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Speaker: How to Look Good as a Nazi

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  • Rich Lock,

    Tom, I don't have a lot of time for him either. But:

    1) the opportunity to make the triple pun was irresistable.

    2) the discussion was purely focussed on his combat flying abilities, not his idiotic big-wing style strategic thinking.

    You'll get no disagreement from me that the treatment of Park and Dowding was disgraceful.

    Surviving Soviet wartime military medical care is also pretty damn impressive, as is downing the FW-190, arguably the finest piston driven fighter aircraft of all time, let alone three in a one fight especially as the German fighters were still, in those pre-1944 P-51 turkey shoot days, still being flown by some of the most highly trained and experienced pilots on the planet [Erich Hartmann].

    Erich Hartmann: Talk about yer baby-faced killers...

    Simon, that was my point about the FW190. Three in one go is damn fine flying.

    ...in those pre-1944 P-51 turkey shoot days...

    The US 8th air force didn't have it all their own way, even when the P51 was around....

    From the wiki on Erich Hartmann:

    On 1 June 1944, Hartmann shot down four P-51s in a single mission over the Ploieşti oil fields

    back in the mother countr… • Since Feb 2007 • 2728 posts Report Reply

  • Tom Semmens,

    The Allied bombers may not have achieved very much as a strategic force

    I stopped debating area bombing years ago, but I believe the strategic bomber offensive was a HUGE contributor to Germanys defeat. The Soviets like to dismiss its impact, but any history of German production is full of the delays and disruptions brought about by the need to repair, disperse and hide their industry. As early as the battle of Kursk, the Red Air Force was able to gain ascendancy over the battlefield because the German fighter Gruppen had been withdrawn to the defence of the Reich from the 8th Air Force.

    And most of all, I believe that without the demonstration of what total war meant - not to someone else but to them - and without the loss of tens of thousands of innocent civilian lives and the reduction of their cities to smoking ruins in 1945 the Germans would never have accepted their defeat and the end of Nazism as completely as they did.

    Sevilla, Espana • Since Nov 2006 • 2217 posts Report Reply

  • Joe Wylie,

    But anyway, I have little time for Douglas Bader.

    Those old flying aces did tend to become raving reactionaries in their dotage. Bader's outspoken support for Rhodesia's Ian Smith was pretty on the nose, though not as risible as the barking Eddie Rickenbacker, who advocated using nuclear weapons against the "two-legged animals" in Vietnam.

    One point in Bader's favour - he survived being portrayed as a garrulous grandma by the awful Kenneth More in Reach for the Sky. More had a remarkable knack of infusing an element of someone's dotty nana into every character he played, even the captain of the Titanic.

    flat earth • Since Jan 2007 • 4593 posts Report Reply

  • Simon Grigg,

    but any history of German production is full of the delays and disruptions brought about by the need to repair, disperse and hide their industry.

    As far as the Luftwaffe went, lack of production was never an issue. They produced more aircraft after the bombing began to hit in earnest, in 1943-45, than in all the years before combined. It was the lack of pilots and fuel that killed the airforce as a fighting machine, largely driven by the Soviet advance and the P-51s.

    The GDP of Germany rose under the bombing, so the impact on industry, which was mostly dispersed and/oe underground by 1944, from bombing, was negligible.

    As to the effect on the German psyche, the jury remains out on that. We know how other nations reacted to bombing and there are those, including Hastings in Bomber Command who argue fairly coherently using a multitude of contemporary sources that:

    "The morale of the German people remained unbroken to the end,"

    Indeed, the Battle of Berlin provides some evidence for that.

    Just another klong... • Since Nov 2006 • 3284 posts Report Reply

  • Tom Semmens,

    Simon: Unpalatable as it may be for us, the Germans didn't seriously start fighting WW2 until 1942. Until Albert Speer took over in 1942, German production of weapons had been tiny - they only made 100 tanks a month in 1940 / early 1941 for example. Prior to Speer, the chaos, lack of coordination and rivalry of the Nazi petty satrapies encouraged by Hitler as a way of keeping his potential rivals busy led to massive inefficiencies.

    Once the Germans actually started fighting WW2 from the Spring of 1942 onward, given they had all the resources of Europe at their disposal after 1941, they were always going to see a massive surge in production. The intriguing question is how much MORE they could have produced if it hadn't have been for the bombing offensive.

