Unfortunately, the powers of both sides are not comparable to any of the games, so we can’t just play it out with side switching house rules (and other stuff too, but I’m just saying a new setup will need to be designed). The Soviets were even less modernised than in 1941. The real question is Germany. If Germany fights with the Soviets, (depends on what Hitler’s short term plan is) the outcome is uncertain, especially with Italy’s allegiance. It Germany fights against the Soviets, the Soviets would probably fall, especially if Japan can be convinced to jump into the war.
National Socialism vs. Communism.
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@Imperious:
Consider the topic and how it migrates to the same old soap box. I did read the posts.
So you’re admitting you made a completely irrelevant and uninformed post a month late for the sole reason of making an unsupported claim that someone’s analysis of a given source is wrong?
@Imperious:
That opinion is revisionist " The Nazi’s are not bad guys" crap where he magically brings up the same points about how the Allies and Stalin were just as bad as Hitler, then worse.
Soviet actions being worse =/= Nazis are not bad. Your opinion that the Nazi atrocities are worse than the Soviet ones has as much merit, but your general lack of sources makes your argument weaker.
@Imperious:
Go look at his posts… all of them… every single one… i mean EVERYONE… I DID THAT, YOU TRY IT so then you can delete your post.
He doesn’t say that the Nazis/Hitler were saints, or that all their actions were completely excusable, just that they were not the belligerent in WWII that committed the most crimes.
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Contrary to some earlier responses, and in accord with others, I don’t think the cause was differences between competing ideologies so much as similarities between murderous totalitarian regimes. Perhaps thinking of the political spectrum as a circle rather than a straight line illustrates this - instead of Fascism and Communism at two distant extremes, they are both on the opposite side of the circle to democratic governance. Their determination to highlight their differences perhaps instead highlights their similarities?
Each threatened the ability of the other to claim ideological “truth” and both perceived their competing status as being defined by military might and conquest rather than by the force of ideas or demonstrable benefits to their citizenry. As each had designs on the same territories the almost unavoidable outcome was war.
Edit - You can accept the argument that the Soviets were even worse than the Nazis without excusing the Nazis their deserved pariah status. Let’s keep it civil, even when we have strong disagreements.
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I recently inherited a few things after a funeral.
Anyone want a Lamp?
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So you’re admitting you made a completely irrelevant and uninformed post a month late for the sole reason of making an unsupported claim that someone’s analysis of a given source is wrong?
Yes exactly the opposite.
Soviet actions being worse =/= Nazis are not bad. Your opinion that the Nazi atrocities are worse than the Soviet ones has as much merit, but your general lack of sources makes your argument weaker.
That’s not what he’s saying. He says all the allies are worse by various innuendo statements. I’m not making any argument. Just pointing out this claim is in about 90% of his posts, even if the topic was about “how do i fix a carburetor”. He always moves the conversation to the same talking points without fail.
He doesn’t say that the Nazis/Hitler were saints, or that all their actions were completely excusable, just that they were not the belligerent in WWII that committed the most crimes.
No not directly, but he tries to lower the opinion of the cause and effects of what the Allies did to make the Nazi’s seem sanguine. Like saying the cops are corrupt, so the guy who shot 15 people should go free because the cops may be racist. It’s a fallacy of argument to attempt to lower one side to make another side “look” better. You might want to look up how to argue points. Historians fallacy comes to mind, as does ad infinitum, ad consequentiam, Association fallacy, heck even Reductio ad Hitlerum would fit.
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@Imperious:
That’s not what he’s saying. He says all the allies are worse by various innuendo statements.
KurtGodel goes further than that even; he explicitly blames the Western powers for the Nazi’s own war crimes.
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=34744.msg1394863#msg1394863
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KurtGodel goes further than that even; he explicitly blames the Western powers for the Nazi’s own war crimes.
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=34744.msg1394863#msg1394863
Enlighten me to where this explicit blame for Nazi war crimes is. I only see blame for unnecessary famine conditions that Germany shifted the consequences of to the same people that they committed their war crimes against.
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Not content with merely turning a blind eye to Soviet mass murder, the Western democracies chose to indulge in mass murder of their own. That mass murder began in 1939, with their food blockade of Germany.
…
Germany responded to famine conditions by feeding Germans first, Slavs second, Jews not at all. Exactly how you’d expect a Nazi government to respond to famine. As a result of this (predictable) response, millions of Poles starved to death. Granted, tens of millions of non-Poles were also starved or otherwise killed, including 6 million Jews.Unless I am being dense, KurtGodel is blaming the Allies for the Final Solution.
