'Hitler's Tailor' Hugo Boss apologises for using slave labour

@CWO:

@Linkon:

We all look back and the 20 / 20 history that shows us “of course !”, and how obvious it was after the fact.
Hitler planned for, and then invaded France.
Most of the Western powers and the Russians would have thought such a plan was a way out long shot.
It stunned the world that a superpower such as France (at the time) would fall to a crazy person like Hitler.
This poll mainly highlights the crazy things Hitler did that failed, and not the key crazy thing done that actually succeeded beyond belief.

This is indeed an interesting question to consider: whether Hitler’s planning and invasion of France is something that would have looked crazy at the time (as opposed to how it looks now in retrospect).  My feeling is that the answer depends on what is meant by “at the time.”  If someone had suggested in 1937 or 1938 or even as late as September 1, 1939 that Germany would conquer France in a campaign lasting just six weeks, and with very acceptable casualty figures on the German side, he would quite plausibly been regarded as a lunatic…or at least as a wild optimist (if he was German) or pessimist (if he was French).  By April of 1940, however, the basic concept that a German attack against France might succeed could (and should) have been taken very seriously by well-informed observers.  Eight months of wartime experience had shown that:

Armoured forces, operating aggressively in mass formations at key points of the front, closely supported by aircraft, motorized/mechanized infantry and self-propelled artillery, could achieve strategically decisive results in a short amount of time.

France appeared wedded to a purely defensive strategy, hinging on the static position of the Maginot Line, hence completely surrendering the strategic initiative to Germany and giving Hitler the priceless luxury of attacking at whatever time, in whatever location and in whatever manner he chose.

The French Army suffered from poor morale and poor political and leadership.  General Gamelin, in the words of one French official, “had no guts at all” and seemed to consider the French government to be more of an enemy than the Germans.  The French Army had made a token advance of a few kilometers into the Saar region, then had quietly withdrawn.  French soldiers were poorly paid, which often led them to use their infrequent leave time to earn some money on the side, and they tended to get so drunk when they were about to rejoin their regiments that special rooms were reserved by the military authorities in train stations to allow the men to recover.  The French general mobilization had pulled many trained men away from vital war industries, and it was only after much confusion that they were released from military service.  There was much political bickering among politicians and social/political disunity among the population at large.

In other words: by April 1940, France was militarily much more vulnerable than it may have looked at the start of the war.  Many of these problems (such as the lack of any French offensive worthy of the name) were plain for the Germans to see, and others would have been discernable by the Germans without too much trouble.  The eventual German campaign against France succeeded to a degree that was probably beyond anything that Germany could have hoped for, but by April 1940 it was not unrealistic for Germany to think that it at least had a decent shot at waging a successful campaign against France.

Good post.

Gamelin’s strategy for France was to fight a defensive war for the first few years. At that point, the Anglo-French production advantage over Germany would have given the Allies a large military advantage over Germany. Especially when weapons purchases or donations from the United States were taken into account. After the Allies had achieved a massive numerical advantage in artillery, tanks, planes, and anything else which could be built in factories, he’d launch his invasion.

The Allies discounted the effectiveness of Germany’s blitzkrieg tactics against Poland. Germany’s excellent performance merely served to reinforce preexisting Allied beliefs about Polish inferiority. The Allies had had a low opinion of Poland from the beginning, as shown by the false promises they made regarding a French general offensive. When Person A dupes Person B, Person A will normally convince himself Person B was an idiot who deserved to be duped. All con artists think that way, and the French and British political leaders of 1939 were no exception.

During the '39 conflict between Germany and Poland, the German generals outperformed their Polish counterparts. But, again, this was seen as largely a result of horrible Polish incompetence, and not necessarily evidence of superior German generalship. The one-sided nature of the Germano-Polish conflict of '39 did far more to increase the preexisting Anglo-French contempt for Poland, than it did to increase their respect for the competence of the German military.

Von Manstein was the best general of the war on either side; and one of the best generals in human history. He recognized that Germany would lose a long war against Britain and France. However, he saw an opportunity to use good tactics to even the strategic odds. It was he who devised the plan to invade France. Hitler adopted the plan, against the advice of many of his most senior generals.

