"Downfall: Der Untergang" [Archive]

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cerberus

05-05-2006, 07:18 PM

I put this in the History section as I feel it deserves some attention in the light of historical accuracy and in view of how these particular " Nazi's"
interpid a film which is based on the accounts of those who saw the "Downfall" at first hand.

http://nukeisrael.com/ww2/TraudlJunge.htm
Downfall is easily one of the greatest National Socialist propganada movies of our time: even though the Writer alledgely never wanted it to be. We urge all Nazi's to view it.

I find this difficult to understand - anyone who has seen the movie or read Fest's book would disagree with this statement.

Dan Dare

05-05-2006, 07:32 PM

I can see how Third Reich nostalgics might take comfort from the portrayal of Hitler as someone with human feelings and fallibilities, as well as a leader who was criminally betrayed by some of his most trusted associates.

I thought that the film was really excellent and Bruno Ganz deserved an Oscar.

cerberus

05-05-2006, 07:47 PM

I thought that the film was really excellent and Bruno Ganz deserved an Oscar.
Totally agree on that score dan - he was outstanding - you saw the ATB review on the film and its production ?
A friend of mine knows some of the Russians who were "extras" in the movie - a number of whom played the part of SS troops taking part in the attempted break out.

I can see how Third Reich nostalgics might take comfort from the portrayal of Hitler as someone with human feelings and fallibilities, as well as a leader who was criminally betrayed by some of his most trusted associates.
The movie showed Hitler from a warts and all perspective - what was most disturbing was the atmosphere in the bunker and how detached it was from reality in every sense that was possible.
Himmler certainly betrayed Hitler , Goring possibly , the ultimate betrayal was by Hitler.

Certainly a brave subject for Germany film makers to tackle and one of the best movies in recent times.

The view as put forward by the "nazi's" is hard to sustain unless you cherry pick the historical record and the movie.
Having said this those who look for a hero will do this.

Donny the Punk

05-06-2006, 01:09 AM

Brilliant film. I wrote about it shortly before seeing it in theatres and my expectations were not at all disappointed.

Everyone thinks that they would like to fight in a war. In truth, no one would enjoy that, and that distinction tells us less about war itself than its portrayal and the place it occupies in our collective consciousness. I've read soldiers' accounts of life cowering in bomb craters for days before the shelling relented enough to allow them to crawl to safety, life crouching in the smoking hulls of former metropolises with equal parts snow and ash drifting down from the sky, life in mobile murder squads assigned to extirpate villages of racially undesirable families at the behest of the state, life lived in such gruesome quotidien conditions that they simply cannot be grasped. I can describe with savage clarity what happens when the friend with whom you had shared breakfast and a cigarette not two days earlier comes sliding through the muddy wall of your trench as you raise a soup spoon to your mouth, mutilated by shrapnel and machine gun bullets as the rats froth in anticipation of an unresisting meal. To describe that experience, however, is an impossibility, I think. These are horrors beyond the understanding of the average man, who finds nothing in that episode he can relate to. It's like telling someone how it feels to fall in love, or have an orgasm, or be punched in the face. Without having been there or somewhere similar, these events lack a complete meaning.

Yet despite this impasse, this is precisely the aspect of war which attracts our imagination and fancy. War can be appreciated on two levels: the human, and the abstract and strategic. The latter is the war of generals shuffling their divisions around on a map, of children at home marking the positions of their countries' units with pins, of memorising the names of unknown towns and the regiments that fight over them, of admiring a pincer movement or rout, and most of all, of keeping score in numbers. Numbers of prisoners taken, enemies killed, soldiers lost, tanks destroyed, materiel captured, and so on. These are the sorts of things that impress technocrats and administrators; in other words, the Napoleons of the world. What they lack, however, is a romantic aspect that is capable of revealing some significant philosophical truth. There is no enlightenment about either man or war to be gained from this sort of analysis, except how to best manoeuvre those men to victory. I suppose that's a virtue in and of itself, but this post is not about managerial effectiveness.

Instead, the public clamours for the stories of the Paul Baumers and Yossarians of the world. Not necessarily for the anti-war sentiments that these two characters evoke, but for their familiarity with the subject matter under scrutiny. War after the fact functions very much like Greek tragedy; we know how it ends, but we want to know what it was like. These men are our gateway to intimacy with abomination. Theirs is a struggle of men against nature, their superiors, their enemies, technology, absurdity, defeat, suffering... whatever we want. A man's experiences as a soldier can be interpreted either as a paean for the glory of national character or the cruel sublimation of the individual to the capricious will of the state, or something else altogether. Either way, they function as a mirror for ourselves and they work so well precisely because war imposes the most extreme circumstances possible on its participants, thereby forcing them to rise to equal extremes of behaviour. It is this complete removal from the mundane and our inability to relate which allows us to elevate them as we do. In other words, war is drama.

I have always had a fascination with the Second World War, ever since owning my first set of plastic army man toys. It was a clear-cut battle of good versus evil fought with the most modern conventional technology available before military conflict was adumbrated by the atom bomb; every child's dream scenario. I also had several living relatives who'd participated and it was (and is) still being touted as the defining event of the twentieth century. Add to that some nationalistic fervour and the desire to exalt Canada's role in the conflict, and you get a picture of where I was coming from at that age. I carried this interest into my undergraduate studies but have found of late that my interest in the war itself has waned. Replacing it is an almost morbid curiosity about the machinations of the Third Reich. After several years of reading, I consider myself fairly well-versed in the historical details, but it is those same human aspects that were mentioned above which continue to draw my attention. The surrender of an otherwise sane population to a mad dictator, the willingness of so many to become pawns of evil and of so many more to turn a blind eye to its workings, and the entire nation having fanatically hurtled toward its own annihilation all beg for interpretation.

François Truffaut famously said that it was not possible to make an anti-war movie, because action argues in favour of itself. Restated, we sympathise with whichever point of view is being presented, and if more war movies were shot from the inglorious perspective of the losing side whose soldiers are massacred without establishing a beachhead and winning the day, this would not be the case. Downfall, a new German film, understands this. Watch the trailer, then continue reading. The excerpts in German are translated as follows.

Voiceover/General: "The Führer has lost all sense of reality. He moves divisions that only exist on his map. It's insane!"

General #2: "The enemy has broken through along a wide front."
Hitler (shouting): "Our generals are just a bunch of contemptible, disloyal cowards."

Hitler: "Berlin is now a front line city."
Response: "But there are over 3 million civilians."
Hitler: "They'll pay with their own blood."

Woman: "Put on the music!"

I have not yet seen the film since it has yet to be released in Edmonton, but I know that it is based largely on Joachim Fest's popular account of Hitler's last days and as can be seen from the trailer, has Timothy Ryback's stamp of approval as a historically accurate presentation. It's obvious from far more than simply this recommendation, however, that the movie is meticulous in its faithful portrayal of the subject matter. Compare the glimpse of Bruno Ganz removing his glasses with a description of Hitler by Captain Gerhard Boldt from February 1945 in Die letzten Tage:

His head was slightly wobbling. His left arm hung slackly and his hand trembled a good deal. There was an indescribable flickering glow in his eyes creating a fearsome and wholly unnatural effect. His face and the parts around his eyes gave the impression of total exhaustion. All his movements were those of a senile man.

In fact, Ganz spent time preparing for the role by studying Parkinson's patients in a Swiss hospital, as well as listening to recordings of Hitler's voice in order to imitate his accent and manner of speaking. The dialogue, too, reflects the realities of the situation with Hitler commanding not only nonexistent divisions, but also that they be supplied by planes that could no longer fly for lack of fuel. His decision to defend Berlin instead of the Alpine Redoubt and refusal to shift his centre of operations to Obersalzberg in Berchtesgaden are alluded to, as are his thoughts on the fate of the German people, which he related in detail to Albert Speer on 19 March:

If the war is to be lost, the nation will also perish. This fate is inevitable. There is no need to consider the basis even of a most primitive existence any longer. On the contrary, it is better to destroy even that, and to destroy it ourselves. The nation has proved itself weak, and the future belongs solely to the stronger eastern nation. Besides, those who remain after the battle are of little value; for the good have fallen.

Blaming everyone around him for his failed ventures, Hitler also took to dismissing, degrading, and even executing officers who were forced to give ground in the face of overwhelming odds. Notable among these was Sepp Dietrich, former leader of his personal bodyguard, then commander of the Sixth S.S. Panzer Army which was driven back into Vienna, surely one of Ganz's many "contemptible, disloyal cowards."

Oliver Herschbiegel, it seems, has assumed the role of Aeschylus and is offering us a modern Persians. Understandably, the movie has prompted worried criticisms that a German film with Hitler as the central character runs the risk of making him pitatiable and sympathetic. They are reminded, I suppose, of Aristotle's belief in the Poetics that tragedy acts as catharsis for the emotions it elicits. Really, those concerned needn't be except about those who already have sick minds. An unflattering movie told from the German point of view is what's needed to bring the realities of the war to the forefront of the German national consciousness. Already experiencing a recrudescence of age-old xenophobia and anti-semitism, the German response to the war and the Holocaust has essentially been to ignore them while making the occasional donation to Israeli defence or reparation payments to living victims without much fanfare. Because of the necessity of having Germans onside during the Cold War, the lie that the average German citizen had nothing to do with the rise of Nazism was invented (and greedily swallowed) and persists to this day. Perhaps this sort of film, which confronts us with the insanity of self-inflicted destruction and the consequences of willingly being led into madness will disabuse us - and them - of that notion.

Donny the Punk

05-06-2006, 01:18 AM

Conspiracy is also a brilliant Nazi film and I owe it to Sulla for having brought it to my attention.

Excorcism

05-06-2006, 03:47 AM

Conspiracy and Downfall are by far some of my favorite movies concerning the Nazis in WWII. Conspiracy showed the manner in which the Holocaust seemed to be planned in such a trouble-some free way and a matter of minutes and downfall solved discrepencies concerning Hitler's death.

Dan Dare

05-06-2006, 05:22 AM

Conspiracy is an HBO made-for-TV movie that includes some excellent performances - particularly Branagh as Heydrich, and Stanley Torturro as Eichmann - but one that ultimately stoops to playing to the gallery and their preconceived notions. Somewhat along the same lines as Potty's most recent contribution to the THHP, but hey we all have to earn a crust, right?

A far better depiction, and one is a far more honest portrayal about what is really known about what actually transpired on that January day in 1942 is the original 1984 German version which, as far as I am aware, is only available on VHS and laserdisc. I own a copy of the latter.

Donny the Punk

05-06-2006, 05:26 AM

It was Stanley Tucci and while I agree on the subject of Branagh, the former's performance was hardly exceptional. I greatly admired, however, Colin Firth's portrayal of Stuckart, especially during his verbal duel with Klopfer.

Dan Dare

05-06-2006, 05:38 AM

I stand corrected, serves me right for being too lazy to look it it up.

I frankly hadn't registered Colin Firth prior to Mrs. Dare's keen interest in his portrayal of Mr. Darcy.

Donny the Punk

05-06-2006, 05:40 AM

Yes, it was rather a change of pace considering that he plays Mr. Darcy in every single film, including the pseudo-Mr. Darcy in Bridget Jones' Diary. :D

Dan Dare

05-06-2006, 06:04 AM

I find myself obliged to bend the knee before your clearly superior scholarship in the field of 'chick-flicks'.

Donny the Punk

05-06-2006, 06:05 AM

You should try talking to a girl sometime, Dan. It'll do wonders for all your angst and drily sarcastic rage.

Dan Dare

05-06-2006, 06:07 AM

I'm not sure Mrs. Dare would appreciate being addressed as "a girl".

'She who must be obeyed' is more the preferred form of address.

LaundryBob

05-06-2006, 06:43 AM

Most of the dialogue from this film is taken almost directly from David Irving's Hitler's War. The crap about Goebbels saying stuff like "They (the German people) gave us their mandate and now their little throats are being cut" is just that... crap. The scenes of drinking and partying in the Bunker are also ridiculous, placed there for theatrical and propaganda value. The aesthetics of the film were good though.

Clear cut battle of good vs evil my ass. Jesus, Potyondi, do you really believe half the shit you write? I guess any buffoon who would seriously believe being dunked in holy toilet water as a baby has a meaningful effect on their fate after death will believe just about anything.

Dienekes

05-06-2006, 06:58 AM

Sulla the Dictator

05-06-2006, 07:25 AM

Most of the dialogue from this film is taken almost directly from David Irving's Hitler's War.

More like Irving's Hitler's War is quoting Joachim Fest's book "Inside the Bunker", upon which the movie is based.

The crap about Goebbels saying stuff like "They (the German people) gave us their mandate and now their little throats are being cut" is just that... crap.

I can understand why thats a fantasy you would like to indulge. However, since he said it to Hans Fritzsche, I'm afraid fantasy is all it is.

The scenes of drinking and partying in the Bunker are also ridiculous, placed there for theatrical and propaganda value.

(Sigh)

As in the days before, an oppressive stillness spread through the bunker. Small groups or individuals sat around, waiting. And then as though this existance, with its penchant for theatrically staged events, could not end without one last absurdly garish scene, dancing began in the Vorbunker canteen--the bunker inmates seeking release from weeks of unbearable tension. All the strict rules they had followed for so many years, though visibly neglected recently, now collapsed in an overpowering feeling of relief and finality. Boisterous music came from the loudspeakers, penetrating to the farthest corners of the underground labyrinth. An orderly was sent upstairs to ask for quiet. The Fuehrer, he told them, was about to die. But none of the canteen guests, most of whom were drunk, paid any attention to his request, and the carousing continued.

Inside Hitler's Bunker: The Last days of the Third Reich
by Joachim Fest
Page 115

Dan Dare

05-06-2006, 07:46 AM

More like Irving's Hitler's War is quoting Joachim Fest's book "Inside the Bunker", upon which the movie is based....

Hitler's War , Focal Point Press, 2002*

Inside the Bunker, The Last Days of the Third Reich, Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 2004

Hmmm.

*This is the most recent 'omnibus' edition. The original constituent volumes Hitler's War and The War Path were first published in 1977 and 1978, respectively.

cerberus

05-06-2006, 07:47 AM

I think the best part of "Downfall" is the fact that it refuses to demonize Hitler. Hitler and the Nazis have become sort of mythical boogeymen; the ultimate example of evil incarnate. While I think Hitler was one of the worst people in history, the fact remains that he was a human being. He didn't run around raging and foaming at the mouth all the time.

The film did show Hitler as a man under stress , his behavious as reported by those who observed him at first hand - his mood swings , his playing the drama queen - still seeking his date with destiny , his seeking scape goats , blaming others , temper , indifference to others - tempered with words of kindness .
As Eva said "He's the Fuhrer".
The scene following Hitler's death - they all "lite up" as if they had been waiting years to do so.
James O'Donnell's "The Bunker" is worth reading - its been a number of years since I read it but the impression it left was good.
Much of what is in the film is accurate and that is what makes it worth while.

Pleased to see that Pot. mentioned "Conspiracy" which is always worth a look.

Dan makes a point about the script playing to the gallery , perhaps right in part , but outside the minutes of the meeting which surived I think we can be sure that a lot of off the record conversations went on.

I did enjoy several scenes - the initial introductions.
"Tell him your name"
The verbal duel - " I'll remember you"
"You should do , I am quite well known"
" Vladivostok to Belfast , no more Jews" ( KB , must have inserted that line).;)

The 1980's film was also made for the small screen - I saw it years ago , do you have details on it Dan ?

More like Irving's Hitler's War is quoting Joachim Fest's book "Inside the Bunker", upon which the movie is based.
"Mr". Irving would always be claiming that he used only primary documents.;)

LaundryBob

05-06-2006, 07:58 AM

More like Irving's Hitler's War is quoting Joachim Fest's book "Inside the Bunker", upon which the movie is based.
Irving's books are based on primary sources alone. I have not read Fest's book (only his biograpy of Hitler), so I couldn't say how much they have in common... but all I know is when I watched Downfall, I knew almost exactly what the characters were going to say before they said it, from reading Hitler's War. This may be due to Fest and Irving interviewing the same witnesses/using the same sources, but Fest is not an original researcher. Kershaw also makes heavy use of Irving in his biography.

I can understand why thats a fantasy you would like to indulge. However, since he said it to Hans Fritzsche, I'm afraid fantasy is all it is.
Direct source please. I am curious about this one.

(Sigh)

As in the days before, an oppressive stillness spread through the bunker. Small groups or individuals sat around, waiting. And then as though this existance, with its penchant for theatrically staged events, could not end without one last absurdly garish scene, dancing began in the Vorbunker canteen--the bunker inmates seeking release from weeks of unbearable tension. All the strict rules they had followed for so many years, though visibly neglected recently, now collapsed in an overpowering feeling of relief and finality. Boisterous music came from the loudspeakers, penetrating to the farthest corners of the underground labyrinth. An orderly was sent upstairs to ask for quiet. The Fuehrer, he told them, was about to die. But none of the canteen guests, most of whom were drunk, paid any attention to his request, and the carousing continued.

Inside Hitler's Bunker: The Last days of the Third Reich
by Joachim Fest
Page 115
I stand corrected. I would be curious to see an original source for this too however. Also, I'd be curious to see which of your sources has Eva Braun dancing on table-tops listening to 'swing'. ROFL.

The Retard

05-06-2006, 08:03 AM

Wasn't some of this film based on Traudl Junge writings?

Donny the Punk

05-06-2006, 08:04 AM

It followed on the heels of an interview she gave; not too sure about writings.

LaundryBob

05-06-2006, 08:08 AM

Blind Spot: Hitler's Secretary is a more interesting film than Downfall.

cerberus

05-06-2006, 08:21 AM

Irving's books are based on primary sources alone
If you look at Kershaws index , Irving is not mentioned.
As far as "Hitler's War " goes would you actually see it as being an accurate work ?
Although its a seperate issue from the therad I would not be trustful of Irvings use of primary source material -he always semed to resent others using "his sources" as if he had some kind of ownership on them.
I have heard Kershaw speak - he is more coherent than Irving

LaundryBob

05-06-2006, 08:38 AM

If you look at Kershaws index , Irving is not mentioned.
As far as "Hitler's War " goes would you actually see it as being an accurate work ?
Although its a seperate issue from the therad I would not be trustful of Irvings use of primary source material -he always semed to resent others using "his sources" as if he had some kind of ownership on them.
I have heard Kershaw speak - he is more coherent than Irving
Irving, David, Hitler's War, London, etc., 1977.
... cited on page 1056, along with about 8 of Irving's other books, on page 1056 of Kershaw's Hitler biography, in the bibliography (not to mention numerous times throughout the footnotes).

cerberus

05-06-2006, 09:44 AM

If you look at Kershaws index , Irving is not mentioned.

