National Socialism being 'Right Wing'

1980’s however was a strange time for both sides and NATO and USSR were losing allies left and right and neither side wanted to engage in conflict so both sides tried to downsize their military while also trying to scare the other side.

Thanks for the informative post. You prompted me to do a little reading. At least according to what I just read, you are correct: a dirty bomb does not have a more powerful explosion than a conventional bomb. That reading contradicts the impression made by a documentary I watched; in which the explosion from a dirty bomb was portrayed as more powerful than a conventional weapon, less powerful than a nuclear blast.

There were some reports of what appeared to be nuclear weapons tests in Germany toward the end of the war. The documentaries in question treated those reports as evidence of dirty bombs being tested. But given that the explosions themselves were very powerful and produced a lot of light, the reports in question were either false (which is most likely) or else may have represented testing of actual nuclear weapons (less likely).

But not necessarily impossible, given the fact that a Nazi nuclear weapons complex has recently been discovered in Austria.

This brings me back to the aforementioned statement by Goering that Germany would have a nuclear bomb by 1946. If a dirty bomb was as unimpressive as your post and my recent reading leads me to believe, it’s quite possible that by “nuclear bomb” he meant an actual nuclear bomb.

However, it’s worth mentioning that Goering is the same guy who promised that the British Expeditionary Force near Dunkirk could be wiped out by the air, with no need for a German land offensive. Goering was also the one who promised that the German pocket at Stalingrad could be adequately supplied by air; and that there was no need for it to attempt to retreat westward. Goering had a track record of over-promising and under-delivering; so his promises of a nuclear weapon in 1946 should be taken with a grain of salt.

On the other hand, Germany was easily ten years ahead of the Allies in chemical weapons research. Perhaps more. If the German nuclear program did not result in a usable weapon until, say, 1947, Germany could in the meantime have retaliated against Allied nuclear attacks with chemical weapons attacks against Allied cities. Imagine this scenario: the United States has just dropped a nuclear bomb on Berlin. Germany has chosen to retaliate by sending a group of Horten H. XVIII planes to deliver a chemical payload to New York City. Allied leaders recognize that even though Germany has not yet developed nuclear weapons, it still has the capacity to respond tit-for-tat to the Allied destruction of German cities.

http://voices.yahoo.com/al-capones-armored-1928-cadillac-was-used-president-365026.html

I got this in a chain email, but it seems legit.

Really interesting story!  One of those make-sense/but-who-knew kind of moments.

I enjoyed it and it has caused me to reevaluate my opinion of Lee.
Have now elevated him  above genius for his thinking how best to win the war and see how he envisaged the South’s only real chance for victory. I always thought him wrong to refuse to go West when asked, but see how necessary he was in the plan of things.
You know I hold the Western defeats dear and wish a Bragg replacement had been found earlier, only acknowledge now it could not be Lee.
My search for the answer goes on.
I know the whole Confederate heirachy( and modern military thinking)would have baulked at the idea of promoting someone two ranks(and not West Point), but how would the army have fared with Cleburne at the helm?
I know it is not a credible choice as he had two immediate superiors in the army(though Hardee refused) as well as two unused Full Generals outside of it.
I would like to read about Hardee and fathom why he could not see himself in the role. He did have the Army’s confidence. He is also another reason Cleburne could never have had the Army, having always been his superior.

@Clyde85:

@KurtGodel7:

If I am banned for expressing the view that the communists were significantly worse than the Nazis, it would indicate to me that one or more list moderators subscribe to the latter philosophy. I would then go about finding another WWII forum run by people who adhere to the former perspective.

Which would be too great a loss for this site and greatly diminish the level of intelegent discourse on this site in the WW2 forums.

I can see and understand what you mean, I too often sympathize with the German solider and the German army, but I have no sympathy for Hitler and is Nazi party. What they did was far worse then any of that “Stabbed in the Back” nonsense from WW1. Hitler and his party did more to stab the German army and solider in the back with their idiodic occupation policies (one of the biggest factors to Germay’s defeat IMO) and their equally stupid racial superiority theories. I know Stalin and his “communist” cornies were just as bad as Hitler and his Nazi party, most people here know this, no one is disputing this, but like Gamerman said it’s like arguing if you’d rather be shot and hung, either way you end up dead! Hitler and his Nazi’s were defeated by the Soviets in the end because the reaped what the had sowen in their occupation of Russian lands. Had a more moderate policy been used maybe things would have been different. Hitler and his Nazi party are forever stained by the horros they unleashed during WW2 and no matter how terrible Stalin was people are not going to believe the “lesser of two evil” argument.

If thats what were doing here, then I say screw Hitler and Stalin and say go Cthulhu, why choose the lesser of two evils� :wink:

Thanks Clyde. I appreciate the compliments you and gamerman have given me. I also appreciate Gargantua’s recent post on my behalf.

