Would you have voted for Hitler?

reply to post by Sinter Klaas


you are totally correct with what you say. Lets look just at what the allies did too, look at Dresden. A city where the military side was left and instead they dropped bombs on the people, incendiaries bombs dropped on a city that was mostly made from wooden structures, killing over 100,000 civilians, more than Britain lost during the whole war. People have claimed had Germany won the war, those accountable would have been charge with war crimes, and they are right. How often do we hear about this though?

reply to post by Ophiuchus 13




Don't get me wrong. I agree Hitler was evil and should he now be a whore of the devil, he probably deserves it.

What I say is that Hitler is not nearly as bad as they teach us compared to the Allies. He and his nazi party are revolting... Yet without the treaty of Versaille there would not have been a 2 WW

First of all, no one ever had the chance to "vote" for Hitler. You could vote for individual parties. So the decision would be to vote for the NSDAP, there was no specific voting of Hitler into any position.

Second of all, if you take a good look at the work-creation schemes that Hitler had in mind then you would probably not be such a big fan. "Hitler work creation scheme" - and this is the first point to be made - didn't really exist.

The 600 billion RM that the Nazis used for work-creation schemes were budgeted under the Von Papen government and just fell into the Nazis hands. But by that time Hitler had not yet totally consolidated his position. So he made some concessions with those 600 billion RM and that is were most of the real expansion of the german private industry came from. All of the early "earth digging" work creation schemes (publicly financed zero sum games) were paid out of this fund - Germans had a joke about "digging holes up to fill them with earth again". This was just simple cosmetics, especially in West Prussia and the eastern regions this was basically a scheme to enrich local loyal Nazis.

The Nazi plan for work creation was basically a radical plan for public consumption. By nixing traditional froms of public consumption (such as the much needed public housing, school building, infra-structure building) was nixed and the whole of public consumption was redericted towards war-related industries and jobs.
One of the most famous of these programs was the Autobahnbau - and please go to memoirs of people who worked there - they ended up helpless neglected criples. They made enough to feed their families but that was all. The working conditions were absolutely horrible; quite Sovietesque.

Anyway. The point is that while this public consumption got people off the streets and provided them with a modest living by making them work in armaments related industries, or war-related private industries (such as Chemicals, IG farben etc.) it did not offer them any long term perspective. If you count away the men off to military training after re-enforcement of the Wehrpflicht(1935) and everyone that was employed in publicly financed war-related jobs (1933+) then you will see that actually almost no productive jobs were created.

These jobs could not be created because Germany had no chances of maintaining economic expansion while living by a doctrine of economic isolationism.

And the public consumption was a scam. From 1934 on the whole economy was tooled to go to war. How much is a job worth that you can keep 5 years and then - in exchange for getting that publicly funded job - have to die in the Pripjat Swamps in the middle of nowhere?
It was no good deal because it was not part of the "real" (read:private) economy and therefore was tied to the policy of the Reich. It offered no careeer; these jobs were created with the war in mind. Think about that. The actual price for getting these jobs was a general willingness to participate in the war later on.

Basically, they did very much the same things like the Americans, but just in a fraudulent way. The American economy was retooled to a war-economy too and it functioned pretty well - there you could have your career in these industries etc. Because there was one crucial difference: The Americans didn't pay the bills for their armaments production themselves with their taxes. They were smart enough to bill the French and British and got South America and Southeastern Asia for that bargain.
While all the Germans got was... Well you know... Death and destruction.

History shows that Germany's prosperity is linked to its being open to global markets. That was true between 1871 and 1914, between 1924 and 29, and between 1948 and today. It was always this way.
In those phases that they went isolationist, they suffered.

The main point is: Working in a bomb factory may be a good thing if you sell the bombs to someone else. Then you might prosper. But when the deal is that you get the job for 5 years and then it's your turn to throw them on the front then it isn't that good of a deal.

So no, I would not have voted for him as a vote for him was a vote for a fraudulent illusion and almost certain death – and I don’t mean that for the Jews or the Poles but for the Germans. Most traditional economists saw through the scheme.

I would highly recommend Adam Tooze's masterwork, Wages of Destruction
www.buch.ch...