Stand corrected Bob , Kershaw also used quite a few of his previous books on Hitler / 3rd Reich as secondary sources.
Irving seemed to infer that Kershaw was dependent on his (Irvings) works and research - in this I think he has a touch of the green eyed monster.
He requested that Kershaw appear as an expert witness in his libel case - Kershaw declined.
I make on secret of it I put Kershaw ahead of Irving as a historian.

http://www.shef.ac.uk/history/staff/modern/ian_kershaw.html

Winston

05-06-2006, 12:36 PM

Irving, for all his faults, is ten times the historian Kershaw is. He would be recognized as such if he didn't choose not to believe in the holocaust nonsense.

cerberus

05-06-2006, 12:54 PM

By all means integrity do a thread on him , its not new subject matter , nor is the "H".
Might I refer you to the formal debate on the subject and the wait for the reply from Basil which is on going , now 3 weeks over due and counting.

There are numerous "H" threads here and have been so far , both past and present.

BTW - you know that irving has since said the "Eichmann papers" informed him that Jews were gassed.:rolleyes:

Winston

05-06-2006, 02:21 PM

I'll wait until Irving is out of prison before I judge him on that.

That thread on the preposterous Treblinka story is hardly the final word on the matter. I consider the holocaust issue to be won by revisionists, we're just waiting for the public to awaken to that fact. Anyone familiar with revisionist arguments who still believes in the myth must surely have an agenda.

cerberus

05-06-2006, 03:00 PM

That thread on the preposterous Treblinka story is hardly the final word on the matter. I consider the holocaust issue to be won by revisionists, we're just waiting for the public to awaken to that fact. Anyone familiar with revisionist arguments who still believes in the myth must surely have an agenda.

Unlike Canute ( who knew the tide would come in ) you actually believe that the impossible will happen - fiction will become fact.
You are in for a long wait.
I sincerely hope that Rudolf is allowed to present his "Report" in his defence .
I suggest you open a thread on the "H" if you want - this one is only going off track quickly.

eggheadbanga

05-06-2006, 03:43 PM

what agenda do people who understand from their reading of the historical evidence that the mass murder of 5 to 6 million European Jews happened, have?

Just curious to know what I and millions of others are being accused of, what conspiracy of silence we're taking part in.

Winston

05-06-2006, 05:39 PM

Sulla the Dictator

05-06-2006, 07:36 PM

Irving's books are based on primary sources alone. I have not read Fest's book (only his biograpy of Hitler), so I couldn't say how much they have in common... but all I know is when I watched Downfall, I knew almost exactly what the characters were going to say before they said it, from reading Hitler's War. This may be due to Fest and Irving interviewing the same witnesses/using the same sources

Thats probably the case.

Direct source please. I am curious about this one.

Its in Fest's book.

When an official in the Propaganda Ministry, Assistant Secretary Hans Fritzsche, interjected that one should remember the people's loyalty and their readiness to make sacrifices, Goebbels, who usually expressed himself in carefully calculated terms, exploded, saying the people had also failed. "What can I do," he said indignantly, "with a people whose men don't fight even when their women are raped!" In the East, he said, "his face red with fury," the people run away and in the West they welcome the enemy with white flags.

He had no sympathy for the German people, especially since they themselves had chosen their fate. During the plebiscite on Germany's withdrawl from the League of Nations in 1933--a free election--the people voted against a policy of submission and for a policy of risk. The gamble had just happened to end in failure. Rising from his chair, he added, "Yes, that may come as a surprise to some people....Don't harbor any illusions! I didn't force anyone to work with me, just as we didn't force the German people. They appointed us...Now their little throats are going to be slashed!" On his way out, having almost reached the door, he turned once more and screamed into the room, "But when we step down, let the world tremble!"

--Inside Hitler's Bunker
page 56

I stand corrected. I would be curious to see an original source for this too however.

Thats supported by both Fest and Traudl Junge's book. Its unlikely that there is any 10 day period as exhaustively researched and known about as the last days in the Bunker. This narrative wasn't even sought after by the Allies for the sake of history. As you well know, they were trying to establish that Hitler had actually died there, and from witnesses constructed an incredibly thorough timeline.

Also, I'd be curious to see which of your sources has Eva Braun dancing on table-tops listening to 'swing'. ROFL.

The movie is also based on "Until the Final Hour" by Traudl Junge and Melissa Müller, and I assume its in there.

Sulla the Dictator

05-06-2006, 07:37 PM

That thread on the preposterous Treblinka story is hardly the final word on the matter.

It certainly is on this board.

eggheadbanga

05-06-2006, 08:09 PM

You say "millions" as if those millions have any real understanding of the holocaust. Most of those millions still believe in gassings at Bergen-Belsen and Dachau, and believe that the piles of corpses at those camps are proof of planned extermination. Put simply, the public in general has no idea of just how flimsy the orthodox version of events really is.

Nor does the public have much idea of the detailed coal-face research that has been done over the past sixty years refining historians' understanding of what happened. That's the public for you.

the question is, why do holocaust deniers persist in trying to stem the tide, Canute-style, of evidence which goes against their crank theories?

Winston

05-06-2006, 08:35 PM

I've seen no evidence of that. I've seen plenty of evidence, however, of the Holocaust Industry fighting to stop the 'deniers' being heard. The orthodox story survives best in the dark.

eggheadbanga

05-06-2006, 08:51 PM

I've seen no evidence of that. I've seen plenty of evidence, however, of the Holocaust Industry fighting to stop the 'deniers' being heard. The orthodox story survives best in the dark.

the orthodox story has been researched to death, that's why I asked this question:

the question is, why do holocaust deniers persist in trying to stem the tide, Canute-style, of evidence which goes against their crank theories?

just a simple one to start you off: if you claim the Jews were not murdered in the death-camps, what evidence do you have - note, I said evidence- that they went elsewhere?

cerberus

05-06-2006, 09:12 PM

Most of those millions still believe in gassings at Bergen-Belsen and Dachau, and believe that the piles of corpses at those camps are proof of planned extermination. Put simply, the public in general has no idea of just how flimsy the orthodox version of events really is.

I think eggheadbanga has answered you pretty much in full - its rather typical of the general publics knowledge on most historical subjects.
The average man in the street might not know Middle from the Old Kingdom , or if Crecy came before or after Agincourt , this does not change the course of history nor does it alter the facts and evidence.

The bottom line is the people who died at Dachau or Bergen-Belsen did so as a direct result of their treatment at the hands of the SS and the Hitler Goverment.
Would you disagree with that ?
Or would you say that they died beacuse of Allied disruption of the food supply or that they were really victims of Allied bombs - this is what some of the revisionist have said.

The revisionist view and its growth depends on their selling "Sand to the Arabs" and "Coal to Newcastle" , in short selling their illusions and delusions to those who can be fooled.
In short , folks like you.

Winston

05-06-2006, 10:08 PM

The western camps were swelled with people evacuated, at the request of the Americans, from the eastern camps. They should not have been in the camps, therefore the Nazis deserve the brunt of the blame. The allies share responsibility though for the terrible conditions at the end of the war. Although, of course, inmates died in large numbers before Germany was on her knees. Not through any planned extermination, whether in gas chambers or electric conveyer belts of death, or any other of the silly methods that wouldn't have been mentioned had there really been a method of murder.
The quality of evidence for extermination in the east is no more convincing than the reluctantly disregarded evidence for extermination in the western camps.

I'm sorry but in the future - not too far away I hope - it is you who will be feeling foolish.

themistocles

05-06-2006, 10:21 PM

I greatly admired, however, Colin Firth's portrayal of Stuckart, especially during his verbal duel with Klopfer.

I WROTE THAT LAW! :nono:

Sulla the Dictator

05-06-2006, 10:22 PM

I WROTE THAT LAW! :nono:

LMAO :rofl:

eggheadbanga

05-06-2006, 10:30 PM

cerberus

05-07-2006, 12:33 AM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The western camps were swelled with people evacuated, at the request of the Americans, from the eastern camps:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
Come on - pull the other one - the Americans "asked" that people be moved away from the advancing Red Army ?
Give us your sources.
They should not have been in the camps, therefore the Nazis deserve the brunt of the blame.
This I take as an agreement that the Nazi use of gettos and the mass deportion of inocent people from all over Europe should never have taken place and that the whole rotten racial exercise was a criminal act from start to finish.
"The brunt of the blame" , is the total blame , each and every death , man , woman and child. Let's not split hairs about it.

The allies share responsibility though for the terrible conditions at the end of the war.
Bullshit - complete and utter. Name your sources on any "request" made by any of the Allied powers that the camps in the east be evacutaed to the West.
The responsibility rested totally with the Hitler Goverment and the SS.
Starving people - show me one photo of a starving SS guard , anyone at all .

Not through any planned extermination, whether in gas chambers or electric conveyer belts of death, or any other of the silly methods that wouldn't have been mentioned had there really been a method of murder.

Funny you sound just like Basil.
Would you call the mass shootings as carried out and reported back to Himmler in great detail by Heydrich's Ez. gruppen as being a planned extermination ?
As "eggheadbanga" pointed out you have yet to explain where these people went to ?
Their departure to the Soviet Union cuts no ice.
Is mass shooting to be counted as a silly method of murder ?
PS Don't go the "they were all partisans" route - its a non runner from the start.

I'm sorry but in the future - not too far away I hope - it is you who will be feeling foolish
Key word here is "hope" , it springs eternal.
The quality of evidence for extermination in the east is no more convincing than the reluctantly disregarded evidence for extermination in the western camps.

You do sound like Basil.

cerberus

05-07-2006, 12:35 AM

Originally Posted by themistocles
I WROTE THAT LAW!

"Laws are like ice cream , easily melted"
"Every time the SS meet they want more"
" Let us not gossip like maid at the market , we are stalled for the winter".
" Do you ever think we will see the light again"

eggheadbanga

05-07-2006, 12:37 AM

Come on - pull the other one - the Americans "asked" that people be moved away from the advancing Red Army ?
Give us your sources.

at a guess, he's parroting the new Party Line espoused at the Fuehrerbunker by Johnny 'Hannover' Hargis

http://forum.codoh.com/viewtopic.php?t=3279

funnily enough the scanned document doesn't say what the denier pondlife think it says. :nono:

About par for the course really.

cerberus

05-07-2006, 12:43 AM

eggheadbanga

05-07-2006, 12:50 AM

Egghead banga - you know we missed it - how bloody stupid of us.
Don't you see - when Eichmann wanted to do the trucks for Jews trade.
The trucks were wanted to provide transport for the jews so they would not have to walk .
The kind and considerate SS wanted to comply with the American request , they even wanted to have the trucks to do it in their usual efficent master race fashion.:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
So when the trade was turned down the Allies were responsible , what with the Americans asking for the concentration camp inmates to be marchjed across Europe and them ( the Allies) not even being willing to supply the necessary transport.;) :rolleyes:
Do you think I might make it as a " scholarly revisionist".:D

It's nearly as funny as when one denier tried to claim on the basis of Cole's video that the gas chamber in the old Krematorium I couldn't have worked because there was a manhole there. Aha! We cried - so *that's* where they went! Needless to say this was yet another Cole confabulation...

I wonder what sockpuppet Integrity uses at the Cesspit.

Slavic Enforcer

05-07-2006, 12:53 AM

The Downfall is boring in my opinion (the only good thing about it is the guy who played Hitler, Bruno Ganz), Hitler - Rise of Evil is much better!

eggheadbanga

05-07-2006, 12:54 AM

The Downfall is boring, Hitler - Rise of Evil is much better! :cool:

Nah. Any movie which ends with Hitler blowing his brains out has got to be the coolest ever.

As the newspaper ads for its screening in the UK said. 'It has a happy ending - he dies'. :222:

cerberus

05-07-2006, 01:02 AM

Nah. Any movie which ends with Hitler blowing his brains out has got to be the coolest ever.

As the newspaper ads for its screening in the UK said. 'It has a happy ending - he dies'.
EghheadB.- I will just have to go with this .
In view of the words i have quoted above I will have to take you to a few lines from that great " historically accurate" movie made by Mel Gibson "Brave heart".
The battle sceen , the crazy Irish man says " Gad says he can get me out of this , but he says your fucked".
With your words quoted above you can be pretty sure you will never make it as a "revisionist" , my truck theory might have some milage in it .:D

Hitler - Rise of Evil is much better!
Not bad - Robert C. is always worth watching a good solid actor.

" Der Untergang" is ( IMO) the better of the two. It caught the isolated insanity of the bunker very well.

Damavand

06-24-2006, 01:53 AM

Everyone thinks that they would like to fight in a war. In truth, no one would enjoy thatjust reading through and noticed this, and wanted to point out that it's not borne out by reality. many people (you're an example) believe they would not like to fight in a war, so the first part of your statement is obviously not true. it is also not true that no one would enjoy fighting in a war -- there are people who do, including experienced combat veterans who say so, and they're very easy to find. the american lt. gen james mattis put it bluntly, "it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them... it's a lot of fun to fight." then there's that marine i saw in an interview just the other day who had just killed an iraqi guerrilla and said it felt "awesome", with obvious excitement on his face, and that he couldn't wait to do it again.

while war is full of horrors, it's just not accurate to say no one enjoys fighting in war. whether this is "moral" or not is another question.

wintermute

06-24-2006, 07:21 AM

The last word on the matter, appropriately enough, from Mr. Irving himself. I think this review will answer a number of questions raised on this thread.

I thought the film remarkable, no more so than for the (truncated) inclusion of Hitler's political testament, a remarkable document comparable in elocution to speeches by Lincoln and Churchill, but with an infinitely greater truth value.

Irving is right to sense something subersive going on here. An American producer wouldn't let even a paragraph of that testament be read on screen.

I've reprinted it following Irving's review/ historical evaluation of the film.

Wintermute

http://www.fpp.co.uk/docs/Irving/RadDi/2005/010205.html

January 31, 2005 (Monday)
London (England)

5:45 PM TAXI to Soho Square to the studios of Twentieth Century Fox, for a private viewing of Downfall, Der Untergang -- the new German film of Hitler's last days. Lady Michele accompanies me. The movie theatre is packed, and I notice four staff members from Wiener Library have signed in ahead of me in the guest book. I wonder what they make of the film. I know what C C Aronsfeld would have thought!

I must say that after all the hoopla in the German media, I am disappointed. From the opening title of Constantin Film Verleih, worse than the clumsiest that Ufa could produce, to the closing sequence -- pictures of the actors, with where-are-they-now biographies of the real characters, the film was unbelievably clunky and amateurish in parts. The German producers did not stoop to Steven Spielberg's trick of making it in black and white ("to provide documentary footage for the future", as the chief camera director of Schindler's List disingenuously told his trade journal Der Kameramann); the colour in Downfall is washed-out, low key, Berlin-grim.

The actors are sometimes easy to identify -- for us Nazi experts anyway -- by the uniform they are wearing, and sometimes not; Dr Joseph Goebbels is far too big to be the Little Doctor, but he is evidently chosen for his ability to mimic the propaganda minister's superb Rhineland elocution, and at times he does so with chilling verisimilitude.

A corpulent army general is identified to us only in the closing titles as having been Alfred Jodl, hanged at Nuremberg; we would never have guessed -- the real Jodl was a wiry, balding, and spare-framed mountain-artillery officer.
Martin Bormann, the same: fat, perspiring, unhealthy in the film, in reality burly, muscular, slicked haired, and scowling.

Otto Günsche, Hitler's long-time SS adjutant, we would never have recognized from the tall handsome dark-haired officer in the film; the real Günsche, who provided to me in the 1960s the first hand narrative on how Hitler and Eva Braun took their own lives, and the dialogue between them which mysteriously turns up verbatim in this film script, was burly, Aryan, and blonde.

In the film Walther Hewel, Ribbentrop's liaison officer to Hitler, is a thin, nervous, weedy, pharmacy-clerk type of man; in reality (see my picture from his files: he is at far right, with Heydrich, centre, and Julius Schaub) he was a broad shouldered, suave, dark-haired diplomat, a handsome lady's man -- the only top Nazi to have seen the outside world, having spent twelve years of his life as a rubber planter in Java.

HAVING said that, I can say what saves this film and elevates it into a stellar category are the spectacular and deeply human portrayal by Bruno Ganz (below) of the aging and defeated Adolf Hitler -- he has perfected the guttural Austrian accent down to the last rolling rrrrr; and the warm, affectionate portrayal of his secretary from 1942 to the end, Traudl Junge. She is played by a Transylvanian-born actress of great feminity and beauty, with moist, limpid eyes that are able eloquently to convey her feelings, for example the delicate disgust when Goebbels dictates his final will, emphasizing the purity and unblemished (makellos) character of his actions, before turning away to mastermind the murder of his six children.

This is the one scene which does bring a tear to my eyes, I confess, even though the script falsely has Dr Ludwig Stumpfegger administering a sleeping draught to the reluctant infants, whereas they were in fact anesthetized with a morphine injection by the SS dentist in the bunker; when they were sound asleep their mother Magda crushed a glass a cyanide ampoule in each tiny mouth using a pair of pliers.

Magda here is a departure from reality; she is played as a cunning, fiendish, Machiavellian, raven-haired and slender female displaying all the warmth and maternal charm of the evil "Mrs Danvers" in Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca; I do know real women who are like that, but in reality Magda Goebbels (right, with her two oldest daughters) was a simple, charming, feminine woman, once platinum-blonde, whose comeliness as a female was a not lessened by having borne six children. She had once dated Chaim Arlosoroff, a Zionist fanatic later assassinated in Palestine, and her step father (and I believe real father) Robert Friedländer was Jewish (and met his end like many other Jews as a dehumanized prisoner in the concentration camp at Buchenwald).

