Hitler was grate!

Blitzkrieger

The "Hirshoma" debate always seems to be a popular one with Americans so lets not get into it here

When you look at Dresden, Tokyo, Iwo Jyma (spelling?) millions upon millions of lives were saved, on both sides, by dropping the bomb.

Belisarius

Hmmn , youve got half a point ,but I doubt saving Germans lives were high in the priority's of Bomber Command during WW2 , anything but

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Shrewgar!

Manach

Robert Harris wrote an excellent book 'Fatherland' Speculative fiction in which Hitler won the war. Berlin was a shining city of marble, yet scratch the surface and the evil banality was made manifest.

On the subject of Harris (Bomber), can anyone explain the justification of Dresden. The premise behind the bomber offensive was that it would shatter German Moral & destroy their Industrial capacity. This in fact did not happen till the closing months of the war.

"The remaining German cities are not worth the life of a single Englishman" - Bomber Harris March 1945.

Belisarius

Thats war one assumes , Whatever about German Morale I didnt Help the poor folk of Dresden . It would also be seen , from a British perspective as tit for tat for the Blitz . But If im Correct ,well Under 50,000 died in the London Bombing Campaign , Aproximately 300,000 Died in Dresden . But then History is written by the Victors , "Oh no they werent Practically Civilians.. they were practically Defenceless nazi's"

Which brings up another point about the follies of Hitler , The whole Bombing Campaign on London was utterly Ineffective it only served to Stiffen that British Upper lip in Steely resolve , It didnt concentrate on any Industrial centres , He aimed it at london in the obscure belief it would cripple the British's military capacity.....pschologically . So not only did Hitler fancy himself a great Soldier , Artist , Leader , Architecht and god knows what else , Hes also an Amateur phsychologist aswell , This resulted in the Stalling of Operation Sealion in favour of Operation Barbarossa *Big Ooops* and Crippled the Luftwaffe ,stripping it of Experienced pilots , this continued throughout the war , this Fetish for The mental Submission of a nation , notably In the Germans Visionary Rocket programs , The Minister of war Logistics at the time , Albert speer wanted to develop Small rockets for anti-aircraft defense , essentially SAMs , a good 15 years ahead of anything similar , He was voted down by hitler , favouring the Grander V1s . Maybe It would look better out of Hindsight , but FFS what a dumbass

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Shrewgar!

Yossarian

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Manach:
Robert Harris wrote an excellent book 'Fatherland' Speculative fiction in which Hitler won the war. Berlin was a shining city of marble, yet scratch the surface and the evil banality was made manifest.

On the subject of Harris (Bomber), can anyone explain the justification of Dresden. The premise behind the bomber offensive was that it would shatter German Moral & destroy their Industrial capacity. This in fact did not happen till the closing months of the war.

"The remaining German cities are not worth the life of a single Englishman" - Bomber Harris March 1945.</font>

There seems to have been little justifaction for the bombing of Dresden. The war was almost over, the german army practically defeated. The order for bombing Dresden seems to have originated with Churchill. His intention seems to have been to reduce Germanys major cities to ruins. Harris had refused to order the bombing on a number of occasions prior to 1945, but had finally relented to churchills insistance.





[This message has been edited by Yossarian (edited 25-03-2001).]

Excelsior

I have stated twice that the design of the Beetle was entirely the work of a Stutgart engineer, Dr Ferdinand Porsche.
He designed it in the early 20s. No German, French or Italian car manufacturer could recognise it potential.
Hitler did. He forced the purchase of Wolfsburg. The plant was federally funded due to his efforts.
The reason that I consider it a positive legacy is that the automobile, unlike the internet, is considered by many, the most important tool of the 20th Century. The Beetle was the car that first made automobiles available to the working classes, certianly in Europe. As a result it was pretty nifty. The Model A was the first mass produced car and you could argue that it was more influential than the Beetle but the fact remains that it was a pretty important creation and it only happened because of Hitler.
I am just stating things the way I see them here.

amp

So Hitler forced the purchase of a company and heavily subsidized it so that the German population could have an affordable car?

Ok point taken. The beetle itself then is unimportant. The concept of the affordable cars is Hitlers contribution then? But it wasn't. He saw what Ford was doing, copied it and rolled it out using a fairly old but good design from Porsche.

