If Germany’s actions were a responce to the obligations of the Versailles Treaty, why were six million Jews slaughtered? Or is there some excuse for that?
Regards digger
Your inability to recognise the evils of the Nazis, whose baseless justifications for WWII you have repeatedly and shamelessly espoused in this thread, and your contemptuous use of the rolleyes emoticon with reference to 'those “evil Nazis”’, reveals both your true allegiance and your contempt for anyone who disagrees with the Nazi interpretation of history. Your posts confirm my view that you are, at heart and as shown by the repugnant opinions you have repeatedly expressed here, a despicable Nazi.
No, I have no love for the National Socialists; I simply recognize that what they offered at the time was the best prescription for a Germany that had its spirit and values beaten down and spat on by your heroes, the British.
These are not the words of a loyal American upholding American values while living in Albany, New York all these years since your father left Germany in 1938 and died fighting for America in WWII.
I like the States fine, but there are higher allegiances.
If your father died fighting for America, he must in heaven be profoundly disappointed with his son espousing and defending Nazi ideas against which America fought and against which your father fought, and in which good fight he died.
Well, he was drafted, so it’s not as if he had a plethora of options. I mourn for his loss(now - I was too young at the time), but that doesn’t mean I’ll disgrace the good name of his or my homeland, and those who tried to defend it.
Sorry to interupt, guys. But you are mixing all the things in one big pile. I can see the influence of Rising Sun*. 
Nazism and interest of Germany are two different things, even though they were interlaced. There was a similar thing in Russia - bolshevizm interlaced with natural interests of the country. Not to distinguish them is a mistake.
These extremist ideologies normally can not exist alone they have to parasitizes on some other ideas. Ideas that are much more foundamental. One of the obvious examples is notion of Nationalism which became almost as a swear word nowadays. Where is in fact the word it self represent love to ones country. It is only when one puts this love above every one else around when nationalism turns bad.
Agreed. See, you’re not the only one who can say that.
Your points are important if we’re looking at topics where the separation is relevant, such as the significance of communism in what were essentially nationalist and colonial independence movements after WWII.
So far as WWII was concerned, Germany was the nation involved and its involvement and actions were an expression of Nazism. Nazism might not have been in the interests of Germany, but the fact remains that it was Nazi Germany that acted in WWII.
Interesting comments. Tuchman, describes the pursuit of policies contrary to self interest as being folly.
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Rue/3086/rev_tuchmanb.html
The March of Folley - Barbara W Tuchman.
The Prussian Disease comes to mind.
Most of us here are mature adults and form our own opinions Egorka, be they right or wrong, we are not so easily led as it seems you would believe. Rising Sun states his case well, and at time expresses sentiments which are common to several of us, but that is all.
I understand the disitnction between the Nazis and the German people, as I do between the Russian people and the Bolsheviks - I think Chevan could back me on that.
Nationalism is no bad thing. It would seem that we, as Human Beings, prefer to belong to a collective (as we do when we register to this site), and nationalism serves to bond us. Without natinalism countries would probably sink into anarchy or be easily conquered. Our countries’ governments legislate, and, generally, that legislation promotes social order and allows social inter-action without people murdering each other (for example) at the least provocation.
Sometimes nationalism is taken too far, and it becomes Supra Nationalism, and that is when it becomes dangerous. Those that live under the spell of Supra Nationalism tend to become arrogant, self glorifying and look to dominate others (welcome to the corporate world etc.).
However, I am sure you know these things, and I merely wish to inform you that we too know these things. In the case of post-WW1 Germany, much that should have been done to prevent future wars, was not done. Instead, the allies preferred to punish Germany and make it suffer. Indeed, one (and I stress - ONE!) of the reasons for such harsh penalties was the hope that Germany would not be able to become powerful enough, again, to begin another war (much the same as the seperation of Germany at the end of WW2). Instead, the allies created a situation where another war became inevitable.
In the argument that has been continuing, above, it has not been about justice and the wrong doing of the alies against the German people - which I’m sure many would admit to - but the way in which the whole of the blame for the rise and rule of the Nazi Reich was put at the door of the victims of said regime, and, indeed, the argument supporting this was stated in the vitriolic language of said regime - which somewhat outraged one or two.
Speaking for myself, I have spent much time in Germany and have come to know many Germans. Some are of the best quality of people one could wish to meet, and others are those that one was hoping had vanished forever - not unlike the people of my own country and many other countries.
Well this more or less fully presents my opinion as well. So we agree on this one, right?
I think that many of the German cleaims in the 1930th were legitimate. Strarting a war becouse of these claims and going all the way to Volga river was a crime.