I WAS taken aback by the two figures selected by scriptwriter Bernd Eichinger for "good guy" treatment in the script. One is Professor Dr Dr Ernst-Günther Schenck; I interviewed him many times in the 1970s and obtained from him the graphic descriptions and dialogues of the last two days in the bunker -- which now strangely turn up, unchanged, in this film's script. Note that in the German façon, having won two doctorates, he sported both Dr's in his title. He headed an SS branch on nutritional medicine, and there are the inevitable allegations against him as an SS doctor.

In this film however Schenck is an unquestioned moralising hero, as is a far darker figure, Hermann Fegelein. The real Hermann Fegelein was a murderous, womanizing, power-hungry SS cavalry officer -- I interviewed his brother Waldemar once -- who married Eva Braun's slightly sluttish sister Gretl, and was shot for desertion in the last days of the war. Eva incidentally was about ten years younger than the actress in this film. He was found in his apartment in Berlin, in civilian clothes, planning to flee, with a belt of gold coins to facilitate his flight; as well he might, for an Allied gallows would certainly have awaited this officer, whose 1st SS Cavalry Division of horseback huntsmen conducted a ruthless war against Partisans and their accomplices -- and we historians all know what that means -- in the occupied eastern territories.

His adjutant, the late Johannes Göhler, an upstanding Waffen SS officer, was a good source of mine and provided to me a sheaf of his private letters written from Hitler's HQ from August 1944 to the end. Fegelein's fate, shot for desertion, is well documented. The film shows Hitler however virtually foaming at the mouth as he demands this execution. Not so:
first, Hitler's adjutants assured me that he did not foam, even metaphorically, but was always calm and measured in his elocution (except for the one occasion, April 22, 1945, when he did suffer a dramatic breakdown on hearing of the failure of military operations for the relief of Berlin); and
second, Otto Günsche told me that it was he personally who had gone to Hitler and advised him that he and the other adjutants, hearing that the Chief was minded to show clemency, were demanding that Fegelein be stood before a firing squad for his cowardice.

There are loose ends left unexplained in the film. General Hans Krebs is shown at the end, negotiating with Marshal Zhukov's officers and speaking fluent Russian; left as it is, it gives the impression that he may have been a Soviet traitor in Hitler's headquarters. In fact he spoke fluent Russian having been military attaché in Moscow until Barbarossa began in June 1941.

We are not told why the secretary Traudl Humps' name changes in mid-film to Traudl Junge. She had married Hitler's Ordonnanz, SS Hauptsturmführer Wolf Junge, but the wartime marriage did not last long. She described to me how in June 1944 "the Chief" (wrongly translated as Führer, several times, in the sub-titles) had sent for her, tears in his eyes, taken both her hands in his, and said, "Ach, mein Kind, I am so sorry" -- and broken to her the news that Wolf had just been killed in action in the Normandy fighting.

ALTHOUGH the "consultant" credited in the titles is a certain Joachim Fest, well-known German TV presenter and personality and author, I suspect that my own name might by rights have been there in the titles too. As my readers will recognize immediately, at least fifty percent of the dialogue has been lifted straight out of my book Hitler's War (first published in Germany in 1975), and much of the rest from my Joseph Goebbels biography too!

There is nothing new or even unusual about this. Fest is not an author well known for original research but, as they say, using just one book is plagiarism; using two is investigation; while using three or more is deep, profound, original, and overwhelming in-depth research.

Several times, as a scene was set up in this film, I found that I knew precisely what was going to come next; once, the screen fills with Hitler handing out cyanide capsules to his staff, standing dutifully in line as though at a Christmas reception, and he reaches Traudl. I turn to Lady M, and recite: "I am so sorry that I can offer you nothing better than this." And there is that very line on the screen.

I am sorry too -- sorry to see that the film makers have done to Traudl what they did to Lida Baarova (Goebbels' girlfriend, right) in her Westdeutscher Rundfunk television interview about him: they required the latter female to come back on screen and gently grovel (but Lida cleverly changes her dress for this final shot, so that future cognoscenti can recognize what has happened).

So here too, after the Hitler film ends, it produces the real Traudl Junge, now in her late 80s, wrinkled and with her once-fair complexion pocked and blemished by the imminent onset of death, and she apologises for not having seen how wicked her Chief, Adolf Hitler, really was.

At one point in this toe-curling postscript her memorized lines make her say that she has recently realized, walking past the memorial tablet for Sophie Scholl -- one of the student traitors in Munich -- that Sophie was the same age as she, and had been executed on the same day that she was being interviewed by Hitler for her job as a secretary. But that cannot have been so, because her job interview was in November 1942, as the film also makes plain at the beginning; and the Scholl sisters were executed in 1943 -- in March, if memory serves. But even here something of the real Traudl tweaks through. She says that had she known what was going on . . . to the Jews . . . then, of course . . . but she never heard even a murmur of that while working next to Hitler.

At Hitler's headquarters! At Hitler's side: present at his conference table, and at his table talks: throughout the remaining months of the war, from Stalingrad onwards, literally to the very end: never heard a murmur about what since the 1970s is called The Holocaust. Now what can that portend?

That is a real conundrum, which may or may not sink in with the movie-goers. All of Hitler's staff, including his surviving verbatim conference stenographers, confirmed this to me -- that nothing was ever said or known about it at Hitler's HQ -- as did Richard Schulze, his personal SS adjutant, when I invited him to attend a live David Frost TV program devoted to my Hitler biography on June 9, 1977); just as Hitler's personal staff had all told the American and British interrogators shortly after the war, at a time when to say otherwise would certainly have earned them favours, like a transfer from the criminal wing to the privileged witness wing at Nuremberg. Kurzum: Not a word of the atrocities filtered back into Hitler's "monastery-like" headquarters.

SOME of the scenes in this film are breathtaking, almost religious tableaux, constructed to the nearest millimetre from the surviving photos:

Hitler ten days before the end handing out Iron Crosses to schoolboy-age Hitler Youths for heroism against the Soviet tanks.

Hitler emerging briefly from the ruined bunker to the garden, surrounded by his staff (a photograph actually taken after a British air raid in November 1943, according to Julius Schaub, not in April 1945).

There are some minor flaws. History shows that Hitler orders the thirty or so nurses brought in to his bunker from the next-door Voss Street bunker, which has been turned into an emergency hospital, to decorate and commend them for their courage in tending the injured. Schenck described the scene to me -- and here it is, like magic, in Bernd Eichinger's film -- but there is only one nurse here, the one who sinks in hysterics to the ground and clutches Hitler's knees and implores him to leave Berlin. Economising on extras?

Another tiny flaw: I would swear that the exit staircase from the bunker was a Wendeltreppe, a spiral staircase, not the square concrete staircase shown in the film. Otto Günsche told me how awkward he had found it to carry the cyanide-reeking body of Eva Braun up the spiral to the garden. But Winston Ramsay, editor-in-chief of After the Battle, has also attended the screening, and he has actually visited the ruins, and he tells me over a modest supper in Soho afterwards that he thinks that "square" is right, not spiral.

UNIMPORTANT? But there are also major excesses and distortions. The bacchanalian scenes and orgies -- routine in such narratives now -- are fiction. Not a cigarette was lit in the Bunker until Hitler was dead. The drinking did begun, but it was necessarily discreet. I cannot credit at all one final scene, showing General Helmut Weidling, the city's Kampfkommandant, driving round Berlin in a loudspeaker van roaring that Hitler has committed suicide and betrayed his men. On the contrary, Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz and the German people were told that "the Führer has fallen in action, defending the Reich capital."

The corresponding radio announcement on May 1, 1945 was actually made by the late Jochen Piechocki, Vertreter der SS im RmfVuP, later better known as Jochen von Lang, my friend the capable Stern researcher who discovered the remains of Martin Bormann and Dr Stumpfegger beneath a Berlin street in the 1970s: "Our Führer, Adolf Hitler, has fallen in battle while fighting to the last breath ."

[B]What is remarkable is that the Adolf Hitler masterfully portrayed in this film is allowed on three or four occasions to deliver compelling National Socialist propaganda speeches to his audience which, I estimate, will not be without effect on ordinary Germans (to borrow Professor Christopher Browning's eloquent phrase).

The real National Socialism was not what it had become by 1945. It was something else, purer, infinitely less criminal, and infinitely more idealistic. Hitler's personal adjutant Alwin-Broder Albrecht wrote this in his last letter (his widow showed it to me), before storming out of the Chancellery building after the Chief's death with a blazing sub-machine gun in his hands, and going down in a hail of Russian bullets. Hitler too makes plain his regrets about this deviation from his original National Socialist ideal, in brief monologues in the film.

So my verdict on the film is this: Must Try Harder. Downfall is a good attempt, and great entertainment if you like that sort of thing; not a tear-jerker (like Hitler's War, according to my friend David Kahn) but an innovational film. It has brilliant, indeed intimidating, all-around sound effects of the Battle for Berlin, and wonderful and accurate portrayals of both Hitler and his secretary Traudl Junge; but a jerky, wooden script, which takes liberties with history and the real characters. There are too many helpings of p.c. and of undiluted Schlock; too much Hitlerjunge Quex (the prewar non-Goebbels movie, in which the grand music of the Horst Wessel Lied swells from the screen as the film's young hero, mercilessly beaten by communists, dies giving the Hitler salute).

Stephen Spielberg would have done it better.

===============================

ADOLF HITLER

My political testament.

More than thirty years have passed since 1914 when I made my modest contribution as a volunteer in the First World War, which was forced upon the Reich.

In these three decades love and loyalty to my people have guided all my thoughts, actions and my life. They gave me the strength to make the most difficult decisions ever to confront mortal man. In these three decades I have spent my strength and my health.

It is untrue that I or anyone else in Germany wanted war in 1939. It was wanted and provoked solely by international statesmen either of Jewish origin or working for Jewish interests. I have made too many offers for the limitation and control of armaments, which posterity will not be cowardly enough always to disregard, for responsibility for the outbreak of this war to be placed on me. Nor have I ever wished that, after the appalling First World War, there would ever be a second against either England or America. Centuries will go by, but from the ruins of our towns and monuments the hatred of those ultimately responsible will always grow anew against the people whom we have to thank for all this: international Jewry and its henchmen.

Only three days before the outbreak of the German-Polish war I proposed a solution of the German-Polish problem to the British Ambassador in Berlin - international control as in the case of the Saar. This offer, too, cannot be lied away. It was only rejected because the ruling clique in England wanted war, partly for commercial reasons and partly because it was influenced by the propaganda put out by international Jewry.

I have left no one in doubt that if the people of Europe are once more treated as mere blocks of shares in the hands of these international money and finance conspirators, then the sole responsibility for the massacre must be borne by the true culprits: the Jews. Nor have I left anyone in doubt that this time millions of European children of Aryan descent will starve to death, millions of men will die in battle, and hundreds of thousands of women and children will be burned or bombed to death in our cities without the true culprits being held to account, albeit more humanely.

After six years of war which, despite all setbacks, will one day go down in history as the most glorious and heroic manifestation of the struggle for existence of a nation, I cannot abandon the city which is the capital of this Reich. Since our forces are too meager to withstand the enemy's attack and since our resistance is being debased by creatures who are as blind as they are lacking in character, I wish to share my fate with that which millions of others have also taken upon themselves by remaining in this city. Further, I shall not fall into the hands of the enemy who requires a new spectacle, presented by the Jews, for the diversion of the hysterical masses.

I have therefore decided to stay in Berlin and there to choose death voluntarily when I determine that the position of the Fuhrer and the Chancellery itself can no longer be maintained. I die with a joyful heart in the knowledge of the immeasurable deeds and achievements of our peasants and workers and of a contribution unique in the history of our youth which bears my name.

That I am deeply grateful to them all is as self-evident as is my wish that they do not abandon the struggle but that, no matter where, they continue to fight the enemies of the Fatherland, faithful to the ideals of the great Clausewitz. Through the sacrifices of our soldiers and my own fellowship with them unto death, a seed has been sown in German history that will one day grow to usher in the glorious rebirth of the National Socialist movement in a truly united nation.

Many of our bravest men and women have sworn to bind their lives to mine to the end. I have begged, and finally ordered, them not to do so but to play their part in the further struggle of the nation. I ask the leaders of the Army, the Navy and the Air Force to strengthen the National Socialist spirit of resistance of our soldiers by all possible means, with special emphasis on the fact that I myself, as the founder and creator of this movement, prefer death to cowardly resignation or even to capitulation.

May it become a point of honor of future German army officers, as it is already in our Navy, that the surrender of a district or town is out of the question and that, above everything else, the commanders must set a shining example of faithful devotion to duty unto death.

Before my death, I expel former Reichs-Marshal Hermann Goring from the party and withdraw from him all the rights that were conferred upon him by the decree of 29 June, 1941 and by my Reichstag statement of 1 September, 1939. In his place I appoint Admiral Donitz as President of the Reich and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces.

Before my death, I expel the former Reichsfuhrer of the S.S. and the Minister of the Interior Heinrich Himmler from the party and from all his state officers. In his place I appoint Gauleiter Karl Hanke as Reichsfuhrer of the S.S. and Head of the German Police, and Gauleiter Paul Giesler as Minister of the Interior.

Apart altogether from their disloyalty to me, Goring and Himmler have brought irreparable shame on the whole nation by secretly negotiating with my enemy without my knowledge and against my will, and also by attempting illegally to seize control of the State.

In order to provide the German people with a government of honorable men who will fulfill the task of continuing the war will all the means at their disposal, I, as Fuhrer of the nation, appoint the following members of the new cabinet:

President of the Reich: Donitz
Chancellor of the Reich: Dr Goebbels
Party Minister: Bormann
Foreign Minister: Seyss-Inquart
Minister of the Interior: Gauleiter Giesler
Minister of War: Donitz
Supreme Commander of the Army: Schorner
Supreme Commander of the Navy: Donitz
Supreme Commander of the Air Force: Greim
Reichsfuhrer of the S.S. and Head of the German Police: Gauleiter Hanke
Trade: Funk
Agriculture: Backe
Justice: Thierack
Culture: Dr Scheel
Propaganda: Dr Naumann
Finance: Schwerin-Crossigk
Labor: Dr Hupfauer
Munitions: Saur
Leader of the German Labor Front and Minister without Portfolio: Dr Ley.

Although a number of these men, including Martin Bormann, Dr Goebbels and others together with their wives have joined me of their own free will, not wishing to leave the capital under any circumstances and prepared to die with me, I implore them to grant my request that they place the welfare of the nation above their own feelings. By their work and loyal companionship they will remain as close to me after my death as I hope my spirit will continue to dwell among them and accompany them always. Let them be severe but never unjust and let them never, above all, allow fear to preside over their actions, placing the honor of the nation above everything that exists on earth. May they, finally, always remember that our task, the consolidation of a National Socialist state, represents the work of centuries to come, so that every individual must subordinate his own interest to the common good. I ask of all Germans, of all National Socialists, men and women and all soldiers of the Wehrmacht, that they remain faithful and obedient unto death to the new government and its President.

Above all, I enjoin the government and the people to uphold the race laws to the limit and to resist mercilessly the poisoner of all nations, international Jewry.

Berlin, 29 April, 1945, 4 a.m.

Adolf Hitler

Witnesses:

Dr Joseph Goebbels Wilhelm Burgdorf
Martin Bormann Hans Krebs

Sulla the Dictator

06-24-2006, 07:47 AM

The real National Socialism was not what it had become by 1945. It was something else, purer, infinitely less criminal, and infinitely more idealistic.

My God, why does this guy even pretend that he isn't a Nazi sympathizer?

BTW, I suspect that had any other person written a movie review where he called Eva Braun's sister a slut, or Fegelein a butcher, Wintermute would be accusing them of an unforgivable bias.

Dan Dare

06-24-2006, 08:04 AM

Sulla's arm-waving appears to be a desperate attempt at deflecting readers' attention away from this:

But even here something of the real Traudl tweaks through. She says that had she known what was going on . . . to the Jews . . . then, of course . . . but she never heard even a murmur of that while working next to Hitler.

At Hitler's headquarters! At Hitler's side: present at his conference table, and at his table talks: throughout the remaining months of the war, from Stalingrad onwards, literally to the very end: never heard a murmur about what since the 1970s is called The Holocaust. Now what can that portend?

That is a real conundrum, which may or may not sink in with the movie-goers. All of Hitler's staff, including his surviving verbatim conference stenographers, confirmed this to me -- that nothing was ever said or known about it at Hitler's HQ -- as did Richard Schulze, his personal SS adjutant, when I invited him to attend a live David Frost TV program devoted to my Hitler biography on June 9, 1977); just as Hitler's personal staff had all told the American and British interrogators shortly after the war, at a time when to say otherwise would certainly have earned them favours, like a transfer from the criminal wing to the privileged witness wing at Nuremberg. Kurzum: Not a word of the atrocities filtered back into Hitler's "monastery-like" headquarters.

Ahknaton

06-24-2006, 08:25 AM

The real National Socialism was not what it had become by 1945. It was something else, purer, infinitely less criminal, and infinitely more idealistic.My God, why does this guy even pretend that he isn't a Nazi sympathizer?I think you have misread him. He is labelling the Nazi regime of 1945 as impure, criminal and unidealistic, and contrary in spirit to that of the "real National Socialism", which he prefers.

Please stop willfully misattributing sentiments to your opponents that they do not possess.

wintermute

06-24-2006, 08:25 AM

Sulla's arm-waving appears to be a desperate attempt at deflecting readers' attention away from this:

Nothing escapes those hawk eyes of yours, Dan.

Between the introduction of the profoundly subversive political testament, there is the statement by Traudl:

She says that had she known what was going on . . . to the Jews . . . then, of course . . . but she never heard even a murmur of that while working next to Hitler.

At Hitler's headquarters! At Hitler's side: present at his conference table, and at his table talks: throughout the remaining months of the war, from Stalingrad onwards, literally to the very end: never heard a murmur about what since the 1970s is called The Holocaust. Now what can that portend?

