Posts made by KurtGodel7

@LHoffman:

I linked to that testimony in my post above. You can read at your leisure.

I can argue all day and give numerous facts and circumstances which have been given before… and it still will not change your mind. So I am not going to bother. However, if you have the time, I would highly recommend reading this http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/85001/the-pacific-war-1931-1945-by-saburo-ienaga/9780394734965/. Ienaga is a Japanese scholar who was in Japan during the war. His take is critical on both the Japanese and the Americans, but focuses very much on how Japan entered into and continued a futile war entirely of its own accord. His research goes back to the late 1800s and the Meiji Restoration and many events leading up to Japanese aggression in the 1930s. This is a well balanced and pointedly realistic assessment of the origins of the Pacific War. You would do well to read it and compare to your existing conclusions about the war.

What you are suggesting is an incredibly circuitous and complex route for President Roosevelt to achieve his ultimate objective of war with Nazi Germany… and beyond that some type of post-war world hegemony between the USA and USSR. It again portrays Roosevelt as a manipulative puppet master, orchestrating world events entirely on his terms. And everything worked out exactly as planned. EDIT: Except dying before you can see it all work out.� :wink:

I clicked on the link to the book you recommended, eventually working my way to Amazon, attempting to get a feel for what the author had to offer. Some of the customer reviews I read were written by those who liked the book; others by those who didn’t. But none of the book’s fans or critics went into any detail. The best the reviews had to offer was a tidbit here, a tidbit there. One reviewer mentioned that the author had to go to court to get the book published, because the government considered it too anti-Japanese. Another reviewer complained that the book was not anti-Japanese enough, and stated that the death march of Bataan was not mentioned, and that the rape of Nanking was given relatively little attention. While I’m certainly open to learning more about WWII, I typically like to get a feel for what a book has to offer before deciding to make the time investment into reading it. If you have specific content from the book which you believe absolves the FDR administration from the guilt of starting the war between the U.S. and Japan, I will certainly read whatever quotes you provide, and will do my best to consider them as impartially as I can.

Speaking of bringing forth specific content from books, I’d like to present a few quotes from Herbert Hoover’s book Freedom Betrayed.

Page 846:

The third wrong turning was the imposition of the economic sanctions in July. That was undeclared war on Japan by which starvation and ruin stared her in the face and if continued would soon be war, for the simple reason that no people of dignity would run up the white flag under such provocation. It could effect no strategic purpose in the protection of the United States or China or even the British Empire.The fourth wrong turning was certainly the rejection of the Konoye proposals of September and the Emperor’s proposals of November. . . . Konoye had begun his negotiations two months before the sanctions. . . . It can never be forgotten that three times during 1941 Japan made overtures for peace negotiation. America never made one unless a futile proposal to the Emperor the day before Pearl Harbor could be called peace.

P. 833

[MacArthur] said that Roosevelt could have made peace with Konoye in September 1941 and could have obtained all of the American objectives in the Pacific and the freedom of China and probably Manchuria. He said Konoye was authorized by the Emperor to agree to complete withdrawal.

p 828

"[Ambassador Joseph Kennedy, father of JFK] said that when the Ghormley Commission went to England in mid-1940, it was for the purposes of preparing joint military action, and yet through that entire election campaign Roosevelt was promising the American people he would never go to war.

p 827

Kennedy said that Bullitt, under instructions from Roosevelt, was constantly urging the Poles not to make terms with the Germans and that he Kennedy, under instructions from Roosevelt, was constantly urging the British to make guarantees to the Poles. Kennedy said that he had received a cable from Roosevelt to “put a poker up Chamberlain’s back and to make him stand up.” . . . He said that after Chamberlain had given these guarantees, Chamberlain told him (Kennedy) that he hoped the Americans and the Jews would now be satisfied but that he (Chamberlain) felt that he had signed the doom of civilization.

Collectively, these quotes leave little room for doubt that FDR’s objectives were 1) to create a war in Europe, and 2) to join the war as quickly as he could. As IL pointed out in his otherwise error-ridden post, Japan had been engaging in aggression in China since 1931. If stopping Japanese aggression against China was important to FDR, why wait until 1941 to do anything about it? Why was stopping that aggression so much more important in 1941 than it had been in 1937 when Japan launched a major offensive against China? (An offensive which FDR ignored.) If saving China’s bacon was truly the objective, then why not simply accept the Konoye proposals made in 1941–proposals which would have accomplished exactly that?

FDR’s actions would have been nonsensical, had his actual objectives borne any relation at all to his stated objectives. I firmly believe he was working toward a different set of objectives: the twin objectives of the destruction of National Socialist Germany and the victory of the Soviet Union. A war between the U.S. and Japan would help achieve both, even if FDR hadn’t managed to use the Pacific war as a doorway through which to enter the European war. Even if the U.S. had done nothing more in WWII than go to war against Japan, that alone would have been sufficient to prevent any sort of serious Japanese invasion of the U.S.S.R. Stalin would have a one front war, greatly increasing his chances of victory. But Pearl Harbor (from FDR’s perspective) was even better than just that, because he got what he truly wanted: direct American involvement in the European conflict, on the side of the Soviet Union.

@LHoffman:

This argument is very much borne out of coincidental hindsight rather than supportable fact.

It wasn’t just Pearl Harbor that was built up or reinforced. The US did the same in the Philippines, Wake, Guam and Midway. All of which point to preparation for a swift response to Japanese aggression, should it have occurred. And it did. The Japanese decided to attack and/or invade all of those (minus Midway) immediately as a part of their overall battle plan to obtain as much territory and inflict as much damage as quickly as possible at the outset of war.

Enterprise, Lexington and Saratoga were all engaged in operations either planned months in advance (Saratoga) or under orders conforming to their normal cycles of departure. Lexington was reinforcing Marine squadrons at Midway. Enterprise was doing the same at Wake. Both were under direct orders from Adm. Kimmel based on requests (not orders) from the Navy Dept. Saratoga was taking on her new air group in San Diego after an extended refit that occurred for the entire year of 1941. Contrary to keeping them safe, the deployment of Enterprise and (especially) Lexington left the two carriers extremely vulnerable to attack from the Japanese fleet. The timing of Enterprise’s return to Pearl Harbor on Dec 7 was anyhting but ‘safe’. Enterprise and Lexington quickly received order to engage the enemy fleet if found. Because both ships were split up and unable to support one another, the likelyhood of a successful attack against the Japanese was very small. Even had Enterprise and Lexington been able to engage the enemy together, it would have been 2 underprepared carriers versus 6 battle ready Japanese carriers plus surface escorts. Both Enterprise and Lexington would have been sunk. �In hindsight, deploying Lexington and Enterprise where they were and for what purpose on and around Dec 7 was highly unwise if US command was aware of Japanese plans.

