not have been a Nazi. If he did particularly
well in the Field, he couldn't have been a Nazi. If he could pilot an
aircraft through out the war, he could have been a Nazi. If he managed to
live to a ripe old age, he could have been a Nazi.
He he somehow managed to live to 1998 and distance himself from the war. He
gets the prize of a forgotten past. and the title of "Not a Nazi"
Whom then, where all those Nazi's and where did they go?
TMOliver
>
> SHIPFIXR wrote in message.
>
> My assertion was that Kretschmer was a piece of crap Nazi. But not that he
> was a War Criminal.
> Weather he was a Nazi or not, He directly contributed to the Nazi cause in
> Europe and the suffering of Germany's European Neighbors. The Policies of
> racial and ethnic cleansing were in place in 1939 as much as they were in
> 1943.
>
Chief, I'm not completely sure that there's some truth in
your assertion, but the fact remains that he was (a) either
never a member of the NSDAP or (b) completely "De-Nazified"
(an interesting historical process worthy of a serious
inquiry) immediately after the war, made the desperately
short list for active duty in the tiny Bonn Gov't's
semi-official Coast Defense Force, by '63 wore a wide
stripe, held a high NATO staff position, required sideboys,
and we all stood up when he came in the wardroom to brief.
Kind of like the Spanish'Merkin war, when some Yankee troops
had to serve under a former 'Federate Ossifer (and ex slave
owner), objected and wuz threatened with Courts Martial.
The victors, having picked and chose the "good soldiers" are
forced to live long with their choices. I'm not sure that
we can make any more of a case against Kretschmer than
against a lot of other names later holding NATO command
billets. I can think of a couple of far more flagrantly
cleansed ex-party members...Von Braun and Gehlen, both with
greatcoats trailing a lot of mud and blood-soaked jackboots.
....and then along came Waldheim.
It's like revolution, when it comes time to designate the
revolutionaries, the guerillas, the franc tireurs, the
maquis, the saboteurs, the terrorists, the freedom fighters,
the partisons, the patriots, the minutemen, etc.
Reality is intrusive and rarely part of the retrospective
designation process.
Amusingly, a now deceased pathologist in my home town was a
former medical orderly in the SS (Waffen-sort). Fitting for
a pathologist, he claimed to have spent his youth among the
dead, the nearly dead, the walking dead and the soon likely
to be dead.
And my old Dad, who having met both Ho Chi Minh and Chang
Kai Chek (along with assorted "Commies") while serving in
China during the "last great confrontational inspirational
period for big war movies", claimed that the evilest,
rottenest, "least likely to want to bring home to meet your
girl" among them was the GMO who along with his band of
henchman had raised corruption to high art and depressed
government to low comedy, but was better than the "Nips",
for forty years later, Dad would not ride in their cars or
willingly/knowingly use their products, having acquired an
indelible imprimatur of their conduct toward the "lower
orders", a status which they accord(ed)to everybody else.
James Stutts
>>Speaking as someone who also has a master's degree:
>>
>>A degree does not an educated man make.
>
>
>Interesting.
>
>If he was a good commander, he couldn't have been a Nazi. If he had a
No.
>measure of education, He could not have been a Nazi. If he did
particularly
Most of Hitler's upper echelon were not particularly well educated.
>well in the Field, he couldn't have been a Nazi. If he could pilot an
Of course not.
>aircraft through out the war, he could have been a Nazi. If he managed to
>live to a ripe old age, he could have been a Nazi.
Of course. I don't think Otto was, however.
>
>He he somehow managed to live to 1998 and distance himself from the war. He
>gets the prize of a forgotten past. and the title of "Not a Nazi"
>
>Whom then, where all those Nazi's and where did they go?
Montana? ;) There were people who served in the German armed forces
who weren't Nazis. I've met a few. Stating that one should accept your
statements on the basis that you have a master's in history is asking too
much.
Your reply had nothing to do with my statement.
JCS
Prof. Vincent Brannigan
>
> SHIPFIXR wrote in message
> <199808210145...@ladder03.news.aol.com>...
> >>As already posted, He most likely knew. Not knowing would have require
> >>Herculean effort to look the other way. It was not in his interest to
> know.
> >>Would I paint him as a war criminal......., Doneitz was, for unrestricted
> >>submarine warfare, and did 10 years in prison. He seemed to fit that
> mold.
> >>
> >>
> > Do -you- agree that Doenitz was a war criminal because of
> unrestricted
> >submarine warfare??
> >
> >DN
>
> unrestricted Submarine warfare, we should have issued the same charges
> against C. Nimitz, who ordered the same against the Japanese in the Pacific.
>
> Europe and the suffering of Germany's European Neighbors. The Policies of
> racial and ethnic cleansing were in place in 1939 as much as they were in
> 1943.
>
This is simply false. The difference between 1939 and 1943 was the
major reason Rudolph Hess, deputy Fuehrer until May 1941 was not hanged
at Nuremburg. The Wannsee conference detailing the palan for the
holocaust was in January 1942. Krtschmer was captured in March of 1941.
It would seem hard to impute to Kretschmer more responsibility than
Nuremburg gave to the deputy Fuhrer. Doenitz was certainly not punished
for anything he did prior to 1942.
There was a difference between 1939 and 1943. Prior to the
extermination camps, the rounding up of civilians was practiced by many
countries, including the US.
We won. The Nazis lost. That is a Good Thing. One of the good things
we fought for was the idea of individual responsibility. We fought to
distinguish between people who serve an evil government, and those who
commit evil acts. Please do not diminish the principles which Americans
fought and died.
Vince
Byron Audler
wrote:
>Pyers Symon wrote in message <35DC0A...@boat.bt.com>...
>>Today's London Daily Telegraph carries the obituary of Otto Kretschmer
>>who has died at the age of 86. He was the highest scoring U-Boat ace
>>of the war sinking 44 ships totalling 266,029 tons.
>>
>
>
>Hurray!!!
>
>One less miserable Nazi!
>
>
>
>--
>H King, EWC, SW, USN (ret.)
>Historical Forensic Extremis
>agincourt<at>mindspring<dot>com
>
>
Thats a bit much, aint it chief? Last I heard, he had the respect of a
lot of his ex-enemies
HiF...@mayanspreeng.com
>> either O.K.
>> or Adoph Galland were members of the nazi party.
> Adolph Galland...
So where's your O.K. evidence? You have ref's on the others.
Not on K, then?
HiF...@mayanspreeng.com
> In summary, the mere fact someone fought for Germany does not imply
> they knew of or supported genocide.
Otto fought the early 2 years of the war, having joined the Imperial
HiF...@mayanspreeng.com
> Not knowing would have been
> a feat of monumental effort. The local press had announcements of the
> killings in the occupied areas of Europe.
SNIP
> From the practical and the propagandistic side, this was one of the
> major features of life and death in wartime Germany and German
> controlled Europe, As a German reporter wrote at the end of a three
> week long trip into the occupied Ukraine in 1943:
Otto K was a POW for at least 2 years by then, having previously been at
war in the north atlantic since 1939.
Byron Audler
wrote:
>I wouldn't dance on his grave. And though, I feel that his corpse would
>sully a cesspool, I have no reservations about pissing on his head stone.
>
>
>--
>H King, EWC, SW, USN (ret.)
>Historical Forensic Extremis
>agincourt<at>mindspring<dot>com
>
>
>
Well Chief, nobody can say theres anything halfway about you in the
hate department<G>
Bill Rhodes
<<<)))I wouldn't dance on his grave. And though, I feel that his corpse would
<<<)))sully a cesspool, I have no reservations about pissing on his head stone.
HA!
I love it. I celebrated Martin Luther King's birthday one year by pissing on
J. Edgar Hoover's headstone.
Boy did that feel good.
<asbestos suit ON>
SHIPFIXR
Lurker Below
embarrassed himself by posting:
>>"Agincourt" <none@seesigline> wrote:
EXCUSE ME?!?
Generaladmiral Erich Raeder was CinC of the German Navy at the start
of WWII, not Karl Doenitz. You've got the wrong man.
A site has this to say about Raeder -
from http://www.odu.edu/~hanley/history1/Harris.htm
During the crisis years of Hitler's ascendancy, first as Chancellor
and then as Dictator, Raeder was able to keep the Navy on the
periphery of the chaos and out of politics.While the Nazi extremism
was abhorrent to Raeder and most of the officer corps, the more
aggressive and nationalistic policies of the new regime did sponsor
the more rapid growth of the Navy and offered freedom from the
restraints of the Versailles Treaty. These restraints were tested time
and time again, such as when loopholes were exploited for the
construction of the battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau in
1934.
further up the page his career was summed up thusly -
Raeder guided the rebuilding of the German Navy through the hazards of
the Versailles restrictions and Nazi politics with the skill of an
accomplished navigator. He remained true to his code as a professional
warrior and when it became apparent that he could no longer serve
Hitler as the Chief of the Admiralty because of their differences on
how to conduct German naval warfare, he resigned. Although convicted
as a war criminal at the Nurenburg Trials, Raeder's conduct and
professionalism as the Commander in Chief of the Navy were
unimpeachable and later vindicated.
VINDICATED, Chief.
You can read about Otto at http://uboat.net/men/kretschmer.htm
it doesn't say anything about him being a Nazi party member, BTW.
Mike Williams
Oh boy... I can't wait to see the response to *this* one.
For my part, I didn't know Kretshmer was still alive, but I' sad to hear he's
gone.
--
-Mike Williams
http://www.mnsinc.com/daolath/index.html
I can also be reached at work: mike.w...@swift.com
Lurker Below
>John Lansford wrote in message <35dea25c....@news.vnet.net>...
>>"Agincourt" <none@seesigline> wrote:
>>>I have no respect for anyone who supported a regime that was not satified
>>>with the industrialization of Genocide until they determined a means of
>>>making it profitable. Thanks to the people that Otto sae fit to support,
>>>the world now knows how many feet of barbed wire is required to constuct a
>>>concentration camp. Thanks to the like of O.K. we now know how to extract
>>>the highest amount of profit from a murder victim. Otto Kretschmer didn't
>>>get to be a U boat commander by being an avid supporter of democracy. He
>>>was a dyed in the wool Nazi.
>>No he was not. Most German Navy commanders were not Nazis; the German
>>Navy CinC resisted having Nazis command his ships and was largely
>>effective in accomplishing this.
