Attempting to defend Nazi Germany?

I guess it didn't take a couple days. Actually, it took a couple of minutes.

Some of these sites are obviously "anti-big business" sites that I disagree with about most things, but information is information.

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=4368

The above link deals mainly with pre-WWII business with Nazi Germany

The link below names the amount as $33 million to GM as the amount of reparations, which would mean that Ford's share of the $57 million was $24 million.

http://www.ranknfile-ue.org/uen_nastybiz.html

And, hey, even the kids in Australia have a netpage about it:

http://encyclopedia.kids.net.au/page/ge/General_Motors

And, from Wikipedia:

General Motors produced vast quantities of armaments, vehicles and even aircraft during World War II, and also had sizeable interests in Nazi Germany [2]. During the war, the U.S auto companies were concerned that the Nazis would nationalize American owned factories in Germany. In the spring of 1939, the Nazis had assumed day to day control of American owned factories in Germany, but decided against nationalizing them. GM's William P. Knudson served as head of U.S. wartime production for President Franklin Roosevelt who had referred to Detroit as the Arsenal of Democracy. Today, Detroit is the headquarters for the U.S. Army Tank-Automotive and Armaments Command, known as TACOM.


The senate hearings in 1974 concluded that 90 percent of truck transport during WWII for the Germans was on Ford and GM chassis. While "day-to-day" management of the companies reverted to Germans from 1939 on, the US HQ continued to take profits on production, and both Ford and GM management had offices in Sweden to "oversee" how things were going.

Hello everybody,

As I am a more recent active member I am just now entering this important discussion. When I was threading through I had sometimes the same feeling as saudadesfrancesinhas about a certain condescendence towards the nazi regime. Arriving to the end of this thread I see that fortunately things are more even.

I have though several comments to make. Firstly to justify World War 2 by equating several different regimes a a false and dangerous argument which I see has been dismantled already. That the communist regimes were brutal, ferocious and responsible for mass crimes is not anymore either a secret or a doubt. We can discuss them also in another thread if needed. I would point out that we have a tendency (normal in view of recent history) to mix Russians and communists and to forget history before 1917. They were not exactly the same, although and here I think you have missed an important point, the actions of the soviet regime towards eastern europe or towards the russian people were not in essence very different. See how the Tzarist regime dealed with the polish rebelions of 1794, 1830 or the hungarian revolution of 1848 or the bessarabian situation after Romania's war of independence in 1878. The fact is that the imperialistic sentiment in Russia goes beyond the regime. Just see how Putin acts today, in a "democratic" Russia! That would explain a certain soviet apetite for conquer that, it must be pointed out came after 1945.

There is a point going on very often in revisionist tendencies that Germans attacked he USSR as a preemptive attack. Firstly operation Barbarossa was started planning as early as October 1940 in a moment when no clouds planned over the Soviet German Pact of 1939. Secondly and more important, the argument that there were hundreds of soviet divisions ready at their western frontier is as false as false can be.

Why? Read Charles Sharp for instance, one of the best american specialists of the Soviet Army. Traditionally, the russian forces gather new recruits every year in April and send those who finished their military service home at the same time, as happened in 1941. So 80 percent of the soviet soldiers in June 1941 were raw recruits with around 2 months training. That is not even boot camp!
Secondly, there were indeed 200 soviet divisions in the western Military Districts but it doesn't mean they really were divisions. Soviet had for their Divisions 2 levels of readiness (6 and 12) 6 meant there were around 6000 men present in the division and 12 meant 12000 men present in the Division, that is 25 percent or 75 percent of the authorized strengh of a division in 1941. You had around 10 percent at full strengh, usually cavalry divisions much weaker, around 20 more percent of divisions at 12 readiness and the rest 70 percent around 6 readiness. Hardly an army to invade something, no? It is often misleading to read an order of battle just by the regiments numbers, look at what they have inside. A bit off topic it is like looking at Napoleon's army in Paris in 1814. He indeed had over a hundred regiments, except that they were almost all at 300 men, not even a battalion!!!