If Roosevelt knew of Japanese intentions and timeframe of battle, as you imply, would it not have been more appropriate to position the carriers such that they would be able to ambush the Japanese at Pearl Harbor, very much like they did at Midway?

That Roosevelt ordered the carriers elsewhere on purpose, so as to save them from the destruction, also implies that he (or those he trusted with such intelligence) very pointedly foresaw the significant strategic importance of aircraft carriers versus battleships which eventually became clear in the Second World War. That would be a stretch. USN carrier tactics were still being developed at the beginning of the war. The Battle of the Coral Sea in May of 1942 was indecisive in many respects because carrier vs carrier battles as such had never been fought before and battle execution was crude. In fact, carrier based aircraft had never before sunk a capital ship under way at sea until December 10, 1941 when Japanese aircraft destroyed HMS Prince of Wales and Repulse. That Roosevelt and established naval leaders could have precisely predicted the massive advantage of naval air power without historical precedent is an attribution very much borne out of hindsight. Additionally, it is a convenience which diminishes the accomplishments of the Japanese Navy in executing the Pearl Harbor attack.

But it was not only US tactics that were flawed at the beginning of the war. The Japanese proceeded with the attack on Pearl Harbor having received a report that the US carriers would not be present. Carriers were to be secondary targets to the battleships and critical shore installations were to be even lesser targets than that. As successful and daring as their attack was, the Japanese strategic blunders were their own; not the manipulative string-pulling of FDR and the US Navy.

http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/myths/Missing_Carriers.html
http://www.thehistoryreader.com/modern-history/yamamoto-planning-pearl-harbor/

I haven’t studied the specifics of the carrier movement orders, and I’m not going to debate you on that point. Until I obtain firsthand knowledge of those movement orders, I’ll allow that there’s a chance your theory is correct. That the carriers were absent from Pearl for benign reasons.

However, it still remains the case that FDR and his administration deliberately provoked Japan. Eight separate measures were employed in an effort to provoke Japanese aggression, the most notable of which was the oil embargo. Once that embargo was imposed, Japan had about a year before its economy and military ground to a halt. FDR consistently refused to meet with the Japanese, or to discuss his requirements for having the embargo or other “soft war” measures rescinded.

You suggested that it would have been appropriate for FDR to position the carriers to ambush the Japanese forces, if indeed his motives were nefarious. (Which they were.) However, it’s worth pointing out that, from FDR’s perspective, Japan’s initial attack was intended to achieve a political objective, not a military one. If there was even a hint of conflict between a political and military objective, the political objective would be prioritized. At least for the initial attack. Military objectives could be achieved later. Later being after the U.S. was safely in the war, and after FDR had wrung every last drop of propaganda advantage he could out of Pearl Harbor. The account FDR gave of December 7th–the Japanese winning a victory through treachery, while the U.S. was attempting to negotiate in good faith–bore absolutely no relationship to reality. If a politician is lying that blatantly and outlandishly, there is usually a reason why.

If the U.S. navy had assaulted the Japanese fleet before it launched its strike on Pearl, that would have interfered with FDR’s intended narrative of Japan as the aggressor, the U.S. the naive but honest victim of a sucker punch. Even worse (from FDR’s perspective) if the U.S. had achieved initial victories in the war against Japan, those victories might have discouraged Germany from declaring war against the U.S. FDR’s main objective for engaging in hostilities in the first place was to ensure the defeat of National Socialist Germany and the victory of Soviet communism.

Also, I’d like to recommend that Domination 1914 No Man’s Land be included in the tournament. This is quite possibly the best overall map I’ve played, and certainly has the best tech system and unit choice of any map I’ve played. I give this map a very high recommendation.

I’d like to sign up as well, as long as it’s low luck.

@Karl7:

Hmmm, you have a point.  Although, like we’ve argued before, I don’t think you can reasonably differentiate civilians and combatants in a total war scenario.  However, allowing the vanquished to starve isn’t in conformity with US declarations re: human rights etc. But understandably there was a lot of bad feelings towards the Germans after WWII. I will only point out that as you note, the US pulled back on this policy and reversed course. What other great powers in history have done that?  Not many, I am sure.

I would argue that the distinction between combatants and civilians is one of the two pillars of the laws of war. Military personnel are supposed to wear uniforms, are allowed to shoot enemy combatants, and be shot at by said combatants. Civilians are not legitimate targets of violence. But in exchange for that protection, they are not allowed to shoot or otherwise kill enemy civilians or military personnel. To remove this distinction is to multiply the brutality of war, and the associated loss of human life. Just because the Establishment did exactly that–in both world wars, not just WWII–doesn’t mean their position was good or right.

The bad feelings towards Germans after WWII existed because the Establishment accused National Socialist Germany of being guilty of the Establishment’s chief sins. Those sins include mass murder, the desire for world conquest, rejection of traditional morality. The unstated theory was that anyone who opposed mass murder or supported traditional morality should support the Establishment!

It is not normal–at least not in modern times–for the victor in a war to starve the vanquished after the war was over. That the Establishment chose to do this anyway speaks volumes, and demonstrates that the Establishment of 1945 - '47 was not morally superior to the Establishment which had turned a blind eye to the Soviet crimes against humanity of the 1930s.

I would also point out that support for the Marshall Plan came from a new breed of American politician: anti-communist Republicans. Prior to 1948, the vast majority of American politicians fell into two categories: pro-Soviet interventionists, such as FDR. And anti-interventionists, such as Herbert Hoover. The idea of using interventionism to oppose communism was not on the table–at least not prior to '48. The fact that the anti-communist interventionists were, for the most part, decent, well-intentioned people should not serve as an apology for the shameful actions and war crimes committed by pro-communist interventionists such as FDR.

@Karl7:

Also Kurt, again, I question your history: . . .
Sure not nice, but I doubt such directive had much real impact on the ground as Germany was already largely ruined in 1946 and no where to go but up.

As long as you’re relying on Wikipedia, I may as well do the same. :)

During 1945 it was estimated that the average German civilian in the U.S. and the United Kingdom occupation zones received 1,200 calories a day.[16] Meanwhile, non-German Displaced Persons were receiving 2,300 calories through emergency food imports and Red Cross help.[17] . . .