>Adm. Karl Donitz, Risiting the Nazi's? Now that is a good one. The choosed
>successor of Hitler was not a Nazi?
I have found more info on O.K. vis a vis the Nazi Party...
from Kapitänleutnant Joachim Schepke - Career and Personality
http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/1951/can4a.html
Unlike <Gunther> Prien and <Otto> Kretschmer, however, Schepke
was a Nazi Party supporter. Given this fact, his revelling in the
glory and acclaim bestowed on him, and his appearance as a speaker
at official rallies (including a schoolchildren’s rally in a packed
Berlin Sports Hall, the Sportpalast, in early February 1941), it seems
likely that he was not just a committed and skilfull U-boat commander
but also a keen supporter of the Hitler regime.
SHIPFIXR
>allegiance not to Germany, but to Adolph Hitler. Due in part to his Party
>connections we was given the chance to gain combat experience in Spain
>fighting Spanish Nationalist for Franciso Franco.
Galland flew as a volunteer with the Kondor Legion in Spain....what's
your source he was a nazi. He was a highly decorated fighter pilot.....is this
why he's a nazi? where do you get this information?? If at came from the book
you're quoting.....I'd suggest you toss the damned thing...it's getting you in
trouble.
>Erwin Rommel. Early Party member, originally started out his career as head
>of Hitlers personal bodyguard. He was a avid admirer of Hitler and was given
>command of the Afrika Corp in North Africa. Thanks in part to his early
>connections to the party. Hitler pulled "his favorite General" out of
>Africa a nearly at the last minute, to prevent his capture. When he was
>implicated in the plot to kill Hitler, we was the only one to be offered the
>chance to commit suicide, and given a state funeral.
>
Irwin Rommel hardly "...started out his career as head of Hitler's
bodyguard" he was a very highly decorated officer in WW I and was a full
colonel when he commanded Hitler's bodyguard prior to WW II. He was given the
job in Africa after his spectacular performance as a panzer division commander
in the invasion of France in 1940....the African job wasn't looked upon as a
plum assignment, it was Hitler bailing out his Italian ally .....so nobody was
doing Rommel any favors by sending him there.....it was him that made the job
famous not the other way around...and he was pulled out long before the final
battles in North Africa partly because of his poor health and partly because he
was too famous in Germany by then to have his reputation tarnished by a
defeat.......never forget Hitler was a politician.. As for his suicide, again
Hitler was too smart to take a chance with any public opinion given Rommel's
popularity. by the way....kind of a funny end for a rabid nazi isn't it??
Trying to kill Hitler?? Miss a page or two in your book?
>
> The U-boat pens that Otto Kretschmer would have walked through on his way
>to his command was heavily stocked with slave laborers. The ship yards that
>built his boats were manned by slave laborers.
First, one of the last places in Germany where they took the chance of
using slave labor was the aircraft and shipbuilding industries.....including
the submarine bases in France that employed mostly FRENCH workers.... You
talk of "knowing and not knowing" from a perspective of 50 years later reading
about things that weren't discovered until after the war by most.
>Hitlers book, Mein Kampf,
>mentions of his hatred of Jews and his intent to destroy Jewry through out
>Germany and Europe.
>
Mein Kampf mentions Hitler's feelings about the Jews and Slavic
races.....nothing about any intent to destroy Jewry throughout anything.....try
starting on page 379 of the 1924 edition.....since you on occasion pick up a
book and think you have a corner on it. If the things you've been writing on
this subject are a result of your picking up said books...... .....I'd strongly
suggest you stick to television, stop just picking them up and start reading
them, OR take a night course in reading comprehension (so you can not only read
it, you can understand it too......).
DN
SHIPFIXR
>Otto fought the early 2 years of the war, having joined the Imperial
>Navy long before the Nazi's took over the government. On numerous
>occasions he showed kindness to torpedo victims in a manner unlike that
>shown by some victor nations. He even took men aboard when found
>floating alone. He did fight on the wrong side given all that came
>later. But he was an honorable warrior and I am sorry to see him pass.
>
bb9...@hotmail.com
>population, solely based on it's ethnic origin, I would be the first one to
>fight against that government. I personally find it an embarrassment that a
>person who claims the status of Captain would defend genocide, on the basis
>of "my country, right or wrong". Kretschnmer was a member of the Nazi
>Party. Same with Erwin Rommel, Adolph Galan and Eric Hartmann.
>
I would also like to know about Galland. His book 'The First and The Last
pretty well bashes the Nazi bigwigs & I believe (it's been a while since I've
read this, so I'm not 100% certain) he even mentioned he kept being asked
to join and he kept making excuses why he hadn't.
Wolves
-----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==-----
http://www.dejanews.com/rg_mkgrp.xp Create Your Own Free Member Forum
dcne...@my-dejanews.com
"Agincourt" <none@seesigline> wrote:
[snip]
> >Has it occurred to you he might not have known ?
[snip]
>
> As already posted, He most likely knew. Not knowing would have require
> Herculean effort to look the other way. It was not in his interest to know.
> Would I paint him as a war criminal......., Doneitz was, for unrestricted
> submarine warfare, and did 10 years in prison. He seemed to fit that mold.
>
> --
> H King, EWC, SW, USN (ret.)
> Historical Forensic Extremis
> agincourt<at>mindspring<dot>com
>
I'm not sure when the death camps really got into gear-- but I think it was
after Kretschmer was captured in March of 1941. (Wasn't it sometime in
1942 when the "Final Solution" was decided on?) I can't say what
Kretschmer did or didn't know-- or would have condoned had he still
been in service-- but I think it is perhaps unfair to blame him for crimes
committed by others while he was sitting in a British POW camp.
Doug Nelson
ran...@ix.netcom.com
>>As already posted, He most likely knew. Not knowing would have require
>>Herculean effort to look the other way. It was not in his interest to know.
>>Would I paint him as a war criminal......., Doneitz was, for unrestricted
>>submarine warfare, and did 10 years in prison. He seemed to fit that mold.
>>
>>
> Do -you- agree that Doenitz was a war criminal because of unrestricted
>submarine warfare??
Yep. Anyone who wages totally unrestricted warfare is a war criminal.
r/random
>
>DN
>
Agincourt
TMOliver wrote in message <35DD0CBA...@iamerica.net>...
>Agincourt wrote:
>>
>> SHIPFIXR wrote in message.
>
>>
>> My assertion was that Kretschmer was a piece of crap Nazi. But not that
he
>> was a War Criminal.
>> Weather he was a Nazi or not, He directly contributed to the Nazi cause
in
>> Europe and the suffering of Germany's European Neighbors. The Policies
of
>> racial and ethnic cleansing were in place in 1939 as much as they were in
>> 1943.
>>
>
>Chief, I'm not completely sure that there's some truth in
>your assertion, but the fact remains that he was (a) either
>never a member of the NSDAP or (b) completely "De-Nazified"
>(an interesting historical process worthy of a serious
>inquiry) immediately after the war, made the desperately
>short list for active duty in the tiny Bonn Gov't's
>semi-official Coast Defense Force, by '63 wore a wide
>stripe, held a high NATO staff position, required sideboys,
>and we all stood up when he came in the wardroom to brief.
>
>Kind of like the Spanish'Merkin war, when some Yankee troops
>had to serve under a former 'Federate Ossifer (and ex slave
>owner), objected and wuz threatened with Courts Martial.
>The victors, having picked and chose the "good soldiers" are
>forced to live long with their choices. I'm not sure that
>we can make any more of a case against Kretschmer than
>against a lot of other names later holding NATO command
>billets. I can think of a couple of far more flagrantly
>cleansed ex-party members...Von Braun and Gehlen, both with
>greatcoats trailing a lot of mud and blood-soaked jackboots.
********************************************
Don't even get me started about Von Braun. Here is the perfect case of
getting in bed with the wrong people for what otherwise would be the right
reasons.
********************************************
>....and then along came Waldheim.
*******************************
That would be Kurt " I wasn't a Nazi" Waldheim. Later known as Kurt "we all
were Nazi's" Waldheim. Who would later go on to be Secretary of the United
Nations, but still couldn't get a Visa to enter the United States.
*******************************
>
>It's like revolution, when it comes time to designate the
>revolutionaries, the guerillas, the franc tireurs, the
>maquis, the saboteurs, the terrorists, the freedom fighters,
>the partisons, the patriots, the minutemen, etc.
>Reality is intrusive and rarely part of the retrospective
>designation process.
>
>Amusingly, a now deceased pathologist in my home town was a
>former medical orderly in the SS (Waffen-sort). Fitting for
>a pathologist, he claimed to have spent his youth among the
>dead, the nearly dead, the walking dead and the soon likely
>to be dead.
>
>And my old Dad, who having met both Ho Chi Minh and Chang
>Kai Chek (along with assorted "Commies") while serving in
>China during the "last great confrontational inspirational
>period for big war movies", claimed that the evilest,
>rottenest, "least likely to want to bring home to meet your
>girl" among them was the GMO who along with his band of
>henchman had raised corruption to high art and depressed
>government to low comedy, but was better than the "Nips",
>for forty years later, Dad would not ride in their cars or
>willingly/knowingly use their products, having acquired an
>indelible imprimatur of their conduct toward the "lower
>orders", a status which they accord(ed)to everybody else.
>
There are many an instance where it was politically expedient to forgo the
past in hope of improving the future. Von Braun being the perfect example of
"Forgive and Forget, but tell us what you know." That is if you were not a
victim of his brand of labor management. Then we had G Patton comparing
membership in the Nazi's to the Republican party. And we shouldn't forget
the Vatican issuing identity papers and visa for escaping war criminals, all
in the name of combating communism. After the war we had a new enemy, and we
were not being to particular about who as on our side of the fence.
Fortunately, I have no need to forget the little messy parts of these
people's lives. Galland, Kretschmer, Rommel, and Hartmann ended up getting
Nazi all over themselves, and I for one have no inclination to let them off
in the face of a Soviet Threat. Given the chance to talk to Von Braun and
ask him one question, it would not be about his contribution to the Saturn
Project, more likely it would be, about the number of people who died in
slave labor camps helping him get the V-2 off the ground. I'm sure that he
would give me the same, "I didn't know about it", or "that wasn't my
department" rubbish.