The fact is that the Beetle became popular because it was the first cheap car in Germany. You say yourself that Hitler bought the company and subsidies it. Did other car companies get the same treatment? Probably not. So you've got a single company manufacturing one of the only cheap cars(using a process borrowed/stolen from Ford) that is fully Nazi compatible and recommended. The German public (at the time) loves the Nazis and of course buys a load of them. The fact that it was a good design is irrelevant, it was the ONLY design. The Russians did the same with the Lada and it was hugely popular there until the fall of the U.S.S.R. when they found out that making cars out of cheap plastic maybe wasn't the best idea

So Hitlers achievements here? Forcing a monopoly on the German public? Plagarism? Unimagination? Giving Dr Ferdinand Porsche his big break?

And after a little web searching I found this link:
http://www.cmht.com/casewatch/cases/cwinfanticide.htm

"After the War, the Allies conducted an investigation of the Volkswagen Kinderheim and tried eight Volkswagen employees, including the manager of Volkswagen’s Wolfsburg factory, for war crimes. The German physician Volkswagen put in charge of its nursery, Hans Korbel, was executed in 1947 for the “killing by willful neglect” of the children at Volkswagen’s Kinderheim."

But hey does it really matter that the blood of children allegedly helped build the brilliant VW Beetle? To further your statement: Without Hitler there would be no Beetle. Without the Beetle 100's if not more children may lived and 1000's may have not been treated with immense cruelty. You can't just disconnect the fact that the man was an attrociously evil dictator with his so called achievements. You can't say that the ends justify the means.

I'll say it again. Hitler was a good propagandist (hmmm but he didn't write his own speeches, and Himler did most of the propaganda.) He was a great miltary stragegist (hmm he lost, attacked Russia, etc.) He shouted a lot at rallies (true)

Hitlers achievements then:
Shouting
Little square moustache (now sadly unfashionable)
Blaming the Jews for everything.
Getting the Germans (falsely) excited (but again that's just shouting and propaganda)

It is a credit to the Nazi party (and not just Hitler) that their sick fupped up propaganda to this day is still alive and well.


[This message has been edited by amp (edited 26-03-2001).]

Excelsior

no, we are talking about things that Hitler might have done right.

And your last post might be a damning critique of my theory, if it had any basis whatsoever.
Hitler didn't "buy" Volkswagen. His government created Volkswagen. The Volkswagen Automotive Group didn't exist before the NAZIs set it up in 1935.

It wasn't a "forced" monopoly as it wasn't in competition with anyone else through natural market forces. They didn't think that a car for the working class could take off. It was a monopoly as it was the first to fill a market niche. I think that they are considered pretty valid.
That blows your concept of this glaring obvious idea that Hitler manipulated, "Unimagination". No one else would consider it. Hitler (for all his evil,) did and was central in the creation of the car.
Other car manufacturers like Mercedes, Daimler and BMW were still producing cars. There wasn't a state enforced monopoly here at all.

And for the record, no Germans bought the cars because of a love of NAZIism.
"The German public (at the time) loves the Nazis and of course buys a load of them"
The Wolfsburg plant was only completed in the spring of 1945. The 1st thousands were used as military vehicles.
It was the Allies who followed that sold the cars.
The whole suggestion lacks any kind of historical evidence or perspective. Working class germans saved up to buy cars to please the authorities? Oh please.

The fact that VW employees committed war crimes impacts not one little bit on the fact that this is a positive legacy of Hitler. They are two seperate threads of argument entirely.

Why do you continue to chase this?

Bob the Unlucky Octopus

Pretty spot-on excelsior.

There was no state-enforced monopoly by the National Socialist party. Subsidization, yes, prejudice of sales, maybe, but those both take place in the modern world economy. Far from being called unimaginative today, it is very much a stage in economic development, and helps lesser developed nations to accept free trade.

Besides, in Nazi germany, there was no *need* for a competitive market to exist. Mercedes, Daimler and BMW didn't in fact, produce cars as a primary product during WWII. If they did, who would provide the engines for the Messerchmitts(Mercedes), the Panzers(Daimler-Benz), or the U-boats(Porsche)? In fact, the only true competition Volkswagen had was Opel, who mainly produced saloons (and naval hardware), and those were aimed at a different market entirely. So...the notion that a competitive environment is best doesn't always hold true, especially when you consider that consumer cars were part of an "infant" industry at the time. Modern governments go to great lengths to protect these fledgeling industries from competition, so it's hardly fair to lambast the Nazis on *that* account.