U.S. occupation forces were under strict orders not to share their food with the German population, and this also applied to their wives when they arrived later in the occupation. The women were under orders not to allow their German maids to get hold of any leftovers; “the food was to be destroyed or made inedible”, although in view of the starving German population facing them many housewives chose to disregard these official orders.[18]

In mid-1946 non-German relief organizations were permitted to help starving German children.[20] [Prior to that, it would have been against the law for a relief organization to give food to a starving German child.] The German food situation became worst during the very cold winter of 1946-47, when German calorie intake ranged from 1,000 to 1,500 calories per day, a situation made worse by severe lack of fuel for heating.[21] Average adult calorie intake in the U.S was 3,200-3,300. . . .

On March 20, 1945, President Roosevelt was warned that the JCS 1067 was not workable: it would let the Germans “stew in their own juice”. Roosevelt’s response was “Let them have soup kitchens! Let their economy sink!” Asked if he wanted the German people to starve, he replied, “Why not?”[32]

The starvation caused by JCS 1067 was deliberate, and served no possible military purpose. On the contrary: the deliberate starvation of Germans made West Germany ripe for communist revolution. To allow the Soviets to add West Germany to their sphere could not possibly serve American national interests. This starvation was not only bloodthirsty, vindictive, and inhuman. It was also treasonous.

The Establishment which instituted these despicable crimes against humanity is just as evil today as it had been during the Dresden raid, or when JCS 1067 was enacted. Trump’s presidency represented a sort of rebellion against Establishment rule. I will not comment on whether Trump is morally superior to that Establishment. But it would be impossible for anyone to be morally inferior to it, or more evil than it.

@Herr:

Good sir, this is not evidence at all. At best it could only be circumstantial, but I think even that would be pushing it.

I’ve been reading up on this “U.S. provoked Japan to attack U.S”-theory, as it was rather new to me. I don’t find it convincing.

My general impression of the theory is that is seems very much based on a U.S. point of view. Which can be OK, but it becomes too narrow. Thinking Japan had no other option that attacking after the embargo was at force, seems to generally underestemate the value of diplomacy and international trade.

Also it seems based almost entirely on hindsight. FDR did this or that, which led to certain consequences. Accordingly, the consequences were wanted. Isn’t this too shallow? It almost looks like conspiracy theories, everything is part of someone’s great plan. Nothing happens by coincidence and the other party’s actions are always anticipated and desired…

For example Hoover’s book, which I only know through the article. Hoover seems to argue it was a waste for U.S. to get involved in the European theatre, since Nazi-Germany never could conquer the Soviet, because of the vast distances, hard winters, mud on the Eastern front and so on. Sure, it is easy to say after the war, when the outcome is well known. But I strongly doubt the common understanding late 1941 or even early 1942 was in line with that. At that moment Nazi-Germany had conquered half of Europe, practically never lost any considerable battles or failed hugely in any way yet - maybe apart from battle of Britain, if the Sealion-threat even was off by then.

And Hoover seems to argue that the U.S. should only send enough material to U.K. to neutralize the Sealion-threat. Well, who during the war knew exactly the amount of required materials? Tranferred to the conflicts of today, the question would have been how much materials and men the U.S. would need to defeat the taliban 15 years ago. Or to stabilize Iraq? Maybe some skilled military official could give an estimate. And still be completely off, as he would of course fail to predict the firing of the Iraqi army and the consequences thereof. Or fail to see the Arab spring, which led to the civil war in Syria, which made room for the ISIS, which destabilized half the Middle East including Iraq. It is easy for someone to come up with the answer in 10 or 50 years time. But when the heat is on? Hindsight!

Any description of the arguments in Hoover’s book, written by an interventionist, is highly unlikely to do justice to the book or its content.

The idea that FDR deliberately and cynically provoked the Pearl Harbor attack is not the product of 20/20 hindsight. It’s based on hard, solid data. For example: a moderate Japanese prime minister rose to power in 1941. He’d staked his entire political career on the idea that he could negotiate a peaceful resolution to the differences which had arisen between Japan’s government and the FDR administration. FDR refused a meeting with him for months. They knew that the longer he failed to come away with some kind of diplomatic win–something–the weaker his hold on power would be. This prime minister would have been willing to grant extensive concessions in China and elsewhere. In exchange, he wanted the U.S. to cease the aggressive measures it had adopted shortly after Barbarossa.

But that kind of peaceful resolution didn’t take place. Instead, the FDR administration passively watched this prime minister’s credibility wither with each month he failed to secure a meeting, or any real negotiation with the U.S. Eventually he was replaced by hardline Japanese militarists. Such was Japanese respect for the United States’ military, that even those militarists attempted a negotiated solution. The FDR administration gave them more or less the same treatment it had given to their moderate predecessor. It didn’t take the militarists long to give up on the idea of a negotiated settlement. At that point they began issuing the orders for war.

Had the goal been to pressure the Japanese into making concessions in China, then when the Japanese came to the negotiating table willing to do exactly that, it would have made sense for the FDR administration to have shown up at that table as well. The conspicuous absence of any effort at all on the part of FDR’s administration to negotiate a peace treaty is a clear indication that peace in the Pacific had never been their objective.

@CWO:

@RJL518:

Considering what is going on in America today, and i am NOT looking for a discussion on today’s political situation mind you, do you guys agree with what America did 75 years ago with Japanese, German and Italian-Americans at that time?

Without getting into the highly charged question of “Considering what is going on in America today,” which is a subject that pertains to present-day politics rather than history, this should actually say “with what America did 75 years ago with Japanese-Americans at that time” because German-Americans and Italian-Americans were not interned – or to put it more bluntly thrown into concentration camps – during the war.  There’s a scene in the movie Midway in which the Charlton Heston character meets with the young Japanese girlfriend of his son, who like his dad is a naval aviator.  She and her parents have been interned, and at one point she turns to Heston and says angrily, “Damn it, I’m an American!  What makes us different from German-Americans or Italian-Americans”?  The Heston character, who has the decency to look embarrased, answers, “Pearl Harbor, I guess.”  Yes, that was part of the answer…put another part of the answer is that Japanese-Americans were much more visible as minorities in the U.S. than German-Americans and Italian-Americans, both of those latter groups being European rather than Asian.

It is false to assert that German-Americans and Italian-Americans were not interred. Those who’d immigrated to the U.S. from Italy or Germany were in many cases placed in concentration camps. (I saw a television documentary about this.) But it was apparently felt that assimilation was more possible for Germans and Italians than it was for Japanese. Someone of German or Italian blood who’d been born here would not be interred; whereas someone of Japanese blood who’d been born here might.

Conditions in the concentration camps were bad. The inmates were thin. Not so thin as to be in danger of death. But still clearly malnourished. Given that the U.S. as a whole was not experiencing any sort of food shortage during the war, this failure to adequately feed the concentration camp inmates is a black mark upon our record; quite apart from the justice or injustice of interning these people in the first place.