A couple of years ago, a group referring to itself as "The Committee for
Open Discussion on the Holocaust" tried to get full page advertisements in
college newspapers, asserting that the Holocaust never happen. And there
was this big discussion about weather it was right to publish it or not.
Some papers actually went a published the idiocy. Boston University said no
and spent several thousand dollars defending it's right not to. My question
would have been as to weather I should wipe my tail with it before I flushed
it. ( Thinking more about it now. No, I have a higher opinion of my feces
than that)
Was Kretschmer a Nazi. Maybe he wasn't. But his actions were in support of
a Government that turned mass murder into a profit motivated industrial
machine. To permit those to forget their past, is to forget those in
Germany who actively opposed the Nazis. Hans and Sophie Scholl who were
beheaded for actively opposing the treatment of Jews and Poles in 1942.
Christopher Probst, Kurt Huber and others who distributed the "white Rose
letters, acting as the Guilty conscience of Germany, and died for it. How
about Oskar Schindler who forsake a fortune in war profits to save a
handful. Or Raoul Wallenberg, who issued Swedish Visa's to save the lives
of Hungarian Jews. So forgive me if I don't buy into the sad old rubbish of
"I didn't know" or "There was nothing that I could have done."
Kristallnacht took place in 1939. Wholesale execution of Jew in Poland
started in 1939 and was reported in the press as early as that year. French
Jew were deported as early as 1941. Kretschmer had a few clues laying
around and chose to do nothing. Some did and paid with their lives. I can
say without any reservations that I would have rather sat in Auschwitz,
than spend one minute in the company of any of these "non-Nazis", under the
finest of conditions.
MCM97
btw, your grave probably won't be worth pissing on. your a nobody. deal with
it!
Chris Manteuffel
wrote:
>>Guess not ..
>
>As already posted, He most likely knew. Not knowing would have require
>Herculean effort to look the other way. It was not in his interest to know.
>Would I paint him as a war criminal......., Doneitz was, for unrestricted
>submarine warfare, and did 10 years in prison. He seemed to fit that mold.
Lets see here: Kretschmer was captured by the RN in March of '41(same
time as Prien and Schrempke were killed). The United States Holocaust
Memorial Museum(the one on Wallenberg Street, the famous one in DC)'s
official web page
(http://www.ushmm.org/misc-bin/add_goback/education/history.html) says
"
Between 1942 and 1944, the Germans moved to eliminate the ghettos in
occupied Poland and elsewhere, deporting ghetto residents to
"extermination camps," killing centers equipped with gassing
facilities, located in Poland. After the meeting of senior German
government officials in late January 1942 at a villa in the Berlin
suburb of Wannsee, the decision to implement "the final solution of
the Jewish question" became formal state policy and Jews from western
Europe were also sent to killing centers in the East. "
Note the dates.
So now he's defending something that didn't exist until after he was a
POW? POW's are responsible for policy after they are prisoners? What
are you argueing? It would have taken Herculean labors not to know
something that was 11 months in the future? Perhaps Kretschmer should
have been working for the Psychic Network?
I don't think that the Nazi's were people to look up to; but
castigating all of them is far too harsh. From the accounts I read, OK
was a nice man, not the Butcher of Lyons.
Chris Manteuffel
Dugaru
(Cpt. C.N. Nebulart) wrote:
[snip]
> Kretschmer, like many U-boat captains of the first years, was _not_ a Nazi,
> rather a sailor bound by his _oath to his COUNTRY_ to fight for it.
Fair enough. Although if he had broken his oath, and refused to kill
hundred (thousands?) of merchant seamen, I can't say I would have thought
less of him.
> Speak nothing but good of the dead, for they can't rise to defend
> themselves....
Umm... Let me get this straight. I can't criticize a guy who killed
people in furtherance of Hitler's aims? Or, for that matter, I can't
criticize Hitler (he's dead too)?
I don't think you mean that.
Kretschmer may have been a brilliant submariner, but he still fought
Hitler's war with great vigor, and ruthlessness, and apparently he did so
without a gun to his head. So I'll continue to think of him as a bad
person -- even an evil person -- and I think I'll manage to keep a clear
conscience while I do so. I also think you defend him with a vigor worthy
of a better cause, but that's your business.
-Dugaru
Agincourt
>what's with the grudge agincourt? get over it!
I knew that some half wit was going to say this. How about the 50 million
plus humans who met an early and violent death. Maybe they should "just get
over it". Or how about the half a million American service men who died in
Europe. Maybe they are just fine with the whole thing. I'm sure that they
are holding a grudge.
Hell it was 53 years ago. What is the statue of limitation on genocide?
MICOMA
writes:
>...One of the particular requirements of being an Officer in the German armed
>forces was the necessity to swear allegiance, not to Germany, but to Adolph
>Hitler...
I do believe that Hilter forced the military to swear allegiance to him AFTER
the attempt on his life. Of course that wasn't the case for the SS - they were
always required to swear allegiance to Hilter.
So if O.K. became a POW in 1941...
Anyway, a tidbit - based on a number of books I've read.
Mike Weeks
JerryLee
wrote:
:
:Bill Rhodes wrote in message <35DC4C6D...@panix.com>...
:>Agincourt wrote:
:>
:>>
:>> If my country decided to systematically killed off a portion of it's
:>> population, solely based on it's ethnic origin, I would be the first one
:to
:>> fight against that government.
:>
:>
:>Chief, I love ya, but...your country (and mine too) DID just that. How
:>many Indians are there running around the plains these days?
:
:I also agree that the United States was very wrong in it's treatment of the
:native americans, and that in many instances I see justification of the
:title of "War Crimes". I would have opposed this as much as I opposes what
:happen in Europe. I don't hold General G.A. Custer in a very positive light
:either.
:
:
I really wish the 'new age' history revisionist bs would go away.. Did
the people occupying the north american continent get a bad deal? Yes,
probably. What killed most of them? Disease. They hadn't resistance to
various diseases that had been running rampant thru Europe (thus
creating resistant European types).
The current AIDs pandemic may continue this trend. The Black Plague's
killing mechanizism was apparently similar enought to AIDs to cull out
most of those who were most vulnerable to it. About 25 percent of
persons of European ancestry are resistant, with about 10 percent
immune, according to recent published articles.. Forget it for Asian,
African, and Amerindian..
The amerindians were a stone age, hunter gatherer society. Such
societies sank without a trace in Europe and Asia millenia ago, when
they encountered farming cultures...
Are we still treating them badly? Yes!.. By isolating some of them (I
might add, at their own request) on reservations, we are conspiring to
kill off the remaining. What kind of life would you lead, if your were
given a small stipend, and no future.. You don't have to be amerindian
to become a substance abuser under those terms...
rgds j..
AGCS Ret
The Ice,-NHK,NUQ,BIKF,PMDY,-"O"boat,-Big"E"
JerryLee
wrote:
:
:
:TMOliver wrote in message <35DD0CBA...@iamerica.net>...
:
:
It's difficult to know how to say this. Some years ago, I read a book
debunking the 'I wasn't a Nazi' thing that many germans swore by after
the wars. Knew a few, the DP's as they were called then.
One of the premises of the author, all germans were just as guilty as
Hitler and his SS because of the out and out nasty climate of
antisemitism that prevailed at the time. That is true. Antisemitism
was so prevalent as to resemble antiblack bigotry in Birmingham in
1925.. Another fact, antisemitism was as prevalent in the U.S. and in
many other places, then as it was in Germany. Remember the shipload
of Jews that bounced from port to port, eventually forced to return to
Germany because no one would give them sanctuary.
The deathcamps silenced the antisemite bigots, after 1945.. The
eugenics thing that Hitler seized on was not confined to National
Socialist party of Germany. We had laws in this country for such
things as sterilizing 'undesireable criminal types'. The Swedes
actually continued some of this stuff up to 1975 or so..
Finally, read the diaries, the letters. One needs to get the flavor of
society in the early half of this century. They are there, and not
prostituted by some researcher's ax to grind, and regurgitated in a
book. Was reading some letters from two of my wife's uncles, while
cleaning up the house when her dad died. They were written home,
within days after the IJN strike at Pearl, to let the folks know they
were still alive.. The phrase that struck me, "There must have been
German pilots with the Japanese planes, the Japs can't see that good."
Bigotry, ignorance...lot of people thought that way..
How does one deal with it. It's only a small step from hating say,
Englishmen, to lynching one, and if you can kill one, why not a dozen,
if a dozen??? But..Is your grandfather as guilty as Hitler, because he
disliked Jews..
rgds j.
Lurker Below
wrote:
>MCM97 wrote in message <199808210522...@ladder01.news.aol.com>...
>>what's with the grudge agincourt? get over it!
>I knew that some half wit was going to say this. How about the 50 million
Documentation?
>plus humans who met an early and violent death. Maybe they should "just get
>over it". Or how about the half a million American service men who died in
>Europe. Maybe they are just fine with the whole thing. I'm sure that they
>are holding a grudge.
>Hell it was 53 years ago. What is the statue of limitation on genocide?
Why don't we just round up every German still alive from then and
execute them all?
Would THAT satisfy you, Chief?
Juergen Nieveler
ran...@ix.netcom.com schrieb in Nachricht
<35dcfb5d...@nntp.ix.netcom.com>...
>
>Yep. Anyone who wages totally unrestricted warfare is a war criminal.
>
>r/random
Then Nimitz, LeMay and "Butcher" Harris are war criminals? What a pity, they
weren´t put to trials, were they? Or is this another case where it depends
on whose side commited the crimes, the winner or the loser?
Juergen Nieveler
Bill Rhodes
el clip-o
> I really wish the 'new age' history revisionist bs would go away..
Senior Chief, I don't think I am a 'new age' anything.
Did
> the people occupying the north american continent get a bad deal? Yes,
> probably. What killed most of them? Disease.
Granted. Does not excuse government policy which equated them with
animals, and there was the occasional Colt Navy .36 (note: topicallity!
One keelhauling a month, thanks!) through the head or heart to speed
these terminally ill along.
Then there was their gentle relocation from the verdant hills of NC and
TN by that stalwart defender of white US rights, Andrew Jackson to a
lovely desert. And these tribes, were at the time, recognized as NATIONS
by treaty.
No stress there.
>
> The amerindians were a stone age, hunter gatherer society.
Also granted, does not make them bad people.
