@LHoffman:
Whoa, whoa thread police… Der Kuenstler has chimed in on this discussion too, and this being his thread I think that is tantamount to a sanctioning of where this has led. Maybe I am wrong though. :roll:
Anyway… to tie all this back in with the original post, summarize and generalize:
Kurt and Der Keunstler are arguing from the perspective that Germany was the complete victim of circumstance in the time between 1938-ish and 1945. While some of the Nazis actions were deplorable, they were predominantly trying to do the right thing for Germans and did not intend for history to play out as it did. They have been grossly maligned by history and the victorious Allies, who were in fact the true warmongers of the Second World War (and the First). Allied war-crimes were just as bad, if not worse, than those of the Nazis because they were intentional before war even began.
Myself and others here side with the traditional interpretation that war was generally Germany’s (immediate) fault and that Nazi Germany was the true evil of the time. While some benefit of the doubt can be given to Hitler over his intentions, he caused many of the situations which prompted war and then initiated that war himself. The Allies did not fight a genocidal war to rid the world of Germans, nor did they callously exploit their continental allies or Jews for their own warmongering gain. In fighting Germany rather than the USSR, the Western Allies chose to eliminate the greater of the two evils at the time, and the more accessible one. Hitler repeatedly showed that he was not worthy of trust and coupled with the acts of persecution against European residents, a negotiated surrender with the Nazi government remaining in power was not an option.
While this may all seem very unrelated to the initial post, it rather quickly delved to the core of the meaning behind Der Kuenstler’s assertion. The initial post was not just about four engine bombers, the implications in it were far more significant than a commentary on a piece of technology. The underlying message was that our traditional understanding of the causes and forces behind the Second World War are the opposite of what currently recognize. This amounts to turning our interpretations upside down.
I have no problem at all exploring that assertion, in fact, I would love to explore it. So far, Kurt’s (and Der Keunstler’s) perspective has been remarkably well supported, even if I still do not buy the majority of it. I think this discussion has become far more compelling than a rather limited one about the history of four engine bomber aircraft.
Kurt and Der Keunstler are arguing from the perspective that Germany was the
complete victim of circumstance in the time between 1938-ish and 1945.
I’d like to rephrase the above slightly. I’d argue that for various reasons, Germany faced an uphill battle for survival. This uphill battle was caused by several factors:
- The militarization and industrialization of the Soviet Union. In the spring of '41, the German Army consisted of 150 divisions. By the late fall of '41, the Red Army consisted of 600 divisions. In 1942, the Soviet Union outproduced Germany by a 3 or 4 to one ratio in all major land weapons categories.
- The fact that the Soviet Union’s long-term goal was world conquest.
- The fact that the Western democracies had no interest in preventing Soviet expansionism. In the Polish-Soviet War of 1919-'20, the Western democracies did precisely nothing to prevent the Soviets from annexing Poland. (Except for a few French military advisors.) Influenced by pro-Soviet labor unions, Britain sold weapons to the Soviets but not the Polish.
- The fact that the major Western democracies were in many cases pro-Soviet. France signed a defensive alliance with the Soviet Union in 1935. As did Czechoslovakia. FDR was strongly pro-Soviet, and even became an accessory to Soviet mass murder.
- The Soviets had achieved significant penetration of the Western democracies; and therefore exerted significant influence on Western democratic foreign policies. This influence was generally used to promote “anti-fascism.” Before the Soviet Union invaded Germany, Stalin wanted there to be a long, bloody war between Germany and the Western democracies. Not only would this make the task of invading Germany easier, it would also weaken French resistance to the second stage of Stalin’s plans for expansion.
Could Otto von Bismarck have successfully navigated these shark-infested waters? Possibly. But the task would have been a grave challenge even for a statesman as gifted as him. Hitler lacked von Bismarck’s subtlety. He was too straightforward, too easily predicted, and therefore too easy for his enemies to manipulate.
While some of the Nazis actions were deplorable, they were predominantly trying to do
the right thing for Germans and did not intend for history to play out as it did.
Nazism consisted of three core aspects:
- Love for Germans and Germanic peoples
- Indifference or hatred for Slavs
- Intense hatred for Jews
The motives for Nazis’ actions could generally be explained in terms of the above. However, the degree they were willing to act on 2) and 3) has been deliberately exaggerated and distorted by Allied propagandists.
They have been grossly maligned by history and the victorious Allies,
This is beyond reasonable dispute. Take a standard-issue history book about WWII, such as Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Not once in his 1400 pages does he mention the Allied food blockade, or the fact that Germany did not have the food to feed the people within its borders. But he goes into extensive detail about Nazi killings of Jews and Slavs. Instead of telling the truth (that Hitler killed large numbers of Slavs due to the food shortage), Shirer creates the impression that Hitler was bursting with eagerness to get the anti-Slavic genocide started right away. (As opposed to doing the smart thing and waiting until the war was over before beginning the supposed planned genocide against the Slavs.)
Needless to say, neither Shirer nor others like him represent a credible source of information on how we should interpret WWII. His book is a (deliberate?) mix of historical fact and blatantly dishonest Allied propaganda.
Allied war-crimes were just as bad, if not worse, than those of the Nazis
I don’t think there can be a meaningful comparison between the two. The only time the Nazis engaged in large-scale mass murder was when they couldn’t feed their own people due to the Allied food blockade. The Soviet Union committed tens of millions of mass murders during the prewar period. Both the Soviet Union and Western democracies committed millions of murders during the postwar period. The Allies were also guilty of tens of millions of murders during the war.
In fighting Germany rather than the USSR, the Western Allies chose to eliminate the greater of the two evils at the time,
I cannot possibly express my disagreement with the above statement in strong enough terms! In the entire course of human history, there has never been a major power more evil than the Soviet Union.
There is this illusion that Allied leaders and Allied politicians were somehow “good” people who wanted what was best for the world. Nothing could be further from the truth. As an American, I’ve seen plenty of sleazy or immoral people elected to office. People without moral centers. Democratically elected Allied leaders of the '30s and '40s were like that too, only more so. This moral failure was why no major Western democracy adopted an anti-Soviet foreign policy until 1948.
Myself and others here side with the traditional interpretation that war was generally
Germany’s (immediate) fault and that Nazi Germany was the true evil of the time.
There was a time in the past when I would have agreed with you. I’d lapped up everything I could about WWII, all of which was written from a very heavily slanted, pro-Allied perspective. But certain things didn’t add up. For example, Poland in 1939 was obviously very eager to stand up to Germany, and showed no interest to coming to any kind of mutually agreeable terms with Germany. Of course, no mention was made of the lies sleazy French politicians had told the Polish. Instead, Poland’s position was subtly portrayed as the result of bravery and stupidity. But I suspected–correctly, as it turns out–that the Polish couldn’t possibly have been that stupid.
The more Allied lies I uncovered, the more things added up and made sense. Every fresh Allied lie I discovered reduced my level of trust for the Allied perspective as a whole. I eventually concluded that the entire Allied perspective was built on a series of big lies.
