Hitler

AgileMyth

Whisky Mac wrote: »

One good thing that Hitler did was ensuring that the Toothbrush moustache would never again be in fashion.

You've got that backwards. Its a fine moustache.

Capt'n Midnight

silverfeather wrote: »

Hitler was not so bad after all he did kill Hitler.

No.

He killed the man who killed Hitler.

Dyr

aaronjumper wrote: »

Todays forecast will be reign with a strong chance of heil.

So do try to avoid the showers

Dyr

galljga1 wrote: »

History teacher who was a catholic priest made a declaration that 'the only thing Hitler did wrong was that he stopped short at six million'.
Nice.

Bit harsh, it's not like he had a choice.

Links234

Grayson wrote: »

I've often wondered if that would still be in fashion if he didn't have one. Would there be loads of little track suited hitler moustaches walking around.

Loads of mustaches went out of style though, my guess is it wouldn't have been very common at all, then brought back to life by hipsters over the last decade.

AndonHandon

One man does not alone make a difference and plenty of German people alive or else heavily influenced by those that were are still alive today.

Capt'n Midnight

Grayson wrote: »

There's a book called "Amongst the dead cities" by A C Grayling. He's a philosopher but also into history. He examines the allied bombing campaign and then looks at it from an ethical perspective so see if it can be justified.

Spoiler: No it couldn't

Given that the people involved in planning that campaign had lived through the Blitz it's very hard to see how they could justify it even at the time.


Also that campaign directed bombers away from real war wining tasks.

Tirpitz was just one ship. But it's existence more or less kept several battleships and aircraft in the Atlantic when they could have been far more useful in the Pacific. Could have more bombing missions against.

Lots of other tactical and strategic missions were suspended if favour of generic carpet bombing. German output increased until 1944 and it was raw materials shortages that was the main problem. Aerial mining of seas and rivers like the Rhine and Danube would have reduced this sooner.

B29's dropping mines at sea wasn't sexy. But it pretty much stopped raw material imports and naval and troop movements around Japan. And at far lower risk than bombing cities.

fatknacker

Well one things for sure, no one can deny the hollow cost of travel insurance!


Ja ja, I know. Taken mein coaten and going to zum bahnhof

Crann na Beatha

This post has been deleted.

Laoislion8383

JT26 wrote: »

Wonder how some of the jokers here would react on seeing some of the work carried out by the nazis in the east aside from visiting the extermination camps maybe read up about Khatyn(Belarus), Navahrudak,Bila Tserkva,Nikolaev
Dnipropetrovsk to name but a very few,perhaps would change their tune somewhat

Most of the participants in the killings in the east were not hardened troops they were everyday people teachers, bakers, farm workers, factory workers they took to killing like a duck to water. What makes you think that people from the same walk of life in this country would not take to it too if it was required.

Wibbs

ThinkProgress wrote: »

Where do I buy his artwork? I thought he was a great artist!

His street scenes and architectural drawings/paintings are pretty good alright. Certainly not the "utterly crap at art" he's since been accused of. His portraits were awkward mind you. Then again he never got much if any training so for a rank amateur he was pretty good. I knew a chap who had one. A street scene of somewhere in Bavaria IIRC. When they come up for sale they don't cost that much, well a few grand kinda thing, maybe ten at the top end. Clearly neo nazis don't have much cash to drop.

Geniass wrote: »

Genocide by who, the Russians seeking revenge? Possibly, but an outworking of human nature.

Dresden was a despicable act in my opinion.

The horror visited upon the German people and those who were considered collaborators after the guns officially stopped firing was unreal. Nigh on a million German soldiers never came home. Pretty much every german woman was raped, often repeatedly and they started with ten year old girls all the way up to grannies. Many are the stories of women jumping into rivers and lakes to drown themselves and their children. The Russians were by far the worst for it, followed by the French. The British and the Americans were far less prone to that sorta thing. These sort of reprisals went on throughout wherever the Germans had wartime influence. Again it was worse in the East. Jews who had survived the Holocaust didnt exactly find open arms welcoming them back either. We generally only get a few of the narratives that make up part of the bigger picture, but all in all ugly business that war. On all sides. Uglier than the slaughter of the Great War IMH. And that's before we get to what was going down in the far east. What the Japanese did to the Chinese people alone beggars belief.

Wibbs

Laoislion8383 wrote: »

What makes you think that people from the same walk of life in this country would not take to it too if it was required.