> Are we still treating them badly? Yes!..
Very much so. But I dont believe we are exterminating them anymore, any
more than we are exterminating inner city dwellers without hope.
Cpt. C.N. Nebulart
: Adm. Karl Donitz, Risiting the Nazi's? Now that is a good one. The choosed
: successor of Hitler was not a Nazi?
He was not. Only in 1943-1944 did he fall under Hitler's spell, and even then
refused to indulge in the excesses that the Nazi's are so infamous for.
--
- Cpt. C.N. Nebulart <nebu...@solnoid.xs4all.nl>
Homepage located at http://www.anime.net/~nebulart/
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gall Force * Bubble Gum Crisis ** XB-70A Valkyrie * VentureStar [X-33] **
Supporter of the VentureStar project - breaking the cost barrier to Space
All PC standards are manufacturer-dependent.
John Lansford
> Hitler wanted the ME-262 built as a bomber, rather than as the fighter that
>is was designed to be. Galland got his ME-262 fighter
The Me-262 was developed as early as 1942, but Hitler's endless
tinkering kept deployment back until 1943, when he insisted it be a
bomber. This pushed it back to 1944.
Eisenhower said had the Luftwaffe acquired enough Me-262's in 1943 and
1944 before Overlord, the invasion might never have happened. He would
not have tried it without air superiority, and the Me-262 in
sufficient numbers would have denied that to the Allies.
John Lansford, PE
The unofficial I-26 Construction Webpage:
http://users.vnet.net/lansford/a10/
John Lansford
>>Hell it was 53 years ago. What is the statue of limitation on genocide?
>
>Why don't we just round up every German still alive from then and
>execute them all?
>
>Would THAT satisfy you, Chief?
This appears to be his assertion. After all, according to him, every
German who fought in WWII was either a Nazi, knew of them on a first
name basis (and everyone knew Adolph Hitler's name), or knew what they
did with the Jews and slave labor and did nothing about it.
GMAFB.
Cpt. C.N. Nebulart
: In article <nebula...@solnoid.xs4all.nl>, nebu...@solnoid.xs4all.nl
: (Cpt. C.N. Nebulart) wrote:
:
: [snip]
: > Kretschmer, like many U-boat captains of the first years, was _not_ a Nazi,
: > rather a sailor bound by his _oath to his COUNTRY_ to fight for it.
:
: Fair enough. Although if he had broken his oath, and refused to kill
: hundred (thousands?) of merchant seamen, I can't say I would have thought
: less of him.
:
: > Speak nothing but good of the dead, for they can't rise to defend
: > themselves....
:
: Umm... Let me get this straight. I can't criticize a guy who killed
: people in furtherance of Hitler's aims? Or, for that matter, I can't
: criticize Hitler (he's dead too)?
:
: I don't think you mean that.
Indeed. You may criticize his actions, motives and decisions, but you can't
judge him.
: Kretschmer may have been a brilliant submariner, but he still fought
: Hitler's war with great vigor, and ruthlessness, and apparently he did so
: without a gun to his head. So I'll continue to think of him as a bad
: person -- even an evil person -- and I think I'll manage to keep a clear
: conscience while I do so. I also think you defend him with a vigor worthy
: of a better cause, but that's your business.
If that is your point, is the Ex-CO of the HMS Conqueror a war criminal ?
For killing all those men on the Argentinian cruiser Belgrano ?
In case you didn't know, there was a _WAR_ going on.
Not a nice, clean, televised war with PGM's and cruise missiles, but a BIG war
that took a lot of lives. You might do well to remember that of the 40,000 or
so U-boat men that went to sea, over 30,000 never returned.
Cpt. C.N. Nebulart
: My assertion was that Kretschmer was a piece of crap Nazi. But not that he
: was a War Criminal. If we were willing to paint Donitz a war criminal for
: unrestricted Submarine warfare, we should have issued the same charges
: against C. Nimitz, who ordered the same against the Japanese in the Pacific.
And, was he persecuted ?
Were any of his submarine commanders persecuted ?
NO!
: Weather he was a Nazi or not, He directly contributed to the Nazi cause in
: Europe and the suffering of Germany's European Neighbors. The Policies of
: racial and ethnic cleansing were in place in 1939 as much as they were in
: 1943.
One word: Rubbish.
It's said that the victors write history, and that is very clear from your
bigoted opinion.
I may have no respect for the IDEOLOGY of Germany's leadership in WW2, but
does that mean I must also hate the men that fought for GERMANY ITSELF ?
Do you also hate Count von Stauffenberg, officer in the Wehrmacht, who plotted
(and very nearly succeeded!) in assassinating Hitler and executing a coup ?
He was a German officer at the time, you know, in the armed forces ...
I am appalled. Truly.
Cpt. C.N. Nebulart
: MCM97 wrote in message <199808210522...@ladder01.news.aol.com>...
: >what's with the grudge agincourt? get over it!
:
:
: I knew that some half wit was going to say this. How about the 50 million
: over it". Or how about the half a million American service men who died in
: Europe. Maybe they are just fine with the whole thing. I'm sure that they
: are holding a grudge.
: Hell it was 53 years ago. What is the statue of limitation on genocide?
Hey, yeah! Let's bring all those USAF generals who commanded during 'Nam to
court for genocide on the Vietnamese people, for bombing out Hanoi, for using
chemicals on civvies, for killing their own troops as well.
Oh no, I forgot. America is sacred. America does not commit war crimes.
America stands above that. But if another country should dare ...
Please, open both eyes, read all facts, before condeming someone.
SHIPFIXR
>Yep. Anyone who wages totally unrestricted warfare is a war criminal.
>
add: what you really meant to say is: "Yep. Anyone who wages totally
unrestricted warfare is a war criminal if they also fail to win the war they
have waged."
OUR "war criminals" were hero's; THEIR "war criminals" were "....nazi
crap"
DN
SHIPFIXR
>I would assert that you are looking at it from an appologist point of view.
>Adolph Galland was very much a Nazi. He was also a skilled pilot. One doe
>not supersede the other. One is capable of being a both. He also took an
>oath of allegence to Adolph Hitler. And thanks to both his skill as a pilot
>and his connections to Hitler it saved his ass on a number of occassion
>where Goering wanted him Court Martialed.
>*************************
You are yet to post a source that tells us
Adolf Galland was a nazi. You are right that being a nazi and being a skilled
pilot are not mutually exclusive but this comes from the same man who seems to
think anyone who was successful as a military officer or, the way YOU put it,
even a member of the German armed forces, during WW II had to be a nazi so it's
kind of contradictory isn't it?
>Perhaps I chould have said, "Started out his carreer as a Nazi......" He was
>a very good field commander, and a Nazi
Shirer, in "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" seems to disagree that
Rommel was a nazi. Again; I ask what your source is re his being a nazi. Were
he alive at the end of WW II I doubt he would have been tried for anything....
what was he guilty of except being on the losing side?? The "....number of
other Field Marshalls at the end of a rope.." was ONE. And I don't think he
should have been there either.
>Slave labor was used extensively in many very sensitive area's such as the
>V-1 and V-2 programs. Why should be believe that the A/C and ship building
>industry were any different. It was noted in a restoration of a ME-262 for
>the Smithonian Institute that Slave labor was blamed for a number of
>material deficencies in it's construction.
>***********************************
Slave labor was used extensively in building launch sites for the V-1 and
V-2 programs.....digging holes and pouring concrete....I don't think you will
find many instances of slave labor being used in their actual
manufacture....same for the ME-262.
>H, King
>Bachlors Degree in History, University of Maryland, 1988
>Master in Historical Forensic, New York University. 1996
>'nough said.......
>
Sorry, hardly " 'nough said...", you are telling us you've been to
school........not that you've learned anything. If what you've posted here
were your finals in history.....you'd have failed. Maybe a few of your
University of Maryland courses got lost in the mail...?? I always have to
laugh when someone tells me that they have a "Bachlors" degree and use ti a
their bona fides. "I gots edecatshun"
DN
Agincourt
Lurker Below wrote in message <36012922...@news.inlink.com>...
>On Fri, 21 Aug 1998 01:42:35 -0400, "Agincourt" <none@seesigline>
>wrote:
>
>>MCM97 wrote in message
<199808210522...@ladder01.news.aol.com>...
>
>>>what's with the grudge agincourt? get over it!
>
>>I knew that some half wit was going to say this. How about the 50 million
>
>Documentation?
************************
6 million Jews
4 million communist, homosexuals, gypsies, political prisoner, mentally
retarded and other non desirables
6 million British/Canadian Civilians and soldiers
20 million Russians civilians and soldiers
8 Million German civilians and soldiers
4 million French/Dutch/Belgians
450,000 American soldiers.
Hope your math skills are up to it.
*************************
>
>>plus humans who met an early and violent death. Maybe they should "just
get
>>over it". Or how about the half a million American service men who died
in
>>Europe. Maybe they are just fine with the whole thing. I'm sure that they
>>are holding a grudge.
>
>>Hell it was 53 years ago. What is the statue of limitation on genocide?
>
>Why don't we just round up every German still alive from then and
>execute them all?
>
>Would THAT satisfy you, Chief?
Now you are acting like a monumental ass. My assertion is that I am not
willing to let Bygones be bygones just because he managed to live a long
life. He and many Germans worked in direct support of the 3rd Reich,
knowing full well it's policies of racial intolerance. With that in mind I
have no need to offer up any pity for someone who torpedoed 44 Allied
merchants ships, in support of Hitler's government. It would be simply a
slap in the face of those who fought, both inside and out to topple the
Nazi's. He's dead now and I only hope that he finds the accommodations warm
enough to his disliking.
Agincourt
>Dugaru (dug...@bigfoot.com) wrote:
>: In article <nebula...@solnoid.xs4all.nl>, nebu...@solnoid.xs4all.nl
>: (Cpt. C.N. Nebulart) wrote:
>:
>: [snip]
>: > Kretschmer, like many U-boat captains of the first years, was _not_ a
Nazi,
>: > rather a sailor bound by his _oath to his COUNTRY_ to fight for it.
>:
>: Fair enough. Although if he had broken his oath, and refused to kill
>: hundred (thousands?) of merchant seamen, I can't say I would have thought
>: less of him.
>:
>: > Speak nothing but good of the dead, for they can't rise to defend
>: > themselves....