    Sevilla, Espana • Since Nov 2006 • 2217 posts Report Reply

  • Simon Grigg,

    Tom, the problem with that is that German industry was increasingly centred away from the urban centres that Harris and the 8th largely targeted in 1944-5. Basically, they missed it in their rush to bring urban terror to the people of Germany. It was a huge strategic error only underlined by the effect sporadic targeting on things like ball-bearing works did have (although even that caused not much more than a hiccup).

    I mostly but not completely agree with your opening paragraph. After 1936, well before the war, over 50% of the national budget was spent on the military. Speer's genius was, as you say co-ordination and removal of the waste in the economy, thus the vastly increased production, but he still had to deal with the petty rivalries of Göring and Himmler What truly impresses is that Speer managed to keep consumer production up to almost 1939 levels until the end. And of course there were also huge shortages of raw materials from late 1943 onwards so the climb in production of anything was an economic miracle.

    I'm also fascinated with the theory, from amongst others, Ian Kershaw, that Hitler was almost an adjunct to the way Germany was governed post circa 1937, that he sat above it all and that the mass apparatus of government operated mostly to please what they thought would be his whims and wants, much of which he, sitting up there in Bavaria and rising at noon or later, was almost oblivious of. It does argue somewhat that his rivals kept themselves busy rather than any grand scheming on the part of Hitler.

    Just another klong... • Since Nov 2006 • 3284 posts Report Reply

  • Just thinking,

    FFS ... "genius" ... "truly impresses" ... - you're talking about the architect of the Holocaust .

    You've followed up with the old excuse that Hitler never knew.

    And so the Hitler Cult contiunues...

    Putaringamotu • Since Apr 2009 • 1158 posts Report Reply

  • Joe Wylie,

    You've followed up with the old excuse that Hitler never knew.

    While I doubt that's how it's intended, the very sinister implication is certainly there. Simon and Tom's analyses are a little bloodless (no twisted pun intended) for me. It's as if statistics were the final arbiter of history, and Nazi Germany was driven by something akin to contemporary corporate efficiency, rather than a ghastly and all-pervasive ideology.

    Where, for example, is the recognition of the massive and murderous use of slave labour, and the vast appropriation of property from those destined for the death camps in creating this "impressive" "economic miracle"? To be intrigued by "how much MORE they could have produced" is tantamount to being fascinated by the possible scale of genocide if the regime had flourished unchecked.

    For a really comprehensive analysis of how genocide and ideology drove the Nazi economy try Michael Thad Allen's The Business of Genocide: The SS, Slave Labor, and the Concentration Camps.

    flat earth • Since Jan 2007 • 4593 posts Report Reply

  • BenWilson,

    While I doubt that's how it's intended

    So do I. I doubt Simon is making excuses for Hitler - he's more pointing out that we tend to focus far more on him and his purported amazing skills than on the much bigger picture of how Nazi Germany operated.

    I recall Tolstoy making a similar analysis of Napoleon in War and Peace . He pretty much tries to debunk the idea that Napoleon was an amazing strategist, and that the way the French armies crushed enemy after enemy all the way to Moscow was more a factor of large, and in some ways inevitable, historical forces at work. He points out that in most of the major battles, Napoleon was nowhere near where the action was happening, had little idea what was going on, gave orders that were mostly not followed, nor could be. The French victories could be analyzed in terms of many brilliant maneuvers, but mostly on account of being superior armies in the first place, with highly seasoned soldiers and low level commanders.

    So he argues that Napoleon was mostly a figurehead who rode these forces, and in my own analogy, was much like a surfer thinking they are controlling a wave.

    Which did not excuse Napoleon for anything he did - surely he was a motivational force behind most of the choices about who to aggressively betray and attack, but it's quite possible that pretty much anyone else in his place would have done much the same job. Perhaps the same goes for Hitler.

    I had the misfortune to argue with my father in law about this on the weekend - he was lamenting the barbarity of the Russians in WW2, and I suggested "these things happen when you attack a country of the size and power of Russia - I doubt Germany was ever going to win". To which he angrily said that the Germans managed to get within sight of Moscow, and if they had only managed to press on they might have won the Eastern Front. I pointed out that Napoleon actually managed to capture Moscow, and didn't win his war against Russia. Exactly as happened to the German army, so happened to the French, they were overstretched, their supply lines cut off by distance and shocking weather conditions, and when the 'unthinkable' happened, and Russia did not capitulate just because they lost their capital, the disastrous retreat was only a matter of time for the French.

