Pet Hates........or FFS

[struth]

I agree. The problem is when you use being right to justify pretty much anything. Like with the strategic bombing campaign. They start out attacking military and industrial targets, realise they are not accurate enough to get a bomb within a mile of them, and so decide to swap to deliberately bombing civilian targets (cities) because they are so big you can't miss. Didn't shorten the war any but did kill a whole bunch of innocent people. Some were Nazis, some voted for Hitler, the vast majority didn't. Losses in planes and aircrews were immense.

I'm not one for judging in hindsight, and the idea that Bomber Harris and the rest were war criminals for doing it is idiotic. But it is an example of how thinking you are on the side of 'right' can lead to you doing things that are fundamentally wrong.

I dont agree. they started the city bombing; we retaliated. as for most didnt support the Nazis... your kidding yourself. when they were winning they loved it.
Im not saying it was a good thing to do, but Speer agreed another few bomb raids like the biggies and it would have worked.
War is a dirty business, especially if you are fighting for your very lives.

[walpurgis]

On the whole though the plan was to draw a line under it all after the war in order not to repeat the mistake of the 1st war and break the losers' balls until they start another one. That was sensible and it pretty much worked.

It wasn't quite like that. What was left of German industry, was comprehensively pillaged by America, Britain and the Russians in the name of 'war reparations'. A huge amount of design and engineering knowledge was taken and this later acted to undermine Germany's ability to salvage what it had left. Look at a fifties Bristol car for instance, it's basically a thirties BMW under the skin, they even stole the grille design.

[Macca]

It wasn't quite like that. What was left of German industry, was comprehensively pillaged by America, Britain and the Russians in the name of 'war reparations'. A huge amount of design and engineering knowledge was taken and this later acted to undermine Germany's ability to salvage what it had left. Look at a fifties Bristol car for instance, it's basically a thirties BMW under the skin, they even stole the grille design.

That did go on I agree. But we also gave them the money to rebuild from scratch which was a huge benefit to them down the line.

The UK got nothing really. The country was still recovering from WW1 which had bankrupted us and WW2 bankrupted us again. There's still engineering and other manufacturing works round here operating out of Victorian era buildings, you don't see that in Germany and Japan.

[Macca]

Martin, I'm in awe of your encyclopaedic knowledge of history!

Perhaps you could provide a weekly lecture on AoS, I'm sure you would have a good following. You could call it Hi Fistory, although as the word may attract the wrong sort of interest, feel free to call it something else.

It might attract people who were into history and fisting though. I'm sure there must be Venn diagram somewhere to show that.

[struth]

That did go on I agree. But we also gave them the money to rebuild from scratch which was a huge benefit to them down the line.

The UK got nothing really. The country was still recovering from WW1 which had bankrupted us and WW2 bankrupted us again. There's still engineering and other manufacturing works round here operating out of Victorian era buildings, you don't see that in Germany and Japan.

no, the allies flattened the all.

[walpurgis]

no, the allies flattened the all.

Exactly what crossed my mind.

[Macca]

I dont agree. they started the city bombing; we retaliated. as for most didnt support the Nazis... your kidding yourself. when they were winning they loved it.
Im not saying it was a good thing to do, but Speer agreed another few bomb raids like the biggies and it would have worked.
War is a dirty business, especially if you are fighting for your very lives.

I'm not necessarily kidding myself. I mean I have no dog in the race, it wouldn't matter to me a jot if they were all Nazis, even the babies. I've read a fair bit that suggests that there was a silent majority, or at least a sizeable silent minority that didn't like any of it one bit. But what could they do about it except keep their mouths shut and pretend to go along with it? The Nazis had the country sewn up. Children were turning in their parents for defeatist talk and they were hanging them! It was nuts.

I'll give you that there was an entire program devoted to altering history from the 1950s onwards, when they realised they would have to re-instate the German army due to the perceived Soviet threat.

A lot of dissemination was done to convince people that it was only the Nazis and the SS that were really bad and the Wehrmacht fought with honour. To this day you have Bundeswehr barracks named Erwin Rommel and Sepp Dietrich, men who were committed Nazis. And with the German people as a whole it was necessary to paint the picture that they were our allies now and only a few had been Nazis. So the waters are muddied a bit.


But it still seems unlikely to me that a majority of Germans thought that Nazism and going to war with the world was anything other than completely insane.

[Landloper]

I recall William Shirer, an American journalist who was in Berlin when the war was announced, writing that a deathly hush fell across the centre of city and noted the concern written on the faces of Berliners. He also recorded the ecstatic crowds that celebrated the surrender of France in June 1940, and then, shortly after, the enraged demands that 'England' [sic] be flattened because of its refusal to capitulate and sue for peace. I think all three observations were made in his 'Rise and Fall of the Third Reich' (1960), though they may have come from his 'Berlin Diary' (1941).

[Joe]

I'll give you that there was an entire program devoted to altering history from the 1950s onwards, when they realised they would have to re-instate the German army due to the perceived Soviet threat.

And before that it had been necessary to whitewash the Russians, who had formed a pact with the Nazis, jointly invaded Poland with them in 1939, and then raped and murdered their way across East Germany as the Nazi armed forces collapsed.

[Macca]

And before that it had been necessary to whitewash the Russians, who had formed a pact with the Nazis, jointly invaded Poland with them in 1939, and then raped and murdered their way across East Germany as the Nazi armed forces collapsed.

Indeed. As far as the Russian's went I think Churchill said, 'Sometimes you have to walk with the devil until you are safely across the bridge.' Or similar anyway.

The way I see it high level politics is all pragmatism, you can only indulge your ideals and principles in the lower level stuff. Or when it's just talk.