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KG treads a risky path in which he highlights failings by the allies, often all too true, particularly in relation to the Russians, but the UK & US were also far from blameless.
He makes this unpalatable because he does not incorporate the context of terrible Nazi crimes, making his posts open to accusations of one sidedness.
The quote by wheatbeer is a good example. His final sentence could be taken to blame the allies for the holocaust. The flavour of his overall post will invite that interpretation. But if you read the words carefully it is not what he actually says, as he allows for “otherwise killed”. Even so, the focus on the Allies blockade with barely a mention of the holocaust is unpalatable.
In an exchange I had with KG on this WWII History board a few months ago I did raise with him this lack of balance and so the danger of his being labelled a pro-Nazi, as in fact IL has done. I tried to raise these issues constructively and would like to think that resulted in KG’s subsequent acceptance that Hitler was “brutal” and also in part that G’s position in central Europe made it a greater threat to the democracies than Russia.
I mention this as a plea that we conduct civil and constructive debates on these boards. That etiquette is part of my enjoyment of A&A.org.
Sorry for trying my “keep it civil” message again. :-)
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You can’t build up something by coming up with examples that attempt to soil the side that had far less national guilt about their crimes. It’s a basic failure to argue this way. The catastrophic behavior of the Nazi’s was many-fold worse than anything imaginable that anyone can compare to the western allies and to a lesser extent the Soviets. Germany tops the list for depravity during WW2.
As IF you can even begin to formulate arguments that the western allies are to blame for any atrocities Germany committed in the war.
Ridiculous and you need to speak up and confront such nonsense at every turn it rears its ugly head.
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@Imperious:
You can’t build up something by coming up with examples that attempt to soil the side that had far less national guilt about their crimes. It’s a basic failure to argue this way.
I don’t follow this. If I rob a store and don’t feel guilt because the manager is embezzling from his/her company, it’s a basic failure to argue to me that my action was wrong?
@Imperious:
The catastrophic behavior of the Nazis was many-fold worse than anything imaginable that anyone can compare to the western allies and to a lesser extent the Soviets. Germany tops the list for depravity during WW2.
I’m glad you’ve formed an opinion on the topic. The idea of this discussion is however, is to understand that the Western Allies and Soviet Russia were also on the list for depravity; organize it how you want based on the evidence found.
@Imperious:
As IF you can even begin to formulate arguments that the western allies are to blame for any atrocities Germany committed in the war.
You can’t. You can, however, point out that (at least) two things were going on simultaneously in Germany:
1. The Nazi regime deliberately persecuted/murdered homosexuals, disabled persons, Slavs, Jews, etc.
2. The Allies imposed a food blockade that left citizens under German control in famine conditions, many of which starved.The victims of (1) are solely the Nazis’ fault. The victims of (2) are the Allies’ fault. German government had some control of the who were the victims of (2) and caused overlap between the two areas when possible (why feed people who you want to eliminate anyway), but the fact that there were unintentional starvation victims (such as citizens of Eastern Europe captured from Russia or Russian POWs meant to be working in German industry) is the Western Allies’ fault.
This does nothing to excuse the Germans’ disgusting atrocities against certain of its citizens, but it shows that the Western Allies displayed no problem causing the deaths of civilians that they didn’t like (they just happened to be civilians of a different country rather than their own)
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@Private:
Contrary to some earlier responses, and in accord with others, I don’t think the cause was differences between competing ideologies so much as similarities between murderous totalitarian regimes. Perhaps thinking of the political spectrum as a circle rather than a straight line illustrates this - instead of Fascism and Communism at two distant extremes, they are both on the opposite side of the circle to democratic governance. Their determination to highlight their differences perhaps instead highlights their similarities?
I tend to agree with this interpretation, perhaps making a plane with quadrants to show separations, something like:
Nazism (Stalin’s) Communism
|
| ^
| |
–-------±--------- | more totalitarian
| |
| |
|
Democracy (Socialism/ideal Communism?)---------->
more government
control of society -
Like the 2x2 matrix ColonelCarter.
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ColonelCarter,
No one forced the Nazi Germany to start a war and no one forced Nazi Germany to continue waging their war by stealing food from occupied territories to feed Germans. The Nazis decided that it was better to starve conquered peoples than to surrender.
Take the lifeboat analogy KG used.