    Tolstoy is not particularly praising the Russian leadership either. He felt that the harrying of the French on the way out of Russia was not glorious at all, and led mostly to higher Russian casualties than could have otherwise have been achieved. The French were still formidable in battle and it was the winter and lack of supplies that was killing them anyway. He felt that the Tsar's active role in this was mostly for the worse. Kind of ballsy thing for a Russian to write, actually, considering Russia was still Tsarist at the time.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report Reply

  • Tom Semmens,

    It's as if statistics were the final arbiter of history

    In large scale coalition warfare between powerful industrialised states everyone and everything is a statistic.

    The Americans could afford to lose 10% of their big four engined bombers (when the average tour for a bomber crew was 30 missions - you do the numbers) on every mission indefinitely in order to make the Luftwaffe fight their escorting Mustangs and Thunderbolts, but the Germans could not afford to lose 50% of their single engine fighter force every three months in such battles - which is exactly what happened in the nine months of October 1943 to June 1944, and it is why the Germans lost the air battle, and the Allies gained victory.

    All such warfare is attritional by nature, and - to use the analogy applied to Verdun - men are used up like straw in a furnace. You shouldn't have to spell out the implications of that to a thinking audience.

    Sevilla, Espana • Since Nov 2006 • 2217 posts Report Reply

  • Kyle Matthews,

    The GDP of Germany rose under the bombing, so the impact on industry, which was mostly dispersed and/oe underground by 1944, from bombing, was negligible.

    The German GDP rose about 11% over 1939 - 1944. USA GDP increased by about 50% over the same period. UK 20%. There's no way you can use German GDP to claim that bombing didn't have a significant impact on the war, too many other variables in play.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report Reply

  • Joe Wylie,

    I doubt Simon is making excuses for Hitler - he's more pointing out that we tend to focus far more on him and his purported amazing skills than on the much bigger picture of how Nazi Germany operated.

    I'd hope so, though I'm a little dismayed at his use of expressions such as "Speer's genius" and "economic miracle". The tawdry reality behind these political myths is that they were fuelled by industrialised ideologically-sanctioned theft and murder.

    flat earth • Since Jan 2007 • 4593 posts Report Reply

  • BenWilson,

    I'd hope so, though I'm a little dismayed at his use of expressions such as "Speer's genius" and "economic miracle". The tawdry reality behind these political myths is that they were fuelled by industrialised ideologically-sanctioned theft and murder.

    Haven't you ever heard of an evil genius?

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report Reply

  • Joe Wylie,

    Haven't you ever heard of an evil genius?

    Sure, their natural habitat is comic books and fantasy-themed movies. In real life the word genius is rather devalued through overuse. From what I've read of Speer he was talented and probably ambitious, but it strikes me as a little extravagant to describe him as a genius.

    flat earth • Since Jan 2007 • 4593 posts Report Reply

  • ScottY,

    I didn't find any of the recent posts inappropriate. Admiring the achievements of a group of people from a military or economic point of view is hardly the same thing as offering support to them.

    I for one think that the Nazis were appalling people, and that those who escaped hanging at Nuremberg (Speer included) were very lucky indeed.

    However, for all that Speer was probably still a genius - an evil one, as Ben says.

    And from a military perspective the German tactics in WWII were truly impressive - in that they smashed their enemies to bits in ways that had not before been dreamed of.

    It's like watching the Australian cricketers. I can admire the way Ricky Ponting carves up our bowling attack almost every time we play Australia. But I'd sooner die than support the Aussie team.

    West • Since Feb 2009 • 794 posts Report Reply

  • BenWilson,

    And from a military perspective the German tactics in WWII were truly impressive - in that they smashed their enemies to bits in ways that had not before been dreamed of.

    John Ralston Saul suggested that Hitler was the driving force behind the use of tanks to smash through, instead of fighting wars of attrition. He argues that the military leadership of the time were against the idea, having cut their teeth in WW1. This may have been responsible for some of the view that he was a military genius. Another way of seeing it was that he liked to take a lot of risk, which as we all know sometimes pays off. In the case of Operation Barbarossa, it did not.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report Reply

  • Tom Semmens,

    John Ralston Saul is also a philosopher, not a military historian. The ideas of blitzkrieg pre-dates the tank, and form the core of German military thought from the formation of the Great General Staff onwards. The idea of decisive, violent and aggressive action by individuals trained to act on their initiative within a clearly understood framework and with a minimum of orders is visible as early as the Austro-Prussian war in 1866. The Germans were already reaching out to blitzkrieg warfare in 1918, where their infiltration tactics by storm troopers showed them the way. Indeed, it was this emphasis on violent initiative in infantry action that meant they initially failed to see the value of the tank.