What can that portend? The confirmation by other survivors of the Bunker, who might have gained cushier positions at Nuremburg by saying what the "court" wished to hear, confirm her testimony.

Someone involved in the making of this movie possesses an extremely subtle mind. You will notice that six pages of commentary went by here with no one extracting the importance of her comments.

I myself missed them, so caught up was I by the claims made in Hitler's testament, a document which is passed over or given the ellipsis treatment in works I've been exposed to. It opens up new areas in resarch about the seriousness with which the Nazis pursued peace.

For some real eye-opening commentary, go over to www.imdb.com to check out the viewer in the street commentary. It is intelligent, positive, curious, excited, and amazed.

And . . .

There are thirty seven pages of it.

Something important has been done here.

Wintermute

Sulla the Dictator

06-24-2006, 09:01 AM

Sulla's arm-waving appears to be a desperate attempt at deflecting readers' attention away from this:

Why would I be distracting people from that? Its twaddle. Some of Hitler's staff even claimed they didn't know anyone other than criminals and Communists were being sent to the camps. Thats not even something YOU believe, I'm sure.

A bit of a blow to the idea of the nipple twisting Inquisition forcing confessions out of Hitler's intimates, btw.

Sulla the Dictator

06-24-2006, 09:03 AM

I think you have misread him. He is labelling the Nazi regime of 1945 as impure, criminal and unidealistic, and contrary in spirit to that of the "real National Socialism", which he prefers.

Please stop willfully misattributing sentiments to your opponents that they do not possess.

What are you talking about? I was referring to his preference for the 'real National Socialism', which in fact was always criminal.

I consider someone who has any affection for National Socialism to be a Nazi symapthizer. Don't you? :p

Ahknaton

06-24-2006, 09:21 AM

I consider someone who has any affection for National Socialism to be a Nazi symapthizer. Don't you? :pNo.

National Socialism cannot be equated with Naziism any more than "nationalism" can be equated with "Zionism". Naziism is simply one example of (German) National Socialism. National Socialism was not invented by Adolf Hitler (although Hitler's ideology is the most prominent example of its implementation) and the term was used by several political groups preceding the NSDAP. Also, National Socialism can be applied to any nation, whereas Naziism is specifically German in character. For example, it's perfectly consistent for a Jew to endorse National Socialist policies in Israel (in fact that is arguably what Zionism was in it's early manifestation), but oppose Naziism. Conflating National Socialism with Naziism is intellectually dishonest. It's like equating "fruit" with "apple".

Sulla the Dictator

06-24-2006, 09:23 AM

National Socialism cannot be equated with Naziism any more than "nationalism" can be equated with "Zionism". Naziism is simply one example of (German) National Socialism. National Socialism was not invented by Adolf Hitler (although Hitler's ideology is the most prominent example of its implementation) and the term was used by several political groups preceding the NSDAP. Also, National Socialism can be applied to any nation, whereas Naziism is specifically German in character. For example, it's perfectly consistent for a Jew to endorse National Socialist policies in Israel (in fact that is arguably what Zionism was in it's early manifestation), but oppose Naziism. Conflating National Socialism with Naziism is intellectually dishonest.

LOL Ok Ahknaton, before we get into that, I'm going to assume that you don't consider the Bolsheviks or Soviets to mean Communists. After all, Bolshevism is just one possible form of Communism. And thus, to conflate Bolshevism with Communism is intellectually dishonest. Correct?

Ahknaton

06-24-2006, 09:26 AM

LOL Ok Ahknaton, before we get into that, I'm going to assume that you don't consider the Bolsheviks or Soviets to mean Communists. After all, Bolshevism is just one possible form of Communism. And thus, to conflate Bolshevism with Communism is intellectually dishonest. Correct?Correct.

There are many political systems that could be labelled "Communist", that are not "Bolshevik". In practise I don't really find any form of Communism appealing, but to label them all "Bolshevik" would be inaccurate.

Sulla the Dictator

06-24-2006, 09:31 AM

Correct.

There are many political systems that could be labelled "Communist", that are not "Bolshevik". In practise I don't really find any form of Communism appealing, but to label them all "Bolshevik" would be inaccurate.

Then can you identify a National Socialist government other than the Nazis, or states that were allied to the Nazis?

Sulla the Dictator

06-24-2006, 09:32 AM

BTW, you're not suggesting that Irving is referring to any National Socialist government OTHER than the Nazis, right?

Ahknaton

06-24-2006, 09:41 AM

Then can you identify a National Socialist government other than the Nazis, or states that were allied to the Nazis?
That's really meaningless question, since a lack of examples of national socialist governments not allied with Nazi Germany doesn't prove that it's not possible to have a government that could be correctly termed "national socialist" without possessing the same negative qualities as the Nazis.

There are several political parties that have labelled themselves "national socialist" that are not "Nazi":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Party

Also, there are several governments that could be called "National Socialist" but who do not identify themselves as such because of the negative stigma of the label since WW2. For example, the State of Israel in it's early years was arguably national socialist, because it is founded on an ethnic and religious identity (that was protected through discriminatory immigration policies and explusion of Arabs from certain territories), and practised some socialist economic policies (e.g. collective farming, and state subsidisation of industries such as the arms industry, which continued to this day). I would also label the government of New Zealand in the 1970s-early 80s under the National Party's Robert Muldoon as "national socialism".

Ahknaton

06-24-2006, 09:46 AM

BTW, you're not suggesting that Irving is referring to any National Socialist government OTHER than the Nazis, right?
No. But I think he is a sympathiser with the national socialist ideology of the Nazis during their earlier years as opposed to their wartime conduct. There are several positive aspects of national socialism, even as practised by the Nazis. I don't see why it is not acceptable to point these out, while expressing disapproval of the negative aspects of German national socialism, especially since it is far from certain that it is not possible to have these positive aspects without having the negative ones too. I think a form of national socialism without the expansionist territorial aggression (which is arguably not "nationalist" but "imperialist") and genocidal policies of the Nazis is a very agreeable ideology. Why throw the baby out with the bathwater?

Thomas777

10-06-2006, 09:21 PM

I watched this film last night and I was quite impressed with it. By and large, it is an objective historical piece that is not chock full of philo-Semitic political narrative or superstitious accounts of Nazism.

The actress who plays Traudl Junge is absolutely gorgeous...to the point where it is almost distracting. However, her performance is impeccable. Albert Speer is portrayed in a very sympathetic light, as are Dr. Ernst-Gunther Shenck, Otto Gunsche, and Wilhelm Mohnke. On the other hand, Goebbels is portrayed as a cynical, pathetic toadie and Goring and Himmler are portrayed as selfish, degenerate cowards.

What is particularly disturbing in the film is the portrayal of the fate of the Goebbels children, and a subplot involving a young boy of the Hitler Youth who is 10 or 11 years old who spends the final week of the war armed with a panzerfaust hunting Soviet armor amidst the ruins of Berlin.

All in all, a very good film and I highly reccomend it to those who have not seen it.

Winston

10-06-2006, 10:28 PM

I was surprised by how at the end the Russians let Traudl Junge just walk away.

kultron

10-06-2006, 11:18 PM

Thomas777

10-06-2006, 11:26 PM

I've seen this movie 3 times, and everytime I enjoy it. Extremely accurate, except for a few things, one which struck me immediatly was Dr. Goebbel's height (he's well over 6 feet in the film yet in real life he was a mere 5'4").

I feel it is both a pro as well as anti Nazi film, highlighting the greatness of a society, while also highlighting the failures of its leadership.

The most scenes by far were when Magda Goebbels falls at Hitler's feet throwing a fit, as well as the one scene where the Dr. and his friend are met by the soldiers beating a traitor, and after some harsh words he points to his Iron Cross and says something along the lines of "Don't use that tone with me, do you see this? Does it mean nothing to you? Where is your honor?"

Very good analysis of the film.

I have a question RE: historical accuracy that you might know the answer to:

In the film, the Werhmacht troopers as well as the Waffen SS enlisted men salute their officers with the Roman salute. Wouldn't the Wermacht troops salute their officers with a conventional salute and only offer the Roman salute in the presence of the Fuhrer?

Winston

10-06-2006, 11:47 PM

The most scenes by far were...

Most what? You didn't make it clear how you felt about those scenes.

Something I found interesting about the film was that even in those final days when Hitler was at his most stressed and volatile point, his generals would still voice disagreement with him and object to some of the things he said.

Thomas777

10-07-2006, 12:07 AM

Something I found interesting about the film was that even in those final days when Hitler was at his most stressed and volatile point, his generals would still voice disagreement with him and object to some of the things he said.

Bigtime. The Third Reich was not some crude despotism, despite what popular historians try to portray.

In his book "The Trail of the Fox", David Irving addresses the relationship between Erwin Rommel and Hitler and points out that Rommel frequently vehemently disagreed with him in the presence of top brass and party elites.

It is also telling in the film when Speer bids Hitler farewell he informs him that he has not been executing his orders and explains that it is not a reflection upon his loyalty.

Hakluyt

10-07-2006, 12:19 AM

I feel it is both a pro as well as anti Nazi film, highlighting the greatness of a society, while also highlighting the failures of its leadership.
Kind of hard not to be "anti Nazi" in that sense if it's going to be historically accurate...

Bigtime. The Third Reich was not some crude despotism, despite what popular historians try to portray.

In his book "The Trail of the Fox", David Irving addresses the relationship between Erwin Rommel and Hitler and points out that Rommel frequently vehemently disagreed with him in the presence of top brass and party elites.
I've read that book by Irving and I agree with what you're saying, but this only disproves a caricature of subservience, not a serious description of the Third Reich. Something like the night of the long knives on the other hand was unquestionablly 'despotic', brutal and inexcusable.

cerberus

10-07-2006, 12:27 AM

One of the better films to emerge in recent years.
Check out "After The Battle" issue 128 has an article on the film.

( Also see "Berlin -Then and Now" By the same publisher - a tad expensieve but well worth the price - a large s ection of the book is given over to the battle for Berlin and the Fuhrer Bunker with a great deal of recent photographic coverge of the interior of the bunker , which is now buried beneath a car park and a children playground.)
The film was made in Russia , one clause being that all the materials used in the film had to be Russian , nothing to be imported.
A friend of mine kinows some of the Russian renactors who played some the Waffen SS - these guys played part of Monke's group in their atempted break out.

My one disappointment was the part played by Bormann , who was still cemeneting power for himself and settling old scores as the fianl curtain came down, this apart it is a film which can be watched and enjoyed time and time again. ( Much as "Das Boot" can).

Scenes which are momorable - General Weidling arriving to be shot and confronting some of his more armchair contemporaries holding up his Knights Cross telling them to take notice of it and what it represents.

The death of the Goebbels children (which I find disturbing) was dealt with very well as was Hitlers own departure , that Goebbels attempted to mirror the Fuhrer's final exit wass overshadowed by the murder by Magda of her children . ( Such a waste ).

The scene in which Shenck runs into no mans land to the hospital is one to remember, the tank commander pointing to the muzzel of the 88 and saying "You see this , this is the end of the Reich - out there that's Ruskie land"

I have to agree that the representations of Monke, Dr. Ernst-Gunther Shenck and Weidling are well played , also Herman Fegelein , Himmler ,Hewel and Speer.
Speer was visibly lost for words when Himmler told him he was leaving for "his headquarters" in the North and that he (Speer) should come and visit him sometime.

The utter futility , the distance between reality and what those in the bunker beleived was also well illustrated in a suttle manner - only a few knew that no relief force wouuld be coming , yet Hitler believed that pins and names on a map would win battles.
In short a very well made film.
Goebbels summed it up well when he dismissed the SS Nco from the switch board , "I have no need of you any more".

To prove I am an annorak Fegelein did not hold the close comabt award in Gold , his was in silver.

A movie which must only be watched with subtitles.

Thomas777

10-07-2006, 12:39 AM

To prove I am an annorak Fegelein did not hold the close comabt award in Gold , his was in silver.

Being keen on history as you are, do you have any insight into my question (posed above) regarding the Roman salute?

cerberus

10-07-2006, 12:43 AM

Thomas 777Bigtime. The Third Reich was not some crude despotism, despite what popular historians try to portray.
yes and no , the Third Reich had a lot of men building little empires for themselves ,men who would not have achieved power in any other goverment or situation.
Did some leaders disagree with Hitler and get away with it - Model , Von Manstein , Guderian did - it depended who and what (if any), respect Hitler had for them.
When Hitler and Rommel last met in late June (early July ?), Rommel made a reasonable appeal that some political movement be made towards ending the war , Hitler cut him short and dismissed him from the room - they never met nor spoke again.
Disagreeing and getting a hearing also depended on what the point of contention was.
When Von Rundesdt spoke to on the telephone and to Keitel and said "make peace you fools" , he was dismissed.
When Manstein argued strongly and at length against Hitler's wishes in March 44, he was dismissed.
When Raedar disagreeed , he was replaced.

As far as despots go - look to the administration in the east - you will find more than a few - most of whom carried out the Fuhrer's vision almost to the letter.
"Popular historians" - are you telling me men like Kershaw and Overy have got it wrong ?
I would disagree.

cerberus

10-07-2006, 12:45 AM

Thomas777Being keen on history as you are, do you have any insight into my question (posed above) regarding the Roman salute?
That which was introduced to all the armed forces post July 44 ?

Thomas777

10-07-2006, 12:48 AM

Thomas 777
yes and no , the Third Reich had a lot of men building little empires for themselves ,men who would not have achieved power in any other goverment or situation.
Did some leaders disagree with Hitler and get away with it - Model , Von Manstein , Guderian did - it depended who and what (if any), respect Hitler had for them.
When Hitler and Rommel last met in late June (early July ?), Rommel made a reasonable appeal that some political movement be made towards ending the war , Hitler cut him short and dismissed him from the room - they never met nor spoke again.
Disagreeing and getting a hearing also depended on what the point of contention was.
When Von Rundesdt spoke to on the telephone and to Keitel and said "make peace you fools" , he was dismissed.
When Manstein argued strongly and at length against Hitler's wishes in March 44, he was dismissed.
When Raedar disagreeed , he was replaced.

As far as despots go - look to the administration in the east - you will find more than a few - most of whom carried out the Fuhrer's vision almost to the letter.
"Popular historians" - are you telling me men like Kershaw and Overy have got it wrong ?
I would disagree.

You misunderstand me. I agree that within the Third Reich there were plenty of petty despots who oversaw their own little fiefdoms, and I agree that the fuhrerprinzip was a very real mode of Executive administration. However, you made my point when you acknowledged that many men enjoyed great power in the Reich and many of them openly defied the Fuhrer (with varying consequences).

Juxtapose the Reich with Stalin's USSR (a genuine despotism in every sense): Disagreeing with Stalin on a matter of tactics or politics meant that there was a very decent probability that you would be rewarded with a bullet in the back of your head for your trouble.

Thomas777

10-07-2006, 12:49 AM

Thomas777
That which was introduced to all the armed forces post July 44 ?

OK. That makes sense. I did not know that it was introduced service-wide at any point.

cerberus

10-07-2006, 01:03 AM

Thomas 777OK. That makes sense. I did not know that it was introduced service-wide at any point.
July 44 changed a lot - you will find that executions became "flavour of the day" , the "people's court" - do you really think that it was a "people's court" ?
( I believe it was a "Fuhrer's Court" , in which the defendants had no rights).

You will find Thomas777 that by and large few people opposed " the will of the Fuhrer" either before the war , or durring it.
In the end , AH had the final say and those who wanted to extend their careers did as they were told and were content to be "working towards the Fuhrer".
Richtofen said that "we are nothing but highly paid NCO's" , Von Rundesdt said that as supreme commander in the West , the extent of his authority was to be able to change the guard outside of his gate.

You will find that it was ability and a proven track record of success which
permitted some freedom of movement , that along with courage, character and common sense.
Hausser when he refused to stand and have be destroyed in Kharkov and Von Paulus who refused to disobey at Stalingrad being a contrasts which spring to mind.
Freedom to question and an ability to influence or change an order - really very limited.

kultron

10-07-2006, 03:31 PM

Most what? You didn't make it clear how you felt about those scenes.

I meant moving. I changed the phrasing of my sentence quickly but forgot changing the first part.

Kind of hard not to be "anti Nazi" in that sense if it's going to be historically accurate...

There are few quotes by Hitler in that movie, especially the one around the dinner table at (I think) his last meal, about opposing the Jew, as as a few other things.

Burrhus

10-07-2006, 07:17 PM

Notice in the two pictures below the greater number of very young boys in the movie picture compared to the real picture. Also the average age of the soldiers is higher in the real picture as opposed to the movie picture. Very subtle anti-Hitler propaganda. The movie producers could very easily have re-produced the real vignette with actors of the same size and age as seen in the original. They didn't.

I liked Downfall and yes it was the 'least anti-Hitler' movie that I have ever seen but it would be nice to see an honest movie by someone sympathetic to Hitler and National Socialism. Not necessarily pro-Hitler propaganda but simply honest and truthful, portraying him as other than the maniacal demon that is the norm. He was just one national leader amongst many in the world of his day with virtues and vices, better than most...such as FDR, Stalin and Churchill.

Picture from the movie Downfall
http://img136.imageshack.us/img136/6828/downfall1ls5.jpg

Real picture of Hitler
http://img246.imageshack.us/img246/1144/hitler20april1945sx7.jpg

Basil Fawlty

10-07-2006, 07:25 PM

One of my favourite moments of the film was when he tore strips off the field marshalls for the disaster of trench warfare in WWI. It was like he waited all his life to let them know how the rank and file felt about that meat grinder of a war. The other moment was when they were eating turnip soup, a poignant moment, especially when you bear in mind the memory of the hardships of the Turnip Winter of 1916-17.

However, it would be nice to see a film that is even more devoid of propaganda than this one, which is still a great improvement on the typical Hitler as histrionic monster beloved of Hollywood.

SlovenianNationalist

10-07-2006, 09:22 PM

I liked the movie, I think it was historically correct.

The best moment of the movie was when Hitler shouted on generals and later when they told him that Himmler surrendered.