Similarly claim of USSR to the area Poles reffer to as Eastern Poland was legitimate. Even though it came out to become an agression and murder in Katyn (if it was the did of Soviet hands) was a crime.
I was just under impression that you together with Rising Sun gave hard time to AlbertSpeer. That is why I made my comment.
Germany was the nation involved? Last time I checked, Italy, Japan, the Soviet Union, France, the United States, China, and the United Kingdom were also quite “involved”. Of course, you want to pin it all one one nation and reality be damned.
Maybe, but it wasn’t a group effort i.e. we were not coluding.
One of the differences which occurs to me from your comparison with the Nazis and the Bolshiviks, is that the Nazis came to power via democratic processes. The Bolsheviks, as you know, by revolution. So, differences in the two situations immediately spring to mind.
The Nazis had a fairly large mandate from the electorate to pursue their policies. Having said that, I believe the electorate were betrayed by the Nazis once they had the machinery of State to back them up, and there wasn’t much the individual German citizen could do about it. Plus, there was no way they were able to organise to protest or fight against it.
I am not about to lecture you on the Bolshevics - I would rather you inform me.
However, on one point, and please correct me if I am wrong (I know you will 
) the Bolsheviks, as it seems to me, did not necessarily have the mandate in any form, to represent the majority of the whole of the Russian people. Perhaps in Moscow - but I don’t honestly know?
I can understand the Germans re-patriating the Rhineland. Anything beyond that was, I think, becomng a little naughty.
That’s chicken feed. In my opinion, the annexation of Czechoslovakia and the war with Poland were both completely acceptable.
If you read my comment in context you will see that when I said
So far as WWII was concerned, Germany was the nation involved and its involvement and actions were an expression of Nazism. Nazism might not have been in the interests of Germany, but the fact remains that it was Nazi Germany that acted in WWII.
it related to Egorka’s comment
These extremist ideologies normally can not exist alone they have to parasitizes on some other ideas. Ideas that are much more foundamental. One of the obvious examples is notion of Nationalism which became almost as a swear word nowadays.
.
Germany was the only nation where Nazism combined with wider nationalist sentiment, or any other sentiment, to take the nation into war.
A war which, incidentally, started when Germany marched into Poland as the first of its many moves as a rabid and brutal aggressor through much of Europe and elsewhere.
You’re dead right that I want to pin starting the European war on Germany, because that’s exactly what happened.
Frankly, so far as starting the war goes, I couldn’t give a toss about what the Germans, or for that matter the Japanese, felt they suffered at the hands of other nations apart from seeing these influences as explaining their actions. Nothing excuses their aggression and brutality. If they’d both stayed home the world would have avoided millions of needless deaths and immeasurable suffering.
I don’t mind your exposition of the factors which influenced German thinking, for these are legitimate and useful historical exercises, but I find your use of them as justifications for Hitler seizing power and for Germany starting the war quite odious. And patently ridiculous. Don’t confuse historical influences with morality, or international law. Germany’s war was immoral and contrary to international law. What Germany did was flat out wrong.
The fact that Germany had to manufacture the Polish border incidents to provide justification for invading Poland demonstrates that even the Nazis knew there was a total absence of justification for commencing hostilities against Poland. Germany’s military aggression was based on a lie from the start. So do me a favour and don’t make silly comments accusing me of ignoring reality when the evil mob you’re supporting based its whole war on manufacturing its own distorted reality from day one.
Exactly my position.
I was just under impression that you together with Rising Sun gave hard time to AlbertSpeer. That is why I made my comment.
I am giving Albert Speer a hard time, and will continue to do so as long as he supports the criminal actions of the Nazis and Germany.
If you read my comment in context you will see that when I said
Yes, and it has more to do with demonizing Nazism than actually examining the root causes of the war, such as the American, British, and French taste for revenge after the First World War.
I am giving Albert Speer a hard time, and will continue to do so as long as he supports the criminal actions of the Nazis and Germany.
What criminal action am I supporting, exactly?
It is implicit in alleging that I am ‘demonizing Nazism’ that I am doing something unjustified and that Nazism was essentially an acceptable ideology and that the actions of the Nazis were justified and morally and legally acceptable.
There’s perhaps 50 million people who didn’t survive the second world war started by Germany who might have had a different opinion, inlcuding about six million Jews and roughly 25 million Soviets.
They, and millions of other victims of the Nazis and the other conflicts they unleashed, might share my view that the Nazis were evil and diabolic. I don’t think I could say anything which could make them out to be worse than they were, let alone demonize them.