[edit on 11-8-2010 by NichirasuKenshin]

[edit on 11-8-2010 by NichirasuKenshin]

Originally posted by thedarktower
reply to post by Sinter Klaas

 

you are totally correct with what you say. Lets look just at what the allies did too, look at Dresden. A city where the military side was left and instead they dropped bombs on the people, incendiaries bombs dropped on a city that was mostly made from wooden structures, killing over 100,000 civilians, more than Britain lost during the whole war. People have claimed had Germany won the war, those accountable would have been charge with war crimes, and they are right. How often do we hear about this though?

Dresden was quite a horrible thing. It's where Howard Zinn and Kurt Vonnegut that war is a truly ugly thing.

But the number is probably closer to 25,000 than to 100,000. Dresden was not exactly Tokyo.

[edit on 11-8-2010 by NichirasuKenshin]

Originally posted by NichirasuKenshin

Originally posted by thedarktower
reply to post by Sinter Klaas

 

you are totally correct with what you say. Lets look just at what the allies did too, look at Dresden. A city where the military side was left and instead they dropped bombs on the people, incendiaries bombs dropped on a city that was mostly made from wooden structures, killing over 100,000 civilians, more than Britain lost during the whole war. People have claimed had Germany won the war, those accountable would have been charge with war crimes, and they are right. How often do we hear about this though?

Dresden was quite a horrible thing. It's where Howard Zinn and Kurt Vonnegut that war is a truly ugly thing.

But the number is probably closer to 25,000 than to 100,000. Dresden was not exactly Tokyo.

[edit on 11-8-2010 by NichirasuKenshin]

it really depend where you read the reports, i have seen some who say it could be as high as 200,000. Guess we might never know the actual number

Originally posted by thedarktower


right, as i have said, i am asking ATS if they would have voted the Nazi's to power in the 30's, before any of the atrocities were commited. Not after! We know what evil was done after, i was asking whether or not before this would you have voted for them. I was wanting to show how an evil dictator can become leader, not agree with what he or the Nazi's done.

That's the illusion, I fear. The Nazis were bastards from the very first days. If this is truly your stance than my conclusion is that scale is everything for you.

Because if you take a look at what the Nazis did on the streets between 1929 and 1933 then I can't really see how they not outed themselves already. Anyone reading a newspaper in that time would know about the "Parteilokal" concentration camps and the severe torture that took place in them. Many would also note the almost weekly assassinations. Others would learn about their nature when walking into a drunk SA patrol late at night. The kids of promiment leftists would notice it when they came home and their parents werent around anymore.

While it is true that the extent of the Nazis evilness only revealed itself in small steps from liquidating the SA in 34 to gassing Jews in Auschwitz in 44/45, it wasn't as if Nazism wasn't associated with brutal violence and blodshed from the start.

[edit on 11-8-2010 by NichirasuKenshin]

Originally posted by thedarktower


it really depend where you read the reports, i have seen some who say it could be as high as 200,000. Guess we might never know the actual number

While what you write is true in this case the material evidence is there to establish quite accurate numbers. And the death toll can be extrapolated from the documents and later records.

The study that establishes this is quite new, I think even from this year. It's very convincing. I don't know of an english translation but here's the original:

www.dresden.de...

Suffice it to say that from the documents a death toll of 100,000+ is simply impossible. Not a fraction of that number went missing.

reply to post by NichirasuKenshin


perhaps the question would be, would you be brave enough not to vote for Hitler? I suppose it depends on where you stand. At times of economic depression, we look for scapegoats. Notice alot of threads about immagrants in the US just now on ATS? Perhaps the same could be said about where i am from, the UK. We blamed the Polish recently of lowering the wage and taking our jobs, but to be fair, it has some truth in it. They certainly lowered the wage on builing sites as they do the work for half the money. I am not judging them, it just show how bad it must be in Poland just now. But around me i can see people become more racist and nationalistic, more peopple wanting to vote BNP, and i see how the Nazi's could get into power back then.

One thing is for certain, we never seem to learn from historys mistakes

reply to post by thedarktower


Oh yes, if the contention is that the economic crisis played into the hands of the Antisemitism of the Nazis then I wholeheartedly agree. 29-33 were extremely hard years for the Germans and in those situations scapegoats and scapegoat ideologies are always in high demand. I strongly believe that without 1929 there would have been no rise of Hitler, as the NSDAP wasn't really very popular in the prosperous years of Weimar 24-29.