Arrow Cross

10-07-2006, 09:39 PM

I didn't like it, because it was still biased. But of course I realize it coudn't be an other way....especially that it was German-made.
*Sigh*
That film almost made me cry...

cerberus

10-07-2006, 10:09 PM

Arrow CrossI didn't like it, because it was still biased. But of course I realize it coudn't be an other way....especially that it was German-made.

I don't think it was biased , it was about as fair as you could get. The reactions of Hitler were in circumstances as shown - when he finally was forced to accept that Steioner could not attack and when he was told that Himmler had made overatures to the Allies to surrender germany to them in the West.
two books worth reading .
James P. O'Donnell's " The Bunker" Houghton Mifflin Co. ISBN 0395257190
and "Inside Hitler's Bunker" by Joachim Fest. Macmillan ISBN 0405045906
I read O'Donnell's back in 1983 - I would still rate it as very good , Fest's - a more modren view of the last days around which the film was based.

The film did show Hitler as a human being and not as a raging psychotic or hysteric - I don't agree that it was unblanaced in this respect.

As far as being the same as any other world leader - I would say Stalin and he were most unlike any other world leaders at that time.

Arrow Cross

10-07-2006, 10:20 PM

I don't think anyone else would have been less neurotic after what he went through, after the crushing burden of responsibility. He really loved his people, no matter what he said in his final, desperate days. That's why he was crushed in the end spiritually. No being is perfect on this Earth. Not even the greatest ones.

But yes, I agree that it was still the best film made of him since the war, even if it showed the National Socialist leaders in a definate negative light. The creators risked many attacks by making it.

cerberus

10-07-2006, 10:31 PM

Arrow CrossThe creators risked many attacks by making it.
yes , a very brave decision to make the film and a real challange to try and strike a balance - in this I think they did quite well.
Given the final battle for Berlin and where the goverment of the day had led the german people I am not surpirsed that many of the major figures were shown in a poor light , in many cases it was the light they deserved.
Speer , the Army and the Waffen SS came across as something of heros - the lynch mobs who hanged with little or no reason - well it did happen.
As far as Hitlers words towards the german people went - i would not dismiss them so completlely.
In more than one occasion he dismissed the loss of large numbers of troops ( Stalingrad and North Africa ) in negative terms - I would also refer you to the thread dealing with his demand that cuff titles be removed from the SS panzer Korp following the unseccessful attacks in the east in March 44.

Sulla the Dictator

10-08-2006, 12:04 AM

Picture from the movie Downfall
http://img136.imageshack.us/img136/6828/downfall1ls5.jpg

Real picture of Hitler
http://img246.imageshack.us/img246/1144/hitler20april1945sx7.jpg

You might notice that this is not a duplicate of the shot, its from a wider angle than the tighter original.

And this is the most PETTY complaint I have ever seen about any movie. The suggestion that the boys in the original look significantly older than in the film is also laughable.

Sulla the Dictator

10-08-2006, 12:19 AM

You misunderstand me. I agree that within the Third Reich there were plenty of petty despots who oversaw their own little fiefdoms, and I agree that the fuhrerprinzip was a very real mode of Executive administration. However, you made my point when you acknowledged that many men enjoyed great power in the Reich and many of them openly defied the Fuhrer (with varying consequences).

"Defiance of the Fuehrer" is proportional to the progress of the war, and Hitler's lack of ability to kill them. Himmler and Goering have all the balls in the world when they're on the other side of Germany and Hitler is trapped in his bunker. And I'm glad someone here mentioned Rommel. Sure, Rommel often was at odds with the German leadership.

And that got him a vial of poison in the end. His criticism, or lack of complete and utter agreement, made him a prime suspect for involvement in the July plot. Hitler was more likely to believe it because of how 'contrary' he was.

Juxtapose the Reich with Stalin's USSR (a genuine despotism in every sense): Disagreeing with Stalin on a matter of tactics or politics meant that there was a very decent probability that you would be rewarded with a bullet in the back of your head for your trouble.

That depends on where you're at in the war, same with Hitler. Hitler is more than willing to bring the meat hooks out when he's losing. So is Stalin. After the tide turns, however, Zhukov and Konev were quite willing to disagree with Stalin. And live healthy lives.

Moreover, you raise an interesting point. Atleast the Soviets had the threat of bullets to the back of their necks for disobediance. Nazi Generals were threatened with being fired. Losing their jobs was all it took to get them to massacre innocents. :p

Sulla the Dictator

10-08-2006, 08:59 AM

Only one part of the movie really got to me which was when the girl (below) asks her friend / boyfriend to shoot her before the russians come and rape and murder her. 1 million women whom looked very much like this girl were raped in the first week of the Soviet invasion of Berlin, a piece of history that is swept under the rug because it's so inconvenient.

I didn't think you fellows believed in eye witness testimony.

As for the objection to the age of the children, I see that as being pro-Nazi rather than anti-Nazi as it shows the true story of how they were down to the last man by showing kids and old men fighting to defend their homeland. This truly shows how much love there was for Hitler and the National Socialist regime.

Yeah, kids are capable of making informed choices about living or dying.

NeoNietzsche

10-08-2006, 06:19 PM

"Defiance of the Fuehrer" is proportional to the progress of the war, and Hitler's lack of ability to kill them. Himmler and Goering have all the balls in the world when they're on the other side of Germany and Hitler is trapped in his bunker. And I'm glad someone here mentioned Rommel. Sure, Rommel often was at odds with the German leadership.
Before Barbarossa, Hitler explicitly ordered that the Pzkw III be up-gunned with the higher-velocity KwK 39 L/60, as would have, as it happened, enabled many Germans tankers to win, rather than lose, a contest with otherwise invulnerable T-34's. The Heereswaffenamt personnel disobeyed and should have been shot for what their disobedience cost. Also, Hitler explicitly ordered and was promised equipment of the first Me262's for fighter-bomber capability in the oncoming event of invasion of France. He was disobeyed, at further cost to the war effort and German lives - and no one was shot. Hitler was disobeyed and deceived regarding creation of the Mp/Mk/Stg - 42/43/44, and no one perished at this hand (though this disobedience turned out for the best). So, we see that "defiance of the Fuehrer" had nothing to do with "the progress of the war".

That depends on where you're at in the war, same with Hitler. Hitler is more than willing to bring the meat hooks out when he's losing.
Hitler hung the plotters who all but killed him as traitors are dealt with. Please contribute a novelty to the history of the period by providing examples of Hitler's having "brought the meat hooks," figuratively or literally. Otherwise, this is a rank mischaracterization of Hitler, as is evident from the series of events, recounted above, obliterating the thesis of a vengeful despot.

Moreover, you raise an interesting point. Atleast the Soviets had the threat of bullets to the back of their necks for disobediance. Nazi Generals were threatened with being fired. Losing their jobs was all it took to get them to massacre innocents. :p
Please name the so-threatened "Nazi Generals" and the episodes not reflecting cobbled atrocity propaganda involving the "massacre of innocents" such as does not occur in war.

Winston

10-08-2006, 06:25 PM

The whole issue of disobeying or back-talking Hitler was brought up in regard to Hitler's final days as depicted in Der Untergang. This would surely be the most dangerous time to upset Hitler, which was why that aspect of the film jumped out at me.

cerberus

10-08-2006, 11:06 PM

Neo.NietzscheBefore Barbarossa, Hitler explicitly ordered that the Pzkw III be up-gunned with the higher-velocity KwK 39 L/60, as would have, as it happened, enabled many Germans tankers to win, rather than lose, a contest with otherwise invulnerable T-34's. The Heereswaffenamt personnel disobeyed and should have been shot for what their disobedience cost. Also, Hitler explicitly ordered and was promised equipment of the first Me262's for fighter-bomber capability in the oncoming event of invasion of France. He was disobeyed, at further cost to the war effort and German lives - and no one was shot. Hitler was disobeyed and deceived regarding creation of the Mp/Mk/Stg - 42/43/44, and no one perished at this hand (though this disobedience turned out for the best). So, we see that "defiance of the Fuehrer" had nothing to do with "the progress of the war".
Up gunning the Panzer III ?
With what ?
What was the gun in the Panzer IV at this time ?
What was the PZ.III ever to carry a 50mm gun from a short 37, gun ?
Where was the spare capacity to provide these guns ?
it may interst you to know Neo. that although the number of panzer divisions had on paper increased, the actual strength of the divisions had been watered.

As far as up gunning went - behind the propaganda myth - there was a shortage of spare parts for tanks , the capacity just did not exist and you will find that it was easy to order but the order did not take reality into consideration.

Your answer implies that the wisdom of the Fuhrer mihgt have seen the T-34 - it did not.

Hitlers orders to industry created chaos - too many guns too many shells parts and munitions could not be interchanged - thiscreated not only manufacturing problems but also major supply problems and I turn shortages at the front.

Now as far as the ME-262 goes - Hitlers orders to make it a fighter bomber turned a racehorse into a cart horse - you do know that the fate of the sircraft hinged on it being able to be a fighter bomber - after it had been designed as a fighter ?
The wisdom of the Fuhrer again - far from proving to be good it was nothing short of a down right liability.
A small number of 262's were in service as fighters at the time , but Hitler never thought that there would be problems - heaven for bid , you just put bombs on and it flies, doesn't it ?
Sorry Adolf - it is not rally as simple as all that ?
You remember the nose wheel Neo. ?
it was rather delicate , you do know were the bomb racks were placed - yes right on the nose .
You do know about the jumo engines Neo . they were at best a tempromental power palnt , much given to spontaneously bursting into flames.
Hauling bombs did create demands on a power plant , see my point.
And then there was the loss of speed - now in its naked shape the 262 could leave a P51 standing , the airframe was superb , it was amazingly fast , just nudging the sound barrier - it could get in and out of trouble very quickly in the hands of an expert.
Stick bombs on it and it is easily caught - its major advantages are thrown away.
Your are depending on broken sticks Neo.
Again it depends on who does what , Willi Messerschmit said "Yes in theory it can caryy bombs" , and it broke his heart to say it and God alone knows what galland and Lutzow must have thought- only a fool would have wanted it made into a bomber.
That fool was Hitler.

Otherwise, this is a rank mischaracterization of Hitler, as is evident from the series of events, recounted above, obliterating the thesis of a vengeful despot.

They were hung on meat hooks by paino wire and it was filmed and by all accounts he did watch it.

Let's think of Rommel for a moment - no evidence save the words of a man on his death bed " Rommel , Rommel" - yet it was enough to have him killed.
He was forced to take his own life and the man who forced this on him sent a wreath to his funeral .
The mafia could not have done it better, the vial of poison was the original horse's head in the bed.

Please name the so-threatened "Nazi Generals" and the episodes not reflecting cobbled atrocity propaganda involving the "massacre of innocents" such as does not occur in war.
Hitler did it another way - a high award and show them the door.
I do think he had one or two shot - but not as a rule - he was more into giving you say oak leaves and the sack or swords and the sack.

cerberus

10-08-2006, 11:14 PM

integrityThe whole issue of disobeying or back-talking Hitler was brought up in regard to Hitler's final days as depicted in Der Untergang. This would surely be the most dangerous time to upset Hitler, which was why that aspect of the film jumped out at me.
And yet for me this was one of its failings, Bormann - never one to miss a chance to settle old scores , always there , always listening alwways scheming for himself - his part in the downfall of Himmler and Goring was very under scored - so much so that you would have thought that Bormann never said a word.

To al large extent Hitler had detached himself - note the drinking which increasingly came out into the open and the contrast to his meal times which were so rigid and controlled by him.
When he shot himself , they all "lit up" and that did happen !
The death of Hitler was marked first by a mass of cigarettes being lit.

cerberus

10-08-2006, 11:19 PM

DelosOnly one part of the movie really got to me which was when the girl (below) asks her friend / boyfriend to shoot her before the russians come and rape and murder her. 1 million women whom looked very much like this girl were raped in the first week of the Soviet invasion of Berlin, a piece of history that is swept under the rug because it's so inconvenient.

By the soviets only.

As for the objection to the age of the children, I see that as being pro-Nazi rather than anti-Nazi as it shows the true story of how they were down to the last man by showing kids and old men fighting to defend their homeland. This truly shows how much love there was for Hitler and the National Socialist regime.
It cuts both ways - when you are arming children as young as 13-17 you are arming children and I agre with Sulla - it was a wrong done thing - cannon fodder.
As far as old men go - Hitler was putting men older than him in front of Russian tanks and his last hours were bought with their lives.

NeoNietzsche

10-09-2006, 03:12 AM

Up gunning the Panzer III ?
With what ?
As said, with the KwK 39 L/60, following the KwK 38 L/42.

What was the gun in the Panzer IV at this time?
A 75mm L/24, useless for serious armor penetration and used for HE infantry support.

What was the PZ.III ever to carry a 50mm gun from a short 37, gun?
The Mark III was eventually up-gunned as Hitler ordered.

Where was the spare capacity to provide these guns?
At Krupp or Rheinmetall-Borsig.

it may interst you to know Neo. that although the number of panzer divisions had on paper increased, the actual strength of the divisions had been watered.
As I knew decades ago, thanks.

As far as up gunning went - behind the propaganda myth - there was a shortage of spare parts for tanks, the capacity just did not exist and you will find that it was easy to order but the order did not take reality into consideration.
The order was for newly-produced tanks - not for replacement of existing cannon. The capacity existed in transition from one model of that caliber cannon to its successor.

Your answer implies that the wisdom of the Fuhrer mihgt have seen the T-34 - it did not.
The Fuehrer had previously seen the armor of English (Matilda) and French (Somua S35) tanks, off of which the shells of all German tanks had bounced - hence his order for the superior armor penetration of the higher-velocity version of the 50mm cannon.

Hitlers orders to industry created chaos - too many guns too many shells parts and munitions could not be interchanged - thiscreated not only manufacturing problems but also major supply problems and I turn shortages at the front.
That there was insufficient rationalization was not due to Hitler's efforts.

Now as far as the ME-262 goes - Hitlers orders to make it a fighter bomber turned a racehorse into a cart horse - you do know that the fate of the sircraft hinged on it being able to be a fighter bomber - after it had been designed as a fighter ?
The wisdom of the Fuhrer again - far from proving to be good it was nothing short of a down right liability.
Indiscriminately-dropped bombs, which the 262 was capable of delivering, would have assisted the German effort at Normandy.

A small number of 262's were in service as fighters at the time , but Hitler never thought that there would be problems - heaven for bid , you just put bombs on and it flies, doesn't it ?
Messerschmidt told Hitler just that.

Sorry Adolf - it is not rally as simple as all that ?
You remember the nose wheel Neo. ?
it was rather delicate , you do know were the bomb racks were placed - yes right on the nose .
You do know about the jumo engines Neo . they were at best a tempromental power palnt , much given to spontaneously bursting into flames.
Hauling bombs did create demands on a power plant , see my point.
I am more aware of these considerations than are you. Do you know why the Jumo 004B's were more temperamental than their lack of maturity warranted?

And then there was the loss of speed - now in its naked shape the 262 could leave a P51 standing , the airframe was superb , it was amazingly fast , just nudging the sound barrier - it could get in and out of trouble very quickly in the hands of an expert.
Stick bombs on it and it is easily caught - its major advantages are thrown away.
No, they were diminished but remained superior to any alternative, and even the encumbered aircraft was not easily caught. (BTW, it did not "nudge the sound barrier" in other than a dive - top speed, 540mph at altitude.) In any case, Hitler was again disobeyed in regard to what he thought a critical concern, late in the war, and no one wound up on a "meat hook," literally or figuratively.

They were hung on meat hooks by paino wire and it was filmed and by all accounts he did watch it.
You speak of a single, justified episode, where KMA made the following, refuted, generalization:

Hitler is more than willing to bring the meat hooks out when he's losing

And Speer's account said that he didn't watch.

Hitler did it another way - a high award and show them the door.
I do think he had one or two shot - but not as a rule - he was more into giving you say oak leaves and the sack or swords and the sack.
Sounds like the decent thing to do in a policy dispute.

Mackie

10-09-2006, 03:43 AM

yeah i watched the movie too.. quite good, really eventhough the apologist bullcrap ruined some of it :/

Der Sozialist

10-09-2006, 03:56 AM

The movie was quite boring. I fell asleep.

If you knew your parents would be killed at the hands of the Russians, your mother, sister, and both grandmothers were going to be raped by the Russians, would you not fight? Most Germans fought to defend Germany, not to invade their enemies, that is why they fought so hard and down to the last man.

And what about the old men, are you going to tell me they could not make informed choices as well? Are you going to tell me they all had dementia?

You can blame Hitler for invading the USSR, enacting a brutal policy in the East, and then failing to surrender even when defeat was inevitable (Hitler did inject methamphetamines though).

He truly demonstrates the dangers of democracy.

Der Sozialist

10-09-2006, 04:21 AM

If Hitler hadn't of invaded the USSR, do you honestly think the USSR would not have invaded Europe?
:rofl: Yes, first Finland then the world! Seriously though, there is more evidence that Hitler wanted to invade Europe than Stalin.

Everyone knew it was going to happen sooner or later, why else would the French, Spanish, and so many other European peoples join with Hitler to fight the USSR?
Er, there was never a considerable amount of French or Spanish troops in the Wehrmacht….

Surely you couldn't raise an army of 1 million people over night (after invading their country no less!) with propaganda alone.

The Red Army out did them—certainly they couldn’t raise such an army on propaganda alone….

Mackie

10-09-2006, 04:51 AM

:rofl: Yes, first Finland then the world! Seriously though, there is more evidence that Hitler wanted to invade Europe than Stalin.
We shall not be broken! :viking:

But on a more serious note, what does it matter if theres more proof of hitler wanting to liberate europe? remove hitler from the entire picture and you still have stalin and proof of his desire to invade europe?

*snip* enacting a brutal policy in the East, and then failing to surrender even when defeat was inevitable (Hitler did inject methamphetamines though).

He truly demonstrates the dangers of democracy.
Enacting a brutal policy? Hm. I wonder why alot of captives left with their captors when the soviets came around.
And least according to my memory, Soviets were far more brutal in their treatment of the people in eastern europe.

And as for Hitlers drug problem, thats pretty much why he was so fucked in head in the late years, right?
I also read somewhere that his personal doctor was a bit of a hack and even Eva warned Adolf of his treatment methods but he didnt listen...

