Hitler

[Andoreion]

If your interested in Hitler EWS go to the library and loan Mien Kamph, Hitler wrote it while in prison, it doesn

[shygirl4]

selling or printing Mein Kampf is illegal in the Netherlands.

That is a shame, maybe you could download it off the internet, a silly question perhaps but why is it ilegal to read mein kampf in the Netherlands ?

EWS if you want somthing posative to come out of Hitler and WW2, how about the space race, didnt the v1's lead to rocket technology, and eventualy space flight.

Shy  ::)

[Dude_Doc]

I've said it before, but humanity gained something on World War 2. We learned that we can not be racists. We can not go around and kill people just because of their "race", their personality or their sexual status. What if World War 2 never happened? What if it would happen, say, today? The world would simply not exist anymore. Of course, we don't need to create a sun to know that it is possible, but humanity has this slow-learning process. Most of the time, practicing evil leaves scars in history for future generations to remember and learn from (not learning to be evil, but to understand why you can't "be evil"), to set an example. At least that's one way of seeing it. Of course, it doesn't mean that we must do evil before "finding out" that it's bad, but remember that around those days (1900-1945's), people thought that racism was okay. They all saw the results after the war, and they all learned that it was wrong (okay, not exactly all).

Same thing with the insane money-making of today. We're practicing greed and lust, and hopefully after some generations, we will realize that what we did was wrong and unjust. Even now, we have begun to realize that selfishness is not only destroying ourselves, but the living around us, as well as the environment too. This time around, I hope we don't have to have a war or genocide to understand this...

[Wolf]

Hitler. He got Germany back on its feet economically by rebuilding a vast war machine against international convention. He strengthened morale and pride in the German state by increasing German xenophobia towards other ethnicities. He prevented international punishments towards Germany by going to war with every single major world power with the exception of Japan.

[Andrew]

WW2 brought the world out of the great depression. If it wasn't for WW2 it could be possible that we would still be under a great depression.

Wars bring about technological advancements (military, communictaions, medical etc).

I did a school paper on Hitler about 6 years ago. I remember something about Hitler having Jewish friends when in Vienna.

He brought about the Autobahn and the beetle. (that ugly little car ;)

And if he got 1/2 of germany to quit smoking, then I think he was a great guy.

Sure he was in power when millions of people (Jews) died, but so was Stalin, and Stalin killed millions of his own people I think.

[Wolf]

I heard that the top Nazis, when they were tried at Nuremberg, said that if they had won the war, it would be the Allies on the stand for war crims, and not the Axis. Think about the aggressive American and British bombing campaigns that leveled city after city. Bob McNamara, Kennedy's, and later Johnson's Secretary of Defense, was one of the men who orchestrated the mass bombing campaigns over Japan. He remembered once when his commanding officer, General LeMay, said to him, "Bob, if we lose the war, we'll be war criminals." Do you think whether or not you win or lose should have any bearing on whether your actions are right or not? The systematic destruction of an entire race is inexcusable, and the difference between Allied bombing campaigns and Axis death camps is that the purpose of Allied bombing campaigns was to destroy the ability of the Axis to fight. The purpose was to end the war by preventing one side from continuing it. The purpose of the death camps was suffering in the short term, and annihilation in the long term.

So, apparently, how many you kill doesn't necessarily matter. It's how, and why you killed, that ultimately decides whether or not you were an evil man, or simply an unfortunate one. Both men are killers, one, however, possesses a darker nature.

[Andoreion]

That is a shame, maybe you could download it off the internet, a silly question perhaps but why is it ilegal to read mein kampf in the Netherlands ?

Well, it's not illegal to own it, read it, or to loan it from a library. But the government has all rights to the book, so it has never been reprinted.

[leo]

WW2 brought the world out of the great depression. If it wasn't for WW2 it could be possible that we would still be under a great depression.

Wars bring about technological advancements (military, communictaions, medical etc).

I did a school paper on Hitler about 6 years ago. I remember something about Hitler having Jewish friends when in Vienna.

