BMW slam Bernie's Hitler comments

[PeterCH]

I would tend to disagree. Where as I would never justify what Hitler did, if you compare mid-20s Germany with mid-30s Germany Hitler saved the country from economic collapse. This is why so many Germans were loyal to the Fuhrer because he "saved" Germany.

Had the Allies not learnt from Versailles and punished Germany more severely, especially economically, then all they would have achieved was a third generation of Germans hell bent on restoring Germany to its "rightful place" in Europe. The Marshall plan was effective, as previously it took the policies of a mad man to restore the country and saw Germany separated from the rest of the world believing they were the only ones who could save themselves. The Marshall plan turned this around and made Germany a friend to the West.

Effectively the Marshall plan replaced what Hitler did in the 1930s with something less aggressive in the 1950s, achieving the same result. By sparing the stick and dangling a carrot the Allies, especially the West, saved the world from what could have become another World War.

If you follow the German economy prior to WW2 you'll realise that Germany was spending but not generating wealth. He only had enough energy to build up his military and then he had to attack.

Germany started WW1 themselves - with their Austro-Hungarian buddies. They wanted to maintain their 'rightful place in Europe' at the expense of the people they were subjugating and ethnically cleansing - Poles, Czechs and others. Their empire crumbled - "sucks to be them" and they only got off lightly because of the Soviet threat. Without that threat Germany would be a 3rd world state now.

I guess it was too hard to expect Germany to learn after one disastrous war- not to start a second one.

I'll reiterate - the economy Hitler was running would have burned out. As for the Versailles Treaty - what do you expect - Germany caused the death of millions of French, British US, Russian and various minority soldiers. At that time in history - they got off very lightly and Germany was loosing WW1 - with US joining WW1 it was only a matter of time and people were starving back home. WW1 was unsustainable for Germany. Oh and the Wehmacht tried it's civilian butchering tactics in Belgium already then - no Hitler but German soldiers were killing civilians already during WW1.

 

[PeterCH]

The war opened with deliberate acts of cultural vandalism by German troops, who burned down the university library of Louvain, Belgium, with its priceless collection of medieval manuscripts and early printed books, and shelled the Gothic cathedral of Rheims, the site of the coronation of French kings. Cultural destruction, the extreme result of a culture of war which encompassed not only a war of annihilation but also a war against the culture of the enemy, was a particularly symbolic transgression. It went in tandem with the mass killing of civilians – some 6,400 men, women, and children were executed during the invasion of Belgium and France in August-October 1914.

http://hnn.us/articles/44829.html

 

[semiautomatix]

If you follow the German economy prior to WW2 you'll realise that Germany was spending but not generating wealth. He only had enough energy to build up his military and then he had to attack.

Germany started WW1 themselves - with their Austro-Hungarian buddies. They wanted to maintain their 'rightful place in Europe' at the expense of the people they were subjugating and ethnically cleansing - Poles, Czechs and others. Their empire crumbled - "sucks to be them" and they only got off lightly because of the Soviet threat. Without that threat Germany would be a 3rd world state now.

I guess it was too hard to expect Germany to learn after one disastrous war- not to start a second one.

I'll reiterate - the economy Hitler was running would have burned out. As for the Versailles Treaty - what do you expect - Germany caused the death of millions of French, British US, Russian and various minority soldiers. At that time in history - they got off very lightly and Germany was loosing WW1 - with US joining WW1 it was only a matter of time and people were starving back home. WW1 was unsustainable for Germany. Oh and the Wehmacht tried it's civilian butchering tactics in Belgium already then - no Hitler but German soldiers were killing civilians already during WW1.

The German economy had already burnt out in the 1920s due to unreasonable reparations. By the 1930s Germany was prospering, wealth doesn't merely appear out of thin air. Please explain how munitions were being funded despite that fact that 10 years earlier Germany was effectively bankrupt? Wealth generated by business pumped into the economy resulting in the funding for the "war machine". As such Germany had a wealthy economy. Yes perhaps the government overextended itself through some crazy "arms race" but the money was made available on the back of a rapidly growing private sector which had developed from things other than armaments.

The reparations, abject poverty and world wide condemnation created the atmosphere that resulted in WWII. This was begun by Versailles and completed by Adolf Hitler. History has taught us that you can't suppress a mass of people and be surprised when they react - it cannot lead to any sort of peaceful outcome regardless of the reasoning behind it. People soon forget why they are being punished and start to look at their oppressors as being in the wrong.

If you condone the treaty of Versailles then you are doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past. Versailles caused resentment amongst Germans initially targeted at Jews and finally non-Germans, this paved the way for a maniac of the likes of Hitler. Had the Allies been intent on repeating this fault in 1945 it would have continued to perpetuate a Germany that resented the rest of the world. The Marshall plan was a wise move on the part of the West to not recreate an environment of hatred and mistrust that was prevalent in 1920s and 1930s Germany.