But then again. The story of the "international Jew" being the cause of all evil.... Let me say this much... If you are gullbile enough to accept such scapegoatism then you probably truly deserve what you get for such gullibility. And I think in some way those 43.9% of the German electorate that did vote for the NSDAP had it rightly coming to them.

It's a very good example of how we should be extremely critical of authorites - especially in times of crisis. Whenever someone in power focuses on a scapegoat in such situations we should not be fooled. Germany's true problems were not the Jews. In fact, they were a big part of the solution, called GDP growth.

But yeah. Things were extremely bad and if we would have lived back then it would have taken allot of moral integrity not to fall for the sweet and easy promises of such a convincingly styled promise maker. It's easy to say "no I wouldn't have". But statistics tell us that most of us would have been good Germans and would have danced to the tune - which probably includes me, you, and most other people who believe they wouldn't of had.

[edit on 11-8-2010 by NichirasuKenshin]

reply to post by NichirasuKenshin


When Germany surrendered eventually... The goals of the allies were reached.
The total destruction of Germany. They feared that they would start a 3th war if they were not completely defeated.

Total Includes : German citizens.

World War II, or the Second World War (often abbreviated as WWII or WW2), was a global military conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945 which involved most of the world's nations, including all of the great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, with more than 100 million military personnel mobilized. In a state of "total war", the major participants placed their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities at the service of the war effort, erasing the distinction between civilian and military resources. Marked by significant action against civilians, including the Holocaust and the only use of nuclear weapons in warfare, it was the deadliest conflict in human history, and it has been estimated that it resulted in fifty million to over seventy million fatalities.

( Wikipedia )


70.000.000 people.

Why are only 6.000.000 of them so important ?

Since the heavy bombers were running out of targets, towns were now put on the target lists that had little military or industrial importance. Some of them, like Würzburg or Pforzheim, were selected primarily because they were easy for the bombers to find and destroy. Because they had a medieval centre, they were expected to be particularly vulnerable to fire attack.

This directive led to the raid on Dresden and marked the erosion of one last moral restriction in the bombing war: the term 'evacuation from the east' did not refer to retreating troops but to the civilian refugees fleeing from the advancing Russians.

Although these refugees clearly did not contribute to the German war effort, they were considered legitimate targets simply because the chaos caused by attacks on them might obstruct German troop reinforcements to the Eastern Front.

Source.

Ladies and gentlemen, on this program I can only give you a bare glimpse of the inhuman horror of the holocaust of Dresden. In Dresden, no fewer than 135,000 innocent victims died, with some estimates as high as 300,000. More died in Dresden than died in the well-known attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. More destruction befell Dresden in one day than was inflicted on the whole of Britain during the entire war. And yet you haven't been told.

Source.

Did you know...

By the end of the war, RAF Bomber Command had dropped nearly one million tons of bombs in the course of 390,000 operations. No major German city was not bombed, and many were more than half-destroyed, including Cologne, Hamburg, Frankfurt and Dresden. German civilian deaths are estimated in the region of 400,000

Source.


I do not deny or consider German war crimes ok or never happened.

I'm just sick and tired of people who compare Hitler and the Nazis as the devil an his evil demons and the allies freaking angels or something...

Both sides are guilty... Not just Germany.

reply to post by NichirasuKenshin


I know... But... Did they know ? All of them ?

reply to post by Sinter Klaas


I'm not sure which part you're replying to, so it's kind of hard. I can't and won't defend the Bombings of Dresden and such, but all in all, these were methods used by all participants in the war. So there's equal blame to go around.

On the other hand, the Nazis did quite a few things that none of their opponents engaged in. And they started the war. That's pretty big in my book - but that doesn't exculpate any immoral actions of the opponents. It's just that most oponents didn't choose war, while the people in power, that strange coalition of the old elites, the Nazis, and popular opinion did so.