    After WWII the surviving German tank generals (Guderian, Bayerlein and especially von Mellenthin) were quick to see which way the wind was now blowing and heaped obsequious praise on Western military theorists like Liddell-Hart and Fuller, crediting them with the ideas of blitzkrieg. Most of their praise was arrant toadying to their new masters, but it worked for two generations.

    The Germans were good at mobile warfare because:

    1/ the tank was a synthesis onto an existing doctrine that emphasised flexibility and initiative. Because they synthesised the tank into their existing ideas, they did not suffer from the doctrinal issues that afflicted the tank arms of other nations.

    2/ they were a homogeneous army with a common doctrine and command structure that made extemporising and rapid decision making easy.

    3/ It is my view that Nazism was uniquely attuned to (and probably partially derived from) this over-all emphasis on violent action, and as a political doctrine it blended into the mix an ideological perspective to a set of tactical and strategic instructions that created an overarching world view that aided the Germans in decision making in battle.

    Still, the Germans weren't all that. As one author archly noted, the Germans were the best soldiers of WWII, and they get better with every book. It worth noting that "the German Army" wasn't a single mass.

    The armoured troops (including the elite Waffen-SS formations) were probably the best tank soldiers in the world until 1944, when the Soviets and Americans caught up. Not that being great at tank warfare was much use to you when you are being attacked by fighter bombers, an area where the Western Allies excelled.

    The infantry were never the same after the 900,000 losses in the first six month of Barbarossa, something that was glossed over until the opening of Soviet archives in the 1990's led to a re-assessment of the Eastern front. What remained of the magnificent infantry army that over-ran Poland and France was finished off at Stalingrad, whilst the militia army that remained was only (just) adequate to deal with the Allies in defensive actions from 1942 and until late 1944. The German infantry were crippled by manpower shortages and were by and large incapable of proper offensive action after 1942. When reading tactical reports of German infantry attacks in 1943-45 one is struck at how clumsy they were and how heavy their casualties were when they ran into British and American defensive positions - particularly Allied artillery, which frequently did great execution amongst the Germans.

    If anyone is interested, I suggest they get hold of read David M. Glantz's books on the war in Russia, and Carlo D'Estes books on the Italian campaign and Normandy are also excellent general histories.

    Sevilla, Espana • Since Nov 2006 • 2217 posts Report Reply

  • Simon Grigg,

    All, please excuse my terminology if it offends. I'm not at all attempting to defend or sidestep the horrors of Nazi Germany, nor that of it's perpetrators. Indeed I feel that one of the horrors of the Second War was that more were not held to account for what was perpetrated so evilly in it's name. The short phrase 'evil genius' was tossed into the mix above and it's mostly appropriate when one talks of Speer and wants to know exactly how they did it. I may not like how he did what he did, but it was a massive achievement in the face of all that confronted the state after 1943. I for one do not think we should walk away from the mass apparatus of Nazi Germany so easily if we want to ensure such never happens again.

    Just thinking, I'm not following up with any excusing of Hitler thank you, but happily deferring to the works of the likes of Ian Kershaw and others, an analytical genius (there I go using words like that again, but Kershaw has some claim to that, as Joe says, overused word, and is absolutely no Nazi apologist) who has spent a lifetime studying Germany. It's so easy to feel the need to simply blame Hitler rather than pulling together all things that took Germany and Central Europe to that place. And I really want to know how it worked. Saying it was Hitler's doing is a terrifying cop-out. Anti-Semitism was a powerful force across Europe for centuries and became a core, and quite open, platform for the right in Germany after about 1890. Indeed almost all the policies of Nazi Germany, from Lebensraum, Racial Hygiene, global war, and Germanic superiority were touted by mass and powerful political movements such as the Pan German Party, The Navy League and so on, all of whom were either represented in the Reichstag or a part of the political mainstream pre-WW1. The Nazis did not come from nowhere, nor can we conveniently blame Versailles.

    And when in power the Nazi machine was able, within days of Hitler being named as Chancellor, fully take over and control absolutely the second biggest economy in the world for 12 years, run a massive military machine which took it's economy far into the red whilst maintaining massive popular support, all of which which takes more than a few brownshirts and crazies, as is the common wisdom. Part of the horror of Nazism was that so many men of talent, intellect and, yes, genius were drawn to it and a core part of what happened. I'm not willing to excuse them either which simply blaming Hitler does so, so conveniently.

    Just another klong... • Since Nov 2006 • 3284 posts Report Reply

  • Joe Wylie,

    It's like watching the Australian cricketers. I can admire the way Ricky Ponting carves up our bowling attack almost every time we play Australia. But I'd sooner die than support the Aussie team.