The example of the Lada is a poor one, as it was protected from import competition *long* after it ceased to be a fledgeling creation.

As for the argument that cruel means of production should restrict choice- morally I would agree with you. It is, as Excelsior says, an entirely different argument. But just to put this in context again- how many of us have bought Nike or Reebok trainers that originated in Southeast Asian sweatshops? There is a tremendous amount of cruelty and suffering/harassment in these work environments, yet that doesn't seem to preclude us buying them. Carpets that originate in the Middle East have to be hand-woven by children who work without pay- effectively slave labor- many of whom are malnourished, and permanently scarred by such work. Yet the halls of power in Europe are adorned with such creations, happily oblivious of their sinister origin.

And don't let's forget, the benefits of these inhuman practises were passed on to the German consumer- whereas the examples I have mentioned benefit consumers in a different part of the world. Western consumers are effectively exploiting the developing world to satisfy a burgeoning demand for luxury goods. And this is happening in *peace-time*, Nazi-Germany was a nation at *war*. Extreme times called for extreme measures. Not that any of this is justified, mind you, I'm merely trying to keep things in perspective. It's too easy to slip into a mode of thinking which assumes that things have vastly improved in the last few decades, or to blame Nazi Germany even for things that were beyond their control, or absolutely necessary for them at the time. Current so-called civilized governments allow unthinkable acts of cruelty to take place in the name of production/prosperity/nationalism. So we can hardly point the finger at history as far as that is concerned.

Bob the Unlucky Octopus
=Veni Vidi Vici=

PS- I'll start a new thread to discuss those side-arguments we were getting at in the drugs post Excel Probably be mid-week that I post it.

amp

[I was editing my previous post before I could read your reply]

Why do I keep chasing? Cos it's fun!

Yeah, the Wolfsburg Plant was completed in 1939 but didn't produce Beetles till the end of the war. Fair enough.

Interestingly this link suggests that the Beetle succeeded world-wide despite it's connections with Hitler. Intially they didn't want to touch it:

http://members.netscapeonline.co.uk/theharlocks/bug/Dissertation/History.htm

I concede the point about monopolies. Fair enough. My facts on that were wrong.But I disagree that the Germany of the time was experiencing "natural market forces". Compared to what? A democracy? The Beetle was also heavily backed as "The Peoples car"
I didn't say that the population bought the car to please the Fuhrer. I said that they bought it because he plugged it, he "advertised" it if you will.

"The fact that VW employees committed war crimes impacts not one little bit on the fact that this is a positive legacy of Hitler. They are two seperate threads of argument entirely."

Imagine this then:
So there's this fishing rod. It's the best damn fishing rod in the world. It catches fish like no other. Guaranteed. It creates a positive legacy and changes the world of fishing. It's made from the bones of kids.

How do you feel about the fishing rod now?

The ends do not justify the means.

I'm done.

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Lunacy Abounds! Play GLminesweeper!
art is everything and of course nothing and possibly also a sausage

Excelsior

I said that the Beetle "wasn't in competition with anyone else through natural market forces."
Amp writes:
"But I disagree that the Germany of the time was experiencing "natural market forces". "

That is just playing into my hands.
I agree it is fun to chase, but it isn't very challenging to be chased by you the way you are playing.

Your little analagy is ridiculous. It really is. The Beetles manufactured by people who were later convicted of war crimes, as I already stated, were used in the war effort. i.e.- no one bought them.

The Beetles people bought were built by the Royal Engineers of the British Army. Do you want to implicate them in war crimes in the Boer war in an effort to discredit my argument?

Hitler played the pivotal role in allowing the Beetle to be fully designed. He backed up the financing of the plant with his political support. He is not responsible for the war crimes of other people who were employed in a factory that wasn't managed by him but by another company entirely.
A company called VAG, that now owns Lambourghini, Audi, Skoda, Seat and VW amongst others and who was part of the huge War Time Workers settelment agreed back in 1999. See, they took responsibility for the war crimes. They didn't say "Ooh, Hitler helped the Beetle get built. Blame Hitler for this because he did many many other bad things."
He didn't advertise the car in any massive way because VW didn't have any automobiles available for sale to the general public. I think the figure is 1117 that were sold before the 3rd Reich collapsed. Comapare that to the 22 million that were later sold and you realise that that point makes no sense either.
I wrote a rather successful report on this for my Leaving Cert history. I know this topic inside out and I assure you the Beetle wouldn't have succeeded without Hitler as the Beetle wouldn't have even been built.