@Karl7:

For anyone interested in a summary/review of Hoover’s book look here: http://www.claremont.org/crb/book-review/221/

Kurt, I have disagree with your basic history here:

1. Japan and the Soviet Union clashed in 1939, and Japan’s conclusion was that it couldn’t fight the USSR and instead should expand in the Pacific: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battles_of_Khalkhin_Gol#Japanese_assessment_and_reforms

2. The idea that after you, i.e. Japan, have been waging a massive war of aggression and just invaded another neutral territory, i.e. French Indo China, threatening even greater territorial expansion, another regional power moves to beef up its military presence in the region is “provocative” is ridiculous. That’s like saying, “Even though I’m out raping and pillaging my neighbors, how dare the people down the street arm themselves! They are provoking me to attack them!”  Your entire argument here makes no sense.  Once a major power engages in unilateral acts of aggression, it must expect the possibility that others may intervene.  If not, then you are being naive.

3. Finally, I get the sense you need to equalize the moral standing of Japan and the US, like: “All powers are corrupt and self interested and thus no one power can be judge to be better than another… yada yada yada…”

Well, I am here to tell you, sure the US of the 1930s wasn’t perfect, i.e. segregation, but was morally superior to the fanaticist, racist, fascist, expansionist Japanese Empire. There was no moral equivalency between the two.

I mean, what are you saying?  By 1941 you had two major powers running wild across the globe, killing and invading without accountability. In 1941, Germany was beyond the pale, but do you think Japan could have been brought back into some sort of international accord by a negotiated settlement?

I seriously ask you Kurt: What negotiated settlement in 1941 do you think Japan would have agreed to? Withdrawal from Indo China and China? Any such settlement would have discredited the militarists, and they knew they could never agree to it. By 1941 Japan’s leaders had navigated itself into a position where war would be inevitable no matter what the US did or didn’t do. They deludedly thought they could win, that they were superior. Again, with such an attitude, how can think that what the US did or didn’t do would have any real effect on Japanese planning?  To them, they were the divine people, entitled by heaven to rule Asia!

The link you provided was not so much a book review of Freedom Betrayed, as it was a broader description of both isolationist and interventionist forces in American politics. The article’s author writes from a pro-interventionist perspective. But the specific arguments Hoover made against our interventionism in WWI and in WWII are not addressed in the article. Without even attempting to refute a single anti-interventionist point Hoover had made in his book, the author presents the case in favor of interventionism using standard-issue talking points, and by arguing that the United States is now so committed to interventionism that to change course could lead to very serious consequences.

You are correct to state that Japan and the Soviet Union waged an undeclared war in 1939, and that the Soviets emerged the victor. That was a point Victor Suvorov emphasized in his book. Suvorov also mentioned the fact that both sides had remained silent about this. Japan, because they didn’t want to publicize what they probably saw as a humiliating, shameful defeat. And the Soviets, because Stalin didn’t want to alert potential future victims to what his army had done to Japan.

However, Stalin could not be certain that Japan would not launch an invasion against the U.S.S.R., to go along with the German invasion. To guard against that possibility, he stationed a large part of his army on his eastern front. But after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Stalin sent 100 divisions west across the Trans-Siberian railway. They arrived in the middle of winter, and took the Germans completely by surprise. (The initial German invasion force consisted of 100 divisions. While a German division was somewhat larger than a Soviet division, we are still talking about a major reinforcement of the Soviet western front.) While pro-Soviet traitors such as Sorge and others did their best to guide Japanese foreign policy away from anti-Soviet aggression and toward anti-American aggression, Stalin could not be sure those efforts would succeed. Not until after the decision to attack Pearl Harbor had been made.

Not only did the Pearl Harbor attack assure Stalin he’d get a one front war, it also helped FDR achieve his goal of getting the U.S. involved in the war in Europe, on the side of the Soviet Union. U.S. government documents leaked in the weeks leading up to Pearl had led Hitler to believe that it was only a matter of time before the U.S. declared war on Germany. Those documents also made the case that the U.S. could not fight a two ocean war–at least not any time soon. If it was at war against Japan, its navy would be so busy in the Pacific it wouldn’t have the ships it needed to protect Lend-Lease transports in the Atlantic. By declaring war sooner rather than later, Hitler could deprive the Soviets and the British of a large portion of the tanks, artillery pieces, military aircraft, and other weapons the U.S. was sending them. Those leaked documents were instrumental in Hitler’s decision to declare war against the U.S. after Japan had launched its Pearl Harbor attack.

As for morality: the Allies murdered more people than did the Axis. That remains true even if you subtract Soviet mass murders from the Allied total. (Why anyone would subtract those murders is not clear, considering that in the '30s and early to mid '40s all the major Western democracies deliberately embraced pro-Soviet foreign policies.) Western democratic mass murder consisted of the food blockade imposed on Germany during the war, which resulted in millions or tens of millions of deaths. It also consisted of JCS 1067, which resulted in an estimated 6 million deaths in postwar western Germany. Further there was Operation Keelhaul, which resulted in the deaths of unknown (but very large) number of refugees from the Soviet Union. And finally there was the treatment of German POWs, which again resulted in large numbers of deaths. The claim that the U.S. was somehow morally superior to Japan can be made only if we are willing to sweep all those mass murders under the rug. One must also sweep under the rug the fact that FDR deliberately, happily embraced a pro-Soviet foreign policy.

As an American, I firmly believe my nation’s political and plutocratic Establishment is evil, and is not morally superior to anyone. That Establishment’s grim and shameful track record of mass murder during and shortly after WWII is proof that this evil goes back at least half a century.

http://www.triplea-game.org

The best solution to the problem is to download TripleA. The above link will let you do exactly that. Not only will this engine allow you to play Larry Harris maps, it also allows you to play a good selection of player-created maps. Some of them are significantly better than any of Larry’s maps, at least to me. (Including New World Order, Rising Sun, and Domination 1914 No Man’s Land.)

@Karl7:

Ah KurtGodel… I love you man!  You are so crazy!  :mrgreen:

Yeah, I’ve read parts of that book by Hoover… you might want to check up on its reputation as an actual respected historical work because its roundly considered hack history, a revanchist piece of writing by a guy who lost an election to the guy who ran the war.

I agree with Zooey72, the idea that “THE US FORCED JAPAN INTO WAR!” has no basis. The logic goes as thus:

1. Since 1937 Japan has waged a massive war of aggression against china.

2. Belatedly, in 1941!, the US says stop or we will cut off oil. (There is no “duty” for one country to trade with another anyway, the US just had a great reason to stop)

3. Japan’s response is, ok, we will continue our war and but also attack you and other allies against whom we should have realized we had no chance of winning! YAAY!