 

[semiautomatix]

http://hnn.us/articles/44829.html

Once again, I'll reiterate. Regardless of your justification you cannot oppress a mass of people, especially one the size of Germany, and expect a peaceful outcome, no resentment or retaliation.

 

[PeterCH]

The German economy had already burnt out in the 1920s due to unreasonable reparations. By the 1930s Germany was prospering, wealth doesn't merely appear out of thin air. Please explain how munitions were being funded despite that fact that 10 years earlier Germany was effectively bankrupt? Wealth generated by business pumped into the economy resulting in the funding for the "war machine". As such Germany had a wealthy economy. Yes perhaps the government overextended itself through some crazy "arms race" but the money was made available on the back of a rapidly growing private sector which had developed from things other than armaments.

Which means that they weren't all that burnt out in 1920. The reperation payments were reduced - and then they annexed various regions - Ruhr, Saar etc.

The reparations, abject poverty and world wide condemnation created the atmosphere that resulted in WWII. This was begun by Versailles and completed by Adolf Hitler. History has taught us that you can't suppress a mass of people and be surprised when they react - it cannot lead to any sort of peaceful outcome regardless of the reasoning behind it. People soon forget why they are being punished and start to look at their oppressors as being in the wrong.

Too simplistic and revisionist. Germany had lost WW1 - that was enough for Hitler to rabble rouse and show that Germany not only had to regain what they lost - what did they loose? They were'nt smaller than the Holy Roman Empire had ever been - oh they lost Poland and the Czech Republic which were larger until 1750's anyway - it was simply a matter of greed.

If you condone the treaty of Versailles then you are doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past. Versailles caused resentment amongst Germans initially targeted at Jews and finally non-Germans,

Germany was abusing Jews since they first arrived in the Holy Roman Empire.
Germany was subjugating its neighbors since the late 1700s and before that too.
Germany was killing civilians and ethnically cleansing people in World War 1.
These things have been diluted by what Hitler did, but to suggest that the Nazis were alone responsible for these atrocities is really white-washing history.

his paved the way for a maniac of the likes of Hitler. Had the Allies been intent on repeating this fault in 1945 it would have continued to perpetuate a Germany that resented the rest of the world. The Marshall plan was a wise move on the part of the West to not recreate an environment of hatred and mistrust that was prevalent in 1920s and 1930s Germany

No the Marshall Plan was there to rebuild Germany because of the Soviet threat. If the Soviet Union hadn't been so strong and aggressive - thank Germany in WW1 for sending Lenin back to Russia for that - there would be little need. What the Germans did in WW2 was so bad the world opinion and the opinion in the US was bent on leveling Germany and making it into one big agricultural area, without reparations to repay though. As things turned out Krupps, MB, VW, BMW etc did not repay their victims for abuses and slave labour. Revisionist movements in Germany are now even questioning WW2 itself. Finally Germany showed a big f-you to America when that country needed German support in Iraq.

 

[PeterCH]

Once again, I'll reiterate. Regardless of your justification you cannot oppress a mass of people, especially one the size of Germany, and expect a peaceful outcome, no resentment or retaliation.

The fact that Germany was able to churn out such a strong war machine during WW2 shows that the oppression of Versailles was neither inforced or practiced in the long run.

Let's face it - Europeans hated each other - Hitler was just a cherry on the cake, while the French did not like Germans - they did not kill their civilians - Germany went one up and already slaughtered civilians in WW1. 6,400 is a small number but it showed a trend.

Article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles assigned blame for the war to Germany; much of the rest of the Treaty set out the reparations that Germany would pay to the Allies.

The total sum of war reparations demanded from Germany — 226 billion Reichsmarks in gold (around £11.3 billion)— was decided by an Inter-Allied Reparations Commission. In 1921, it was reduced to 132 billion Reichsmarks (£4.99 billion).[11]

It could be seen that the Versailles reparation impositions were partly a reply to the reparations placed upon France by Germany through the 1871 Treaty of Frankfurt signed after the Franco-Prussian War; critics[who?] of the Treaty argued that France had been able to pay the reparations (5,000,000,000 francs) within 3 years while the Young Plan of 1929 estimated German reparations to be paid until 1988.[12] Indemnities of the Treaty of Frankfurt were in turn calculated, on the basis of population, as the precise equivalent of the indemnities imposed by Napoleon I on Prussia in 1807.[13]

The Versailles Reparations came in a variety of forms, including coal, steel, intellectual property (eg. the trademark for Aspirin) and agricultural products, in no small part because currency reparations of that order of magnitude would lead to hyperinflation, as actually occurred in postwar Germany (see 1920s German inflation), thus decreasing the benefits to France and the United Kingdom.