Petyr Baelish

10-09-2006, 08:15 AM

I tried to write about all the rapes that occurred in the Battle of Berlin article on Wikipedia a few months back, but people kept deleting my entry citing that the mass rapes that occured at the hands of the Russian Army was my "point of view" only.

Could that possibly have something to do with the fact that allegations with the gravitas of rapes numbering in the millions require more substantiating evidence that the testimony of a couple of dozen hysterical housewifes?

Ahknaton

10-09-2006, 08:32 AM

Could that possibly have something to do with the fact that allegations with the gravitas of rapes numbering in the millions require more substantiating evidence that the testimony of a couple of dozen hysterical housewifes?
There is far more evidence available than "the testimony of a couple of dozen hysterical housewives":

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/01/24/wbeev24.xml&sSheet=/news/2002/01/24/ixworld.html

Or perhaps you trust your own national chauvinistic instincts over the historical record?

Petyr Baelish

10-09-2006, 08:51 AM

There is far more evidence available than "the testimony of a couple of dozen hysterical housewives":

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/01/24/wbeev24.xml&sSheet=/news/2002/01/24/ixworld.html

I've heard Beevor's book cited more times than I care to count, and I'll see if I can pick up a copy.

Or perhaps you trust your own national chauvinistic instincts over the historical record?

I would be lying if I said that I am impartial on this matter, but when I hear claims that strain the limits of credibility, I want more evidence than hearsay (one could say that I question the 'superhuman rapist' account for the same reason that Holocaust revisionist question gas-chambers). I am not denying that rapes took place, perhaps hundreds of thousands of rapes, but the numbers claimed are simply astronomical, and not something I am willing to accept without seeing some convincing evidence first. The Red Army were hardly valiant liberators, but what I do know for a fact is that over 8,000 solders and 2,000 Red Army officers were executed in Berlin alone, for atrocities against the civilian population, which is certainly more than the number of Wehrmacht and Waffen SS soldiers who were ever punished for their crimes in Poland and the Soviet Union. I am speculating that the Red Army was somewhat more benign in its treatment of occupied peoples than the Nazi armed forces were, but I am willing to change my mind if I see evidence to the contrary.

Sulla the Dictator

10-09-2006, 10:06 AM

Sulla the Dictator

10-09-2006, 10:07 AM

That was 1 million women going to the police and making complaints about being raped within the first week of the siege.

LMAO What are you talking about? Care to show us these police complaints?

This was not like Anne Frank (one little girl) telling the world how 6 million Jews were gassed.

Again, what are you talking about? You obviously haven't read the diary of Anne Frank.

Sulla the Dictator

10-09-2006, 10:11 AM

I would be lying if I said that I am impartial on this matter, but when I hear claims that strain the limits of credibility, I want more evidence than hearsay (one could say that I question the 'superhuman rapist' account for the same reason that Holocaust revisionist question gas-chambers).

While obviously both the Holocaust and these rapes happened, Timothy is absolutely right in pointing out that there is far less evidence for Russian atrocities than we have for the Holocaust.

I find myself curious why Nazis on this board don't look at these claims of CITIZENS of the THIRD REICH about their enemies with atleast the same absurd level of skepticism that they view written orders, signed documents, and repeated confessions.

Ahknaton

10-09-2006, 10:48 AM

How many German women were raped? One can only guess...

LOL. You really have a knack for the dishonest, out-of-context quote. Here's the full paragraph:
How many German women were raped? One can only guess, but a high proportion of at least 15 million women who either lived in the Soviet Union zone or were expelled from the eastern provinces. The scale of rape is suggested by the fact that about two million women had illegal abortions every year between 1945 and 1948.
Also, I posted that article to demonstrate that accounts of rape by Russian soldiers rely on more than "the hysterical testimony of a few dozen housewives".

WFHermans

10-09-2006, 11:00 AM

Only a jew would defend rapists.

Petyr Baelish

10-09-2006, 12:01 PM

..
The scale of rape is suggested by the fact that about two million women had illegal abortions every year between 1945 and 1948.
... .

I seem to have missed that particular fact, and this type of quantitative evidence is precisely what I am looking for. I will get a hold of Beevor's book sometime in the near future, and see if the figures stand up to scrutiny. Complete objectivity is obviously impossible in my case, but, to quote one of my favorite novelists, facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.

NeoNietzsche

10-09-2006, 01:19 PM

I find myself curious why Nazis on this board don't look at these claims of CITIZENS of the THIRD REICH about their enemies with atleast the same absurd level of skepticism that they view written orders, signed documents, and repeated confessions.
Because the mendacious Judeo-Communist powers won the war, in case you hadn't heard - and were thus in a position to forge and extort orders, documents, and confessions - as previously they had taken the Back Door to War, had boldly lied about Axis war aims, had radically mis-portrayed the Soviet regime, had staged Show Trials in which they themselves should have stood indicted, etc.

Ixtab

10-09-2006, 01:20 PM

What is a 'Judeo-Communist' ?

NeoNietzsche

10-09-2006, 02:23 PM

What is a 'Judeo-Communist' ?
One who is of the community of Leftist Jews and their shabbaz-goyim.

In regard to the period in question, prominent political examples are:

*Frankfurter
*Morgenthau
*Hillman
*Rosenman
*Baruch
*White
*Howe
*Rosenberg
*Hiss
*Chambers
*Hopkins
*Hammer
*Harriman
*Roosevelt
*Rothschild (Victor)
*Blunt
*Hollis
*Philby
*Churchill
*Kamenev
*Zinoviev
*Trotsky
*Lenin
*Stalin

Burrhus

10-09-2006, 03:01 PM

And this is the most PETTY complaint I have ever seen about any movie. The suggestion that the boys in the original look significantly older than in the film is also laughable.

Typical S*D recourse to insult, hyperbolic at that.

Burrhus

10-09-2006, 03:06 PM

" Himmler and Goering have all the balls in the world...

Hitler is more than willing to bring the meat hooks out when he's losing.

Nazi Generals were threatened with being fired. Losing their jobs was all it took to get them to massacre innocents.

Typical S*D recourse to pejorative, hyperbolic, misleading language.

Burrhus

10-09-2006, 03:13 PM

Delos:All in all I liked the movie, it made the Nazis human again - as they are. I didn't like the end bit after the movie where it went into Holocaust figures, but Traudl Junge was honest in saying that she never saw anything Holocaust related while in Hitlers service.

Yes, odd isn't that Hitler's personal secretary knew nothing about a 'holocaust'.

Delos: As for the objection to the age of the children, I see that as being pro-Nazi rather than anti-Nazi as it shows the true story of how they were down to the last man by showing kids and old men fighting to defend their homeland. This truly shows how much love there was for Hitler and the National Socialist regime.

An interesting point to which I will give some thought. Given Roosevelt's brutal demand for unconditional surrender and the treatment afforded Germany of being stabbed in the back after WWI, a fight to the death must have seemed to be the only option reasonable to them.

Der Sozialist

10-09-2006, 03:17 PM

But on a more serious note, what does it matter if theres more proof of hitler wanting to liberate europe? remove hitler from the entire picture and you still have stalin and proof of his desire to invade europe?

There is really little proof that Stalin wanted to invade Europe—he most definitely wanted to reclaim territory lost in WW1 but this is a “far cry” from the Red Army dancing the troika under the Eiffel tower.

While Hitler was not simply content with reclaiming land lost during WW1—his invasions of Yugoslavia, Greece, and Czechoslovakia (after he was given the Sudetenland) illustrate this.

One could also read Mein Kampf….

Enacting a brutal policy? Hm. I wonder why alot of captives left with their captors when the soviets came around.
And least according to my memory, Soviets were far more brutal in their treatment of the people in eastern europe.

LOL. Certain repressed nationalities like the Byelorussians, Poles, and Ukrainians (to name a few) initially welcomed the Wehrmacht but this did not last long. Last I checked---the USSR never killed 10-20 million civilians in those areas in 4 years. 4 years!

And as for Hitlers drug problem, thats pretty much why he was so fucked in head in the late years, right?
I also read somewhere that his personal doctor was a bit of a hack and even Eva warned Adolf of his treatment methods but he didnt listen...

Hitler was the force that destroyed Germany. If you don’t want your women raped then you surrender before an army of angry spiteful people enter into your country. Many of the soldiers in the Red Army had loved ones killed by the NAZI occupiers. They showed remarkable restraint.

Even if the “2 million” number is true then so what? It does not even hold a candle next to NAZI atrocities in Eastern Europe. If you punch someone then don’t cry when they punch you back.

Burrhus

10-09-2006, 03:36 PM

How many German women were raped? One can only guess...

How many jews were killed in Europe between 1939-1945? On can only guess...

I'll guess, 20,000...zero in gas chambers.

Burrhus

10-09-2006, 03:45 PM

While obviously both the Holocaust and these rapes happened, Timothy is absolutely right in pointing out that there is far less evidence for Russian atrocities than we have for the Holocaust..

More typical S*D recourse to misleading rhetoric. Obviously, indeed.

Whether true or false, the 'holocaust' story is not obviously true. Obvious means that no reasonable man can deny what has been stated to be a fact, implying that anyone who does deny the fact is unreasonable and not simply incorrect.

I am tired of reading this kind of tawdry rhetorical sophistry.

Mackie

10-09-2006, 03:45 PM

There is really little proof that Stalin wanted to invade Europe—he most definitely wanted to reclaim territory lost in WW1 but this is a “far cry” from the Red Army dancing the troika under the Eiffel tower.

While Hitler was not simply content with reclaiming land lost during WW1—his invasions of Yugoslavia, Greece, and Czechoslovakia (after he was given the Sudetenland) illustrate this.

One could also read Mein Kampf….

I doubt, his actions showed differently. First the ww1 territories, then europe.
There were quite a few nations on his "to-do list" and some of them he took.
Had it not been for germany and later on the allies, after they realised the threat the red menace presented, Europe as we know it today would have been royally fucked.

LOL. Certain repressed nationalities like the Byelorussians, Poles, and Ukrainians (to name a few) initially welcomed the Wehrmacht but this did not last long. Last I checked---the USSR never killed 10-20 million civilians in those areas in 4 years. 4 years!

O rly?
http://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/genocide/stalin.htm
That may not be 10-20 million (a figure which i also highly doubt) but its still a fuckload of people.

Hitler was the force that destroyed Germany. If you don’t want your women raped then you surrender before an army of angry spiteful people enter into your country. Many of the soldiers in the Red Army had loved ones killed by the NAZI occupiers. They showed remarkable restraint.

Even if the “2 million” number is true then so what? It does not even hold a candle next to NAZI atrocities in Eastern Europe. If you punch someone then don’t cry when they punch you back.
Death before dishonour.

And playing the victim card is a little funny when it comes to defending the soviet scum, Stalin and his ilk killed way more russians and other eastern europeans than hitler would have even hoped to.

Whatever germany did, its not even close to the horrific atrocities SOVIETS did.

Burrhus

10-09-2006, 03:51 PM

How many German women were raped? One can only guess, but a high proportion of at least 15 million women who either lived in the Soviet Union zone or were expelled from the eastern provinces. The scale of rape is suggested by the fact that about two million women had illegal abortions every year between 1945 and 1948.

LOL.Also, I posted that article to demonstrate that accounts of rape by Russian soldiers rely on more than "the hysterical testimony of a few dozen housewives".

An interesting statistical experiment could be conducted. Test the DNA of a proper sample of Germans born in the period 1945-1948 for signs of Russian and jewish DNA. Not difficult to do.

Think that the jews would allow this? Encitement to hatred laws enforced? Protests, whining, accusations of anti-semitism? Hmmm?

Der Sozialist

10-09-2006, 04:01 PM

I doubt, his actions showed differently. First the ww1 territories, then europe.
There were quite a few nations on his "to-do list" and some of them he took.
Had it not been for germany and later on the allies, after they realised the threat the red menace presented, Europe as we know it today would have been royally fucked.

Care to post evidence that Stalin would have invaded W. Europe?

O rly?
http://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/genocide/stalin.htm
That may not be 10-20 million (a figure which i also highly doubt) but its still a fuckload of people.
LOL, 7 million died from the “Holodomor?” You believe that figure but do not believe my modest range of 10 to 20 million? Probably only 1 to 3 million died in the great famine.

Death before dishonour.

And playing the victim card is a little funny when it comes to defending the soviet scum, Stalin and his ilk killed way more russians and other eastern europeans than hitler would have even hoped to.

Whatever germany did, its not even close to the horrific atrocities SOVIETS did.

LOL, no one is playing the victim card more than the wannabe-NAZIS and their sympathizers on this thread. Germany should be thankful that Berlin and her inhabitants weren't relocated to Siberia.

Burrhus

10-09-2006, 04:19 PM

Der Sozialist:There is really little proof that Stalin wanted to invade Europe—he most definitely wanted to reclaim territory lost in WW1 but this is a “far cry” from the Red Army dancing the troika under the Eiffel tower.

While Hitler was not simply content with reclaiming land lost during WW1—his invasions of Yugoslavia, Greece, and Czechoslovakia (after he was given the Sudetenland) illustrate this.

There is no reason to believe that Hitler intended to annex those nations to the Third Reich. He invaded them to prevent the allies from invading them first and using them as military bases with proximity to Germany.

DS: Hitler was the force that destroyed Germany. If you don’t want your women raped then you surrender before an army of angry spiteful people enter into your country. Many of the soldiers in the Red Army had loved ones killed by the NAZI occupiers. They showed remarkable restraint.

"...then you surrender before an army of angry spiteful people enter into your country." Hitler was not given the option of surrendering before the Allied armies entered Germany. Withdrawing German military forces inside German borders with the Allies outside and then surrendering was not a choice that was offered to Hitler.

Whether you think that Hitler should or should not have been given this option, the fact is that he was not and faulting him for not surrendering before the foreign armies entered Germany is inappropriate.

Roosevelt insisted on, and Churchill and Stalin concurred in, a policy of unconditional surrender meaning that Germany must lay down its arms and allow the Allied military forces to occupy Germany and assume total poiltical control of the nation.

Which is what they finally did, to the extreme detriment of the German nation.

Mackie

10-09-2006, 04:32 PM

Care to post evidence that Stalin would have invaded W. Europe?
I was referring to his actions, we'll never really know for sure wether he would of have had hitler not risen to power.

But anyways, Hitler did come to power and Stalin did try to invade and invaded several countries. -Why do you believe he would not have done that if it wasnt for Hitler? Without him it just seems alot more likely that Stalin might have attempted a full invasion. How you gonna prove he wouldnt have, hm?

LOL, 7 million died from the “Holodomor?” You believe that figure but do not believe my modest range of 10 to 20 million? Probably only 1 to 3 million died in the great famine.

Smells like denial to me.
And modest? lol :,(

LOL, no one is playing the victim card more than the wannabe-NAZIS and their sympathizers on this thread. Germany should be thankful that Berlin and her inhabitants weren't relocated to Siberia.
Then why do I just see some soviet symphatizing scumbags doing that.
Just out of interest, does it make you feel like such a big man to put nazis in caps every time you say the word? Just wondering because it makes you seem fairly... sad.

Fucking red cunts, they all should be shot.

cerberus

10-09-2006, 05:56 PM

NeoAs said, with the KwK 39 L/60, following the KwK 38 L/42.
Point taken on the L/60 , hitler had asked for it to be put in place.
Chamberlaind and Doyle - state that this was not done because the upgunning to the L42 had just taken place and the weapon was effective.
MkIII "G" and "H" , yes the L/60 "long" ( in ""J" and "M" models) would have been more effective,it was introduced after December 1941.
You have to look at the introduction of two 50mm guns within such a short time frame.
The 50mm would have been up to almost all soviet armour apart from KV1 and T-34 and I would doubt that Hitlers idea to upgrade to the long 50mm L/60 was based on any inkling of the T-34 or KV1.

As events would prove it was required - also up gunning and armouring of the MKIV.

As far as spare prts and spare guns out side of main tank production goes - replacing the units already in place would have been hard to impossible.
the capacity was just not there.
This move from one gun to another - as I said presents supply problems as well as maintance problems.

( In a pre Barbarossa visit Soviet generlas had been sown the Mk II and Mk IV and had asked their hosts " Do you not have anything heavier than this ?"
When "no" was the answer the Russians believed that the Germans were holding back).

Neo.The Fuehrer had previously seen the armor of English (Matilda) and French (Somua S35) tanks, off of which the shells of all German tanks had bounced - hence his order for the superior armor penetration of the higher-velocity version of the 50mm cannon.
Which was why Rommel used the 88mm to stop the British at Arras.
That there was insufficient rationalization was not due to Hitler's efforts.
I think that Hitler played his part in a lack of rationalisation as much as any.
Had Speer not been on hand , things would have collapsed.
Indiscriminately-dropped bombs, which the 262 was capable of delivering, would have assisted the German effort at Normandy.
The aircraft was not ready in June 44.
From "The ME-262 Combat Diary" Foreman and Harvey ( Air Britain Pub.).

"EKdo 262 was "working up" durring May 1944 , Hitler's directive that the new aircraft be employed as a high speed bomber was also being put into effect. On 29th may, Goring convened a meeting to discuss the ME262 question."
"Goring issued the following directive that : "Some aircraft are to be allowed for tests inthe (fighter role, as long as this does not affect the development of bomber models turned out. |I also suggest that this aircraft be called a "super speed bomber" , not a "fighter" in the Fuhrer's presence in future"

This does indicate some rigid thinking on Hitler's part and an acknowledgement that bomber production of the "fighter" would have priority.

This produced problems for the fighter - cockpit wise - the layout changed - fatal for a pilot in combat .
It also produced problems in that a complex balance had to be achieved between fuel and bomb loads , and if the aircrfat was "caught" on take off , the pilot was on a hiding to nothing.
To achieve the bomber role 2 x 30mm cannons were lost.
When the invasion hit the beaches - the bomber version was not ready .
" Meanwhile on June 6th 1944 , the long awaited Allied landings took place in Normandy , and by the evening of the following day , the hold on the beachheads hda been established. In a discussion with Hitler , Otto Saur, a nazi Party leader, was told "The ME-262 aircraft are to be bombers , to puch the Allies back into the sea".
But it was already too late , for KG(J) 51 could not begin operations for several weeks."