And as far as the "6 million" thing you wrote goes. I don't see anyone implying that they are the only ones that deserve to be regarded. Not once have I heard such a thing.
But no other group - be it the mythical 6 million or whatever - was systematically identifyed by using the census and then deported on the sole ground that their parents were deemed to be of a particular faith (or, as the Nazis contended, of a particular race). It's fair to say that maybe only the Poles experienced the total wrath of the Nazis in the way the Jews did, but some things were reserved solely for the Jews.
Anyways. That's an interesting topic but it does feel rather off topic to me. I won't derail the thread with these arguments - we'll get a chance to go there in another thread... But note that I am the last one to say that only the Jews deserve attention. There's a good argument to be made though that they played a singular role in Germany in that time though.

[edit on 11-8-2010 by NichirasuKenshin]

reply to post by NichirasuKenshin


I was thinking about the German civilians who worked those jobs.

Did they know they were preparing for war ?

I've got to add...

Germany did not start WW2. They were finally able finish WW1. The conflict in WW1 Has been staged around resources in between France and Germany. Resources they both wanted for themselves.

When Germany surrendered they faced a situation where France did not only won the resource battle, they also occupied the Ruhr region. ( The heart of German industry. ) They lost originally German territories, their colonies and got stuck with unreasonable demands. All included within the Treaty of Versaile.

The question has never been will Germany ever seek revenge, but when...
The depression as a catalyst and a gifted leader with a disturbed view.

Without the allies setting up the stage, WW2 would have never happened.IMO

Originally posted by Sinter Klaas
reply to post by NichirasuKenshin

 

I was thinking about the German civilians who worked those jobs.

Did they know they were preparing for war ?

They would not have needed to be genuises to find it out. What were they building the bombs for?

And that counts for most other jobs as well. What did you think the guys at IG Farben did expect when they were contracted to quadruple the production of syntethic air-fuel? Everyone one a managerial level had to be aware that this was not for-market production. As I said, economists got the game pretty quickly. In those days there was still sporadic ciritique especially from traditional german economists who clearly pointed out that this was producing for war, not for market.

Germany did not start WW2. They were finally able finish WW1. The conflict in WW1 Has been staged around resources in between France and Germany. Resources they both wanted for themselves.

Sorry. But that is pure revisionism. Germany did start the second world war. We could debate which action started it; but it's clear that they started it. It's one of the most clear examples in the history of mankind.

Of course it's a truism to say that WW1 was one of the ultimate causes of WW2. This does not change the fact that the Nazis started the attacks while most others had peace and war plans. Hitler only had war plans. "Peace" was a concept reserved for the 1950's in his mind, when totaly victory would have been achieved.

As for the Franco-German conflict... I think that one was and is about more than just resources....

When Germany surrendered they faced a situation where France did not only won the resource battle, they also occupied the Ruhr region. ( The heart of German industry. ) They lost originally German territories, their colonies and got stuck with unreasonable demands. All included within the Treaty of Versaile.

The french had a right to occupy profitable parts of Germany if the Germans failed to pay up. Of course that's unfair but that's hard luck. Germany took the chances and lost the war. So they had to pay. Tough luck. That's how every war goes. If your read about Holwegs ideas about the postwar settlement you will see that what the French did was nearly identical to what the Germans planned.

And then. Germany attacked France in 1940 after ALL continental territories, including the Ruhr, were given/taken back. So that can't be the reason.

The question has never been will Germany ever seek revenge, but when...
The depression as a catalyst and a gifted leader with a disturbed view.

That's not entirely true. Before the crisis, the Germans were on a very good way to having the Versailles-conditions nixed by simply being a good and polite member of the global community. They pissed away their chances for that when they let Hitler have his way.

Without the allies setting up the stage, WW2 would have never happened.IMO

Sorry, but the documentary evidence is quite clear that Hitler (and many others) had their mind set on a war with France, Britain, Poland, Chechoslovakia and the Soviet Union (and perhaps the US) long before they even took power. To say that the Nazis did not systematically work to wage war independent of the behaviour of those nations is to contradict the historical record. Britain could have stayed out of the war. The US could have. The Poles, the Tchechs, and the Soviets had no such option. Neither had the Norwegians nor the French.

[edit on 11-8-2010 by NichirasuKenshin]

Originally posted by m0r1arty

Originally posted by thedarktower
Nazism was a far right form of politics.

Nazism was actually a name for National Socialism, well regraded asa 'left' political party rather than a right then as it is now also.