To say that the soviets commited war crimes with the rapes and all is stretching a bit the story. They did commit thousands of rapes in 1945 and not only in Germany. But what to expect from an army where every soldier had a relative that would have died, that had liberated and saw what was in the concentration camps and that did not expect much humanitarism when captured by the germans. May I need to recall that Hitler issued a directive as early as July 1941, stating that every officer and comissar caught was to be shot immediately? Did any german commander say anything about that? Yes, Guderian long after the war was over to justify himself
May I remind that over 2 million soviet prisoners of war died in german POW camps, many victims of ruthless violence? Just read former western POW stories and they will all say something about the way soviet POW were treated. Must I also remind that soviet officers that were taken prisoners were often used as subjects for the so-called "medical" nazi experiences, both because they were "untermenschen" and because they were tougher than the western officers? May I recall that every soviet pilot memories remind the fact that german fighter pilots had the habit of straffing soviet pilots shot donw and bailing in parachute? So much for the air chivalry!!
So let's not say germans were only honourable and clean soldiers. Let's not forget that the Waffen SS were usual prisoner killers. From the 75 + british and canadian prisoners executed by the Hitlerjugend Division in Normandy to the over 100 americans executed by the Leibstandarte men in the Ardennes. Or as a matter of fact to the over 250 senegalese soldiers along with their french officers executed in a most barbarian manner in june 1940 in France because they resisted 2 days and caused a lot of losses to the german troops attacking. Along with these heroic feets let's not forget the 642 civilians, men hanged and shot, women, children and old people closed in the church and burned alive at Oradour sur Glane in France in July 1944 by the men of the Das Reich Division or the same event in Lidice in Czechoslovakia.
Have you thought how many thousands of partisans in all occupied countries were killed after being captured? To stay in the West, after the Vercors maquis in France was destroyed in July 1944, several hundred of its members were shot or sent to concentration camps. Among these, were the over 100 french defenseless wounded along with the nurses and medics that were captured in this maquis and that were immediately machine gunned and this time, surprise, the soldiers that did this were from the 157. Gebirgs Division, so not SS and even considered elite troops!!!
I don't remember seeing such "heroic" actions at such a scale done by the allied forces in 1944/45, not even by the soviets. Have you ever been at Dachau or Buchenwald, notorious and "in"famous concentration camps? Have you noticed how close to the cities and villages are they? Specially Dachau which is so close to such a big city as Munchen? So, I'm sorry but for me the collective responsability of the german people clearly arises. THAT IS NOT TO SAY THAT EVERY GERMAN WAS A NAZI AND A KILLER, but that more often that not they at least closed their eyes to all the nazi barbaric regim. Besides, after 6 years of war, after seing and witnessing such a behaviour from german troops, I don't think any allied soldier had any desire to enter Germany and saying: Hello good friends, we came to liberate you as good friends and don't worry we don't remember what happened in the last years.

Be serious, besides an army on the march is still an army. Violence against civilians is unfortunately part of it, sometimes more than other. To cite but a different example, the USA soldiers, between June 1944 and July 1945 were responsible alone for over 140 000 rapes in Britain, France, Belgium or Germany. It was revealed recently in a book out in France. Of these over 30 000 ocurred in France, an allied country. It was said in the US Army that a rape in England meant execution, in France it meant prison and in Germany it meant nothing! It was also a question of politics but it doesn't make the US Army an Army of sexual sadistics, right?

As this message goes already too long, I will keep further arguments for later but just to say that to amalgamate Nazism and the causes of war with other things to reduce it and worse to justify to barbaric nature of the regime is a very dangerous road and that it must be stopped whenever its possible!!! Thanks to those who are doing just that in this site.

Mathias

did the women who got raped shoot the commisars?
i don't think so. the only thing they shared with those who ordered it or executed the order was the nationality.
it's just as wrong and not to justify as any war crime.

by the standards of the day, executing a partisan was no war crime.

I never said that to rape a woman was not a crime. What I think is that the mass rapes of 1945 are a way to justify the rest of the war. Like, look what we have suffered, pity us and forget the rest is an easy way to clean history. I'm sorry to say that!!!