Had the aircraft been given priority as a fighter it could have been in place and might have played a role .
Over Normandy in daylight - it would have been hard pressed to deal with the P-51 and Spitefires at low altitude which as a fighter bomber it would have been - right down on the deck.
That 150mph advantage would have been lost.

NeoMesserschmidt told Hitler just that.
he told Hitler that in theory it could carry bombs , even though it had not beeen designed to.
Hitler - he would have viewed it like this - in fact that is how he did view it.
( For that is what he ordered it to become , the "Swallow" became the "Sturmvogel").
Neo.I am more aware of these considerations than are you. Do you know why the Jumo 004B's were more temperamental than their lack of maturity warranted?
The power plant needed careful handling and had to be treated gently, its life time was short and the high quality metals needed to make some parts were is short supply , substituting other metals created problems.
Part of the problem or a contributing problem was there was no training
(dual) aircraft , the pilots learned more by word of mouth and taxing around an airfield than they did in the air.bad enough for experienced pilots but for men with little time on any type - this was downright dangerous.
(BTW, it did not "nudge the sound barrier" in other than a dive - top speed, 540mph at altitude.)
In a dive , yes - 163 was more up for "nudging the SB - very close to it , but a death trap.
KMA Not sure what / who KMA is .
Did he watch or did he not - it was filmed - what regieme does such a thing ?
Sounds like the decent thing to do in a policy dispute.

Buit it was not even something as simple as a policy dispute , it often was dictating in the face of sound advice . leaving men in no win situations and giving orders which made no sense in military terms.
Manstein went under such circumstances and so did others.

Sulla the Dictator

10-09-2006, 07:27 PM

Typical S*D recourse to pejorative, hyperbolic, misleading language.

Can you please stop whining? If you don't like posts, don't reply to them. Whining is unseemly.

Sulla the Dictator

10-09-2006, 07:31 PM

There is no reason to believe that Hitler intended to annex those nations to the Third Reich. He invaded them to prevent the allies from invading them first and using them as military bases with proximity to Germany.

LOL Thats a valid reason to invade. Oh, and thats a particularly laughable reason for Hitler to invade Czechoslovakia, before the outbreak of the war. Good work. Its important that the standard bearers of National Socialism make it as absurd as they possibly can.

Sulla the Dictator

10-09-2006, 07:34 PM

One who is of the community of Leftist Jews and their shabbaz-goyim.

In regard to the period in question, prominent political examples are:

*Frankfurter
*Morgenthau
*Hillman
*Rosenman
*Baruch
*White
*Howe
*Rosenberg
*Hiss
*Chambers
*Hopkins
*Hammer
*Harriman
*Roosevelt
*Rothschild (Victor)
*Blunt
*Hollis
*Philby
*Churchill
*Kamenev
*Zinoviev
*Trotsky
*Lenin
*Stalin

LOL You're obviously just name dropping. There is absolutely no value to this list other than the people you named being people you've been told not to like.

Sulla the Dictator

10-09-2006, 07:37 PM

LOL. You really have a knack for the dishonest, out-of-context quote. Here's the full paragraph:

Also, I posted that article to demonstrate that accounts of rape by Russian soldiers rely on more than "the hysterical testimony of a few dozen housewives".

Actually thats a meaningless statistic. The state of Germany at the time caused many women to consort with Allied troops in both zones. That they aborted babies could mean rape, it could also mean they aborted the child of someone they voluntarily slept with (Though they may have regreted it).

Oh, and by the way, would you care to tell us who kept the statistics on ILLEGAL abortions? Where did the doctor's report for ILLEGAL abortions go too after the procedure? :p

Der Sozialist

10-09-2006, 07:39 PM

There is no reason to believe that Hitler intended to annex those nations to the Third Reich. He invaded them to prevent the allies from invading them first and using them as military bases with proximity to Germany.

Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia, after he was given the Sudetenland, to prevent the allies from invading Germany?

Hitler was not given the option of surrendering before the Allied armies entered Germany. Withdrawing German military forces inside German borders with the Allies outside and then surrendering was not a choice that was offered to Hitler.

Maybe not in 45 with the Red Army already at the border but I am sure that in late 43 Stalin would have bit. Not that Hitler ever tried.

If I remember correctly all the peace proposals made by Himmler were directed at the USA and not the USSR. I believe Himmler even expected the USA to fight the Red Army (to prevent it from entering Germany). I really don’t consider that a peace proposal but anyways, Hitler declared him a traitor even for that small maneuver.

Roosevelt insisted on, and Churchill and Stalin concurred in, a policy of unconditional surrender meaning that Germany must lay down its arms and allow the Allied military forces to occupy Germany and assume total poiltical control of the nation.

Unconditional surrender does not mean that Hitler couldn’t surrender. He just couldn’t make any conditions for such a surrender….

How you gonna prove he wouldnt have, hm?

I am sorry, I want proof that unicorns don’t exist. :rofl:

Smells like denial to me.

Not at all. Most historians (mainstream that is) estimate that the great famine took only 3 or 4 million lives. That “7 million” figure is simply egregious—probably from the same lunatics that claim Stalin killed over 100 million of his people.

Not to mention that this was a famine. Stalin did not have these people shot or sent to Gulags or what have you. They died from malnutrition and while this famine *might* have been caused by the rapid industrial program known as the “5 year plan” it could have been caused by other factors—Russia has experienced severe famines multiple times in the past but after the 5 year plan it has never experienced a famine of devastating magnitude.

To say Stalin killed these people is like blaming Bush for hurricane Katrina.

And modest? lol :,(

Yes, modest. I have never seen a mainstream historian claim less than 10 million. I have seen plenty claim >20 million. You cannot say that for the great famine where few credible historians give estimates above 4 million.

Just out of interest, does it make you feel like such a big man to put nazis in caps every time you say the word? Just wondering because it makes you seem fairly... sad.

Since it is an acronym I feel that it must be capitalized.

Fucking red cunts, they all should be shot.

My only regret is that the glorious Рабоче-Крестьянская Красная Армия - Raboche-Krest'yanskaya Krasnaya Armiya failed to invade and bolshevize Finland.

Berianidze

10-09-2006, 07:47 PM

My only regret is that the glorious Рабоче-Крестьянская Красная Армия - Raboche-Krest'yanskaya Krasnaya Armiya failed to invade and bolshevize Finland.
This would've been a very important victory...particularly for the morale of the Army. They should've crushed the resistance.

Mackie

10-09-2006, 08:08 PM

I am sorry, I want proof that unicorns don’t exist. :rofl:

Um, no... more like, it happened with hitler in the picture / because of hitler, that we know. The thing is, why wouldnt it have happened without him?
You know what im trying to ask/say here?

My only regret is that the glorious Рабоче-Крестьянская Красная Армия - Raboche-Krest'yanskaya Krasnaya Armiya failed to invade and bolshevize Finland.
And that, we are proud of. Crushed the red revolt in the civil war, stopped the red army from taking our native land.
Rest in piece, Nikolai Kasa, my grandfather... and his brothers.

And as for the rest, many historians say it was a forced famine and i am quite comfortable with view.
The only nay-sayers propably are soviet-symphatisers and/or reds.
The 100 million figure is insane, ill give you that.
However, the 30+ million figure (when it comes to the soviets other murders, separately, in the 1917-1991 period of time) seems fairly accurate and 60 million figure is possible although that makes even me somewhat doubtful.

Mackie

10-09-2006, 08:23 PM

This would've been a very important victory...particularly for the morale of the Army. They should've crushed the resistance.
But you fuckers were not able to. Even Stalin himself admitted that we would have been too much of a thorn in his side.

"While cleaning up, a Finnish officer muttered to a photojournalist, "The wolves will eat well this year." After the "victory", a Russian officer muttered, "Well, we've won just enough land to bury our dead.""

Winter war:
Finnish losses (average) - 22 000 - 23 000
Soviet losses (Average) - 250 000 - 300 000

Continuation war:
Finnish losses (average) - 27 000
Soviet losses (average) - 127 000

And here for you soviet cocksucking scumbags, some fun.

dead commies.
http://img124.imagevenue.com/aAfkjfp01fo1i-24621/loc409/51565_motti_dead_commies_122_409lo.jpg
a soviet assault being halted.
http://img109.imagevenue.com/aAfkjfp01fo1i-21975/loc499/51872_soviet_assault_being_halted_122_499lo.jpg
a commie frozen to death in a finnish winter.
http://img153.imagevenue.com/aAfkjfp01fo1i-19728/loc500/51384_frozentodeathcommie_122_500lo.jpg
and some more dead commies.
http://img133.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=50980_deadcommies_122_376lo.jpg
and a few more dead commies
http://img105.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=51571_motti_effectiveness_dead_commies_122_408lo.jpg
wait! theres even more dead commies!
http://img133.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=50980_deadcommies_122_376lo.jpg

and their flag, ripped from their arms.
http://img12.imagevenue.com/aAfkjfp01fo1i-12342/loc499/51375_flag_of_a_destroyed_soviet_division_122_499lo.jpg

Der Sozialist

10-09-2006, 08:36 PM

Um, no... more like, it happened with hitler in the picture / because of hitler, that we know. The thing is, why wouldnt it have happened without him?
You know what im trying to ask/say here?

You want me to prove a hypothetical. A hypothetical that has very little basis in fact to begin with. Stalin’s Red Army tried to reclaim lost territory—like Finland, Baltic states and Eastern Poland.

If you are accusing Stalin of having some secret plan to invade Europe then by all means present your evidence.

Thomas777

10-09-2006, 08:40 PM

You want me to prove a hypothetical. A hypothetical that has very little basis in fact to begin with. Stalin’s Red Army tried to reclaim lost territory—like Finland, Baltic states and Eastern Poland.

If you are accusing Stalin of having some secret plan to invade Europe then by all means present your evidence.

I don't think that any 'secret plan' need to be revealed in order to determine Stalin's intent. He presided over a despotic, Eurasian empire, headed by a party-state that advocated global class revolt and the establishment of Communist governments across Europe and (ultimately) the globe.

The entire purpose of the USSR was to destroy what the Marxist-Leninist CPSU perceived as global oppression of the world proletariat. This was to be acheived by promoting, aiding, and abetting armed revolution, wars of "national liberation", and military conquest to effect regime change.

Sulla the Dictator

10-09-2006, 08:42 PM

Thomas777

10-09-2006, 08:44 PM

We can see Stalin's desire to overthrow European governments by his honest and fullhearted attempts to support the Spanish Communists.

We can see that quite clearly, can't we Thomas? He really helped them out. A lot.

By your reasoning, the USA supports Pan-Arab socialism, because the Reagan administration supported the Baathists.

Am I supposed to insult your intelligence by pointing out that realpolitik makes for strange bedfellows?

Der Sozialist

10-09-2006, 08:49 PM

I don't think that any 'secret plan' need to be revealed in order to determine Stalin's intent. He presided over a despotic, Eurasian empire, headed by a party-state that advocated global class revolt and the establishment of Communist governments across Europe and (ultimately) the globe.

The entire purpose of the USSR was to destroy what the Marxist-Leninist CPSU perceived as global oppression of the world proletariat. This was to be acheived by promoting, aiding, and abetting armed revolution, wars of "national liberation", and military conquest to effect regime change.

Stalin, for much of his reign, advocated Socialism in One Country.

However, spreading “Communism” by aide to revolutionaries is a far cry from invading the countries…..

Thomas777

10-09-2006, 08:53 PM

Stalin, for much of his reign, advocated Socialism in One Country.

However, spreading “Communism” by aide to revolutionaries is a far cry from invading the countries…..

Stalin wanted to bring Europe into a Soviet administered Imperium. This differs markedly from the Trotskyite/Internationalist goal of world socialist revolution, and admittedly, is quite a bit more rooted in traditional Russo-chauvenism, but that does not make Stalin's USSR any less insidious.

The fact is that Stalin's realpolitik/imperialism was augmented with the accoutrements of M-L tenets...and this is precisely WHY it was so dangerous.

I also do not need to infer/speculate anything about Stalin's intent because I can look at what Stalin did: Stalin conquered half of Europe, created a massive, open-air prison for hundreds of millions of people, and was only stopped from indulging in continued land-grabbing by the underlying threat of an American nuclear attack.

Mackie

10-09-2006, 08:53 PM

You want me to prove a hypothetical. A hypothetical that has very little basis in fact to begin with. Stalin’s Red Army tried to reclaim lost territory—like Finland, Baltic states and Eastern Poland.

If you are accusing Stalin of having some secret plan to invade Europe then by all means present your evidence.
Ahh right. Now I got what you mean.
Then by those means, do you think hitler had the right to try reclaiming Germanys lost territories, just out interest?
And to add, the lands that belong to the finnic people never were for stalins to take, they belong to us. Blame the imperial russia and sweden for giving us the concept of borders.
I dont think we would have even bothered to get a country of our own if it wasnt for those russo-swedish wars. :p

Other than that I really dunno, man.

Sulla the Dictator

10-09-2006, 08:54 PM

By your reasoning, the USA supports Pan-Arab socialism, because the Reagan administration supported the Baathists.

That doesn't really follow my reasoning.

Am I supposed to insult your intelligence by pointing out that realpolitik makes for strange bedfellows?

Correct. Which argues against your position. That Stalin was willing to torpedo the Spanish, and even screwed over Mao by giving aid to the KMT goes to show that Stalin's desire to export Communism before 1941 is halfhearted, at best. The notion therefore that he had any intentions of invading Europe and doing it FORCEFULLY when he didn't even particularly put in the effort to do it subversively is of course false.

Stalin's practice of realpolitik on a fairly consistant basis really argues against him being some kind of Marxist zealot trying to liberate the workers of Europe.

Thomas777

10-09-2006, 08:57 PM

That doesn't really follow my reasoning.

Correct. Which argues against your position. That Stalin was willing to torpedo the Spanish, and even screwed over Mao by giving aid to the KMT goes to show that Stalin's desire to export Communism before 1941 is halfhearted, at best. The notion therefore that he had any intentions of invading Europe and doing it FORCEFULLY when he didn't even particularly put in the effort to do it subversively is of course false.

Stalin's practice of realpolitik on a fairly consistant basis really argues against him being some kind of Marxist zealot trying to liberate the workers of Europe.

See above.

Stalin had designs on superpower status and the creation of a European empire to be administered from Moscow. He justified these excesses under the auspices of "national liberation" and other Marxist-Leninist tenets...in doing so, his aggression augmented an already existing, progressive zeitgeist that many partisans in war-ravaged nation-states were sympathetic to.

As I said, Stalin's imperialism combined with the ideological weight of the CPSU and its faithful made the USSR more (not less) dangerous.

Der Sozialist

10-09-2006, 08:59 PM

I also do not need to infer/speculate anything about Stalin's intent because I can look at what Stalin did: Stalin conquered half of Europe, created a massive, open-air prison for hundreds of millions of people, and was only stopped from indulging in continued land-grabbing by the underlying threat of an American nuclear attack.

Stalin and the USSR were attacked. The question here pertains to if Stalin would have invaded Germany (if not for Germany invading the USSR) without such provocation—what is your position on this exactly?

Sulla the Dictator

10-09-2006, 09:01 PM

Stalin wanted to bring Europe into a Soviet administered Imperium. This differs markedly from the Trotskyite/Internationalist goal of world socialist revolution, and admittedly, is quite a bit more rooted in traditional Russo-chauvenism, but that does not make Stalin's USSR any less insidious.

This is also belied by the continued independance of Austria, Greece, and Finland. And Yugoslavia, when we're completely honest. Tito was certainly not part of any Soviet administered "Imperium".

The fact is that Stalin's realpolitik/imperialism was augmented with the accoutrements of M-L tenets...and this is precisely WHY it was so dangerous.

The danger of communism isn't actually whats relevant. Whats relevant is Stalin's actual intentions, and Stalin was under no illusions that the Red Army could have successfully conquered Europe.

And indeed, it was the German invasion of the USSR which TAUGHT the Russians how much they actually needed to learn about modern warfare. If Stalin had tried to invade Europe, the Red Army would have lost in the condition it was in. It would have been WWI all over again.

Its a telling point that morale in the Red Army dropped considerably after the Soviets PASSED their old border into Europe.

I also do not need to infer/speculate anything about Stalin's intent because I can look at what Stalin did: Stalin conquered half of Europe

Stalin conquered half of the Third Reich. Different story. That Germany had managed to emcompass most of Europe is Germany's fault. Stalin conquered half of the Third Reich, again, because of the German invasion of the USSR.

Thomas777

10-09-2006, 09:04 PM

Stalin and the USSR were attacked. The question here pertains to if Stalin would have invaded Germany (if not for Germany invading the USSR) without such provocation—what is your position on this exactly?

Russian/German enmity has characterized Continental politik for hundreds of years...this enmity, augmented by the threat of Communism and its aggressive disposition towards Europe as well as the stated goals of the NSDAP and how these goals could be expected to inform Soviet policy, leads any reasonable man to believe that the USSR would have invaded Germany. The Russians would have been incompetent fools to allow Germany to upset their relative power irreparably and become the undisputed masters of Europe. This is simple power politics. I don't see a strong moral equation here that many do.

NeoNietzsche

10-09-2006, 09:09 PM

The notion therefore that he had any intentions of invading Europe and doing it FORCEFULLY when he didn't even particularly put in the effort to do it subversively is of course false.
To the contrary, Stalin had every reason to minimize his antagonism, by subversion, of not-inconsiderable anti-Communist elements in the West in order to continue to enjoy the support which had industrialized his polity and would continue to assist it by all available means. He would wish, one day, of course, to be free of this reliance, as it was Hitler's wish and promise - and he thus had the same resort to expansionism in pursuit of resources and ideological fulfillment as did Hitler. But Hitler struck first.