Yep. We all reckon we'd not be that guy, but I guarantee that a few on here who are lovely people today would be lining up to butcher others if they were around back then. The rest would either try to ignore it, or help in a roundabout way and a few would resist. People forget that Germany was an incredibly sophisticated culture that had a huge role in European science and culture for centuries. Unsophisticated savages they were not. They also had one of the most integrated Jewish population in Europe and had been pretty safe place to live for Jews. Certainly compared to places further east where pogroms were a national sport. Even Germany's neighbour Austria was far worse. To the degree that when Germany marched into the place the level of open attacks and killings of Jews in broad daylight freaked the Nazi command out thinking this would be really bad publicity(they were still thinking along those lines to some degree at that stage).

Laoislion8383

Wibbs wrote: »

His street scenes and architectural drawings/paintings are pretty good alright. Certainly not the "utterly crap at art" he's since been accused of. His portraits were awkward mind you. Then again he never got much if any training so for a rank amateur he was pretty good. I knew a chap who had one. A street scene of somewhere in Bavaria IIRC. When they come up for sale they don't cost that much, well a few grand kinda thing, maybe ten at the top end. Clearly neo nazis don't have much cash to drop.

The horror visited upon the German people and those who were considered collaborators after the guns officially stopped firing was unreal. Nigh on a million German soldiers never came home. Pretty much every german woman was raped, often repeatedly and they started with ten year old girls all the way up to grannies. Many are the stories of women jumping into rivers and lakes to drown themselves and their children. The Russians were by far the worst for it, followed by the French. The British and the Americans were far less prone to that sorta thing. These sort of reprisals went on throughout wherever the Germans had wartime influence. Again it was worse in the East. Jews who had survived the Holocaust didnt exactly find open arms welcoming them back either. We generally only get a few of the narratives that make up part of the bigger picture, but all in all ugly business that war. On all sides. Uglier than the slaughter of the Great War IMH. And that's before we get to what was going down in the far east. What the Japanese did to the Chinese people alone beggars belief.

The Japanese were simply animals the rape of Nanking and numerous other stories like it are quite literally evil, yes I agree all in all it was a war of annihilation total war as they call it

The Diabolical Monocle

He apparently considered suicide over a Jewish girl, a British soldier spared his life and he launched the first anti-smoking campaign.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KGe-NDkREQ

partyguinness

A gas man, give him is Jew....:D

On a more serious note, there was a docu on the BBC last week about atrocities commited by the Czechs against civilian German populations at the end of WWII.

Apparently, it is the largest ever civilian displacement in Europe but is never mentioned i.e German civilians essentially kicked out of Poland and Czechoslovakia.

Anyone else see it?

suicide_circus

silverfeather wrote: »

Hitler was not so bad after all he did kill Hitler.

Worse than hitler that fella

SEPT 23 1989

partyguinness wrote: »

A gas man, give him is Jew....:D

On a more serious note, there was a docu on the BBC last week about atrocities commited by the Czechs against civilian German populations at the end of WWII.

Apparently, it is the largest ever civilian displacement in Europe but is never mentioned i.e German civilians essentially kicked out of Poland and Czechoslovakia.

Anyone else see it?

very difficult to watch

the part about what they did to the crying German children will stay with me

Saralee4

Even as a boy in ops photo, he puts on
an air of grandiosity and superiority compared to the other boys in the photo. His dad used to beat him and the mother molly coddled him, growing up with a mixed up view of who he was.

I read a few theories on his sexuality which were mental but I don't think proven. His relationship with the niece Geli who apparently committed suicide (although I believe he killed her) was weird!

suicide_circus

SEPT 23 1989 wrote: »

very difficult to watch

the part about what they did to the crying German children will stay with me

gonna regret this but go on, what did they do to the crying children?

catallus

In fairness the kid to Hitler's right looks proper evil.

Anyone know who he is?!

Laoislion8383

Watched a documentary on Croatia during the war it was unreal, a far right crowd called Ustaše came into power and they began to persecute the Serbs of Crostia and this was all fully supported and encouraged by the Catholic Church, a camp called Jasenovac was set up the stuff that went on there was unreal

donegaLroad

a photo of Joseph Goebbels just after he was told that the photographer was Jewish..

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/3e/18/84/3e18849ec3111b516e0d3ec7ffc4c9f0.jpg

Crann na Beatha

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Grayson

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Given that the people involved in planning that campaign had lived through the Blitz it's very hard to see how they could justify it even at the time.