- Mass murder with extenuating circumstances. Imagine that ten people are on a lifeboat, but there is only enough food and water for seven of them to make it back to safety. A decision to kill three people on the lifeboat would represent a miniature example of something in this category.
Lets extend this metaphor.
Lifeboat-A can only keep its full crew alive by trading with other ships. Lifeboat-A decides to seize control of another nearby boat (lifeboat-B) by force, despite warnings from other boats. In response, an alliance of other lifeboats institutes a blockade, preventing any boats from trading with lifeboat-A unless the crew of lifeboat-A withdraws from lifeboat-B. Lifeboat-A refuses to relinquish control of lifeboat-B and decides to use lifeboat-B’s food supply to keep the crew of lifeboat-A alive, which results in the crew of lifeboat-B starving to death.
In my mind, lifeboat-A is culpable for any deaths amongst the crew of lifeboat-B.
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ColonelCarter,
No one forced the Nazi Germany to start a war and no one forced Nazi Germany to continue waging their war by stealing food from occupied territories to feed Germans. The Nazis decided that it was better to starve conquered peoples than to surrender.
Incorrect, Hitler did!
Hitler used the circumstances in his belief of interest.
@wheatbeer:Take the lifeboat analogy KG used.
- Mass murder with extenuating circumstances. Imagine that ten people are on a lifeboat, but there is only enough food and water for seven of them to make it back to safety. A decision to kill three people on the lifeboat would represent a miniature example of something in this category.
Lets extend this metaphor.
Lifeboat-A can only keep its full crew alive by trading with other ships. Lifeboat-A decides to seize control of another nearby boat (lifeboat-B) by force, despite warnings from other boats. In response, an alliance of other lifeboats institutes a blockade, preventing any boats from trading with lifeboat-A unless the crew of lifeboat-A withdraws from lifeboat-B. Lifeboat-A refuses to relinquish control of lifeboat-B and decides to use lifeboat-B’s food supply to keep the crew of lifeboat-A alive, which results in the crew of lifeboat-B starving to death.
In my mind, lifeboat-A is culpable for any deaths amongst the crew of lifeboat-B.
Wheatbeer, with all due respect!
BUT everybody is culpable of the deaths amongst the Crew of lifeboat -B.
How can you say that he who does not physicaly kill is less guilty then he who kills??
How can anybody even think such an assumption??
You are all wrong.To ease the conflict would have been to deal with the Problem the right way.
- In this metaphor , to feed everybody with the supply at Hand or to share is to care!
England, France and even Russia could have Intervent when Nazi Germany invaded all the countrys but they didn’t.
After all it is everybodys fault that WW II started and went on.Nazi Germany did the Holocaust and the Allies didn’t stop it.
They missed to take out the Nazi ideology, erase it from the earth.Now as of today we still have hundreds, thousand of People who still believe it is a good Thing and hundreds of Locations where they still meet and planing things.
Back to the Topic, I don’t see a diffrence.
Facisim and Communisim is worse at the same time so is Democracy lead by the wrong People.
People who are willing to live under These governments should meet up on an Island and start their Party over there.And the most worst thing is, that we are close to 1939 in 2015 and nobody is even realizing it, nobody cares, as long as it is not in front of him.
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Hey Wheat…
Unless I am mistaken, UK/France declared war on Germany.
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/britain-and-france-declare-war-on-germany
No one FORCED them to do it…
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Take the lifeboat analogy KG used.
- Mass murder with extenuating circumstances. Imagine that ten people are on a lifeboat, but there is only enough food and water for seven of them to make it back to safety. A decision to kill three people on the lifeboat would represent a miniature example of something in this category.
Lets extend this metaphor.
Lifeboat-A can only keep its full crew alive by trading with other ships. Lifeboat-A decides to seize control of another nearby boat (lifeboat-B) by force, despite warnings from other boats. In response, an alliance of other lifeboats institutes a blockade, preventing any boats from trading with lifeboat-A unless the crew of lifeboat-A withdraws from lifeboat-B. Lifeboat-A refuses to relinquish control of lifeboat-B and decides to use lifeboat-B’s food supply to keep the crew of lifeboat-A alive, which results in the crew of lifeboat-B starving to death.
In my mind, lifeboat-A is culpable for any deaths amongst the crew of lifeboat-B.
I suppose this is where we differ.
Following lifeboat-A’s act of aggression against lifeboat-B, the other lifeboats have at least 2 options:
1. Blockade trading with lifeboat-A. If they don’t surrender, a number of people in the collective group of lifeboats A&B will die.