He brought about the Autobahn and the beetle. (that ugly little car ;)

And if he got 1/2 of germany to quit smoking, then I think he was a great guy.

Sure he was in power when millions of people (Jews) died, but so was Stalin, and Stalin killed millions of his own people I think.

Did any1 say that Stalin was a great man?

[HasimirFenring]

I heard that the top Nazis, when they were tried at Nuremberg, said that if they had won the war, it would be the Allies on the stand for war crims, and not the Axis. Think about the aggressive American and British bombing campaigns that leveled city after city. Bob McNamara, Kennedy's, and later Johnson's Secretary of Defense, was one of the men who orchestrated the mass bombing campaigns over Japan. He remembered once when his commanding officer, General LeMay, said to him, "Bob, if we lose the war, we'll be war criminals." Do you think whether or not you win or lose should have any bearing on whether your actions are right or not? The systematic destruction of an entire race is inexcusable, and the difference between Allied bombing campaigns and Axis death camps is that the purpose of Allied bombing campaigns was to destroy the ability of the Axis to fight. The purpose was to end the war by preventing one side from continuing it. The purpose of the death camps was suffering in the short term, and annihilation in the long term.

So, apparently, how many you kill doesn't necessarily matter. It's how, and why you killed, that ultimately decides whether or not you were an evil man, or simply an unfortunate one. Both men are killers, one, however, possesses a darker nature.

Frank Herbert himself said that the victors write the history (I realize that he wasn't the first to say this).  Cynically, you could say that this is the "right of the strongest".  Those that win the war can call those that lost inhuman for their crimes, and be heros themselves (despite their own atrocities).

[Wolf]

What about the point I tried to make? Epitomized in that last sentance of mine? I didn't say that the "victors win" was necessarily correct, you know...

[HasimirFenring]

I don't think whether you win or lose SHOULD have a bearing on the nature of your crime, I'm just saying that it always has and probably will for a good long time to come.  In my opinoin, it wasn't the purpose of the bombing of civilians that spared American military leaders from war crime trials, it was the fact that they won.

[Caid Ivik]

Victors write the history, that's for sure. But this is no history, as there are still enough people who lived WW2 on their skins. Hitler's reign was based on removing "lesser" races and their replacement by Germans. It was a djihad, an option-less war. If we and Germans would win WW1, then there might be similar man rising in ie France, but we can be sure there would be no holocaust and other forms of social engineering. Some guys would lose and pay reparations, but nations would survive. If Germans would win WW2, you can be sure that no one of us could write on FED2k here now  ;)

[Wolf]

Yeah. You're probably right about that, Hasimir. But, when we look at it from a moral perspective, should the purpose/methodology behind killing have any bearing on our judgment of the killers?

[HasimirFenring]

Victors write the history, that's for sure. But this is no history, as there are still enough people who lived WW2 on their skins. Hitler's reign was based on removing "lesser" races and their replacement by Germans. It was a djihad, an option-less war. If we and Germans would win WW1, then there might be similar man rising in ie France, but we can be sure there would be no holocaust and other forms of social engineering. Some guys would lose and pay reparations, but nations would survive. If Germans would win WW2, you can be sure that no one of us could write on FED2k here now  ;)

None of us?  America could maybe have held on long enough for Frank Herbert to write Dune, and some of the people on this board are descended from a group of people who would not have been harmed...  You're right though, there would not have been a holocaust from WWI.  The generals in those days had honor, and didn't want to kill civilians.

Yeah. You're probably right about that, Hasimir. But, when we look at it from a moral perspective, should the purpose/methodology behind killing have any bearing on our judgment of the killers?

Methodology, certainly (torture is worse lethal injection, for example).  Purpose...  I don't know, the fact remains that they are responsible for the act, but...  Fire bombing civilians to destroy a people's will to fight is not as bad as exterminating 6 million people with intent to erase an ethnicity, but here we may be talking about shades of black.