I am not here to argue whether the ends don't justify the means. That is the kind of philosophical debate we can get into with Bob in the future. But the fact is that unless you are an envioronmentalist who feels that the Beetle did more harm than good, it is a positive legacy that can be attributed to Hitler.
That is the subject of this thread.


Edited for spelling in the first line.

[This message has been edited by Excelsior (edited 26-03-2001).]

amp

Yeah you could say if it wasn't for Hitler then the Beetle would never have happened.

But that makes it sound like it was all his idea. That's my point. My point is that he knew that Germany needed a mass produced cheap car. That idea was not new as I argued previously. So the only thing he initiated was something that was already happening in America.

But yeah if Hitler hadn't discovered or been approached or had a competition or however the design came before him, it wouldn't have happened. But neither would it have happened without Porsche, Ford or the inventions of countless other actually talented people.

And if all we're left with of Hitlers achievements is a car he didn't design, didn't invent the method of producing it, had a negative impact on it's future marketing, and used taxpayers money to develop then hey I happily concede that too.

Well done Hitler.

Ok, one last question. Do you own a VW Beetle?

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Lunacy Abounds! Play GLminesweeper!
art is everything and of course nothing and possibly also a sausage

Clintons Cat

if hitlers greatest acheivement was providing the German working Classes with cheap affordable motorcars but only delivered 1117 before Riech Holdings PLC went belly up then i think someone should call the consummer watchdog to investigate the claim.
Oh and i found out he Nicked the Hitler Moustache off Charlie Chaplin as well...

Paladin

Now, whilst I know what you are arguing about, what the hell are you arguing about?

That Hitler did 1 redeeming act?
I have no doubt (well little doubt) that Exc and Bob's points are all correct, but I have the sentiment (not an argument, just a sentiment) similiar to Amp's, in that..

Its a car. A little sh|t ugly car imo. Peoples car? Mass produced? Wow. Had to happen. That Hitler was the fuhrer at the time is of little consequence. Eventually there had to be someone somewhere in charge or a country that produced one.

Hitler fancied himself as a technological pioneer throughout his career as fuhrer anyway. If it was new, and 'cool' he wanted it. Think of the resources he wasted trying to build some sort of 'super weapon'.
Some incredible advances were inevitably made, but that is quite simply down to the fact that a wartime drive was on to further technology.

You could just as well be arguing he was responsible for the rocket, or the jet engine. Its the same principle, in that Hitler had the "brainwave" to fund it, and it was invented during his reign. So what?

Yes Hitler was responsible for the war, but it he didnt invent anything.

Also the resources could have been better used in more conventional production, strategically speaking. As it happens, it was better he did waste the resources.

If a state funded research centre in Ireland finds a universal cure for AIDS, will Bertie be credited with it?

TwoShedsJackson

I must say i find it amazing that you can be arguing about the fu<king VW Beetle and the hand Hitler did/did not have in inventing it or producing it or whatever the fu<k.

He was a genocidal madman. It doesn't matter a damn if he had one or several 'achievements', he's among the three or four most evil men in history.

Would you get over this VW Beetle $hit for Christ's sake.

[This message has been edited by Castor Troy (edited 28-03-2001).]

Excelsior

Castor feels WE shouldn't waste OUR time chasing each other on this topic Amp.

I kind of agree.