2. Attempt to free lifeboat-B by taking lifeboat-A by force. If they don’t surrender, some people from the outside lifeboats could get hurt/die.In the case of (1), the outside group knows that some people under their lifeboat-A’s control will die (unless they surrender which wasn’t really an option in Germany’s case because of Russia). Considering that the outside group is trying to defend the occupants of lifeboat-B, it seems questionable that their course of action is one that could result in the deaths of the people they promise to protect.
In my opinion, option (2) would have been the more moral course of action, as it guarantees that the aggressors are the victims of their punishment. Just like how you imprison a criminal for their crimes, not their family.
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Unless I am mistaken, UK/France declared war on Germany.
I was referring to Germany declaring war on Poland.
Considering that the outside group is trying to defend the occupants of lifeboat-B, it seems questionable that their course of action is one that could result in the deaths of the people they promise to protect.
Attempting to free lifeboat-B directly might not be practical depending on the logistics of the situation. Lifeboat-A might be too strong for such a plan to have hope of success in the short term. But if they do nothing, then lifeboat-A will continue to gain strength and become a bigger threat.
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Quote from: Imperious Leader on June 01, 2015, 05:51:48 pm
You can’t build up something by coming up with examples that attempt to soil the side that had far less national guilt about their crimes. It’s a basic failure to argue this way.
I don’t follow this. If I rob a store and don’t feel guilt because the manager is embezzling from his/her company, it’s a basic failure to argue to me that my action was wrong?Quote from: Imperious Leader on June 01, 2015, 05:51:48 pm
The catastrophic behavior of the Nazis was many-fold worse than anything imaginable that anyone can compare to the western allies and to a lesser extent the Soviets. Germany tops the list for depravity during WW2.
I’m glad you’ve formed an opinion on the topic. The idea of this discussion is however, is to understand that the Western Allies and Soviet Russia were also on the list for depravity; organize it how you want based on the evidence found.Quote from: Imperious Leader on June 01, 2015, 05:51:48 pm
As IF you can even begin to formulate arguments that the western allies are to blame for any atrocities Germany committed in the war.You can’t. You can, however, point out that (at least) two things were going on simultaneously in Germany:
1. The Nazi regime deliberately persecuted/murdered homosexuals, disabled persons, Slavs, Jews, etc.
2. The Allies imposed a food blockade that left citizens under German control in famine conditions, many of which starved.The victims of (1) are solely the Nazis’ fault. The victims of (2) are the Allies’ fault. German government had some control of the who were the victims of (2) and caused overlap between the two areas when possible (why feed people who you want to eliminate anyway), but the fact that there were unintentional starvation victims (such as citizens of Eastern Europe captured from Russia or Russian POWs meant to be working in German industry) is the Western Allies’ fault.
You missed the point, Godel ranks both as IF they are relatively the same. IN reality, this blockade when the war started was one of many basic measures any civilized people would do if they had the opportunity against the aggressor nation. WW2 was Hitlers revenge war. You can’t possibly even begin to compare systematic and whole scale murder of innocent people, with belligerents against Germany imposing some economic blockade. I guess you ignore Germany’s unrestricted submarine warfare and how it nearly starved England? How soon they forget.
I guess nothing is Germany’s fault…
This does nothing to excuse the Germans’ disgusting atrocities against certain of its citizens, but it shows that the Western Allies displayed no problem causing the deaths of civilians that they didn’t like (they just happened to be civilians of a different country rather than their own)
OMG. Yea they just killed their own citizens, not citizens from conquered countries? What? This reasoning by you sounds like something Godel would write.
No greater example exists of war between good and evil like WW2.
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@Imperious:
Quote from: Imperious Leader on June 01, 2015, 05:51:48 pm
As IF you can even begin to formulate arguments that the western allies are to blame for any atrocities Germany committed in the war.You can’t. You can, however, point out that (at least) two things were going on simultaneously in Germany:
1. The Nazi regime deliberately persecuted/murdered homosexuals, disabled persons, Slavs, Jews, etc.
2. The Allies imposed a food blockade that left citizens under German control in famine conditions, many of which starved.The victims of (1) are solely the Nazis’ fault. The victims of (2) are the Allies’ fault. German government had some control of the who were the victims of (2) and caused overlap between the two areas when possible (why feed people who you want to eliminate anyway), but the fact that there were unintentional starvation victims (such as citizens of Eastern Europe captured from Russia or Russian POWs meant to be working in German industry) is the Western Allies’ fault.