Wouldn’t the logical choice have been, um, maybe scale back your aggression? If Japan had agreed to pull out of, say, most of China/French Indo, but kept Manchuria, they maybe, maybe, could have pulled it off. But the reality was there was no going back by 1941.

I’ve read up on Japanese pre-war history, and its pretty dark.  Assassinations, political instability, economic chaos, earthquakes, etc, slowly driving the county into the arms of the militarists, who it might be added acted somewhat independently of any civil authority. The country was careening to some hard landing of one kind or another, and they crashed the plane all by themselves.

I don’t know, and don’t care, what the Establishment’s opinion is about Herbert Hoover’s book. I do not respect the Establishment’s position on this issue, or on any other issue. The first question the Establishment asks on any politically sensitive issue is always, “How much deception can we get away with?”

That said, I know enough about WWII to be reasonably good at detecting errors an author might make. I’m not claiming perfection in that regard, and it’s quite possible for an author to make errors which slip by me. In the case of Hoover’s book, I detected very few errors. The few I did detect always made the Allied cause seem more favorable than it actually was. If the Establishment is representing Hoover’s book as revaunchist history then, as usual, the Establishment is lying. If they are suggesting that it was written in bitterness, in an effort to discredit the man who’d beaten Hoover in an election, then that’s their usual tactic of attacking a message they don’t like by attacking the messenger.

That the U.S. deliberately pushed Japan into war has been established, and not just by Hoover. Other authors have delved into the subject in more detail, and have presented a larger body of evidence than that which Hoover presented. (Although Hoover’s evidence, by itself, is quite compelling.) Diana West, for example, has focused on the treason which existed within the FDR administration, and on the large numbers of people within that administration who owed their loyalty first and foremost to the Soviet Union. The war against Japan was intended to serve Soviet objectives, by allowing Stalin to focus on his west front only. The United States would keep Japan busy–too busy to launch any kind of serious invasion of the U.S.S.R. from the east. (That was also Stalin’s reason for promoting war between the Chinese nationalists and Japan.)

Diana West points out that Japan had taken aggressive action against China in 1937. But it was not until 1941–shortly after Germany invaded the Soviet Union–that FDR did anything about it. FDR’s action was not limited to the oil embargo only; although that alone would have been sufficient to force Japan to either conquer the Dutch East Indies or face military and economic collapse. (The U.S. had somehow persuaded the Netherlands to join in the embargo, even though provoking Japan in that way was clearly not in Dutch best interests. Not when the Dutch East Indies were just sitting there, ripe for the taking.)

FDR also embraced a series of actions which seemed intended to produce an emotional response among Japanese leadership. A warlike response. These steps included moving the Pacific Fleet from California to Hawaii, basing strategic bombers in the Philippines so that they’d be able to bomb the Japanese homeland, “pop-up cruises” in which U.S. military ships deliberately and repeatedly violated the integrity of Japanese territorial waters, etc. On the other hand, FDR consistently refused to meet with Japanese leaders, or to discuss with them what actions he’d wanted them to take in order to get these warlike measures to stop. None of the actions FDR actually took bear any relationship at all to his claimed objective, of wanting to promote peace between Japan and China. On the contrary: he “acted as if” his goal was to get exactly the response Japan gave us on December 7th. The U.S. had broken Japan’s diplomatic code well before the Pearl Harbor attack. We knew our actions were pushing Japan into war, and we even had an approximate timeframe as to when the attack would take place. Given these data, FDR chose to keep pushing, keep provoking.

@8thGuards:

Black Earth by Tim Snyder

The author argues that the removal of the jews was (at least in Hitler’s mind) a rational consequence of a certain world view. Hitler supposedly didn’t believe in the concept of countries as entities defined by borders, but only in “nation” as in a racial community, and all foreign elements had to be eliminated for such a nation to thrive.

Also that the great crimes of the 20th century, especially the holocaust required statelessness and de facto anarchy, it could not have been done anywhere in western Europe. This is why the countries of eastern Europe needed to be disbanded so the great project could be completed. In western Europe the governments were overthrown but the states more or less maintained, in the east not just governments were overthrown, but states were obliterated creating the very environment in which the deed could be done.

Less known is that after winning the war Hitler and friends also planned to do to the Poles what they did to the jews (after assimilating maybe 5-10% into the German nation) and then also vast population reductions across the Baltic States, Ukraine, Belarus and Russia itself to establish his dream of a German racial empire.

Another book of his that is really good is Bloodlands (eastern Europe between Hitler and Stalin).

Almost none of the factual claims in the above post are true. (The exception being Hitler’s view of race and nation. So for example Hitler would consider someone of German ethny to be a fellow German, regardless of whichever nation in which that person resided. On the other hand he would not consider a black or Asian person to be a German, even if that person had obtained German citizenship.)

During the 1930s, Hitler’s proposed solution to what he called the “Jewish problem” was Jewish relocation to Palestine. Large numbers of German Jews relocated during that period. So much immigration happened, in fact, that the Palestinians rebelled against British rule. Britain ruthlessly suppressed the rebellion, of course, but it also felt it had to give the Palestinians something to reassure them that little additional Jewish immigration would occur. The something that it gave them was the White Paper of 1939. That white paper restricted Jewish immigration into Palestine to 15,000 per year. A trivial sum in relation to Europe’s Jewish population.

The 1935 Nuremberg Laws stripped the 500,000 German Jews of their citizenship. Jewish migration was impeded by Nazi restrictions on the transfer of finances abroad (departing Jews had to abandon their property), but the Jewish Agency was able to negotiate an agreement allowing Jews resident in Germany to buy German goods for export to Palestine thus circumventing the restrictions.

Hitler didn’t go around tearing up Eastern European nation states in preparation for the Holocaust. Prior to the White Paper of 1939, Hitler’s plan for the Jews had involved resettlement, not extermination.

As for the Poles: during WWII, German officials had drawn up plans to relocate 30 - 50 million Poles eastward, to make room for German expansion. (This relocation was to be done during the postwar period.) If at that time there was still an Allied food blockade/famine conditions, the deaths of large numbers of these Poles would have been seen as an acceptable way to reduce pressure on Germany’s food supply, and to prevent the starvation of others living in German-held territory. On the other hand, there was no plan in place to starve any Poles if the blockade had been lifted, or if food conditions had fully or partially returned to normal. The idea that Hitler had planned to exterminate all Poles is a wild exaggeration, and is no more credible than any other Allied propaganda.

@Flashman:

Actually, the consensus is that the few coherent bits in the book were written by Hess. Whatever you think of Hitler’s world view, he was a lousy writer. In the middle of discussing the limits of Greater Germany he’ll go off on a long rant about venereal disease. Hitler was later on embarrassed by the book, though it did make him a rich man.