>:
>: Umm... Let me get this straight. I can't criticize a guy who killed
>: people in furtherance of Hitler's aims? Or, for that matter, I can't
>: criticize Hitler (he's dead too)?
>:
>: I don't think you mean that.
>
>Indeed. You may criticize his actions, motives and decisions, but you can't
>judge him.
But we have done just that on several occasions, And we are doing that now.
Hitler is dead, so we can't say He was wrong in any manner. Oh we could
criticizes his actions, motives, and decisions, but not him. What is he to
be judged by but these things. What are we going to use as a basis when
went enter his name into the history books. He had bad breath? His
mustache was funny looking? I think that you have lost some reason here.
Angered by the initial criticism of Otto Kretschmer, nothing is going to
deter you.
If we were are to reflect on Hitler's actions, motives and decisions, We can
easily "Judge" that he was one sick and twisted son of a bitch. It is no
small leap.
Agincourt
>school........not that you've learned anything. If what you've posted
here
>were your finals in history.....you'd have failed. Maybe a few of your
>University of Maryland courses got lost in the mail...?? I always have to
>laugh when someone tells me that they have a "Bachlors" degree and use ti a
>their bona fides. "I gots edecatshun"
>
>DN
>
I keep wondering if your are Dan Best. Danny is (or at least was) a Ship
yard worker at the Bremerton Naval Shipyard. He was a big burrly guy and
used to call me up to rattle my cage playing Nazi marching music in the
background. I'm sure that he meant it all in good fun. But it ws none the
less agravating.
He stopped calling me when he found out that I voted for Sen. Patty Murry,
my last year in the Navy. This really blew his fuses. My brief forray into
moderate thinking and he would give me that time of day now.
Prof. Vincent Brannigan
>
> Bachlors Degree in History, University of Maryland, 1988
> Master in Historical Forensic, New York University. 1996
> 'nough said.......
not hardly- John Wayne "McClintock"
Vincent Brannigan
BA History 1973 U. of Maryland
Honors Thesis
"Law, Morality and Power: A study of the U-Boat in two World Wars"
Advisors Donald Gordan and Gordon Prange
As part of my historical research I studied in detail the charges at
Nuremburg against Doenitz and the U-Boat force. The prosecutors were
adamant that no one was guilty of any criminal act simply because he did
not resist the German government in its criminal acts.
If your point is that Kretschmer was a loyal German who followed the
lawful orders of the Nazi government I will agree with you. If your
point is that the death of a loyal german sailor who fought against our
country is a cause for rejoicing I certainly concede that the first
amendmentment protects your position. But when you label a person a
Nazi and support that with academic claims you take on the burden of
historical justification. The term nazi is a far narrower term than
German. Not every serving US Naval Officer was a New Dealer, nor is
every officer today a Clintonite.
you cannot label a person a Nazi because he fought for a nazi
government.
It also violates historical standards to judge an officer in 1939 by
what was known later and more importantly, by the changed moral
standards of a later day. Certainly there was little or no world
protest of what Germany was doing to the Jews in the 1930s. The
japanese pilots at Pearl harbor do not share the war guilt we impose on
the IJN high command. The US naval officers in the north atlantic in
1941 who clearly were operating in violation of international law are
not held responsible. Even those most rabid against the bombing of
civilians by all sides in the war do not extend responsiblity for the
policies to the ordinary serving officer. Individuals are personally
responsible for their own actions, not their government's actions.
This was particularly true for the german officer corp in 1939. By boht
law and custom the german army had no part to play in german political
decisions. Officers could not vote or be active members of any political
party. Hitler built the SS to have a politically reliable armed force.
From a purely legal point of view, the doctrines of logical positivism
gave the german jews, like american indians, exactly what rights their
overlords chose to give them.
I certainly agree that in political, rather than historical discourse
the terms Nazi, fascist, gestapo, SS etc are thrown around fairly
loosely. It behooves those who claim historical credentials to be more
precise.
Vince Brannigan
Alastair
> Slave labor was used extensively in building launch sites for the V-1 and
> V-2 programs.....digging holes and pouring concrete....I don't think you will
> find many instances of slave labor being used in their actual
> manufacture....same for the ME-262.
I agree with the general principle that anyone who fought on the side of
Germany was not necessarily a nazi (and in fact that MOST where not) and
that they should not be blamed for fighting for their country (however
wrong we now judge their government to have been). However I do beleive
that Penemunde (Sp?) had a significant prisoner (=slave labour?)
population - mainly digging the tunnels and other donkey work but it was
the main production centre. Hence the angst about bombing it to dust
later on.
Alastair
SHIPFIXR
>He also commanded a Submarine as an Officer in the Navy of the 3rd Reich.
>Does one prevent acknowledgement of the other. Or is that just making
>things a bit too messy.
>
>
You have to realize that this makes no sense whatsoever....
DN
Dave Powell
>againcourt signaled
>
><<<)))I wouldn't dance on his grave. And though, I feel that his corpse
would
><<<)))sully a cesspool, I have no reservations about pissing on his head
stone.
>
>HA!
>
>I love it. I celebrated Martin Luther King's birthday one year by pissing
on
>J. Edgar Hoover's headstone.
>
>Boy did that feel good.
And somewhere, John Dillinger, the Rosenbergs, and Bonnie and Clyde smiled.
><asbestos suit ON>
David Powell
SHIPFIXR
>Interesting.
>
>If he was a good commander, he couldn't have been a Nazi. If he had a
>measure of education, He could not have been a Nazi. If he did particularly
>well in the Field, he couldn't have been a Nazi. If he could pilot an
>aircraft through out the war, he could have been a Nazi. If he managed to
>live to a ripe old age, he could have been a Nazi.
>
>He he somehow managed to live to 1998 and distance himself from the war. He
>gets the prize of a forgotten past. and the title of "Not a Nazi"
>
I agree with you.....that's a very stupid way to look at it. Ranks
right up there with anyone who served in the German armed forces during WW II
is, by default, "...nazi crap..."
You as much as say.....no, make that you DO say....that people who fit
the same mold as what you've described above HAVE TO BE NAZI'S!
>Whom then, where all those Nazi's and where did they go?
>
There were plenty of Nazi's, and there are plenty who time has not made
"non-Nazi's" in later life. One who comes to mind...that many people think was
an "innocent" and -I- say was a total nazi who is only really sorry that they
lost...not for what they did....is Albert Speer. I, and many others, feel that
the German military, for the most part, fought a conventional war for their
country......kind of like the one we fought in Vietnam.....remember that one
Chief??
DN
SHIPFIXR
>yard worker at the Bremerton Naval Shipyard.
Nope, just someone who's studied a little history himself....in and out
of the classroom.
DN
Prof. Vincent Brannigan
>
>
> The amerindians were a stone age, hunter gatherer society. Such
> societies sank without a trace in Europe and Asia millenia ago, when
> they encountered farming cultures...
>
Have you been to Yucatan or Mexico City? or Maccu Piccu? The concept of
"stone age" is a method of classifying European civilizations, not those
in other environments. Remember that today's fishermen are also "hunter
gatherers".
Vince
Paul Holloway
ran...@ix.netcom.com wrote:
> On 21 Aug 1998 01:45:13 GMT, ship...@aol.com (SHIPFIXR) wrote:
>
> >>As already posted, He most likely knew. Not knowing would have require
> >>Herculean effort to look the other way. It was not in his interest to know.
> >>Would I paint him as a war criminal......., Doneitz was, for unrestricted
> >>submarine warfare, and did 10 years in prison. He seemed to fit that mold.
> >>
> >>
> > Do -you- agree that Doenitz was a war criminal because of unrestricted
> >submarine warfare??
>
> Yep. Anyone who wages totally unrestricted warfare is a war criminal.
>
> r/random
> >
> >DN
> >
So Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, and Admiral Earnest J. King, and on up throught
the chain of command. All war criminals, correct?
PDH
Lurker Below
wrote:
>Lurker Below wrote in message <36012922...@news.inlink.com>...
>>On Fri, 21 Aug 1998 01:42:35 -0400, "Agincourt" <none@seesigline>
>>wrote:
>>>MCM97 wrote in message
><199808210522...@ladder01.news.aol.com>...
>>>>what's with the grudge agincourt? get over it!
>>>I knew that some half wit was going to say this. How about the 50 million
>>Documentation?
>************************
>6 million Jews
>4 million communist, homosexuals, gypsies, political prisoner, mentally
>retarded and other non desirables
>6 million British/Canadian Civilians and soldiers
>20 million Russians civilians and soldiers
How many killed by Stalin?
>8 Million German civilians and soldiers
>4 million French/Dutch/Belgians
>450,000 American soldiers.
>Hope your math skills are up to it.
If you're going to be an ass about it, you are short of your 50
million there. You only come up with 48.45 million.
Hint - Don't fuck with a nuc on math.
That's not documentation, Chief. That is assertion. You know damn good
and well that your numbers would not be acceptable in a thesis or peer
reviewed paper.
>>>plus humans who met an early and violent death. Maybe they
>>>should "just get over it". Or how about the half a million American
>>>service men who died in Europe. Maybe they are just fine with the
>>>whole thing. I'm sure that they are holding a grudge.
>>>Hell it was 53 years ago. What is the statue of limitation on genocide?
>>Why don't we just round up every German still alive from then and
>>execute them all?
>>Would THAT satisfy you, Chief?
>Now you are acting like a monumental ass.
LOL. _YOU_ are acting like a monumentally pig-headed ass, Chief. And
this First Class Petty Officer is throwing it back in your face. You
don't seem to be able to take it very well.
>My assertion is that I am not
>willing to let Bygones be bygones just because he managed to live a long
>life. He and many Germans worked in direct support of the 3rd Reich,
>knowing full well it's policies of racial intolerance.
You offer NO PROOF for _this_ man. NONE whatsoever. Is the concept
that difficult for you?
I dug up lots off stuff on O.K. last night. It wasn't very hard at
all.
Doesn't it bother you that _no one_ else supports your position here?
>With that in mind I have no need to offer up any pity for someone
>who torpedoed 44 Allied merchants ships, in support of Hitler's government.
Then you might have kept your big yap shut.
>It would be simply a slap in the face of those who fought, both inside
>and out to topple the Nazi's. He's dead now and I only hope that
>he finds the accommodations warm enough to his disliking.