You missed the point, Godel ranks both as IF they are relatively the same. IN reality, this blockade when the war started was one of many basic measures any civilized people would do if they had the opportunity against the aggressor nation. WW2 was Hitlers revenge war. You can’t possibly even begin to compare systematic and whole scale murder of innocent people, with belligerents against Germany imposing some economic blockade. I guess you ignore Germany’s unrestricted submarine warfare and how it nearly starved England? How soon they forget.
I didn’t miss the point, I made my own. That being, everyone is free (including you and KG) to rate the belligerent countries’ crimes as they would, but they should acknowledge that all belligerents did commit crimes against the various civilians of the time.
By your argument, Germany’s USW is a basic measure of a civilized people. Remember, Britain and France were aggressors against Germany; Hitler didn’t want war with them. I think it lies on equal footing of civilian murder as the Allied food blockade.
@Imperious:
This does nothing to excuse the Germans’ disgusting atrocities against certain of its citizens, but it shows that the Western Allies displayed no problem causing the deaths of civilians that they didn’t like (they just happened to be civilians of a different country rather than their own)
OMG. Yea they just killed their own citizens, not citizens from conquered countries? What?
Thank you for pointing out that this needs clarification. I meant atrocities against people they controlled, as well as the Allies’ indifference to the fates of the people they originally promised to protect.
@Imperious:
No greater example exists of war between good and evil like WW2.
Eh, the War of the Ring is much more clear cut in my opinion.
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I didn’t miss the point, I made my own. That being, everyone is free (including you and KG) to rate the belligerent countries’ crimes as they would, but they should acknowledge that all belligerents did commit crimes against the various civilians of the time.
By your argument, Germany’s USW is a basic measure of a civilized people. Remember, Britain and France were aggressors against Germany; Hitler didn’t want war with them. I think it lies on equal footing of civilian murder as the Allied food blockade.
The first point does not mean both sides are somehow equal to guilt. Exterminating people for no reason is not the same as during wartime blockading the enemy ports so he can’t conduct international trade. It’s like saying the US blockade against North Korea/ Iran is the same as murdering people on meat hooks. Who reasons like this?
Second, that is not what i said. Exterminating people is not a basic necessity during war, US did no such thing. USW and economic blockade ARE acceptable outcomes during war. ANY argument that attempts to justify mass extermination of people during war is just an excuse. Freaking Nazi’s spent more resources killing people and should have been used to fight in Russia. It took space that could have moved materiel to the eastern front and saved German lives, but was wasted transporting people to their deaths. Your arguments hold air.
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@Imperious:
I didn’t miss the point, I made my own. That being, everyone is free (including you and KG) to rate the belligerent countries’ crimes as they would, but they should acknowledge that all belligerents did commit crimes against the various civilians of the time.
By your argument, Germany’s USW is a basic measure of a civilized people. Remember, Britain and France were aggressors against Germany; Hitler didn’t want war with them. I think it lies on equal footing of civilian murder as the Allied food blockade.
The first point does not mean both sides are somehow equal to guilt. Exterminating people for no reason is not the same as during wartime blockading the enemy ports so he can’t conduct international trade. It’s like saying the US blockade against North Korea/ Iran is the same as murdering people on meat hooks. Who reasons like this?
Who reasons like this? Nobody, that’s who.
I’m super confused where you’re drawing these conclusions from. I said nothing that they are equal guilt, just that I think they both have guilt.
It’s like one person robs a store and another murders a person. I’m saying don’t skip apprehending the thief just because the other guy committed murder, not that they should get the same sentence!@Imperious:
Second, that is not what i said1. Exterminating people is not a basic necessity during war, US did no such thing. USW and economic blockade ARE acceptable outcomes during war2. ANY argument that attempts to justify mass extermination of people during war is just an excuse. Freaking Nazis spent more resources killing people and should have been used to fight in Russia. It took space that could have moved materiel to the eastern front and saved German lives, but was wasted transporting people to their deaths. Your arguments hold air.
1. Pronoun game. Please elaborate (quote preferably) what I said you said that you didn’t.
2. You did just say again that you think USW is an acceptable outcome (== a basic measure of civilized people at war). Mass murder is not, but I never said it was (or that you said it was). I’m not trying the impossible task of justifying mass extermination. I’m saying the Allies weren’t as spectacularly clean as they are sometimes depicted, just because they had the very just goal of wiping out Hitler’s evil. The arguments you pretend I make hold air.
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