What criminal action am I supporting, exactly?
See above.
And again, you’re blaming all those dead in WWII on the Nazis. I am not saying that the Nazis were saints or that Germany was not an imperialist power, but they did what they thought they had to do to bring back the glory of the German Reich. For that, they earn the respect of any patriot.
I sure am. It’s not rocket science. If Germany had stayed home there would not have been a European war. Japan would not have attacked outside China without the Allies being engaged in Europe. The Second World War would not have occurred. Germany started the war and everything flowed from that.
I am not saying that the Nazis were saints or that Germany was not an imperialist power, but they did what they thought they had to do to bring back the glory of the German Reich. For that, they earn the respect of any patriot.
And the contempt of every right thinking person, who would also dispute your concept of patriotism.
The Nazis were never German patriots. They were fascists who happened to be Germans. Apart from the Austrian running the show. They took over Germany and ran it for the benefit of the Nazi Party, not Germans. They supplanted state organs with Party organs. They oppressed, imprisoned, tortured, and butchered non-Nazis (and Nazis with whom the leadership fell out) with equal hatred for people, German or not, who did not share their perverted views.
There wasn’t a Nazi on the planet who had the patriotism and courage of someone like Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The Nazis naturally murdered him because he dared oppose them.
As for doing what had to be done (Ah, the historical imperative which justifies the unjustifiable!) to bring back the glory of the German Reich, as usual your pro-Nazi sympathies come out and cause you to contradict your own more rational if unconvincing arguments, which up to this point have been essentially that Germany was correcting unwarranted mistreatment by France and Britain.
You are, however, refreshingly correct in saying that the Nazis did what they had to do to bring back what they thought of as the glory of the German Reich, in their customarily perverted view of history and humanity. That is why they started a war in which other nations and millions of people were victims of Nazi and German expansionism for the sole benefit of Nazi Germany, to be achieved by the most ruthless and brutal means. That part of Nazi ideology, which drove German military aggression, had nothing to do with WWI or its consequences and everything to do with Nazi notions of racial supremacy and imperial entitlement. And that is why there is no justification for Germany starting the war, and why it bears primary responsibility for everything that followed.
Not that I expect you ever to accept that.
May I say again that, IMO, you mix things up. Essentially you talking about different things, guys!
I think one should distinguish what is morally acceptable and what is acceptable in the political life. Unfortunately these two are not the same. And does not look like ever will be.
In my mind, starting the war, let’s say in Poland, was immoral in Christian sense (since I am a Christian I am applying my moral values). But, as I understand, it was not unnormal way to solve the disputes between countries, even until these days. As I understand WAR as such is not considered to be an ILLIGAL action as such by UN. It all comes to “WHY”.
Germany had a reason to clame Western part of Poland (when I say clame I do not mean that it nesseceraly had to be German). But there was no geopolitical right to go further! Just like it was geopoliticaly wrong for Russia to control Warsaw in 19th century, though absolutely legitimate as the result of the International conference.
Again I would like to say the Nazism was an attachement to “normal” Nationalistic movement. The point is that even if there was no Nazism in Germany in the 1930th, they would likely to end up doing the same thing anyway, except Holocaust of Jews and Slavs would be on much-much lower level.
I beleive that Wehrmacht went to Russia not so much due to Nazism, but mostly due to this “normal” national drive for Grater Germany. Nazism greatly increased the number of victims. From Russian point of view it did not make much difference if it was done by Nazis or just Motherland loving Germans.
You may think that Nazis betrayed their electorate, but I doubt the German electorate felt that way right until troubles on The Eastern front and eventual bombings by the Western Allies. Even other Europeans (French, Danish, Dutch to name a few) were not very resistant until the trouble started.
Hitler as well as Stalin enjoyed support of rather large part of their country men. It does not mean that all of them were either Nazis or Communists (in 1940 there were roughly 3 mil Communists out of 190 mil people in USSR, i.e. only 1.6%). But many people supported the state anyway. Not everything Hitler and Stalin did was bad. The enormous improvement of the living conditions and rebuilding of the economies is not just an empty talk. Many people were very enthisiastic about these changes.
Regarding the Bolshevik’s mandate, they did not have it. They took power by force from other people that took power by force from Tsar. Both Bolshevik’s and those they took power from were illegitimate. But! One should understand that it was largerly becasue they were supported by people! By normal people that were not communists. And a lot of what Bolsheviks did was also benefitial to the people (They also killed left and right).
I am beginning to believe that you are what we Brits call a ‘wind-up merchant’. LOL :mrgreen: