This is BOUND to irk some, OH well

Wow, this discussion has branched quickly.

I had family on both sides of the war. And in many ways I am equally proud of their service for what they believed in, whether it was right or not. one of the things that makes service honorable in my opinion, is sacrifice for fighting for something you believe in, which is a respectable act no matter what your alignment. However, this should not say that what you believe in is irrelevant. Many fought for Germany because they were fighting for Germany alone - not for Nazism. Many realized that if Germany lost the war the country may be left in shambles all over again (especially later in the war). This brought some to fight for the well being of the nation, not so much nationalism. While it is respectable that those men (and some women) fought for what they believed in, the bottom line does remain that many were involved quite horrific things.

Some may argue that it's no different than cowboys and indians as a kid. Those who have studied the displacement of Native Americans in the US know it was a travesty and in some cases downright criminal. So, why then, does everyone want to be the cowboy? The masses don't know the truth of what occurred - just as many in the Wehrmacht had no clue.

What is truly disturbing is that people that DO know about the crimes of the Nazi regime choose to worship many of their acts and ideals. As has been said, perhaps its because they like the "badboy" side of it. I think some is because of other deep issues - though I am no psychologist to analyze it - feeling like part of a group, etc etc.

The problem is that none of that orientation seem to want to step forward and defend their views. While these people do have the rights to believe what they want... They point the finger like many critics of modern society do, and make all sorts of claims. The bottom line, I think, is that most are almost entirely uneducated, and entirely self-interested.

 

I have been watching this thread and just have to comment...

Mortman...I think you hit the nail on the head with the whole "bad boy image". Where most people grow out of it, as it has been argued...there are people who just don't grow up, period...and this is not excluded. Neo-nazi's have been around for a long time, and they are probably not going away any time soon. In my opinion, it is a culmination of upbringing (I'll argue that in a minute) paired with a general anger issue at whatever...now, considering the Nazi's are pegged at being super-angry people (the SS come to mind here) that are capable of some pretty atrocious stuff, it would make perfect sense why they would idenfity with Nazi's and use it to find a way to either fit in or associate themselves with something. My brother was a neo-nazi...swastika tatoos and all. We were raised in a racist home, had family that were Nazi's...he just happened to fall into that group. Luckily, I didn't. I'm more interested in the psychology of it, not the hate that is associated with neo-nazi's. My brothers plight? He died of cancer when he was 39. The irony....his oncologist was a Jew (no one else would touch him because he was so terminal...the oncologist was experimenting with a new radiation technique - imagine that...a Jew doing medical experiments on a German!) and his nurse was black! Needless to say, his terminal state broke him of his sick ideals

I have to totally agree with that. However, the bottom line? Read my signature!

Lisa

 

I have watched many docco's that have reported the thousands of rapes, murders and overly barbaric acts on civilians by the Soviet Red Army during the war, so does that mean that anyone here that loves the Soviet Union loves what the Soviets did or that they are Neo-Soviets, same can be said of the American during the Vietnam War/Gulf War, how many rapes murders and wiping out of entire villages were they guilty of, does that mean that anyone wanting to serve in the American army approves of what the Americans did.

What i am saying is that all sides are guilty of crimes against humanity and war crimes.

Like me, i would love to serve in the German Waffen SS, but also i would loved to have being a Rat of Tobruk or smashing the Japanese on the Kokoda Track, or being part of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour or flying a B-17 on a bombing mission over Germany.

It comes down that many would love to have lived history.

The Germans were not all monsters, the bulk served because their country needed them and many were proud of their war service. I'll end on this if you are going to condemn the Nazis for the millions of murders, then have the guts to condemn Stalin's regime in his reign the cause of an estimated murders of up to 25 million or the communist regime in China that has murdered 10's of millions, the Nazis were not the only butchers in history.

 

OK Von i disagree... yes war crimes were commited BUT not on the mass and scale of the nazis thats the same excuse i keep seeing in all these memoirs WE were the victims WE didnt do anythign we didnt know... YADDA YADDA.. im tired of the excuses

 

Well then we agree to disagree.

But in leaving it doesn't matter if it is one person or 6 million people (Holocaust) a war crime is unforgivable whoever commits it.

v.R

 

Agreed LOL

 

You have two point here:
- the Germans were not all monsters, and on this forum I feel safe enough to say that everybody agrees with that. People here will not be anti-German but anti-Nazi.
- that the Soviet Union was not entirely made of choirboys I suppose most will agree as well, bar an exception or two . I for myself have no problems in condemning Stalin and his regime for the proven crimes commited, and more than you think about.