[Caid Ivik]

Well, I wouldn't say there weren't civilian slaugtheries in WW1 (see ie what did Turks in Armenia), but the war still had not such ultimative targets as WW2. Maybe America would be able resist german pressure, but in sacrifice of some freedom, so they wouldn't let us talk about everything so freely as we can here...

[HasimirFenring]

Well, I wouldn't say there weren't civilian slaugtheries in WW1 (see ie what did Turks in Armenia), but the war still had not such ultimative targets as WW2. Maybe America would be able resist german pressure, but in sacrifice of some freedom, so they wouldn't let us talk about everything so freely as we can here...

You're probably right about the freedoms.  What I said about civilians was more in reference to (I'm no expert here either) the combat between Russia, Germany, Austria, Italy, England and France.

[Caid Ivik]

That's sure, military operations of WW1 were pointed mostly against military targets. Allied bombardements and russian cleansings in WW2 were also very violent, tough I don't dare to imagine what would come if it wasn't done.

[HasimirFenring]

Many history teachers here like to say that Stalin was worse than Hitler because his Gulags killed twice as many as Hitler's concentration camps.  But the concentration camps were only in operation for less than a decade, whereas Stalin's gulags were open for nearly a quarter of a century.  I condone attacks on civilians this way, but most (not all!) of what the allies did in WWII was probably for the best in the long run.

[Wolf]

That's a good point, I never considered the length of time the camps had been in operation. So, Hitler's camps, relatively speaking, did more damage than Stalin's?

[Caid Ivik]

Not only gulags, you know, communism itself is very violent system, as it needs replacement of most intelligence. If you want communism, you must erase plurality and any form of non-conform behavior. But you can at least choose to conform. If you aren't born as pure German you were "lesser", so he it would be much harder. That's why I think that sacrifice of 40 years under red ones was worth it. Happy 59th anniversary of Hiroshima strike, by the way.

[HasimirFenring]

That's a good point, I never considered the length of time the camps had been in operation. So, Hitler's camps, relatively speaking, did more damage than Stalin's?

They killed 6 million in the space of a maximum of 12 years (Hitler came to power in 1933, died in 1945), but the camps weren't build until closer to 1940, I think.

[Caid Ivik]

I wouldn't blame it all on Stalin. Already under Lenin occured such atrocities, also what's done in China, Cambodja, Vietnam, Cuba or North Korea was far from his influence. Also, in european countries, direct violence was only a part of communist terror. Societal changes were, to be exact, they still are very terrible. Dissent was not only "silenced", it was demonized. Descendants of them had to feel burden of their name: limited education, work, even friends. Every your action monitored. 3 years of military service in a technical battalion, if you weren't so lucky about 10 years on forced work in mines and such. And only because your family is blurred. You are psychologically forced to conform.

[TMA_1]

"he just killed some jews"

Just killed "some" jews? kinda making light of it?

Listen, I know it is popular with revisionist history to try and reinterprit famous people in history. We try to find the bad in those who have always been thought of as great heroes, and we have tried to find some redeeming good in those that are hopelessly evil. This has some merit, but these days it is taken too far, to the point that it creates a complete negative of what revisionist history has tried to achieve. Originally it was the attempt to try and level history, making it non-objective and to focus it towards a real and truly historical perspective. Now days though it is turning things into the complete opposites of what peopel have been taught for hundreds of years. Frankly the extreme of both sides is bad, and though hitler did partially help in the restoration of germany, he was NOT the major driving force behind it. its just dangerous to try and elevate minor good deeds in overwhelmingly evil people in my opinion, as it can lead to some sort of odd justification. that is just my opinion though.

[EWS]

My just killing some jews, was an attempt to peruse the topic then browse right over it.

[ordos45]

Jews, Gays, Roma, Political Prisoners, and other 'inferiors'.  Then those soldiers sent against him...and those caught in the crossfire.  As for whether Allied officers would've been tried for war crimes had the Nazis won...they would've, but I believe that every one would be sentenced to death.  I think at least the Allies let some live.