To address your point about German occupation policy within the Soviet Union: there was division within the Nazi Party about whether the German occupation of Soviet territory should be benign or harsh. Ultimately those advocating a benign occupation lost the power struggle, leading to a harsh occupation policy. In contrast, Germany’s leaders from WWI had chosen a benign occupation policy for the eastern lands they occupied. That policy was part of the events which convinced the people of the Ukraine that “Bad things come from Russia, good things come from Germany.”

One of the Nazis’ main reasons for invading the Soviet Union in the first place was to obtain the food necessary to avert starvation in Germany and German-occupied Western Europe. It’s possible that the Nazi leaders concluded that, if they permitted widespread starvation to occur in German-held Soviet lands, they would be seen as dire enemies no matter what else they did. Ruling by fear may have seemed like their only practical option. I acknowledge that their racial ideology almost certainly contributed to this decision. They probably saw Slavs as cowardly and easily intimidated. (Such views would have been reinforced by the Red Army’s abysmal performance in its 1940 Winter War against Finland.)

Also, if Germany’s food situation was such that millions of people would starve to death no matter what course Hitler chose, he certainly would have preferred those millions to be Slavic rather than German.

More generally, I would break the Nazi ideology down into three components:

The Nazis were at their worst when acting upon the third of these components; and at their best when motivated by the first component. As an example of the latter, Hitler instituted improved workplace safety standards, improved clean air and clean water standards, reduced the unemployment rate to close to zero, significantly increased wages for German workers, greatly increased their vacation time, reduced the workweek to 40 hours, and arranged for government-subsidized cruises so that those workers could see the world. He also led an anti-smoking campaign which significantly reduced the rate of tobacco use within Germany. The Nazis encouraged physical exercise; and arranged for groups of adults to exercise together. German children who grew up in the '30s were consistently well-fed and in good physical condition. This contrasted with the poorer classes of English society–so strong a contrast that even someone as strongly biased as William Shirer noted it.

Another point worth mentioning is genetics. In nature, animals tend to have large numbers of offspring, only some of which survive to have offspring of their own. The fittest animals are most likely to be among the survivors, leading to upward genetic pressure. That source of upward genetic pressure has largely vanished for humans. Instead, the human gene pool is changing based primarily on the number of children individual people decide to have.

I have seen a Nazi propaganda poster which lamented the fact that intelligent, law-abiding people were having far fewer children than their less intelligent law-abiding counterparts, who in turn were having fewer children than unintelligent criminals. Communists have taken the opposite view of this situation. Karl Marx thought that individual differences were determined almost entirely through environmental factors. The communist movement would move even further in that direction.

Lysenko [caused] the expulsion, imprisonment, and death of hundreds of scientists and eliminating all study and research involving Mendelian genetics throughout the Soviet Union.

Mendelian genetics is the only scientifically credible form of genetics. The Stalin/Lysenko persecution of geneticists represented an attack on science–a far more severe attack, at least in terms of body count, than anything the Catholic Church had done to Galileo.

While communists have since backed away from Lamarckist quackery, they have continued to promote an anti-scientific, “yes, but” approach to genetic science. “Yes, Mendelian genetics theory is true, but it doesn’t do much to explain differences between humans.” “Yes, Mendelian genetic theory may apply to humans, but it does little to explain differences in human intelligence.” That sort of thing. Communists have violently opposed efforts to improve–or even arrest the decline of–the human gene pool, on the theory that such efforts are Nazi-like. Despite vast amounts of scientific evidence to the contrary, communists continue to claim that intellectual differences between individuals are caused almost entirely by environmental factors.

Upward genetic pressure, applied over time, caused apes to evolve into humans. Downward genetic pressure, such as we are now witnessing, will cause humans to . . . ?

I would argue that, to deal with current and future challenges and threats, the human race requires two things. 1) Ability. 2) Willingness to work together, and to sacrifice for a larger cause. Communists’ anti-scientific notions about genetics, in combination with the current decline in the gene pool, represent a direct, immediate threat to the first of these two things. Communists’ racial theories and racial objectives are a serious threat to the second.

Ants are willing to sacrifice themselves for the good of the colony because they are genetically similar to the colony’s other ants. What is true for ants is also true for humans: people are willing to sacrifice more for their own children than they are for other people’s children. Adopted children are four times more likely to be abused, despite the fact that adoptive parents are screened, whereas people who want to have and raise their own biological children are not.

During the rise of the Roman Republic, individual soldiers were willing to sacrifice themselves for Rome. Government officials often placed law and honor above their own self-interest. During the decline of the Roman Empire, these things had ceased to be the case. Bribery was the norm rather than the exception. The phrase “Roman soldiers” had become almost an oxymoron: few if any real Romans were willing to fight for Rome. The definition of what a “Roman” was had become blurred. By this point, Rome had become what may (for its time) have been the most multicultural city in human history. “All roads lead to Rome.” Large numbers of people from widely disparate places had congregated in Rome.