Executive Steve

my grandmother went to germany on holidays, and she was at the nuremberg rally. she hadn't a clu what wee adolf was shouting about, but she said it was the greatest show on earth and blew her mind. nothing like it had ever been seen or done before in terms of stage design and lighting... to this day speer's cathedral of ice as i think it wsa called is still possibly the the best set design for an open air gig ever.
some good books to read.
albert speer's diary - perhaps a little bit sanitized in order to distance the author fom the fact that he was the guy who effectively ran the industrial process in the reich. in 41, me 109's were built at a rate of 150-200 a month. when speer took over in 44 he pumped up production to 2500 a month.

anything by primo levi - italian industrial chemist who survived auschwitz having been a slave for the i g farben plant the drowned and the saved, if this is a man and the other ones who's names i've forgottten are all excellent accounts of life after and during the war. levi hung himself in the mid eighties because he found it impossible to forgive the germans their deeds, a correspondence with several german war time scientists and officials is published in one of his books.
my own grand mother [the other one] as well as all the rest of her family and my grand father were all in japanese prisoner of war camps, and from accounts i have read and heard about the burma railroad project i can't decide which was worse. in germny jews were literally subhumans by birth, and had to be eradicated. in japan the prisoners obviously were undeserving of life/good treatment because they had allowed themselves to be captured. whether a calculated attempt to kill millions or a cultural disregard for "honourless foreign devils" and indifferent treatment of them is worse is up for debate. were the japanese or the germans or the russians worse in ther actions and crimes?

Belisarius

Intresting point , no matter what you can say about the Nazis , they knew how to put on a show ...If memory serves me right , Nazi Germany had a Monument to those who died in the Bier Hall Putsch...Generally Infantry units would Form around it , at which point Someone would call out the names of those who died , The Nazis had it set up that From within the ranks of the soldiers theyred be some chap who would reply "Present" . It may seem a little corny , but back then Peeps lapped up that Quasi Mystical Aspect of the Nazi Culture that was well in implementation in Germany at that time .

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Shrewgar!

amp

Settle ct settle Throughout my arguments I've always emphasized the dark side of any "achievements" Hitler made. I also said that you can't seperate them from the horrifying treatment that most companies of Germany of the time were imposing on their government provided free/cheap forced labour.
I even tried to divert the debate by stating that the Beetle was irrelevant, how it was produced was far more important. Sure didn't I even say Fu<k Hitler!?

In short, WAAAA!! IT WASN'T ME, IT WAS HIM!!
*points at Excelsior* :P

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Lunacy Abounds! Play GLminesweeper!
art is everything and of course nothing and possibly also a sausage

WhiteWashMan

there was always the vw b****e....

Stop that you

[This message has been edited by Castor Troy (edited 03-04-2001).]

DadaKopf

Interesting point I learned about some reasons for the Japs' abnormal cruelty during the war.

Up until the 19th century, Japan was technologically and militarily well behind Europe, America and Russia, their closest enemy. To protect themselves, they had to rapidly establish an efficient and strong army but in order to properly use the new structure and technology, they had to alter their behaviour. The sword and its etiquette was olselete.

In short, the ranking officers of the army took to daily beatings of every soldier in the army, to discipline them, and after the lower ranking soldiers' beatings, the officers would beat each other and all would be punished for minor slip-ups or offences. Cruelty not just became the norm, it became a mode of operation so when the POWs were captured in WWII, they were treated in the same way which most of the Japanese army was treated.

Of course it's no excuse for their past actions, just a point worth noting if the whole thing is to be properly contextualised.

Evil Phil

Not to mention the Russians (I believe somebody did). On they're invasion of Germany in 1944 (was it?), they raped an estimated 2 million women, most of their victims were the people they were supposed to be liberating!

Can't exactly remember my source on this, but it was something to do with the Balkans.



[This message has been edited by Evil Phil (edited 02-04-2001).]

amp

Yeah and Ghenghis Khan wasn't very nice and the US dropped the bomb and so on. But it's not every country that rounds up millions of civilians and kills them.

The German army in World War II behaved as good as any other army in the war. Prisoners of war were treated as well as any other prisoners of war (except if you were Jewish)

Hey Conor, do us all a favour and lock this thread. It's so long at this stage and the countless muppets trying to rationalize Germanys evil past is getting boring.

There are more important things to discuss such as the evidence that the VW Beetle was the first car on the moon (as put there by Hitler who designed the V2 rocket that carried it there)

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Lunacy Abounds! Play GLminesweeper!
art is everything and of course nothing and possibly also a sausage

Yossarian

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by amp:

The German army in World War II behaved as good as any other army in the war. Prisoners of war were treated as well as any other prisoners of war (except if you were Jewish)

</font>

Or Russian, tho Stalins refusal to sign the Geneva convention didnt help matters.

Ry

I have a Shexsheh bodeh

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Quothe the Raven, "JennyRooba!" ;D