The majority of American colonists were against the Revolution; it was only French intervention that tipped the balance. Essentially the USA was an invention of a narrow masonic clique who’ve pretty much monopolised power ever since; most Presidents being related to each other several times over.

You have not read the book, and are relying on the opinions of reviewers who have. If you think those reviewers are doing their very best to give a fair and unbiased appraisal of the work, then nothing I write is going to change your mind.

I don’t know enough about the subject of America’s ruling class to agree or disagree with your second paragraph. I’ve heard that both George W. Bush and Kerry were members of the Skull and Bones society; with the implication that the U.S. was going to get an Establishment president no matter how that election played out. I suspect that if I delved deeply into this subject I would not like what I found. But that’s only a suspicion, not something for which I have much evidence.

@Hobbes:

Were they truly evil at heart or just following the orders of Hitler and Himmler?

To answer your question:

Today marks 72 years that Auschwitz was liberated and it is also Holocaust Remembrance Day in several European countries. I’ve visited Auschwitz-Birkenau several years ago, walked between its barracks and seen the piles of shoes, human hair and even the lamp shades made of human skin made from its prisoners.

Those historical artifacts that the Nazis didn’t manage to completely destroy while they were evacuating the camp in an attempt to hide their crimes, and the stories from the survivors of those camps to me fully prove that the Holocaust was real, and it was the work of truly misguided people, who were following orders but also many of them, if not all, shared and truly believed on that ideology of horror.

But the important thing to remember to me is that Nazism and other atrocious beliefs aren’t the work of the Devil, but of ordinary men and women, and nowadays there are still those amongst us who support or condone such ideologies.

The human skin lampshades were a hoax, and have been debunked. The Allies knew they could create that kind of fact-free emotion-driven propaganda, because no one would call them out on their (many) lies.

As for the Holocaust itself: I have no doubt that large numbers of Jews died in German captivity during WWII. The Allied food blockade of Germany, and Britain’s White Paper of 1939, made any other outcome impossible.

Unfortunately, the atrocious beliefs which led to those (and many other) Allied war crimes are still very much alive. If the Allied Establishment is not Satanic, it may as well be. Not Satan Himself could possibly be more evil than that Establishment.

@Flashman:

We’re all of African descent if you look far enough back.

Very few “African” Americans are of purely recent African ancestry; but is fashionable for them to ignore their European antecedents; similarly many more supposedly “White” Americans have a dash of African blood than realise it.

Personally, I find any system or practice that arbitrarily divides people into neatly segregated “races” to be offensive, unhelpful and just plain inaccurate.

Having separate “Black” and therefore presumably “White” history is among the most ridiculous examples.

The idea that there is no such thing as race, or that race is a “social construct,” is a flat-out lie. One of many lies told by the Establishment.

I’m not accusing you of being dishonest. The majority of people of people who deny the existence of race are sincere in their expressions. They have been lied to, they have swallowed those lies, and now repeat them with earnest conviction. That in no way alters the fact that the Establishment’s position on race, like all its positions, is based on deception. One almost needs to coin a new term–such as hyper-deception–to describe the Establishment’s factual claims, its ethos, and its ideology.

@Flashman:

The current trend towards “Right-Wing” politics is largely a reaction to the Anti-racist cult. In fact it is not extremist but an attempt to restore a natural medium ground between the true extremes of conservative global capitalism and “liberal” internationalism, which has of course become anything but liberal.
Nationalism is the true basis of democracy and by deliberately eroding the nation state the left are creating chaos and anarchy and calling it “freedom”.  They ignore the obvious parallels with the fall of the Roman Empire as if a thousand year dark age was a good thing.

That said, Mein Kampf is unreadable drivel.

But what is does reveal is that the aims of Nazism were always international, and are basically the same as the EU - create a highly centralised United States of Europe under German direction and expand into the east in order to create new markets and a source of cheap migrant labour.

During the late 1500s - early 1600s, the two strongest forces in English government were the monarch and the House of Peers. (The latter being a hereditary aristocracy.) But the death of King James and his replacement by Charles I led to a rise in importance in the House of Commons. Eventually that power struggle resulted in civil war, with the Puritans (House of Commons) ultimately defeating and beheading Charles I. His son, Charles II, was banished to France. The Puritans’ rule lasted several decades, after which Charles II assumed power. After Charles’ death, his son, James II, became king. In the Glorious Revolution (1688), Parliament decided to replace James II with William of Orange and Mary. This replacement involved only minor bloodshed, in contrast to the civil war which had taken place a half century earlier. The king had become significantly weaker than Parliament, and the House of Commons had become the single strongest branch of British government.

The American Revolution did not take place until many decades after the events I’ve just described. That revolution was in large part a response against abuses committed by the British government. The largely democratic British government. And it’s not as though those abuses were imposed by King George III against the wishes of a united Commons. On the contrary: all three branches of British government, including the House of Commons, played a role in embracing the policies the American colonists found so objectionable.

In history class it’s often claimed that the American revolutionaries were fighting for “democracy.” That claim is false, because the government we were rebelling against was largely democratic in nature. The replacement government, as envisioned by the Founding Fathers, was intended to be only 1/3 democratic. (The House of Representatives.) “Checks and balances” meant balancing out that 1/3 democratic element against two other, non-democratic components. (The presidency and the Senate.) The president was to be chosen by the electoral college, not the people. And Senators were selected by state governments, not the people. The American colonies had been on the receiving end of democratic misbehavior (the British House of Commons), and did not want the American version of that misbehavior to form the sole basis of our government.

There are certain steps one must take if one wants a strong, prosperous nation. Other steps will achieve the opposite result: a nation that’s corrupt, poor, stagnant. The dying Roman Empire took the latter types of steps: steps which ultimately resulted in collapse, and the onset of the Dark Ages. As you hinted, democracies are perfectly capable of taking those same types of negative, destructive actions, and most modern major democratic regimes are doing exactly that.

On an unrelated note, I’ve read Mein Kampf. The writing and content were of much higher quality than I’d been led to expect. There were of course parts which which I strongly disagreed. My impression of the book’s author was someone who was highly intelligent, ethnocentric, opinionated, self-taught, and who’d gleaned some basic insights into human psychology. As an example of this last, Hitler wrote that people expect of a leader the same traits a woman expects of a man: strength, decisiveness, courage, etc.

With respect to Germany’s forces in China: typically it will consolidate its two Shanghai infantry into one territory, then build trenches in that territory. (You can place trenches in any territory you owned at the beginning of the turn, even if there’s no factory.) The trenches are normally enough to allow Germany to hold onto one Shanghai territory, with the Entente possessing the other three. If however the United States begins building Pacific transports, there isn’t a whole lot Germany can do to defend that last Shanghai territory. Unless of course it builds a factory there. A German factory for Shanghai is a rare, but not an unheard-of strategy.