Right, no actually OP had it right - took from both "sides"

Hitler believed in self determination, his greatest rival was the Socialist party SPD - I know it is easy

"The main plank in the Nationalist Socialist program is to abolish the liberalistic concept of the individual and the Marxist concept of humanity and to substitute for them the folk community, rooted in the soil and bound together by the bond of its common blood." -Adolf

reply to post by thedarktower


Right wingers would have voted for Hitler in a heartbeat!

Hell, the stage is set for some right winger to repeat history today, all the TPM idiots would love to put some Hitler clone in charge. They would beg for it.

"Oh he wants to get rid of the illegals! and he says he will get us jobs! I'll vote for him!"

I'm sorry... I must have been hit by a rock or something.

The reasons I mentioned were flawed. Basically the start of WW1 was driven by the quest for power of aristocrats. The concept strike first ask later.

But most of all The compulsive disorder to letting others no not to mess with you or else... Or just to play the alpha male.

I thought we were civilized.

But I was right on another thing tho...

In many of these cases, the roots of the expansionism leading to World War II can be found in perceived national slights resulting from previous involvement in World War I, nationalistic goals of re-unification of former territories or dreams of an expanded empire

The origins of the both wars would have existed forever. The chance of war always near by...

If it wasn't for WW2 and the monstrosities... We would still be living with all of those idiot, childish and wasteful behavior.

We should be thankful the created the foundation to continue WW1. The resulting leap in technology and and the outcome that only left us with two powers that called the shots.

That has been the ultimate blessing... otherwise we would still be confronted with nations that want to improve themselves...

Edit to add :

Regardless, the Treaty of Versailles is generally agreed to be a very poor treaty which helped the rise of the Nazi Party.

By the way...
It seems the occupation of the Rhineland was planned to stop in 1935 and allied forces even left around 1930.

Never knew that... It appears they forgot that part when they taught me about WW2.

Really. I memorized that stuff the moment I got my history book. I must have been high or something...

Sorry, but the documentary evidence is quite clear that Hitler (and many others) had their mind set on a war with France, Britain, Poland, Chechoslovakia and the Soviet Union (and perhaps the US) long before they even took power.

France was because of previous conflict, Britain would rather be at war with, The Soviet Union because of hate or fear of communism, and the others were because of their plans to create lebensraum and they were home to a population of Germans.

I'm interested in your sources. Mind giving a link ?

It appears the overall idea about war is that it was a good thing...




[edit on 8/11/2010 by Sinter Klaas]

reply to post by earthdude



Just a slight correction, and please don’t ask but as a military person with inside information I will tell you that Saddam did have and we did find exactly what we were sent to find. To this day I have no reason why the government has chosen to keep this information from the public and they are lead to believe as you do. But in 70 or 80 years like all things the truth will finally be told about that whole thing.

As far as Hitler goes, I would not have voted for him or anyone else whom believes in any kind of Socialism, Marxism or any kind of ISM lol, but I also know that all in office are worshipers of the idol owl and the strings of this nation as well as many others are all being pulled by those such as the Rockefellers and a handful of others that control America no matter whom we vote in.

Bottom line who is going to arrest them in charge they break the laws that are written but there is no long a police force for the government. There use to be it was known as the Senate, put in place to police the congress so the constitution could not be broken, but once that became an elected office instead of being an appointed office, in effect eliminated the police force so that now all congress, senate and the presidency is free to do what ever they want and never have threat of arrest. They may get voted out, so big deal they already stole all they could and made all the contacts need to make in there first term to last them a life time of cash to sustain there life style of choice.

I probably would have stepped into the dogmatic trap of an enchanting Hitler when there is no real alternative. Through the eyes of some German guy from the thirties, definitely. Hitler was man of the year twice in Time magazine, back in those days we had very different views on what leadership meant.

reply to post by thedarktower


I can tell you that I absolutely unequivocally would not have voted for Hitler. Hitler's main parlor trick was blaming everything on the Jews. The modern day comparison would be an upcoming leader who blames everything on the Mexicans. I'll be waiting for Obama's replacement to make blaming everything on Mexicans a core issue as if they had anything at all to do with it.

The very foundations of America are cracking and crumbling... it has nothing to do with illegal immigrants who don't even vote in the vast majority of cases, and has nothing to do with jobs being stolen which is chump change when you look at how much the federal government alone spends each year now even without tallying up to the state and local spending manias.