Thomas777

10-09-2006, 09:11 PM

This is also belied by the continued independance of Austria, Greece, and Finland. And Yugoslavia, when we're completely honest. Tito was certainly not part of any Soviet administered "Imperium".
The Soviets were defeated in Finland in 1940, Austria was a point of contention between the Western allies and the Sovs, and a Soviet sponsored revolution was attempted in Greece and only foiled by heroic measures on the part of England and America to thwart it.

Stalin was staring in the face at atomic-armed America...he could not merely indulge in land-grabbing with respect to territories that had not been ceded to him by his ideological running partner in FDR. Stalin was brazen, but he was not an idiot, and he was not some reckless maniac.

The danger of communism isn't actually whats relevant. Whats relevant is Stalin's actual intentions, and Stalin was under no illusions that the Red Army could have successfully conquered Europe.
The Red Army would have been met with an atomic assault. Stalin understood the implications of this.

And indeed, it was the German invasion of the USSR which TAUGHT the Russians how much they actually needed to learn about modern warfare. If Stalin had tried to invade Europe, the Red Army would have lost in the condition it was in. It would have been WWI all over again.
What Stalin's designs were in 1939 were not the same as they were in 1945. The strategic landscape had changed. Furthermore, niether you nor NeoN seem to appreciate the power of the Soviet juggernaught. Neo thinks the Sovs were a bunch of unruly barbarians who could barely fire rifles, you think that they had no offensive capacity as of 1945. Niether one of these accounts is accurate.

Its a telling point that morale in the Red Army dropped considerably after the Soviets PASSED their old border into Europe.
That is sort of an amorphous claim.

Stalin conquered half of the Third Reich. Different story. That Germany had managed to emcompass most of Europe is Germany's fault. Stalin conquered half of the Third Reich, again, because of the German invasion of the USSR.

No. Its not "Germany's fault" that millions of people were enslaved by Communism. Its Stalin's fault.

Sulla the Dictator

10-09-2006, 09:14 PM

Stalin had designs on superpower status and the creation of a European empire to be administered from Moscow.

The notion of "superpower" is a post war concept. Stalin already considered the USSR to be a great power in 1938. Stalin was concerned with PRESERVING the USSR from either collapse or foreign aggression. He didn't view the English, French, or Germans to be 'weaker' states than Russia.

He justified these excesses under the auspices of "national liberation" and other Marxist-Leninist tenets...in doing so, his aggression augmented an already existing, progressive zeitgeist that many partisans in war-ravaged nation-states were sympathetic to.

Except that this isn't what happened. The Soviets didn't invade soverign states talking about 'national liberation', it was invaded itself.

I mean, its actually the height of farce to suggest that the Soviets were under some obligation to STOP at the Soviet border after the Germans invaded them and destroyed their nation. That they FINISHED the war the Germans started doesn't at all prove that they were intending on doing the same thing originally.

And I'll point out that if you had any evidence they were going to do such a thing, you would have posted it. There would be plenty of books on the subject available to the public.

As I said, Stalin's imperialism combined with the ideological weight of the CPSU and its faithful made the USSR more (not less) dangerous.

Stalin's "imperialism" was a consequence of Nazi invasion. There was little or no opportunity for Stalin to be an 'imperialist' before Hitler took power in Germany.

Thus, there was acutally no threat at all of a Soviet invasion of Europe before 1941.

Sulla the Dictator

10-09-2006, 09:36 PM

The Soviets were defeated in Finland in 1940

The Fins then joined in Barbarossa. And halfway through they knew the war was as good as lost for the Germans. They actually refused to advance to cut off the railway that delivered US aid to the Soviets so that they could keep their relations with the United States and continue to negotiate a seperate peace.

The Russians allowed them to do this.

Austria was a point of contention between the Western allies and the Sovs

Poland was a point of contention between the Allies and the Soviets. The Soviets occupied Poland, and wern't going to leave it. They could have done the same thing in Austria.

The difference was that Poland served as an excellent buffer between the USSR and the rest of Europe, and Austria doesn't. No one was going to go to war over Austrian independance, and everyone knew that.

and a Soviet sponsored revolution was attempted in Greece and only foiled by heroic measures on the part of England and America to thwart it.

Its interesting how we flip from being the 'pawns of Judeo-Bolshevik cultural Marxists' to opponents of Stalin. :rofl:

Communist movements are irrelevant. We're talking about the actual movement of Soviet troops.

Stalin was staring in the face at atomic-armed America...he could not merely indulge in land-grabbing with respect to territories that had not been ceded to him by his ideological running partner in FDR. Stalin was brazen, but he was not an idiot, and he was not some reckless maniac.

There would have been no atomic war over any nation the Soviets had troops in. Come on now. The reality was that Stalin was trying to build good faith with the West, as the Cold War had not yet become a total reality.

The Red Army would have been met with an atomic assault. Stalin understood the implications of this.

Actually I was referring to the period before the war, not after the war. Stalin was suitably impressed with the quality and technological prowess of Western armies. There was no way the Soviets would have invaded Europe before 1941, particularly after the Winter War. And most especially after Germany's swift defeat of France.

What Stalin's designs were in 1939 were not the same as they were in 1945.

Hey, thats what I'm saying. I'm saying that the German claims of 'preemtive action' are ridiculous. Stalin had no intention of invading Europe.

The strategic landscape had changed.

Only in where the borders were drawn after the failed German attempt to subjegate and colonize the USSR. The fact is that in 1939 and in 1945, the Soviets were up against hard borders that they could alter no further.

Furthermore, niether you nor NeoN seem to appreciate the power of the Soviet juggernaught. Neo thinks the Sovs were a bunch of unruly barbarians who could barely fire rifles, you think that they had no offensive capacity as of 1945.

Actually my position is that they had no offensive capability in 1941. They had excellent offensive capability in 1945....but not against the United States. American airpower would have made quick work of those Soviet mass formations.

Not to mention the fact that the Soviets had people still deserting to the Germans as late as Kursk. And thats against Nazis who were slashing and burning their way through Soviet territory. You would have seen millions of prisoners in any war with the West.

That is sort of an amorphous claim.

But all the propaganda was not idle. There was real resistance to overcome. The truth was that not all Russian soldiers, and far from all recruits from other Soviet lands, were keen to step across the international border. A young man like Slesarev could revel in the tourist aspect of his job because he was heart-free. But older men-the fathers and husbands, and the tired ones, the injured in body and mind-believed that their job would be completed when the last Fascist was driven from Soviet soil. They had no desire to fight beyond that point. The rest of the world, which had left Russia on its own for so long, could sort out Europe for itself.

Ivan's War
page 281

No. Its not "Germany's fault" that millions of people were enslaved by Communism. Its Stalin's fault.

No, its Germany's fault. Germany destroyed nations which served as the front line defense and tripwires against Soviet incursion.

This doesn't even include the peoples Germany GAVE to the Soviets under treaty. Without even the pressures of war.

Sulla the Dictator

10-09-2006, 09:41 PM

To the contrary, Stalin had every reason to minimize his antagonism, by subversion, of not-inconsiderable anti-Communist elements in the West in order to continue to enjoy the support which had industrialized his polity and would continue to assist it by all available means.

Who, like the Nazis? The Nazis who were buying Soviet grain and oil?

Can you explain for us what Western pressure existed to cause Stalin to secretly provide support to the KMT?

He would wish, one day, of course, to be free of this reliance, as it was Hitler's wish and promise - and he thus had the same resort to expansionism in pursuit of resources and ideological fulfillment as did Hitler. But Hitler struck first.

Since we know that the Soviet Union was not going to invade Europe (The archives are open, after all), this is a bit silly.

Mackie

10-09-2006, 09:43 PM

The Fins then joined in Barbarossa. And halfway through they knew the war was as good as lost for the Germans. They actually refused to advance to cut off the railway that delivered US aid to the Soviets so that they could keep their relations with the United States and continue to negotiate a seperate peace.

The Russians allowed them to do this.

Everything for us was in stake, what else were we to do?
However, I've NEVER heard of that refusal, though.

We allowed the Germans to pass in our hatred of the soviets.

Der Sozialist

10-09-2006, 09:52 PM

Russian/German enmity has characterized Continental politik for hundreds of years...this enmity, augmented by the threat of Communism and its aggressive disposition towards Europe as well as the stated goals of the NSDAP and how these goals could be expected to inform Soviet policy, leads any reasonable man to believe that the USSR would have invaded Germany. The Russians would have been incompetent fools to allow Germany to upset their relative power irreparably and become the undisputed masters of Europe. This is simple power politics. I don't see a strong moral equation here that many do.

Considering that the last war fought between Germany and Russia led to the collapse of the Tsar, a civil war, and a sizeable reduction in territory-- I am failing to see why you expect Stalin to have invaded Germany (because of past enmities and ideological differences) since it could very well lead to his disposal. Unlike Hitler, Stalin chose his battles carefully and therefore I doubt that he was ever planning on invading Germany.

Even if he was, the disaster known as the Winter War would have probably changed his mind.

Mackie

10-09-2006, 09:56 PM

i feel oblidged to post a song;

Deep is our blow, our wrath invincible,
we have no mercy, no homeland.
Our fortune is at the point of our swords,
our hearts may never give in.
Our war cry rings out, enchanting, to a land
that is breaking loose of its chains.
:;: Our defiance may not tire
until the people of Finland are free. :;:

When bowed were heads of the people, the land,
we Jägers still believed.
In our hearts was a dark night, a thousands pains,
but one thought proud, holy:
We shall rise as the revenge of Kullervo,
it is sweet to face the fates of war.
:;: A new tale of Finland is to be born,
it grows, it rushes, it triumphs. :;:

Häme, Karelia, shores and lands of Viena,
one and great is Finland's reign.
Its cause cannot be driven by force
from beneath the northern sky.
Its Lion Flag is carried aloft
by the strong arms of the Jägers,
:;: Over the thunder of gory fields
towards the shore of rising Finland. :;:

http://www.the-tcs.net/box//index.php?act=Attach&type=post&id=960

Thomas777

10-09-2006, 10:21 PM

The Fins then joined in Barbarossa.
No they didn't. Hitler's famous meeting with Mannerheim involved AH trying to convince the latter to join the war. He wasn't convinced of Hitler's case,

And halfway through they knew the war was as good as lost for the Germans. They actually refused to advance to cut off the railway that delivered US aid to the Soviets so that they could keep their relations with the United States and continue to negotiate a seperate peace.
And?

The Russians allowed them to do this.

The Russians really had no choice. Fighting in Finland didn't work out very well for Ivan...he wasn't about to get his nose bloodied again in the wake of the final drive for Berlin.

Poland was a point of contention between the Allies and the Soviets. The Soviets occupied Poland, and wern't going to leave it. They could have done the same thing in Austria.
Austria was disputably within the Soviet sphere of influence. Herman Kahn wrote about this, I believe. Poland on the other hand was/is the buffer state between Russia and Germany, and was right smack dab in the middle of the path to Berlin. After Roosevelt decided to give the Sovs the green light to go to Berlin, Poland had to be written off...Austria was different.

The difference was that Poland served as an excellent buffer between the USSR and the rest of Europe, and Austria doesn't. No one was going to go to war over Austrian independance, and everyone knew that.
See above.

Its interesting how we flip from being the 'pawns of Judeo-Bolshevik cultural Marxists' to opponents of Stalin. :rofl:
Don't put words in my mouth. I never made any such allegation. I said that Roosevelt was a Soviet sympathizer, and he was (by his own admission).

Communist movements are irrelevant. We're talking about the actual movement of Soviet troops.
No, they're not. Installing Soviet proxy governments in pro-Communist countries is a completely different matter than installing proxies in anti-Communist countries.

There would have been no atomic war over any nation the Soviets had troops in.
Yeah, you're right. All those Nato troops across checkpoint charlie were there for decoration...they were the welcoming committe in case Ivan decided to cross the Fulda gap. Nothing would have happened had the Red Army tried to take West Germany.

Come on now. The reality was that Stalin was trying to build good faith with the West, as the Cold War had not yet become a total reality.

Blockading Berlin was a gesture of "good faith"?

Actually I was referring to the period before the war, not after the war. Stalin was suitably impressed with the quality and technological prowess of Western armies. There was no way the Soviets would have invaded Europe before 1941, particularly after the Winter War. And most especially after Germany's swift defeat of France.
Perhaps, perhaps not. However, the fact remains that it would have been foolish beyond belief for the USSR to continue to allow Germany to consolidate Europe and marshall its forces. Why would the USSR allow that to continue? Ultimately, Germany and the Soviet Union would have gone to war at some point...if not in 1941, than in 1946 or 1951. Hitler attacked the USSR before they were in a position to blitz Europe. This is not a controversial point. Harry Truman seemed to understand pretty well that this was occuring.

Hey, thats what I'm saying. I'm saying that the German claims of 'preemtive action' are ridiculous. Stalin had no intention of invading Europe.
Why wouldn't Stalin invade Europe? The Russians planned to let Germany reign Europe into a German-led military juggernaught and do nothing about it? Were the Russians "hoping for the best"? That is not how power politics works.

Actually my position is that they had no offensive capability in 1941. They had excellent offensive capability in 1945....but not against the United States. American airpower would have made quick work of those Soviet mass formations.
That is why Stalin stopped his advance...he did not wish to risk war with an atomic-armed USA.

Not to mention the fact that the Soviets had people still deserting to the Germans as late as Kursk. And thats against Nazis who were slashing and burning their way through Soviet territory. You would have seen millions of prisoners in any war with the West.
That is a possibility.

But all the propaganda was not idle. There was real resistance to overcome. The truth was that not all Russian soldiers, and far from all recruits from other Soviet lands, were keen to step across the international border. A young man like Slesarev could revel in the tourist aspect of his job because he was heart-free. But older men-the fathers and husbands, and the tired ones, the injured in body and mind-believed that their job would be completed when the last Fascist was driven from Soviet soil. They had no desire to fight beyond that point. The rest of the world, which had left Russia on its own for so long, could sort out Europe for itself.

Ivan's War
page 281

I think that is speculative. The Russians lost how many millions of men before the battle of Berlin, yet they endured with great tenacity...I do not think they would have just collapsed and given up had Stalin given the order to keep marching Westward.

No, its Germany's fault. Germany destroyed nations which served as the front line defense and tripwires against Soviet incursion.
Not every bad thing that happened in the 20th century is Nazi Germany's fault. Stalin had a choice as to whether he was going to enslave and massacre people...he was not forced into brutality against innocent people by the ghost of Adolf Hitler.

Thomas777

10-09-2006, 10:45 PM

Considering that the last war fought between Germany and Russia led to the collapse of the Tsar, a civil war, and a sizeable reduction in territory-- I am failing to see why you expect Stalin to have invaded Germany (because of past enmities and ideological differences) since it could very well lead to his disposal. Unlike Hitler, Stalin chose his battles carefully and therefore I doubt that he was ever planning on invading Germany.

Even if he was, the disaster known as the Winter War would have probably changed his mind.

In the wake of Germany's rearmament and subsequent rallying of Axis nations in the cause of Imperium, it would have been catastrophic for the USSR to not act to prevent Germany from usurping Russia's strategic interests, just as it would have been inconceivably foolish for Germany to allow the USSR to consolidate its power and prepare for war against its named enemy (Europe).

Der Sozialist

10-09-2006, 10:56 PM

In the wake of Germany's rearmament and subsequent rallying of Axis nations in the cause of Imperium, it would have been catastrophic for the USSR to not act to prevent Germany from usurping Russia's strategic interests,

However, the USSR did not have the means to do so. Their military was not on par with Germany’s. A disastrous invasion would have led to a revolt. I believe Stalin knew as much. That is why he waited for a non-aggression pact with Germany before he began to reacquire lost territory. Even when Hitler invaded Yugoslavia, Stalin (a region Stalin wanted to expand his influence into) Stalin did not take action. Certainly, if Stalin wanted a war with Germany Yugoslavia was his ticket….

Mackie

10-09-2006, 11:08 PM

err.. are we still talking about the movie which this thread was for?

Felix the Cat

10-09-2006, 11:19 PM

In the wake of Germany's rearmament and subsequent rallying of Axis nations in the cause of Imperium, it would have been catastrophic for the USSR to not act to prevent Germany from usurping Russia's strategic interests, just as it would have been inconceivably foolish for Germany to allow the USSR to consolidate its power and prepare for war against its named enemy (Europe).
The Soviets would have been quickly beaten if they had attacked Germany in 1941

A policy of retrenchment would have been wisest: dig in and wait for the Germans to make a mistake

Thomas777

10-09-2006, 11:23 PM

The Soviets would have been quickly beaten if they had attacked Germany in 1941
Perhaps. If the USSR had continued to arm itself, moderize, and consolidate it probably would have been in a good position to attack Germany by 1951. Hitler did not think it a wise policy to wait until the Sovs were in an advantageous position to attack Europe.

Der Sozialist

10-09-2006, 11:45 PM

Perhaps. If the USSR had continued to arm itself, moderize, and consolidate it probably would have been in a good position to attack Germany by 1951. Hitler did not think it a wise policy to wait until the Sovs were in an advantageous position to attack Europe.

I doubt that Hitler invaded the USSR out of a desire to defend Europe.

Sulla the Dictator

10-12-2006, 10:54 AM

Nah, he attacked for the amazing Russian landscape! :rofl:

You're almost right. He attacked Russia for Ukranian farmland and Caucasian oil fields. Lots of land with dead or deported slavs.

Sulla the Dictator

10-12-2006, 10:57 AM

Perhaps. If the USSR had continued to arm itself, moderize, and consolidate it probably would have been in a good position to attack Germany by 1951.

LOL What?

Hitler did not think it a wise policy to wait until the Sovs were in an advantageous position to attack Europe.

Since we are in posession of internal Soviet discussions, plans, and meeting minutes from the period, on what do you base this plan for Soviet invasion of Europe?

I see plenty of Nazi discussion about the importance of living space. I see Hitler's views on the value of Ukrainian farmland and Caucasian oil. I see Nazi theories on the Germanic migration through the Crimea.

I don't see anyting remotely legitimate about an approaching Soviet invasion.

Petr

10-12-2006, 11:46 AM

I don't see anyting remotely legitimate about an approaching Soviet invasion.
Now this is a subject on which you could start a serious, heavyweight debate (on a separate thread) with people like NeoNietzsche.

Petr