Overall, you've proven that, despite your degrees in history, that you
know little about this man and the German Navy at the start of the war
when this man served. Hell, you thought that the man who later
succeeded Hitler, Karl Doenitz was CinC throughout the war. You were
wrong, Erich Raeder was CinC during the period before Kretschmer's
capture and Raeder was no fanatical Nazi.
Get back to us when you get some _documentable_ and correct facts.
gws
>>
>>r/random
>
>
they
>weren´t put to trials, were they? Or is this another case where it depends
>on whose side commited the crimes, the winner or the loser?
Juergen's observation is valid, and something we should all think about --
deeply.
Grey Satterfield
SHIPFIXR
>Honors Thesis
>"Law, Morality and Power: A study of the U-Boat in two World Wars"
>Advisors Donald Gordan and Gordon Prange
>
certain.....don't know when or where though.
>As part of my historical research I studied in detail the charges at
>Nuremburg against Doenitz and the U-Boat force. The prosecutors were
>adamant that no one was guilty of any criminal act simply because he did
>not resist the German government in its criminal acts.
>
Did not VADM Lockwood or FADM Nimitz go to Nuremburg to testify in GADM
Doenitz' behalf???
>you cannot label a person a Nazi because he fought for a nazi
>government.
Sorry, we have a Chief here with a degree in history who disagrees.
>It also violates historical standards to judge an officer in 1939 by
>what was known later and more importantly, by the changed moral
>standards of a later day. Certainly there was little or no world
>protest of what Germany was doing to the Jews in the 1930s. The
>japanese pilots at Pearl harbor do not share the war guilt we impose on
>the IJN high command. The US naval officers in the north atlantic in
>1941 who clearly were operating in violation of international law are
>not held responsible. Even those most rabid against the bombing of
>civilians by all sides in the war do not extend responsiblity for the
>policies to the ordinary serving officer. Individuals are personally
>responsible for their own actions, not their government's actions.
>
>This was particularly true for the german officer corp in 1939. By boht
>law and custom the german army had no part to play in german political
>decisions. Officers could not vote or be act
>I certainly agree that in political, rather than historical discourse
>the terms Nazi, fascist, gestapo, SS etc are thrown around fairly
>loosely. It behooves those who claim historical credentials to be more
>precise.
>
Hear, hear.......
DN
SHIPFIXR
DN
Prof. Vincent Brannigan
>
>
>
> Did not VADM Lockwood or FADM Nimitz go to Nuremburg to testify in GADM
> Doenitz' behalf???
>
this issue was handled in a very "delicate" manner. The tribunal had
the official posiiton that the defense of Tu Quoque (roughly you did it
too!!) was not available to the defendants. So Doenitz had to prove that
not only did the allies wage unrestricted submarine warfare, but that
they did it believing it to be lawful. Letters from the allies were
introduced to this effect. I dont have the text here, and I do not
recall who signed them.
Vince
Paul H. Lemmen
reference to Kretschmer, was there any value to his life after WWII? Did he
contribute to society at large? Did he in any way impart his experiential
knowledge to the victors, thereby allowing them to improve training/tactics?
What it comes down to is...did he counter balance his earlier activities
with positive activities later? Did he expiate his "sins". Did he serve a
"penance" by adjusting his life to show his repentance for his acts?
If so, then he "balanced" his spreadsheet. (ref: read RA Heinlein...several
of his novels include the concept of "balance")
Cheers,
Paul H. Lemmen
Bloc Sprao Agath
No Go Maci
(hoping to balance his own spreadsheet)
Agincourt <none@seesigline> wrote in message
6rjqf7$9ri$1...@camel19.mindspring.com...
>> Sorry, hardly " 'nough said...", you are telling us you've been to
>>school........not that you've learned anything. If what you've posted
>here
>>were your finals in history.....you'd have failed. Maybe a few of your
>>University of Maryland courses got lost in the mail...?? I always have
to
>>laugh when someone tells me that they have a "Bachlors" degree and use ti
a
>>their bona fides. "I gots edecatshun"
>>
>>DN
>>
>
>I keep wondering if your are Dan Best. Danny is (or at least was) a Ship
Paul J. Adam
<none@seesigline.?> writes
>Weather he was a Nazi or not, He directly contributed to the Nazi cause in
>Europe and the suffering of Germany's European Neighbors. The Policies of
>racial and ethnic cleansing were in place in 1939 as much as they were in
>1943.
And Stalin had exterminated tens of millions of his own citizens by the
time the US started shipping him war materiel. Lend-Lease directly
contributed to Stalin's survival and the maintenance of his rule. Note
that Stalin had handily killed more than Hitler well before Barbarossa.
Does that mean every sailor who served on the North Cape convoy runs was
guilty of complicity to genocide? They were propping up a regime that
killed more of its own people than any invader ever managed, after
all...
Kretschmer applied for, and was accepted for, naval officer training in
1930 (he'd spent the previous year in Britain, at Exeter University).
Does that matter? Does to me. He chose his naval career in the Weimar
days: hard to say he volunteered in a cloud of Nazi fervour.
According to Padfield in "War Beneath The Sea",
"In the meantime a new ace, KK Otto Kretschmer, had made his name, and
been adopted by the German propaganda media, not that he played the part
as they might have wished: he was known to his fellows as 'Silent
Otto'."
Luth (can't do an umlaut in ASCII) fits your bill better, Chief: an
accomplished and skilful submariner who was noted among his fellows for
his belief in the Nazi ideology, and for openly preaching it to his crew
on patrol (yet even he is remembered for treating the wounded of the
_Clan MacArthur_ in their lifeboats, and radioing their location to
Mauritius to aid their rescue). Ironically, Luth was shot by his own
side: killed by an overzealous sentry, at the Navy cadet school in
Flensburg he was Commandant of.
One thing I'd be interested to know, though, Chief King. Having read
Cornelius Ryan's account of the battle for Berlin, particularly the
behaviour of the second-echelon Soviet troops (the phrase 'raped
everything with a hole in it' comes to mind), would you say German
troops fighting those Soviet soldiers were defending Nazi ideology and
struggling to defend the Final Solution, dying with the Fuhrer's name on
their lips?
Or - by then - were they fighting for their homes, their families and
their lives?
If the answer is the realistic one, where do you draw the line? Which
Germans were fighting for Hitler and mass murder, and which were merely
fighting a war someone else had started, trying to save their country
from a disaster their leaders had caused?
And then where do you figure the pre-Hitler military into that?
No easy answers.
--
There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable and
praiseworthy...
Paul J. Adam pa...@jrwlynch.demon.co.uk
Peter Skelton
>>f my country decided to systematically killed off a portion of it's
>>population, solely based on it's ethnic origin, I would be the first one to
>>fight against that government. I personally find it an embarrassment that a
>>person who claims the status of Captain would defend genocide, on the basis
>>of "my country, right or wrong". Kretschnmer was a member of the Nazi
>>Party. Same with Erwin Rommel, Adolph Galan and Eric Hartmann.
>>
> I'm personally a bit embarrased that a person who signs as a Chief Petty
>Officer could talk such drivel. Please give us your source that either O.K.
>or Adoph Galland were members of the nazi party. I wouldn't swear that Rommel
>was either but can't prove otherwise.......I honestly don't know who the hell
>the other guy is.....
With all respect, I somewhat doubt the honpurable CPO has been to sea or
anywhere else away from CNN.
UBoat sailors spent a couple of months at sea, came home (well to France)
partied, trained and went back out. At their ages, I doubt many of them
were particularly interested in politics (the 4F club was more like it).
They were in a profession that took security seriously - you didn't talk
and you didn't pry.
Anybody with sea-going experience and a double digit IQ knows this. The
gentleman in question is either a complete idiot or not a sailor. I don't
think many idiots get to be CPO's, but there's always the possibility.
(Maybe he's a shore-bound CPO, shunted into a berth where he can do minimal
damage.)
Of course, before the electronic media took off, things were a bit easier
to cover up, especially in a totalitarian state.
IIRC, OK was taken prisoner relatively early in the war (winter of 41-2?)
before the genocide really got going, and well before rumours of it got
out. The fact of concentration camps was known but the average German
regarded them as the sort of thing Canada and the US did to our Japanese
citizens or the lumber camps we ran in the depression.
He almost certainly would have been a Nazi though. Many Nazis didn't know
what was going on, a not at all uncommon thing in big organizations. (DId
all teamsters know what Hoffa was up to? Were all Republcans to blame for
the Contra's directives to shoot teachers and nurses?)
--
Peter Skelton
Skelton & Associates
613/634-0230
p...@kingston.net
Dugaru
> Dugaru (dug...@bigfoot.com) wrote:
> : Umm... Let me get this straight. I can't criticize a guy who killed
> : people in furtherance of Hitler's aims? Or, for that matter, I can't
> : criticize Hitler (he's dead too)?
> :
> : I don't think you mean that.
>
> Indeed. You may criticize his actions, motives and decisions, but you can't
> judge him.
I guess I just disagree. I do judge him. Forget what he knew or didn't
know about the Holocaust; the fact is that he ruthlessly waged an
aggressive war on behalf of the aggressor. Was he as bad as Hitler? Hell
no. Was he bad? Yes. He was bad. He killed people (the English) who
were defending their homes from an aggressor (his countrymen). And so I
judge him to be bad. Are we so morally relativistic that we cannot judge
someone like this?
> : Kretschmer may have been a brilliant submariner, but he still fought
> : Hitler's war with great vigor, and ruthlessness, and apparently he did so
> : without a gun to his head. So I'll continue to think of him as a bad
> : person -- even an evil person -- and I think I'll manage to keep a clear
> : conscience while I do so. I also think you defend him with a vigor worthy
> : of a better cause, but that's your business.
>
> If that is your point, is the Ex-CO of the HMS Conqueror a war criminal ?
> For killing all those men on the Argentinian cruiser Belgrano ?
I think you misapprehend my point, and your question shows that fact
nicely. First, WWII: The Germans and the Allies were NOT two different
colors in a game of Stratego. The Germans waged a ruthless and aggressive
war against their neighbors. The Allies defended themselves. The Germans
who fought this aggressive war were bad. Not all as bad as Hitler, not
equally bad among themselves, but bad.