Scientific studies have shown that people are happier and more altruistic when in homogenous workplaces than they are in racially diverse workplaces. Rome’s loss of its homogeneity and its loss of altruism were almost certainly not coincidental factors. Other places which have become racially mixed–such as Latin America–are also, like the dying Roman Empire, associated with high levels of government corruption, and a low level of military effectiveness.

Based on this scientific evidence and on this track record, it would make far more sense to preserve the existence of race, than it would to support communists in their goal of globalizing and destroying race. There may come a time when it is critical for humanity’s future that large groups of people work together to achieve a greater purpose. If or when that time comes, we will need to have better institutions than existed in the declining Roman Empire or in Latin America to deal with such challenges.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2102796/Did-Hitler-father-lovechild-New-claims-emerge-Fuhrer-son-Frenchwoman.html

German army papers showed that officers brought envelopes of cash to Miss Lobjoie during the Second World War.

After she died, Mr Loret found paintings in her attic which were signed by Hitler. In Germany, a portrait of a woman painted by the Fuhrer emerged that looked remarkably like Miss Lobjoie.

@Gargantua:

The question is then,  learning from WWII, is the science of Eugenics WRONG/BAD Science?  Or is the science legitimate, but leads to VERY slippery slopes…  What are your thoughts and experiences?  And lessons learned from your WWII readings…

You’ve raised an interesting topic for discussion. Prior to WWII, the promotion of eugenic programs was considered legitimate and relatively mainstream. Leland Stanford, founder of Stanford University, was a proponent of eugenics, as were a number of other leading Americans. Before I go any further, I should clarify that by “eugenics” I am not referring to comparisons between different races; but rather to the desire to see the best people within each given race have the most kids. Exactly which traits are most important is, of course, subjective and open to debate.

The arguments made in favor of eugenics were simple and straightforward: we owed it to future generations to give them the best possible inherited traits we reasonably could. As you hinted at in your post, inherited differences are roughly as important for humans as they are for dogs. If we care about dogs’ inherited traits (as shown through dog breeding) it was felt that we should care about the inherited traits of humans even more.

However, viewpoints changed during and after WWII. This was not because of any new scientific evidence that had been brought to light. On the contrary, the subsequent discovery of genes, and studies which show their importance, have made the scientific underpinnings of eugenics stronger than ever. Science has conclusively shown that differences between people are strongly driven by genetic differences, and are not (as is sometimes falsely claimed) merely the result of differences in environment.

Viewpoints about eugenics changed not because of new scientific evidence, but rather because of the wartime and postwar anti-Nazi propaganda effort. The Nazis believed in many things: hard work, a strong military, self-sacrifice for one’s nation, the preservation of their own race, eugenics, anti-Semitism, etc. After the war, some of those beliefs became socially unacceptable, while others remained mainstream. Eugenics happened to fall into the former category.

Possibly that’s because of opposition to the concept from the Nazis’ enemies. Karl Marx believed that differences between people were due wholly to the environment; and that belief found its way into the communist movement. Under Stalin, Soviet scientists who believed in Mendelian inheritance (the mainstream scientific view) were persecuted, and were either shot or sent to gulags. At least to a certain extent, the communist “environment-only” belief has permeated into Western cultures, especially when the subject of discussion is humans. However, there is no scientific support for that communist belief.

As for the large numbers of people who died under Nazi occupation: most of those deaths were the result of the Anglo-American food blockade of Germany, and of the resulting starvation. Occupied Poland is a good case in point. Like most places within 2000 km of Berlin, Poland was a food deficit nation. Early in the German occupation, food was sent from Germany to Poland to help avert outright starvation. However, Hitler’s attempt to get Britain to sign a peace treaty failed, and the war dragged on. Germany’s food reserves ran dangerously low; causing it to have to reevaluate its food policy. To avoid starvation in Germany itself, residents of German-occupied territories would receive less food in the future than they had in the past. Polish Jews were especially hard-hit by these changes: the plan had been to reduce their caloric consumption to zero; which would have meant three million fewer mouths to feed. The next-lowest priority was unskilled Polish workers not directly engaged in helping the war effort. It was expected that millions of people in this category would starve. They avoided starvation, at least for a time, only because the harvest was surprisingly good. Ukrainians received higher priority; and skilled Polish workers had higher priority still. At the top were the Germans occupying Poland: their food rations were almost normal.

If the U.S. was hit by similar famine conditions, I would expect that American citizens would receive a higher ration priority than would the residents of (for example) U.S.-occupied Iraq or Afghanistan. I would also expect those with large amounts of money or good political connections would receive far more food than those who lacked these things. American distribution of scare food resources would likely be about as unequal as the Germans’ had been; except that the inequalities would be based on citizenship and economic status; rather than on ethnicity and contribution to the war effort. More generally, it would be very rare for a nation experiencing famine conditions to distribute food equally to everyone. The fact that Germany used a different basis for that unequal distribution than the U.S. would have does not mean that eugenics is either an intrinsically evil perspective, or that it represents some sort of slippery slope.