What I suppose Mortarman has subjacent is that Nazi ideology made crimes a matter of deliberate policy, eradication of entire ethnic groups just for, well, ethnic reasons.

 

I love history and would have loved to have lived through some of the times that I find more interesting, but I cannot say that I would ever want to have been part of the Japanese attack on Pearl or have served in the Waffen SS. For that matter, I would not have wanted to have been part of the US cavalry that was subjugating the Native American population here in the USA. If I had been at Pearl, I would have wanted to be on the ground.

If I am going to put myself in a historic context, I cannot divest myself of the moral judgement that I have to bring to my assessment of history. Japan was the aggressor. It made war on the USA so that it could continue its domination of the Pacific Rim. Thousands died on December 7, 1941, and hundreds of thousands more would die because of the attack on Pearl. To say that you would have liked being part of the attack on Pearl is to remove the historic event from its moral context. That is a dangerous thing to do.

 

a nations policy should not interfere with a persons humanity and basic ethics. IE its wrong to kill somone because theyre different, IE in looks religious beliefs or whatever.. its wropng to rape. and kill women children the weak and elderly. We allow those basic ethics to leave us were no better then annimals

 

Hear, hear!

 

And make no mistake i will kill an enemy combatant and not loose a moments sleep. I will not however violate certin core values and ethics... as ive mentioned above..

 

Well said!

 

Not every German soldier was a nazi, in the sense that he wasn't fighting in the war for the opportunity to blow someones head off... Some on the other hand were as cold blooded as they come.

I think that people have opinions on the war and armies involved, that are built from the sources they get they're information from. When I was young I watched every documentary that I could on the war. A lot of these docs showed the Germans as extremely professional soldiers, that were unstoppable in the early days. The general impression given is of a supersoldier sometimes.

I haven't experienced anyone getting all upset over been proved wrong about the image of the German soldiers you talked about. Some people out there are still keeping the whole Nazi ideology alive sadly, and I can imagine they get upset when they are told they were wrong in that situation. Some (I imagine most) people you spoke about are just merely misinformed.

 

Unstoppable or merely unopposed by a modern, well run army? I defer to the experts on our forum to answer that question but I think Germany was stopped cold as soon as it faced an opponent that had a modern army and which did not have a significant population that was sympathetic to the German objectives.

 

I beleive the german soldiers were highly tough resiliant and FANTICAL.. but youd fight like a tiger too if youre homeland and way of life was quite possibly going to be wiped out and at the begining they had innovative tactics and superior equipment... but it didnt take long for the allies to catch up

 

I would fight like a tiger just to avoid having ME wiped out! I suspect that most combat soldiers share that trait or they would not survive long in battle. We are all survivalists until we give up caring about survival and then we are either dead or heroes or both.

 

Yep, I agree completely. My point exactly, it a false portrayal. Although they did have excellent officers at the beginning of the war for sure, and the soldiers were quite professional. They certainly weren't supersoldiers.

 

I, like many others on the forum, have been watching this thread with interest. I will now throw out, to an extent, my love of the IJN. I have always been interested in the IJN during WW2. It began when I was in school, and had to do a book report on WWII. My topic, chosen by the teacher, was the Battle of Midway. I did the research and wrote the report. But what kept me reading about the battle after the report, was Fuchida’s (sp?) account of the fateful five minutes. I soon became addicted to carrier battles. The thought of flying planes off a boat was completely new to me. I continued my research into WWII and discovered it wasn’t just carriers but the navy in general that was my true interest. Again I was gripped by accounts of frantic battles such as Samar and Savo Island. I realized that the Japanese where truly well ahead of the rest of the world in sea power, even if they where not the largest. It was the Japanese in WWI that launched the first carrier based air raid. At Pearl Harbor, they again produced a feat that no other country in the world could do for another 2-3 years. They launched a massive, coordinated assault from SIX carriers. At Midway the US couldn’t coordinate with their own escort planes. Finally I fell in love with the Type 93 torpedo. My god what a weapon. It wasn’t until the US recovered one on the beaches at Guadalcanal that we finally realized the power of the weapon. I remember reading at one point, several accounts where US captains blamed the loss of their ship to friendly fire, because the Japanese where too far to launch accurate torpedo spreads.

So there it is. I love the IJN! (Not that that is a surprise to some of you) They had fewer ships than the US, but they where better in many areas at the beginning of the war. I believe faulty leadership and doctrine is what doomed the Japanese to falling so far behind the US by the end of the war. I believe it to be a healthy love that I have because I do not care about the reasons why they fought nor did some of the brutal and barbaric acts they did. It is purely militarily.

 

You are enamored by and interested in the IJN, but you do not adopt the policies or beliefs of its government.

 

Correct.