The Falklands: say what you will about the Brits' right to be in the
Falklands/Malvinas, but the fact is that the Argies decided to wage an
aggressive war, and the Brits defended themselves. So no, the Ex-CO of
the Conqueror is *not* the equivalent of Captain K, nor is he a war
criminal. For the conscripts on the Belgrano, if there were any, I am
sorry. I am sorrier for the Brits who got shot up on the islands, on the
Sheffield, etc.
And note: I have not labeled Captain K a war criminal. Maybe he was,
maybe he wasn't, but that is a different inquiry. I simply judge him as a
bad person because he voluntarily and ruthlessly waged a war of aggression
on behalf of Adolph Hitler. And killed a lot of people who were defending
themselves from him and his countrymen.
> In case you didn't know, there was a _WAR_ going on.
> Not a nice, clean, televised war with PGM's and cruise missiles, but a BIG war
> that took a lot of lives. You might do well to remember that of the 40,000 or
> so U-boat men that went to sea, over 30,000 never returned.
Your attempt to chastise me on this point is misplaced and poorly argued.
I do know that there was a war going on. I don't know what you mean with
the "not a nice clean televised war" bit; I don't see how that relates to
my post. I know very well how many U-boat sailors never came home. I can
work up some sympathy for them, but not compared to their targets who died
trying to get food to a country that Germany was hoping to starve and
invade.
You might do very well to remember that those valiant U-Boaters were
trying to kill my ancestors in an aggressive war that their countrymen
started. You might do very well to remember that the aims of the German
nation in World War II were BAD. EVIL. I *do* know what that war was
about, and I know who in it was *bad*. You seem to think of it as a giant
game of Risk, where we can all sit back and applaud the exploits of each
side as if they were equal on some cosmic scale. They were NOT.
When a robber breaks into a house and shoots its occupant, I condemn the
robber. I do not celebrate his great aim, nor do I drool over the quality
of his handgun.
So I guess I'm with Agincourt on this one.
-Dugaru
Paul Holloway
Lurker Below wrote:
>
<big snip of valid points disagreeing with Agincourt's assertions and opinions>
>
>
>
>
> Overall, you've proven that, despite your degrees in history, that you
> know little about this man and the German Navy at the start of the war
> when this man served. Hell, you thought that the man who later
> succeeded Hitler, Karl Doenitz was CinC throughout the war. You were
> wrong, Erich Raeder was CinC during the period before Kretschmer's
> capture and Raeder was no fanatical Nazi.
>
> Get back to us when you get some _documentable_ and correct facts.
>
Remember, in another thread our esteemed poster Agincourt also asserted that the
IJN had never possesed, produced , or used radar on any of their ships during
WWII. And he busted my chops for claiming any such thing. Seems that if
something isn't within the realm of his knowledge or opinion then everyone else
is wrong and nobody else is right. Oh well, to each their own.............
PDH
Inge Oddvar Hansen
historian we have here ?). He was taken by the soviets at the very end of
the war and 'disappeared' in their prison system.
Inge O Hansen
--------------
Agincourt wrote in message <6riv90$d4n$1...@camel0.mindspring.com>...
>
>
>TMOliver wrote in message <35DD0CBA...@iamerica.net>...
>>Agincourt wrote:
>>>
>>> SHIPFIXR wrote in message.
>>
>>>
>>> My assertion was that Kretschmer was a piece of crap Nazi. But not that
>he
>>> was a War Criminal.
>>> Weather he was a Nazi or not, He directly contributed to the Nazi cause
>in
>>> Europe and the suffering of Germany's European Neighbors. The Policies
>of
>>> racial and ethnic cleansing were in place in 1939 as much as they were
in
>>> 1943.
>>>
>>
>>Chief, I'm not completely sure that there's some truth in
>>your assertion, but the fact remains that he was (a) either
>>never a member of the NSDAP or (b) completely "De-Nazified"
>>(an interesting historical process worthy of a serious
>>inquiry) immediately after the war, made the desperately
>>short list for active duty in the tiny Bonn Gov't's
>>semi-official Coast Defense Force, by '63 wore a wide
>>stripe, held a high NATO staff position, required sideboys,
>>and we all stood up when he came in the wardroom to brief.
>>
>>Kind of like the Spanish'Merkin war, when some Yankee troops
>>had to serve under a former 'Federate Ossifer (and ex slave
>>owner), objected and wuz threatened with Courts Martial.
>>The victors, having picked and chose the "good soldiers" are
>>forced to live long with their choices. I'm not sure that
>>we can make any more of a case against Kretschmer than
>>against a lot of other names later holding NATO command
>>billets. I can think of a couple of far more flagrantly
>>cleansed ex-party members...Von Braun and Gehlen, both with
>>greatcoats trailing a lot of mud and blood-soaked jackboots.
>
>
>********************************************
>
>Don't even get me started about Von Braun. Here is the perfect case of
>getting in bed with the wrong people for what otherwise would be the right
>reasons.
>********************************************
>
>>....and then along came Waldheim.
>
>*******************************
>That would be Kurt " I wasn't a Nazi" Waldheim. Later known as Kurt "we
all
>were Nazi's" Waldheim. Who would later go on to be Secretary of the United
>Nations, but still couldn't get a Visa to enter the United States.
>*******************************
>>
>>It's like revolution, when it comes time to designate the
>>revolutionaries, the guerillas, the franc tireurs, the
>>maquis, the saboteurs, the terrorists, the freedom fighters,
>>the partisons, the patriots, the minutemen, etc.
>>Reality is intrusive and rarely part of the retrospective
>>designation process.
>>
>>Amusingly, a now deceased pathologist in my home town was a
>>former medical orderly in the SS (Waffen-sort). Fitting for
>>a pathologist, he claimed to have spent his youth among the
>>dead, the nearly dead, the walking dead and the soon likely
>>to be dead.
>>
>>And my old Dad, who having met both Ho Chi Minh and Chang
>>Kai Chek (along with assorted "Commies") while serving in
>>China during the "last great confrontational inspirational
>>period for big war movies", claimed that the evilest,
>>rottenest, "least likely to want to bring home to meet your
>>girl" among them was the GMO who along with his band of
>>henchman had raised corruption to high art and depressed
>>government to low comedy, but was better than the "Nips",
>>for forty years later, Dad would not ride in their cars or
>>willingly/knowingly use their products, having acquired an
>>indelible imprimatur of their conduct toward the "lower
>>orders", a status which they accord(ed)to everybody else.
>>
>
>There are many an instance where it was politically expedient to forgo the
>past in hope of improving the future. Von Braun being the perfect example
of
>"Forgive and Forget, but tell us what you know." That is if you were not a
>victim of his brand of labor management. Then we had G Patton comparing
>membership in the Nazi's to the Republican party. And we shouldn't forget
>the Vatican issuing identity papers and visa for escaping war criminals,
all
>in the name of combating communism. After the war we had a new enemy, and
we
>were not being to particular about who as on our side of the fence.
>
>Fortunately, I have no need to forget the little messy parts of these
>people's lives. Galland, Kretschmer, Rommel, and Hartmann ended up getting
>Nazi all over themselves, and I for one have no inclination to let them off
>in the face of a Soviet Threat. Given the chance to talk to Von Braun and
>ask him one question, it would not be about his contribution to the Saturn
>Project, more likely it would be, about the number of people who died in
>slave labor camps helping him get the V-2 off the ground. I'm sure that he
>would give me the same, "I didn't know about it", or "that wasn't my
>department" rubbish.
>
>A couple of years ago, a group referring to itself as "The Committee for
>Open Discussion on the Holocaust" tried to get full page advertisements in
>college newspapers, asserting that the Holocaust never happen. And there
>was this big discussion about weather it was right to publish it or not.
>Some papers actually went a published the idiocy. Boston University said no
>and spent several thousand dollars defending it's right not to. My
question
>would have been as to weather I should wipe my tail with it before I
flushed
>it. ( Thinking more about it now. No, I have a higher opinion of my feces
>than that)
>
>Was Kretschmer a Nazi. Maybe he wasn't. But his actions were in support of
>a Government that turned mass murder into a profit motivated industrial
>machine. To permit those to forget their past, is to forget those in
>Germany who actively opposed the Nazis. Hans and Sophie Scholl who were
>beheaded for actively opposing the treatment of Jews and Poles in 1942.
>Christopher Probst, Kurt Huber and others who distributed the "white Rose
>letters, acting as the Guilty conscience of Germany, and died for it. How
>about Oskar Schindler who forsake a fortune in war profits to save a
>handful. Or Raoul Wallenberg, who issued Swedish Visa's to save the lives
>of Hungarian Jews. So forgive me if I don't buy into the sad old rubbish
of
>"I didn't know" or "There was nothing that I could have done."
>
>Kristallnacht took place in 1939. Wholesale execution of Jew in Poland
>started in 1939 and was reported in the press as early as that year.
French
>Jew were deported as early as 1941. Kretschmer had a few clues laying
>around and chose to do nothing. Some did and paid with their lives. I can
>say without any reservations that I would have rather sat in Auschwitz,
>than spend one minute in the company of any of these "non-Nazis", under the
>finest of conditions.
SHIPFIXR
>regarded them as the sort of thing Canada and the US did to our Japanese
>citizens or the lumber camps we ran in the depression.
>
that never had room for our German-American or Italian-Americans......
>He almost certainly would have been a Nazi though.
I strongly doubt he was an actual card- carrying Nazi but our original
author seems to think being German was being Nazi so perhaps he was...
DN
Per Andersson
>As already posted, He most likely knew. Not knowing would have require
>Herculean effort to look the other way. It was not in his interest to know.
>Would I paint him as a war criminal......., Doneitz was, for unrestricted
>submarine warfare, and did 10 years in prison. He seemed to fit that mold.
IIRC, Dönitz got jail-time for being (admittedly for a very short
time) the head-of-state of Nazi Germany.
I might be wrong, though...
Per Andersson
"Some kind of central planning seems to be the object of
most environmental activists. But why is a Politburo expected
to work better for plants and animals than it did for Russians?"
Chris Manteuffel
>>
>>Yep. Anyone who wages totally unrestricted warfare is a war criminal.
>>
> That's fine but there's one more little old qualifier that you need to
>add: what you really meant to say is: "Yep. Anyone who wages totally
>unrestricted warfare is a war criminal if they also fail to win the war they
>have waged."