    If it came to light that the Australian cricket establishment had been methodically slaughtering aboriginal people and selling their organs to fund their operation perhaps your admiration might be a little tempered. I have no problem with the Australian RSL's extension of associate membership to WW2 Wehrmacht veterans, though it would certainly bother me if it were to include former members of the SS.

    The critical difference for me is that those ordinary soldiers for the most part abided by the Geneva convention, while the SS were part of an economic entity that methodically violated human rights for economic gain in the service of an ideology. To admire Nazi economic performance is to either condone or ignore the systematic enslavement and slaughter that was an integral part of it.

    John Ralston Saul rightly compares elements of the modern corporate state to that of Mussolini, but when he extends the argument to include the holocaust as a logical outcome of corporate capitalism he plays down the role of Nazi ideology. Michael Thad Allen makes a critical distinction when he stresses that those who ran the death camps and slave labour enterprises were not bland bureaucrats. He presents a convincing case that they were for the most part committed idealogues, operating in a culture driven by "the belief that industrial and economic activity should be bent to the service of national identity rather than sordid profit gains."

    According to the wiki, "By 1944, slave labour made up one quarter of Germany's entire work force, and the majority of German factories had a contingent of prisoners. The Nazis also had plans for the deportation and enslavement of Britain's adult male population in the event of a successful invasion."

    When you pay a little attention to just what it was that underlay Nazi Germany's economic performance, things don't appear quite so miraculous.

    flat earth • Since Jan 2007 • 4593 posts Report Reply

  • Simon Grigg,

    something that was glossed over until the opening of Soviet archives in the 1990's led to a re-assessment of the Eastern front.

    And we are, from this distance, able to reassess so much common wisdom about the Second World War, and the years leading up to it, not only from the mass of data we have from the Soviet Archives (which in themselves have revolutionised the study of the era) but simply from the perspective of sitting in the next era looking back and pulling together all we know, once again as Joe says, bloodlessly. And in a way historians need to do so to garner fully the meaning of 'why?'.

    As long as we never forget whilst doing so, hence I sat with my 14 year old recently and watched the 6 part BBC Auschwitz documentary which perhaps should be compulsory viewing at schools.

    Just another klong... • Since Nov 2006 • 3284 posts Report Reply

  • Simon Grigg,

    When you pay a little attention to just what it was that underlay Nazi Germany's economic performance, things don't appear quite so miraculous.

    But blaming it all on Nazi Germany rather than stepping back and working out why scares the fuck out of me. The use of Slave Labour to advance Germany was openly touted by the right, including parts of the Centre-Right, in Germany without much objection from that part of the political spectrum prior to WW1.

    Just another klong... • Since Nov 2006 • 3284 posts Report Reply

  • ScottY,

    If it came to light that the Australian cricket establishment had been methodically slaughtering aboriginal people and selling their organs to fund their operation perhaps your admiration might be a little tempered.

    But I could still admire a good cover drive even if the person making the shot was a monster.

    It is possible to admire someone's technical proficiency without admiring the person or what they stand for.

    West • Since Feb 2009 • 794 posts Report Reply

  • Simon Grigg,

    This might be an appropriate thread to place this link.

    Just another klong... • Since Nov 2006 • 3284 posts Report Reply

  • BenWilson,

    John Ralston Saul is also a philosopher, not a military historian.

    He writes quite a lot of military history in all of his philosophical works. So I dispute this claim. OK, he's not exclusively a military historian.

    His point regarding the Blitzkrieg is that the military will for it required the driving political will, because there was quite a lot of resistance to the idea coming from within the General Staff.

    I don't dispute that the idea did not start with Hitler. Nor do I dispute that it was a tactic that ran out of steam. I especially agree with you when you say:

    It is my view that Nazism was uniquely attuned to (and probably partially derived from) this over-all emphasis on violent action, and as a political doctrine it blended into the mix an ideological perspective to a set of tactical and strategic instructions that created an overarching world view that aided the Germans in decision making in battle.

    It was their strength and weakness at the same time, much like an aggressive boxer. They get lots of stylish fast knockouts, but they also punch themselves out easily, and are prey to Lennox Lewis style wars of attrition.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report Reply

  • Simon Grigg,

    It is possible to admire someone's technical proficiency without admiring the person or what they stand for.

    I think admiration is very much the wrong word but if you walk away from the scope of what was achieved, and the way it was achieved, you walk away from the very important how question and that's as crucial as the why question.

    Just another klong... • Since Nov 2006 • 3284 posts Report Reply

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