As partisans were no soldiers killing them doesn't count, right?
It's strange as we always try to minor things to justify ourselves. I said and I repeat, not all germans were nazi, barbarians and so on, although a great many closed their eyes to what happened, hiding behind that fabulous concept of silent majority, saying after the war, I didn't agree with anything but.... Read Gregor von Rezzori's memories, a german ethnic Bukovina noble, that became romanian after WW, lived in Germany all war and was tasked by the english to reeducate german soldiers to peace after 1945 and see what he says about the general feelings of the german soldiers, that we lost so ok but we are not guilty as if what happened was a mere coincidence!

What I said and I repeat and this was the sense of the thread is that trying to rebuild a new history of WW2 with the germans as the good guys is pushing it too far. Some germans resisted, most of them ended up dead or in concentration camps as early as 1937 and the rest stayed and benefited from the nazi regim as long as it could last. Even Stauffenberg, the great resister fought well all along and reminded himself that he was an anti nazi in mid 1944, at a moment when as a General Staff officer he knew the game was over. That's all and it doesn't say the german army did not fight well, and so on, and so on!!!

Cheers
Mathias

partisans use the protection of the crowd, based on the fact that the other side wouldn't go and kill all civilians to kill the partisans too.
by the legal standards of the 1940'ies a partisan is not lawful combatant and can be treated as a bandit or, to use a more popular term from nowadays, a terrorist.

i guess, the fact that the regime implemented an industrialized method of extermination of people, whose only fault was their ancestry and/or religion, it pretty much excludes them from being the "good guys" right from the very beginning. the nazis were adepts of a regime, where no adversaries whatsoever are accepted, very much like Lenin/Stalin-communists.

however, while the axis warcrimes and crimes against humanity have been exposed and throughly analyzed, attempts to do so for the soviet, yugoslav or allied side are met with the allegation of revisionism, counter-revolutionary behavior and indiscriminate accusation of being a nazi in disguise.

i quite doubt that every soviet pilot mentioned that. however, i remember having read in Tolliver's book "Horrido" that Goering demanded from Mölders (IIRC) that german pilots should be ordered to shoot at bailed pilots, which the latter indignantly refused. while it certainly happened, the proof that it was a mass-manifestation is still wanting to be delivered. for all sides.

other than that,

according to Walter Post in "Operation Barbarossa", Hitler ordered the "Operationsentwurf Ost" study, which was delivered by Generalmajor Marcks on aug 5th 1940. that was, to my knowledge, the very first moment when a military campaign against the Soviet Union became more than a remote theoretical speculation.
also during the fall 1940 (IIRC) the soviets ordered a similar study by Timoshenko (IIRC) for an offensive campaign vs. Germany. at this level it was stll top-secret, however, yes, there were clouds over the German-Soviet relation. they started to appear after the quick defeat of France which was quite against Stalins plan. The latter found himself suddenly in a very exposed position, having gambled on a prolonged exhausting war between Germany and France/UK.

This post has been edited by dead-cat on July 26, 2007 03:09 pm

Hi Mathias,

check the discussion here:

http://www.worldwar2.ro/forum/index.php?showtopic=3943&hl=

I held a position close to yours.

take care

Thanks Imperialist,

I saw the thread and I think the information I gave about the state of readiness of the soviet Army on the 22nd June 1941 is proof enough. Besides as you well state contingency plans are made by every General Staff (that's what they are there for, by the way!!!) but to make from those plans a major preparation goes a far way. No troops were commited to those plans ever, no operational directions were ever given, no logistical bases were ever traced, so the plan was a broad line for a near future.

What is correct, but unfortunately it is biased, is that the soviets expected the war to begin in 1942 and were preparing accordingly, this is no mystery, I knew it from books in France since the 1960's, but and once again it denotes a massive lack of knowledge about the soviet army, to say that being modern for the soviets was to be offensive does not at all mean an agression towards Germany, it is simply the traditional military stance favoured by the russians and later the soviets from Suvorov to Tukhachevsky who was the great military thinker of the USSR. It is a question of operational manoeuver on the battlefield, which the soviets were able to put to full demonstration in WW2 from 1943 onwards. Read some american military studies covering the soviet army both WW2 and Cold War and you will understand exactly that. Besides the soviets, unlike the west identified 3 military levels, tactical; operational and strategic. In the west you have 2, tactical and strategic. For the soviet concept there is no paradox in having an offensive operational stance on a strategic defensive posture.

Cheers
Mathias