But mostly I’d like to address the subject of an anti-Russian offensive. There are multiple ways one can go about doing this, but I’ll focus on one approach in particular. The idea here is to have all four Central powers go after Russia. Under this plan, Germany is responsible for building a strong fleet in the Baltic / North Atlantic, to counter British naval spending in the area. In addition it should build several transports, and ship 8 - 10 Stormtruppen to Scandinavia each turn. Initially, Germany’s objective is to add to its income by conquering neutral Scandinavian territory. Having achieved this, it will move its Scandinavian force to Finnland, next to the Russian capital of St. Petersburg. If the Russian player is reasonably competent and careful he won’t allow that force to capture St. Petersburg. But that’s not the objective. The objective is to force Russia to spend money there, leaving it with less money for solving the other problems the Centrals will create.

While Germany’s main anti-Russian effort will be to the north, in Scandinavia, it should also send 2 - 4 infantry each turn to the Polish/Russian front. Those infantry are for back-and-forth battles, and to help Austria defend Galacia.

The heart of Austria’s anti-Russian effort will be its factory in Galacia. That factory is right on the Russian border, and can produce six units a turn. Initially Austria will be on the offensive against Serbia, on the defensive against Italy and Russia. But once Serbia falls–as it should do on Austria’s fourth or fifth turn–then Austria can adopt a more offensive posture towards its other two fronts. There will be a large Russian force in Belarus. Austria should threaten to destroy that force. This will force the Russian player to build trenches in Belarus. The more defensively-oriented the Russian force there is, the more successful the next part of Austria’s plan is likely to be. Its goal is to split its Galacia force, with one half remaining in Galacia, the other half moving forward to Odessa. (The fact that Germany will have some soldiers in that area will help Austria get away with this.) If Austria is able to split its force without getting either half killed, then the Odessa half will normally be able to take Russia’ factory in Kiev. This is a “death by a thousand small cuts” strategy, and the conquest of the Kiev factory represents one of the intended cuts.

Turkey’s initial focus should be on wiping out Arabia–with that objective to be achieved on Turkey’s third turn. After that it will be in good position to go after Russia. To achieve this it should take Caucasus in force, and build a factory there. The Turkish force there will threaten the factory that Russia will presumably build in Volgograd. Sure, you’d love to take the Volgograd factory if possible. But if not, then at least Turkey should be able to split its Caucasus force, with one half going to Kazakhstan. The Kazakhstan half will then take Russia’s factory in Omsk. With the Omsk factory under its belt, Turkey will then be in a position to threaten the Volgograd factory with main force. Also, the Turkish player should be eyeing Russia’s factory in Moscow. Turkey’s approach should be opportunistic, with it taking whichever Russian factories seem the most vulnerable. On top of all this, Turkey should have a Black Sea fleet, complete with several transports. The objectives of this Black Sea fleet include creating more back-and-forth battles for Russia, and speeding the flow of Turkish troops from Constantinople to Caucasus.

The communists have several objectives. Ideally, they’d like to capture at least one Russian factory. Preferably more than one. In addition, they should embrace opportunities for back-and-forth battles against Russia, as well as looking for chances to grab off Russian land wherever possible. The Russian hinterland is a potential candidate for a Turkish or communist invasion. The Vladivostok factory would be a great one for the communists to take. However, it’s four spaces away from the communist capital, making an early conquest of it difficult. The nearest and most tempting factory is the one in Irkutsk. However, the Russian player knows this, and is likely to heavily defend it. The communists might be able to take it anyway, especially if Russia is under so much pressure elsewhere that it’s unable to spend the money it would like to spend on defending that factory. There is also a plan B for the communists. Plan B involves them taking Bratsk in force, thus forcing the Russians to go into a defensive shell in Irkutsk. Then, they move the Bratsk force one space west to Novosibirsk, to threaten the Russian factory in Omsk. After taking Omsk, the communist force could then return to Bratsk to once again threaten the factory in Irkutsk. Or, it could continue west, with the thought that the Moscow factory is only two spaces away. Even if it merely besieges Moscow (after having taken Omsk), that could easily set the stage for the conquest of the Russian hinterland. The thinking is that even if you can’t take away Russian factories immediately, you can take a chunk of Russian income instead. The smaller Russia’s income, the easier it should be for the Centrals to take an extra factory or two here or there.

The penultimate goal of this strategy is to take all Russian factories except the one in St. Petersburg. Once that’s been achieved Russia will be a rump state, controlling little more than the area immediately around its own capital. At that point, a dedicated effort by one Central power should be enough to finish off Russia. Other central powers can contribute to the finishing off effort via back-and-forth battles, or by gas attacks against St. Petersburg. (Gas is a good way to get a somewhat decent exchange, even if your attacking force is much weaker than the defender’s.)

Under Joseph Stalin, the Soviet Union conducted a number of show trials. These were used to consolidate Stalin’s hold on power, and liquidate rivals, potential rivals, and anyone who believed something different from the official Soviet party line.

Of 1,966 delegates to the party congress in 1934, 1,108 were arrested. Of 139 members of the Central Committee, 98 were arrested. Three out of five Soviet marshals . . . and several thousands of the Red Army officers were arrested or shot.

The movie Mission to Moscow was created in response to a request by FDR.

Completed in late April 1943, the film is, in the words of Robert Buckner, the film’s producer, “an expedient lie for political purposes, glossily covering up important facts with full or partial knowledge of their false presentation.” . . . . “When the Russian composer Dimitri Shostakovich saw it, he observed that no Soviet propaganda agency would dare to present such outrageous lies.”[15] . . . The film “defends the purges, complete with a quarter-hour dedicated to arguing that Leon Trotsky [who was Jewish] was a Nazi agent”.[13]

FDR was a very big fan of the film. In May of 1943, FDR had Joseph Davies show Stalin the movie. Davies was America’s ambassador to the Soviet Union. FDR and Davies had hoped that after Stalin had seen the film he’d warmly bestow his approval. Instead, all they got from him was a grunt. The movie was also distributed to the American people as part of our wartime propaganda effort.

If FDR was willing to praise Soviet show trials, as was done in Mission to Moscow, might he also be willing to participate in them? The argument has been made that FDR and his successors did exactly that, at Nuremberg.

Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court Harlan Fiske Stone called the Nuremberg trials a fraud. “(Chief U.S. prosecutor) Jackson is away conducting his high-grade lynching party in Nuremberg,” he wrote. “I don’t mind what he does to the Nazis, but I hate to see the pretense that he is running a court and proceeding according to common law. This is a little too sanctimonious a fraud to meet my old-fashioned ideas.”[73] . . .