But von Manstein’s plan to invade France was only the first in a two part plan to save Germany from the Allies. The second part would have been the invasion of Britain, launched in the summer of 1940. Von Manstein’s plans generally succeeded, and he was confident this plan would have succeeded too. However, Hitler rejected von Manstein’s plan–a decision which may have cost him the war.

The eventual German campaign against France succeeded to a degree that
was probably beyond anything that Germany could have hoped for

The invasion went mostly according to von Manstein’s plan. There were times when his plan was set aside or overruled. The overruling of parts of his plan led to the Dunkirk evacuation; as well as to a longer, more painful conquest of Paris than would otherwise have been the case. But other than those two things, events transpired largely as von Manstein had anticipated. That said, most Germans, including Hitler, were surprised by the sudden, favorable turn events had taken.

I vaguely recall seeing an old Popular Mechanics cover which showed an alternate solution to the problem of widening the Panama Canal to accommodate warships broader than the 110-foot width of the locks: building a railway that would allow the US to move battleships overland from the Atlantic to the Pacific and vice-versa.

@Gargantua:

Whats a plan orange battle?

Plan Orange was a U.S plan to defeat the Japanese in a large Jutland type battle in between the war years.

The US opted for imperialism.

USSR was the lesser of three evils between Germany and Japan, the only reason America backed USSR.  Also Japan and Germany threatened US imperialism and the US had to wait until an event like pearl harbor to appear to be the good guy.

USA opted for atrocities instead of invasion or truce in regards to Japan. The logic was, “make Japan surrender, take away their right to military, then try to offer them a right to a military when they are pro american.”

Problem is, Japan became isolationist after WWII, so US imperialism failed military in Japan, but economically it turned out pretty good.

Russia is a huge wrench in US imperialism, but not as bad as Germany would have been if in control of Europe (or Japan in Asia).

It is kind of sad the axis lost WWII, post war SEA would have been liberated while China would be oppressed… possibly liberated later. Europe would eventually collapse into nation-states again.

all the best NATO military testing facilities

Canada should get an award for that. Most important thing ever!

@13thguardsriflediv:

@UN:

I disagree; his flaw was that he was too soft on the conquered. If he had any obsession it was an obsession to have peace in Europe so he could focus on his responsibilities as a statesman.

He essentially humiliated Prussia by keeping French forces stationed there, at Prussia’s expense (financially). Prussia had ambitions to unite Northern Germany (ie without Austria) under Prussian banner and Napoleon knew it, and wanted to prevent it.

Perhaps, but Prussia knew very well what it was getting into. Despite Napoleon’s personal plea, Fredrick Wilhelm did nothing to prevent the Prussian court from being dominated by the war party.

I disagree. Napoleon greatly offended the Russian court (Alexander found himself lambasted when he returned to court in St Petersburg) and his ‘construction’ of the Duchy of Warsaw was seen as the greatest offense, since the Russians feared it would kindle hopes in ‘Russian’ Poland for unification with the Duchy of Warsaw, which Russia was dead set against, because if Polish could harbor hopes of loosening from Russia, so could other nationalities. Furthermore, he greatly underestimated Alexander who started distancing himself from Napoleon not long after Tilsit, mostly under pressure from Russia’s aristocracy, his mother and also the British.

Which makes me sad that Alexander I came to power, period. His father would have been much more adept at guaranteeing peace in Europe and probably wouldn’t have been so influenced by anti-Napoleonic forces.

He was in no position to be harsher because he wanted Russian support for the Continental system.

He wanted Russian support, but again, he still had the power to create a march larger Poland at the expense of Russia, but he didn’t, partly because he was so despertate to forge a lasting peace, and partly because he wanted Russian support in the Continental System.

And he was poor at diplomacy because he generally imposed many things on the states that he directly or indirectly controlled rather than negotiate as an equal.

I both agree and disagree. In many instances (prominent among them the formation of the Confederation of the Rhine, which I’ll explain in a moment), Napoleon was very touchy about where he drew borders and was interested in what the heads of state of the vassal and allied states would have to say. On the other hand, he needed to guarantee the security of France, and, again, hated inefficiency and corruption, which often led to him being very imperious, as you said.

Friedrich Karl of Baden, Ludwig of Hesse-Darmstadt, Friedrich of Württemberg and Maximilian of Bavaria all owed the expansion of their realms to Napoleon.

