Bismarck tried to surrender?

[RDJ]

And it was the brutally oppressive restrictions that were imposed by a vindictive collective under the guise of The Treaty of Versailles that created a perfect climate for someone of Hilter's charisma to entrance an entire nation.

Nonsense on stilts. A perfect climate to do something in - even if we stipulate the climate was indeed "perfect' - does not mean an entire nation should be entranced into and get on with mass murder of civilians, by charisma. See also - Stalin, Mao Tse Tung, Pol Pot, Milosevoc, and all the others.

[GrayWolf]

Originally Posted by Katman View Post
And it was the brutally oppressive restrictions that were imposed by a vindictive collective under the guise of The Treaty of Versailles that created a perfect climate for someone of Hilter's charisma to entrance an entire nation.

Nonsense on stilts. A perfect climate to do something in - even if we stipulate the climate was indeed "perfect' - does not mean an entire nation should be entranced into and get on with mass murder of civilians, by charisma. See also - Stalin, Mao Tse Tung, Pol Pot, Milosevoc, and all the others.

Really you are both right, in some respects, Katman is right, the treaty was not about reparation, it was about subjugtion. Before Hitlers regieme, Germans almost needed wheel barrows to collect the worthless paper money for wages. The 'Allies' Had stripped germanies financial assetts and decimated its economy. So in that respect, if you look at it from an aspect of a 'proud' Nation, on it's knees, starving, bankrupt... and suddenly some 'person' comes along saying "I will make this better, I will make you a proud and prosperous people again". Then starts to do what they said they will, then sadly the human condition of 'sheepleness' kicks in and the masses 'believe' in this regeime. As much as Germany DID commit these atrocities, one also has to remember that the 'genocide' was orgnised and mostly carried out by the select few, the SS. The averge German for all the anti jewish fervour, would not have known of the horrific reality of the 'supposed' extradition and removal of the unwanted.
Really it was a 'lynch mob' mentality, and like Stalin. Pol Pot etc, to be seen as not 'falling into line'.. The other 'sheeple' would have looked upon you with at the minimum disgust/disdain.
Although not at exactly the same level, some years ago there was a 'psychological series' on TV, where about 20 people of mixed sexes were put into an environment somewhat akin to the 'team building' challenge courses that are run. The difference was they were living in a 'camp' for a period of several days.
The 'Psychologist facillitator' placed an even number of blue and red 'vests' in the room's,,, without any instruction or guidance, they themselves split the group into 'teams' and started to compete against eachother. To such an extent that a woman who had a good friend on the other 'team' was ostracised and 'socialy punished' by 'her team' for spending time consorting with the opposition.
Sadly the sheeple/conflict/need to fit into the 'norm' is a deep seated human condition........

[98tls]

Ive some old letters given to me by mother mother written by a member of her family in Germany post WW1 in which the writer expresses disbelief that the war had actually been lost,which in hindsight all these years later i can understand.There's also mentioned in later correspondence an offer to members of the Jewish community of financial assistance to leave the country,off topic slightly but interesting fwiw.

[jaffaonajappa]

There were untold war crimes commited by both sides in WW2. some were reported and are now a part of history, many were covered up or not fully reported.

At the end of the day, at the risk of just summing it all up too conveniently and not acknowledging the costs involved (lives lost!), I think the majority of the western military (incl German and Italian troops!) in general , reverted to some Christian fundamentals as often as they could. Theres lots of well documented cases of treating POW's with respect, and assisting the enemy wounded /survive. Theres also known cases of the opposite......but time and place is often the critical decider. In the heat of battle, hearing or seeing your mate brutally killed....I can imagine lots of niceties being passed over - at least untill after the heat of battle had passed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_...g_World_War_II

Things have changed sooooo much since the 40's.
Modent militaries now quite strictly enforcing Rules Of Engagement - and dobbing in their own servicemen for any breaches. As that countries population would want from their military.

Right - its Beer Oclock!

[98tls]

There were untold war crimes commited by both sides in WW2. some were reported and are now a part of history, many were covered up or not fully reported.

At the end of the day, at the risk of just summing it all up too conveniently and not acknowledging the costs involved (lives lost!), I think the majority of the western military (incl German and Italian troops!) in general , reverted to some Christian fundamentals as often as they could. Theres lots of well documented cases of treating POW's with respect, and assisting the enemy wounded /survive. Theres also known cases of the opposite......but time and place is often the critical decider. In the heat of battle, hearing or seeing your mate brutally killed....I can imagine lots of niceties being passed over - at least untill after the heat of battle had passed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_...g_World_War_II

Things have changed sooooo much since the 40's.
Modent militaries now quite strictly enforcing Rules Of Engagement - and dobbing in their own servicemen for any breaches. As that countries population would want from their military.

Right - its Beer Oclock!

Worse still where subjected to rancid shite like "Saving private Ryan"Still cant believe anyone bothered to watch it past 30 minutes let alone applaud the crap.

[The Stranger:Me]

up until recently the British always maintained they sunk the Bismarck, when found by Bob Ballard, engineers agreed she was in fact scuttled as the Germans maintained.

The Germans are responsible for killing their own.
Surrender is largely moot. Next.

[jaffaonajappa]

The Germans are responsible for killing their own.
Surrender is largely moot. Next.

Scuttling and surviving are not mutually exclusive - the topic is more about Mercy and willing to calculate the risk of picking up survivors.

[The Stranger:Me]

More Russians were killed.

At the hands of stalin.

[jaffaonajappa]

At the hands of stalin.

Hell. Thats one sobering article.
...I hadnt realised the numbers were that high

[IdunBrokdItAgin]

At the hands of stalin.

Holy crap - I hadn't realised that before - Stalin made Hitler look like an amateur.

Very true that not much gets said about the soviets in the WW2 movies.

[pete376403]

Hence this famous cartoon by New Zealander David Low...
(Hitler had Low on a list of people to be executed when Britain was invaded. Low probably wasn't to popular with Stalin, either)

[Elysium]

History is written by the victors. That's why Hitler was the devil we know and Stalin the devil we dont.

[oneofsix]

A lot of stuff in this thread.
I saw a comment on the Germans as a country falling for Hilters charisma. Given our coming election I was surprised no one commented that the Nazi party only won a 3rd of the vote but as Germany then operated under a FPP system this was enough to give them (lower house) power, gets complicated as to how they stole absolute power after that in subverting the Reichstag (upper house). That election was why the Germans went to an MMP system following WWII as I understand it.
The Hood and those frigates off Argentina suffered from the same governmetn shortsightedness. The frigates had the AA missle systems left off to save $ by saving a metre as this was deemed more important by the government of the day. The Hood had been due a refit from before WWII to replace her wooden decks with armoured decks but $ and showing her off to the Germans and the rest of the world was deemed more important by the government of the day. Makes you glad it was going to cost more to remove the guns from our LAVs than to leave them there.

[Paul in NZ]

An in the other thread about the Ukranian conscripted by the russians to fight the germans, captured by the nazis and ending up briefly as a camp guard before fighting the russians for the germans...

You need to know the history in that article to give it some context and understand why I thought it was just so bloody wrong that the USA gave him up to the wolves. Poor bastard - what a life he must have had ....

[Swoop]

...I hadnt realised the numbers were that high

The Russians lost around 35 million during The Great Patriotic War. Travel there sometime, monuments everywhere.