The reparations in the form of coal were a big part in punishing Germany. The Treaty of Versailles made out Germany to be responsible for the destruction of coal mines in Northern France, parts of Belgium, and parts of Italy. Therefore, France was awarded full possession of Germany's coal-bearing Saar basin. Also, Germany was forced to provide France, Belgium, and Italy with deliveries of millions of tons of coal for ten years. However, within a few years, Germany, under the control of Adolf Hitler, stopped these deliveries of coal; therefore violating the Treaty of Versailles.

A German author expressed the view that Germany would be finishing to pay off its World War I reparations until 2020.[14]

Wiki article

More recently it has been argued (for instance by historian Gerhard Weinberg in his book "A World At Arms"[28]) that the treaty was in fact quite advantageous to Germany. The Bismarckian Reich was maintained as a political unit instead of being broken up, and Germany largely escaped post-war military occupation (in contrast to the situation following World War II.)

The British military historian Correlli Barnett claimed that the Treaty of Versailles was "extremely lenient in comparison with the peace terms Germany herself, when she was expecting to win the war, had had in mind to impose on the Allies". Furthermore, he claimed, it was "hardly a slap on the wrist" when contrasted with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk that Germany had imposed on a defeated Russia in March 1918, which had taken away a third of Russia's population (albeit of non-Russian ethnicity), one half of Russia's industrial undertakings and nine-tenths of Russia's coal mines, coupled with an indemnity of six billion marks.[29]

The Treaty of Versailles was hardly new and it was no worse than what Germany would have imposed on the Allies or what they did impose on Russia. As a bonus Germany was not occupied with foreign troops. WW1 was a gamble Germany lost, WW2 was a second gamble they likewise lost. Let's hope they don't start a WW3 one day.

 

[semiautomatix]

I like this part. Holier than thou, eh?

Germany was abusing Jews since they first arrived in the Holy Roman Empire.
So were the French, Spanish, Italians and Russians
Germany was subjugating its neighbors since the late 1700s and before that too.
So were the French, Spanish, Italians and Russians
Germany was killing civilians and ethnically cleansing people in World War 1.
So were the French, Spanish, Italians and Russians; some before, during and some after

If you know anything about history you'll know that The British Isles (in one form or another), Spanish, Italians, Holy Roman Empire, Austro-Hungarians, even the Scandanavians had been at war and peace with one another for over a 1000 years. WWI happened to be little different from the wars fought for the last 200 years, with the exception of the scale due to technical advancement.

However, Versailles and the like resulted in a war unlike any other.

Let's face it - Europeans hated each other - Hitler was just a cherry on the cake, while the French did not like Germans - they did not kill their civilians - Germany went one up and already slaughtered civilians in WW1. 6,400 is a small number but it showed a trend.

Napoelonic wars and Franco-Prussian wars had been ongoing almost consistently for over a hundred years during which the French were no less bloodthirsty. WWI is merely hangover from the 19th century.

Before the Second World War no European power could be called blameless. Unfortunately there is always a winner and a loser.

WWII on the other hand was about something completely different. Oppression is oppression, whether it was for 5, 10 or 20 years it is enough for leaders to emerge to unite to a common goal (good or not) and against a common "enemy".

 

[Morgoth]

Hitler is just a war criminal because he lost the war in a imperialistic time.

 

[TheHiveMind]

The German economy would have burned out in a few more years - any idiot can do that.

Yeah, any idiot painter living off scraps can become the head of such a country, and almost take over the world. Everybody knows that.

 

[marine1]

Yeah, any idiot painter living off scraps can become the head of such a country, and almost take over the world. Everybody knows that.

Exactly, but you forget he was a psychopath and was funded by the Catholic Church, no?
Look at many leaders who came from nothing......

 

[adamr]

notice how the rest of this thread has very little to do with the original post ...

 

[semiautomatix]

notice how the rest of this thread has very little to do with the original post ...

Well it actually is discussing Germany under Hitler and whether he actually did revive and restore the country, as per Bernie's misplaced comments, or not.

We had already determined by post #4 that Ecclestine is an ijot of Malema calibre.

 

[SuperAntMD]

Oh please...like the Wehrmacht went around shooting mother's and babies. jeez, what a load of propaganda crap. The Wehrmacht were soldiers, just like they had in other army. I'm sure there were a couple of rotten apples in their bunch, but to act like all of them went around committing absurd crimes and feeling nonchalant about it is just you trying to prove your point in an undignified and pathetic way.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler's_Willing_Executioners#Reception

Hitler's Willing Executioners (1996) is a history book by Daniel Goldhagen which posits that ordinary Germans not only knew about, but also supported, the Holocaust because of a unique and virulent "eliminationist antisemitism" in the German identity, which had developed in the preceding centuries. Goldhagen writes that this special mentality grew out of medieval attitudes from a religious basis but was eventually secularized.