That’s true, but none of them were inefficient rulers (with the possible except of Ludwig).

Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia had been humiliated at Tilsit and was only kept on by Napoleon because Alexander asked it of him.

Yeah, Fredrick got off easy. If Napoleon was the “19th century Hitler” that he’s frequently portrayed as I doubt Prussia as a nation would have even existed after Tilsit.

Napoleon casually moved areas and provinces from one kingdom to another.

Might you cite specific examples?

Napoleon imposed French as an official language on several areas of German states.

That doesn’t necessarily mean he wanted to ban German as a language, unlike the Japanese in Korea, who basically wanted to destroy Korean culture and language.

The number of people that resented French rule in German areas increased with time.

This is true; but remember why, in the first place, Napoleon demanded more resources and troops from the German states, because of the irreversible hatred of the European monarchies, Britain especially. If anyone’s at fault it is the British, who financed coalition after coalition to let Continental troops die for British interests, and who would threaten or outright bombard cities that did not abide by what His Britannic Majesety wanted (i.e. Copenhagen, Lisbon).

No, people like Benjamin Constant and Madame de Stael. The latter wrote a book criticizing the French treatment of Italy. She also wrote a book on German culture which contained so much implicit criticism of Napoleon that he had the book banned.

Let me show to you a segment from a book that talks about Stael:

Germaine de Stael, born of Genevan parents and Swedish by marriage, only became French when Geneva was annexed to France in 1791. Intelligent, ambitious and brilliant, this woman was totally lacking in any moral sense, and her love life would make a racy novel. She was a tireless and dazzling writer, but one who often showed poor judgment. Unfortunately lacking in physical charm, with a rather mannish appearance, she initially felt an ardent passion for the young General Bonaparte, the conqueror of Italy, and she wrote that he was “the most intrepid warrior, the most reflective thinker, the most extraordinary genius.” She even took it into her head to become an Egeria to her hero, after having dreamed of playing that role for Mirabeau and then Robespierre.

Through Talleyrand, Stael finally managed to get herself introduced to Napoleon. Slipping into the circle of people gathered around him, she called out to the First Consul, asking him who was in his eyes “the greatest woman in the world, living or dead”. “The one who has the most children, madame,” he answered. The interloper made a face but was not flustered, and pointed out to her unwilling conversational partner that he had a reputation “of not liking women much”. He replied, “Pardon me, madame, I like my own very much.”

Stael was unrelenting, and she laid siege to her idol, a siege Napoleon on St. Helena recalled with amusement: “She almost took me by the pants in my little house on rue Chanteraine. She followed me one day as I went into my dressing room. ‘But madame, I’m going into my dressing room,’ I said. ‘It’s all the same to me,’ she answered. ‘I’m an old woman.’ She said the Empress Josephine was a silly woman who was not worthy to be my wife and that only she, Stael, was right for me. She was crazy about me.”

The crazy woman wept with vexation after the coup d’etat of 18 Brumaire, which gave France a leader but also, through the favor of the First Consul, gave her lover, Benjamin Constant, a position. She pushed Constant to make a speech against the Consulate regime “of servitude and silence”. She was a fierce Calvinist in spite of her life of debauchery, and when the Concordat was signed with the Holy See she went over to the opposition and began dreaming of the overthrow of the regime with all the determination and malice of a wronged woman. As if to open hostilities, she published Delphine, a defense of divorce, Protestantism and England. She chose her time well! “I hope her friends have warned her not to come back to Paris,” exclaimed Bonaparte, “I would have to have her taken back to the border by the police.”

He did not need to say this twice. She was seen in Germany, spreading invective against the man who was to become Emperor and plotting against him in all the courts, even with the Bourbons. But she continued to reside at Coppet, near Geneva, where the prefect of the Emperor, the “tyrant”, turned a blind eye to her activities. She was even seen in some regions of France, still trying to get close to Paris. She soon published Corinna, a novel in praise of the emancipation of women, in which the French hero is a good-looking fool and the British hero a beautiful, deep, generous spirit. This further enraged Napoleon, and on St. Helena he said, “I cannot forgive Madame de Stael for having made fun of the French in her novel.”