Art.19 “The Tribunal shall not be bound by technical rules of evidence.” Charter of the International Military Tribunal.

Art.21 “The Tribunal shall not require proof of facts of common knowledge but shall take judicial notice thereof.”

Supposedly, minutes of the Wannsee Conference were “discovered” by the Allies in 1947. But bear in mind this “discovery” took place at a time when the Allies felt fully entitled to tell whatever lies they wanted, in support of their wartime and postwar propaganda efforts. Movies such as Mission to Moscow and the decision to join the Soviets in conducting show trials at Nuremberg undermines and destroys whatever credibility the Allied governments might otherwise have had. A less reliable source for anti-Nazi propaganda could not be imagined.

Suppose, for example, that the government of some random tin pot dictatorship were to produce large volumes of accusatory content, mostly directed against internal and external enemies. The natural reaction to that would be, “Well, maybe some of that is true. But who knows which parts? How do you separate the wheat of truth from the chaff of exaggerations, misrepresentations, half truths, or outright lies?” The Allied governments lacked even a tin pot dictatorship’s commitment to objective truth. Their accusatory content does not have more credibility than the accusatory content emanating from a standard-issue tin pot dictatorship. Typically such a stream of accusatory content will contain bits and pieces of truth. Normally neutral third parties are called on to examine such streams of accusatory content, with a specific accusation confirmed as true only after verification by a trusted and objective third party. Such neutral third parties were notably absent during the Nuremberg show trials, presumably because the weakness of the evidence presented would not stand up to third party scrutiny.

@Zooey72:

Thought I would update this

https://www.yahoo.com/news/hitlers-mein-kampf-becomes-german-bestseller-publisher-112022916.html

Not sure what to make of that.  If I had to guess the reason it is selling so well is because people haven’t been allowed to see it.  I doubt it is any kind of validation of Hitler.  I think the reason it is probably doing so well is because if you were raised being told that your country was resp. for the most evil man who ever lived, you might be curious to want to read the book when it became legal.

I am aware of the Merkel thing and immigration, and there may be some stupid people who are getting it for that reason.  But they are just that… stupid.  Hitler made Muslim extremist honorary Aryans, and they were in the SS because they were a good fit (being fanatical crazies).

Anyhow, just thought it was interesting.

I’d like to address your point about Merkel and immigration.

First, I’d divide all ideologies into two categories: particularist and universalist. If for example a Jew is willing to sacrifice the interests of Palestinians in order to benefit Jews, that’s particularism. If a Palestinian is willing to sacrifice Jewish interests to benefit Palestinians, that’s also particularism. “My country, right or wrong, but my country” is an expression of particularism. The National Socialists were particularists: their objective was to benefit Germanic and Nordic ethnies, if necessary at the expense of other ethnies or non-white geographic races. The existence of a threat to one’s ethny tends to heighten ethnocentrism. One sees that heightened level of ethnocentrism on both sides of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, and in most other cases where an ethny’s existence is threatened.

The question then arises: is Angela Merkel’s ideology particularist or universalist? Her policy calls for Germany to accept almost unlimited numbers of migrants from Third World nations. Such policies will (and are) causing the extinction of the German ethny, and its physical replacement with non-white Middle Easterners. This threat to the German ethny’s existence does not involve the drama of extermination bombing raids, firestorms, or forced deportations of millions of Germans. Instead, its effect is to use the slow, inexorable pressure of demographics to cause the extinction of the German ethny. (And more generally of the white race in Western and Central Europe.)

Throughout human history, it has been exceedingly rare for a nation to voluntarily accept large numbers of immigrants. The normal immigration policy is an outright ban, except perhaps for a few special cases. For Merkel’s immigration policy to be universalist, it would need to be part of a broader effort to pressure all the nations of the world to discard this traditional immigration policy in favor of a “destroy the native ethny” policy that Germany has adopted. For example, both China and India have truly massive populations. Opening the border between the two could result in large numbers of Chinese immigrants into India, and large numbers of Indian immigrants into China. With the right immigration policy and the right financial incentives, both ethnies could be destroyed/blended together. By the same token, Israel could be caused to lose its unique Jewish identity, for example by flooding it with large numbers of immigrants from Latin America or Sub-Saharan Africa or India. (Israel accepts only Jewish immigrants.) The same could be done to Palestine to cause it to lose its unique Middle Eastern/Muslim identity.

However, no major players are pushing for any of this. Not Angela Merkel. Not the major media companies or plutocrats who stand behind Merkel. Not colleges or universities. No one within the Establishment is pushing for this kind of immigration policy for any non-white nation. Merkel’s immigration policy is highly particularist: traditionally white nations are asked to surrender their racial identities. The idea of asking any non-white nation to do the same is of course not even mentioned.

The Middle East’s problems are due to poverty, corruption, unequal distribution of wealth, overpopulation, and poor treatment of women. Paying large numbers of Middle Easterners to come to Germany, and to do nothing other than have babies and exist off the government dole, does not represent a serious attempt to solve any of those problems. If the goal was to benefit the Middle East, Merkel’s policy would be completely irrational. If on the other hand the goal were to cause the extinction of the German ethny, and of the white race within Germany, Merkel’s immigration policy would be highly rational. Merkel’s immigration policy is rabidly anti-German particularism. As such, it can only be embraced by self-hating Germans or self-hating whites. Anti-Nazi propaganda is therefore drummed into white children’s heads from a very early age, in order to create that self-hatred.

Germany had essentially two options here. 1) Capture the city quickly, before the defenses could be built up. 2) Capture it via siege.

I don’t think that creating an urban combat situation, in which Germany attempted to capture the city street by street, would have been viable. In typical combat situations German soldiers had a 3:1 or 4:1 advantage in combat effectiveness over their Soviet counterparts. But in urban, street-to-street fighting the ratio was about 1:1. Germany could not afford anything even remotely approaching that 1:1 ratio, which is why something other than street-to-street fighting was necessary.

Von Manstein wrote that during the Barbarossa operation of '41 there had been a perfectly good opportunity to take Leningrad. But that this was wasted, allowing the Soviets to fortify it.

The other option would have been to do a better job of putting it under siege. This would have entailed tightening the cordon around the city, preventing just about anything from making it through. I think there was a case when Germany attempted exactly that. However, at the same time the Soviets were attempting to break the siege, so each side’s offensive encountered the other’s. From a tactical view there may have been more Germany could have done. But I think the real problem was strategic: the Soviet Union had too much military strength. A discussion on how to address that problem is probably outside the scope of this thread.