>
> OUR "war criminals" were hero's; THEIR "war criminals" were "....nazi
>crap"
I believe Random got a good strong tug with this one. My server shows
4 pulled in on this bait. What kind of bait you using now, Random?
Jerk-bait? Or fly? Perhaps a mechanical lure?
Chris Manteuffel
em...@olypen.com
> > Do -you- agree that Doenitz was a war criminal because of unrestricted
> >submarine warfare??
>
> Yep. Anyone who wages totally unrestricted warfare is a war criminal.
>
> r/random
Ah. Then it is your position that Admirals King and Nimitz were war
criminals? I guess we could mention Lockwood and a few others too, but that
will do for a start.
Michael
-----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==-----
http://www.dejanews.com/rg_mkgrp.xp Create Your Own Free Member Forum
em...@olypen.com
mic...@aol.com (MICOMA) wrote:
> In article <6ri987$5tt$1...@camel21.mindspring.com>, "Agincourt" <none@seesigline>
> writes:
>
> >...One of the particular requirements of being an Officer in the German armed
> >forces was the necessity to swear allegiance, not to Germany, but to Adolph
> >Hitler...
>
> I do believe that Hilter forced the military to swear allegiance to him AFTER
> the attempt on his life.
> Mike Weeks
Which attempt are you thinking of? The Soldier's Oath was altered in 1938.
HiF...@mayanspreeng.com
> In
> reference to Kretschmer, was there any value to his life after WWII?
> Did he contribute to society at large?
Otto served as an Admiral in the New German Navy formed in the late
1950's. He retired some time in the late 1960's. I met Otto on several
occaisions. He was a quiet, gentlemanly man who was very gracious and
polite, always. He leaves behind a wife who is a doctor.
HiF...@mayanspreeng.com
> He and many Germans worked in direct support of the 3rd Reich,
> knowing full well it's policies of racial intolerance.
As did millions of americans in support of their gov't policies of
racial intolerance. Hell, we hung and shot and beat to death and burned
alive a _bunch_ of dark skinned people in the early decades of this
century. Disenfranchised 'em by law. Limited where they could live, how
the could travel. No rights in court. Sterilized 'em, experimented on
'em. And that's but a start... Guess all our young men were waging war
to support that, huh?
BShimp3003
>time) the head-of-state of Nazi Germany.
Yes, my understanding was that he was actually aquitted of the unrestricted
warfare charge- IIRC the only senior Nazi to be aquitted of anything at the
Trials
We're all here 'cause we ain't all there!
Dugaru
<di...@gte.net> wrote:
> I would be the last man to cast stones considering me background. In
> reference to Kretschmer, was there any value to his life after WWII? Did he
> contribute to society at large?
This is a valid point and one that I have not given much thought to
(yet). I guess I'm willing to say that, when judging the goodness or
badness of K's life, what he did after the war should count for
something. But I'm not about to say that his experience *during* the war
was the moral equivalent of, say, a British destroyer captain's.
So what did he do after the war? I honestly don't know and would welcome
any input. Given the fact that he voluntarily and ruthlessly waged an
aggressive war on behalf of Adolph Hitler, I hope he washed Mother
Theresa's feet daily, fed the hungry, or something.
MICOMA
>In article <199808210556...@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
> mic...@aol.com (MICOMA) wrote:
>> In article <6ri987$5tt$1...@camel21.mindspring.com>, "Agincourt"
><none@seesigline>
>> writes:
>>
>> >...One of the particular requirements of being an Officer in the German
>armed
>> >forces was the necessity to swear allegiance, not to Germany, but to
>Adolph
>> >Hitler...
>>
>> I do believe that Hilter forced the military to swear allegiance to him
>AFTER
>> the attempt on his life.
>
>> Mike Weeks
>
>Which attempt are you thinking of? The Soldier's Oath was altered in 1938.
>
>Michael
Now that we're really getting off charter, but for the sake of historical
accurracy in posting -
I stand corrected on when the German armed forces were required to take the
oath of allegiance to Hilter - it was August 2, 1934, the day following the
death of Hindenburg.
What happened after the attempt in July '44 on Hilter was that the armed forces
were required to render the Nazi salute, and not the traditional military one.
The Time-Life series on WWII was used to correct my earlier statement.
Mike Weeks
ran...@ix.netcom.com
<niev...@netcologne.de> wrote:
>
>ran...@ix.netcom.com schrieb in Nachricht
><35dcfb5d...@nntp.ix.netcom.com>...
>
>>
>>Yep. Anyone who wages totally unrestricted warfare is a war criminal.
>>
>>r/random
>
>
>Then Nimitz, LeMay and "Butcher" Harris are war criminals? What a pity, they
>weren´t put to trials, were they? Or is this another case where it depends
>on whose side commited the crimes, the winner or the loser?
No. The Allies defined the terms to describe "war criminals." Those
descriptions apply equally to all parties. The fact that only the
losers were prosecuted as war criminals is just the normal
manifestation of the "justice" system.
The war crimes trials clearly lowered the reputation of the law and
justice. It is perfectly obvious to anyone that the despicable
behavior of some portions of the German war machine were matched by
equally despicable behavior upon our side. Putting only the losers on
trial for after the fact "laws" was stupid. The smart thing to do
would have been to round up all the people listed on an "Arrest on
Site List", interrogate them, and exhile them to some small island for
the rest of their lives as menaces to society. In other words, do to
them what the British did to the little French Emporer. If they had a
little foresite the "wanted" mass murderers could all have been
exhiled and detained on Bikini and the problem would have gone away
following the atomic testing.
To declare the actions of one soldier unlawful even though they mirror
the actions of another who is not charged with unlawful behavior, is a
sad joke.
random
ran...@ix.netcom.com
>>
>>Yep. Anyone who wages totally unrestricted warfare is a war criminal.
>>
> That's fine but there's one more little old qualifier that you need to
>add: what you really meant to say is: "Yep. Anyone who wages totally
>unrestricted warfare is a war criminal if they also fail to win the war they
>have waged."
>
> OUR "war criminals" were hero's; THEIR "war criminals" were "....nazi
>crap"
Back in the bad old days the question was moot. Thucydides writes
about what became of the prisoners who surrendered to a more powerful
enemy. The Sicily expedition was wiped out by the victors. I could
almost prefer this route to the hijacking of the "law" by charging the
losers with crimes that did not exist at the time those crimes were
committed. It was a farce of the first water and aided and abetted by
lawyers from the US who seemed blind to the later misbehaviour of our
'friends and allies.'
Now we are left with a legacy of, "we killed those nazis for warcrimes
slightly less hideous than the crimes against humanity committed by
our good friends like Mobutu, deGaulle, Pinochet, the Argentine Junta,
Stalin, Chiang Kai Shek, or the government of Queen Elizabeth. We
wouldn't dream of rounding them up and putting them before an
international tribunal to determine their fitness to live but we sure
didn't hesitate with enemies that should have been shot out of hand.
Those nazis all deserved shooting. I'm just sorry we perverted the
law to accomplish it. It wasn't necessary. We could have reached an
agreement to turn all "war criminals" over to the Soviets and ignored
their failure to thrive and survive in Siberia.
This is all a question of morality and there is NO BLACK AND WHITE.
Calley was trialed as a mass murderer for murdering a few hundred
unarmed Vietnamese women, children and old men. Tibbets was honored
as a hero for snuffing out the lives of 100,000 Japanese women,
children and old men.
To all who love to argue and debate, please blame all this on the
books of Bernard Cornwell which I have been reading in my scarce spare
time. The 18th century was a simpler time. :)
regards,
random
i. nilsson
wrote:
>I would be the last man to cast stones considering me background. In
>reference to Kretschmer, was there any value to his life after WWII? Did he
>contribute to society at large? Did he in any way impart his experiential
>knowledge to the victors, thereby allowing them to improve training/tactics?
>What it comes down to is...did he counter balance his earlier activities
>with positive activities later? Did he expiate his "sins". Did he serve a
>"penance" by adjusting his life to show his repentance for his acts?
.........................................................
Which victors?
Imparting his knowledge to the Western allies (like von Braun et al.)
would obviously have made him a good boy, while those who choose to
help the Soviets (Paulus & others) usually are/were derided as
unrepentant Nazis.
I do not see why OK should repent anything. He partook in a war,
performed his duties to the best of his abilities, was never accused
of any war crimes. His bad luck was that he happened to be on the
losing side.
Switching sides after the war would, more or less, have placed him in
class with a common mercenary.
= = = = =
ingemar
ran...@ix.netcom.com
wrote:
>On 21 Aug 1998 11:49:40 GMT, ship...@aol.com (SHIPFIXR) wrote:
>
>>>
>>>Yep. Anyone who wages totally unrestricted warfare is a war criminal.
>>>
>> That's fine but there's one more little old qualifier that you need to
>>add: what you really meant to say is: "Yep. Anyone who wages totally
>>unrestricted warfare is a war criminal if they also fail to win the war they
>>have waged."
>>
>> OUR "war criminals" were hero's; THEIR "war criminals" were "....nazi
>>crap"
>
>I believe Random got a good strong tug with this one. My server shows
>4 pulled in on this bait. What kind of bait you using now, Random?
>Jerk-bait? Or fly? Perhaps a mechanical lure?
It must be obvious now that I cannot resist twitting my sub-marine
brothers in arms........oops, they never fired a shot in anger, what
was I thinking?
I've given this a lot of thought since the night I was called in at
2300 and helped draft strike orders. I had spent 3 hours writing the
concept of operations, the fragos and detailing the planning for a
strike and then, when I walked the empty passageway down to the
command center for a cup of coffee, it hit me, that I was planning to
kill people. Sure, they deserved it, but I was cold-bloodedly
planning to kill people I didn't know. A few hours later as I watched
the strike go in it was an odd feeling. I've spent thousands of hours
risking my life in minefields in both the Persian Gulf and Red Sea but
one thing no minesweeper is ever in fear of, is killing an enemy. Our
thoughts center on hoping we don't screw up and result in the deaths
of our shipmates.
I had spent half a year before this writing plans that encompassed
theater wide warfare on a massive scale without giving too much
thought to the consequences of those plans except that they be as
realistic as possible and result in the defeat of the enemy. I
thought about it from time to time on long walks and decided that this
was why I joined my military. Surely the individuals who had joined
their militaries felt the same way as they planned and executed their
military operations.
just a point of view,
random