Fallen under the influence of a German who was carrying on anti-French propaganda in Austria, the novelist finally brought down upon herself the official wrath of the Emperor, who in 1808 wrote to his minister of police: “Madame de Stael has an ongoing correspondence with a certain Gentz and has become involved with the clique of low characters in London…This relationship with this individual can only be to the detriment of France. You will make it known that until now she has been regarded only as a crazy woman, but that today she has begun to get involved in a clique that is contrary to the public peace.”

The guilty woman returned to Coppet, still without suffering any “persecution” by the authorities of the department, and started to write her major work, Germany, which gave her an excellent opportunity to exercise her bias against French literature, supposedly mired in classicism, and praise German genius in all its forms. She took a notion to have this volume published in France and went there, but the police seized the manuscript and ordered her to leave the territory. The minister Savary sent her a rather stern letter: “It appears the air of this country does not suit you at all. Your last book is not French; I have stopped it from being printed. I regret the loss to the booksellers, but it is not possible for me to allow it to be published.”

Can Napoleon really be blamed for approving this measure and refusing to permit the publication of a French book that was offensively pro-German, a book that would lead to a reawakening of the desire for dominance in Austria, only a few years after the dominance of the Holy Roman Empire, and cause the greatest damage to a precarious peace?

At the same time, Stael, who was now taking opium, secretly married a friend of her son 21 years her junior and, fleeing the discreet surveillance that had been established around her chateau in Coppet, set off on the roads of Europe. She was next seen in the Russian court when Napoleon entered Moscow; she pushed the tsar to make an alliance with Sweden, which she took it upon herself to drag into the war by exerting pressure on crown prince Bernadotte, who was her friend. She dared to write, “The good of France required that it suffer a reversal.” Then she was in London, where she was given a triumphal reception, since she was the embodiment of resistance to Napoleon’s “tyranny”. During the Hundred Days in 1815, assuming that Napoleon would relax his surveillance, she rushed to Paris to claim payment of two million francs loaned by her father, Necker, to King Louis XVI. Could it be that she had changed camps?

One might believe this when reading what she wrote to Joseph Bonaparte: “The return of your brother is extraordinary and surpasses all imagination.” But this was nothing but an act to gain a position for her son and obtain payment of her two million francs, because she maintained contacts with the enemies of the “tyrant”. One can easily get lost trying to follow the intricacies of her schemes.

Was Napoleon wrong to check the torrent of words from a woman who worked to set Sweden, Prussia and Austria against France? And could Madame de Stael, who hated Napoleon and her adaptive country with equal force, complain because she was not allowed to publish her book in France? This is the objective perspective from which the issue must be looked at.

He was a great man in history, but one with many flaws.

True; but then again, no great leader in history has no flaws.

There are many good books on the ordeal of Black Americans in WW2…amazing what they had to go through in the armed forces and most of the time they were the fiercest fighters around…

@legion3:

Naturally though, I voted for the USSR,  :wink: the opportunity to knock them out of the war or at least to take and hold Moscow, a major road, rail and communication hub with no equal in the Soviet Union, was available in the early fall of 41 had the Germans not been diverted and thus delayed in the turn south into the Ukraine. Another Hitler directive.

I take a few issues with this, It is VERY common to overestimate the value of moscow. Because moscow was such a hub, it would be very easy to link the railroads behind moscow, they are not that far apart. The russians built ALOT of railroad in WW2, and this would have been a very small challenge for them. They could probably have made Gorky their new capitol. losing moscow would not have been the end of russia by far.

As long as the russian army is alive and well supplied, russians would win this showdown. What the hitler directive did was to divert the panzers south, to help with the capture of kiev, What this move did was to encircle 700 000 russian soliders and to hasten the capture of Kryvbas and Krivoy Rog, which where the main prodcution of russian steel, dealing another devestating blow to the russian economy. This move severy reduced the resuplyment of the red army and encircled alot of the russian prewar division. This means that the 700k soliders they encircled was among the best equipped and best trained russian divisions. I could very easily argue that if the germans had gone for moscow instead, then these divisions and the increased russian production could have made the summeroffensive of 42 impossible, and the russian winter counterattacks in the winter of 41/42 that much more devestating. It was already devestating because of the of the 18 siberian divisions (guessing about 500K soliders). If you double the number of trained soliders, then the germans would probably have been lucky to even hold moscow, and if they tried, a stalingrad situation might have developed.