Also that campaign directed bombers away from real war wining tasks.

Tirpitz was just one ship. But it's existence more or less kept several battleships and aircraft in the Atlantic when they could have been far more useful in the Pacific. Could have more bombing missions against.

Lots of other tactical and strategic missions were suspended if favour of generic carpet bombing. German output increased until 1944 and it was raw materials shortages that was the main problem. Aerial mining of seas and rivers like the Rhine and Danube would have reduced this sooner.

B29's dropping mines at sea wasn't sexy. But it pretty much stopped raw material imports and naval and troop movements around Japan. And at far lower risk than bombing cities.

It's a little known fact but one of the reasons Hiroshima and Nagasaki were chosen was because they were untouched by bombing. Any city of strategic significance had already been bombed and burnt to the ground.

Amalgam

1913: When Hitler, Trotsky, Tito, Freud and Stalin all lived in the same place. (BBC)

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21859771

They all frequented the same coffee shop, surreal.

Dyr

donegaLroad wrote: »

a photo of Joseph Goebbels just after he was told that the photographer was Jewish..

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/3e/18/84/3e18849ec3111b516e0d3ec7ffc4c9f0.jpg

http://farm1.staticflickr.com/138/327671461_d59457cda1.jpg

Just sayin'

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

Wibbs

Amalgam wrote: »

1913: When Hitler, Trotsky, Tito, Freud and Stalin all lived in the same place. (BBC)

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21859771

They all frequented the same coffee shop, surreal.

Oddly enough Hitler was quite accessible to the public even quite late on in his tenure. He used to hang out in another coffee shop on a weekly basis when he was already chancellor.

Laoislion8383 wrote:

Watched a documentary on Croatia during the war it was unreal, a far right crowd called Ustaše came into power and they began to persecute the Serbs of Crostia and this was all fully supported and encouraged by the Catholic Church, a camp called Jasenovac was set up the stuff that went on there was unreal

Jasenovac was a true hell on earth. It made Belsen look like Butlins. And no I'm not joking there. Belsen was one of the more "cushy" camps until later in the war. No gas chambers or any of that, though quite the number of sources claim there were. Including a couple eye witnesses seen as reliable who claimed they saw them. Not true, but stories tend to grow in the telling.

Oh and BTW before any gobshíte suggests I'm a denier or some bullshít, a rellie of mine was with the British team who went in soon after the liberation of Belsen and his stories chilled my childhood body to the bone. Micheal Bentine(he of the Goons and Potty time ) put it well when he later wrote;

"Got any medical orderlies?" he shouted above the roar of the aircraft engines. "Any K rations or vitaminised chocolate?"

"What's up?" I asked for I could see his face was grey with shock.

"Concentration camp up the road," he said shakily, lighting a cigarette. "It's dreadful – just dreadful." He threw the cigarette away untouched. "I've never seen anything so awful in my life. You just won't believe it 'til you see it – for God's sake come and help them!"

"What's it called?" I asked, reaching for the operations map to mark the concentration camp safely out of the danger area near the bomb line. "Belsen," he said, simply.

Millions of words have been written about these horror camps, many of them by inmates of those unbelievable places. I've tried, without success, to describe it from my own point of view, but the words won't come. To me Belsen was the ultimate blasphemy.

After VE. Day I flew up to Denmark with Kelly, a West Indian pilot who was a close friend. As we climbed over Belsen, we saw the flame-throwing Bren carriers trundling through the camp – burning it to the ground. Our light Bf 108 rocked in the superheated air, as we sped above the curling smoke, and Kelly had the last words on it.

"Thank Christ for that," he said, fervently.

And his words sounded like a benediction"

Actually IMHO his and his fellow Goon Spike Milligan wrote well on that war. Spike went for laughs mind you and the surreal nature of it all, as he would. Insightful mind you.

Over the years I collected books penned by German combatants and always looked for the first editions that came out just after the war, when memories were fresh and they were less edited. An interesting and nuanced picture often emerges from them.

Cold War Kid

I saw that documentary 1945: A Savage Peace last week too - it was horrific, very upsetting. Still trying to process some of it.

Hate when people try to mitigate what Hitler and his henchmen did with "Well the Russians did worse" stuff though.

Both committed inconceivable horrors, I don't know why the "But what about" stuff has to start.

Fred Swanson

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