I would love to spend some time researching in WW2 era archives; especially the US Holocaust Memorial.

jickyjack1 said:

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Don't stop now!

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Goering had a lot to say so there's plenty where that came from.

One thing to remember with Goering is that he was full of himself and always eager to show his actions in a positive light. This is the guy who told Hitler the Luftwaffe could completely supply the encircled 6th Army at Stalingrad by air. Take this with a grain of salt.

A few more interesting notes. Again, paraphrased and translated on the fly:

- Goering claimed that Hitler continued to believe even after the outbreak of the war that he could come to terms with England.

- No one saw Hitler's speeches in advance. He prepared them entirely by himself except for some specific data he might ask for. Hitler was pathologically proud of his abilities as a speaker.

- The German General Staff was not happy about the plan to attack Russia in 1941, but after the great success of the France campaign they were cautious about opposing Hitler.

- Goering blamed the failure of the invasion of Russia on Guderian's failure to maintain the schedule of advance in the south and the early rains that left their tanks helpless in the mud.

Very cool to be there. So much about the war has never been told.

Very interesting. Keep it coming.

Didn't realize that there was no treaty compelling Germany into war with the US if Japan went to war with the US.

Orlando Ayala Cant Read said:

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Very interesting. Keep it coming.

Didn't realize that there was no treaty compelling Germany into war with the US if Japan went to war with the US.

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Agree; nor did I. I always thought there was a treaty to that effect and that the Japanese had blindsided Hitler by attacking Pearl Harbor without forewarning him (which, of course was the case; they just had no obligation, evidently, to give him warning in the actual event if this account be true) but that he nonetheless honorably -- as one may, in a fashion, term it -- fulfilled his obligation.

If Hitler's declaration of war on the United States was not in fulfillment of a treaty obligation but merely an act of bravado on his part, it was a miscalculation very nearly on a par with Operation Barbarossa. Roosevelt would have had a much trickier time bringing America into open conflict in Europe; one would think this action would more commonly be cited among Hitler's major blunders.

So far as Guderian's failure to maintain his armor's attack schedule, Goring could hardly have been surprised given the gummy impassibility of the roads and countryside resulting from the heavy rains. Even worse from the German perspective was the almost total immobility of the rest of it's "mobile" forces, the majority of which were horse-drawn and even less compatible with mud than tanks.

Hitler's declaration of war on the US is an incredible snapshot of his world view; that Washington DC was a part of the world jewish conspiracy alongside London and Moscow and couldn't put an army into the European theatre 'until the year 1970'. Ribbentrop, who I believe was the only member of Hitlers high command to spend time in America, believed the US was controlled by blacks and jews and could never muster a fighting force. Of course by 1943 the Allies were pushing the Germans out of Africa. However, the declaration of war on the US was most devasting to the jews of Eastern Europe. By this time about a million jews had been shot but the entry of the US gave Hitler his world war caused by world jewry that wouls lead to the destruction of European jews, as he prophesized in 1939.

As for the invasion of the USSR, some historians (like Timothy Snyder and Richard Evans for instance) write that the war was lost for the Germans by the end of 1941 and beginning of 1942. There was no lightning victory and the Wermacht was besieging Leningrad without winter coats. The combination of the failed invasion and America's entrance expedited the Final Solution.

Barbarosa by itself proves to me Hitler was kind of an idiot.

It certainly seems idiotic from our view especially given the benefit of hindsight but the invasion was in perfect agreement with Hitler's beliefs. Mainly that all life was a matter of racial struggle and any other ideology (communism, capitalism, christianity, etc) were evidence of a jewish interference in that struggle. Destroying the Soviet Union would help rid the world of such an interference. Secondly, eastern Europe was the only possible sight for a Greater German colony filled with the potential slave labor. There was never a unified plan for extermination and the original called for killing tens of millions of Poles and Slavs through slave labor. Add to all this that the Germans had rolled through Poland and Western Europe, it was the only logical thing Hitler could do.

Good stuff.

Yes, the Germans were under no obligation to declare war on the U.S. It's like if we had attacked Afghanistan BEFORE 9/11, and NATO could say they'd sit it out.

All of this fits with every psychological characterization I've seen of Goering.

Remember that Hitler's perspective was so Euro-centric that he had a relatively naive view of the United States. Yes, he could see production statistics, but he thought the U.S. was mired in a depression and fundamentally was still some kind of frontier country that couldn't put a meaningful army into the field until long after he had conquered what he wanted.

Ag_EQ12 said:

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Goering had a lot to say so there's plenty where that came from.



A few more interesting notes. Again, paraphrased and translated on the fly:

- Goering claimed that Hitler continued to believe even after the outbreak of the war that he could come to terms with England.

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Interesting.

I'm not a WWII history buff. I can't even remember if I took a history class at A&M.

I always thought Germany declared the war on England and France. Ok...history is not my thing. I do know Hitler annexed Austria - peacefully and marched into Poland.

Now I'm seeing Hitler made several peace offers to Churchill... acceptable or not. Is this a revisionist theory or true?

When Germany invaded Poland on 1 Sept 39 both France and the UK had a defense treaty with Poland.

At 9:00 on the morning of September 3, Sir Neville Henderson, Britain's ambassador to Germany, delivered an ultimatum stating that if hostilities did not stop by 11 AM, a state of war would exist between Great Britain and Germany. Germany did not respond and at 11:15 on the morning of September 3, 1939 Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain went on the radio to announce to the British people that they were at war with Germany.
So , in fact , Germany did not declare war on anybody in WW2 except the US.



And yes . Hitler did send out peace feelers to the U.K. After the fall of France. He even stated publicly that " England is not our natural enemy" " All we demand is a free hand in the Continent in order to secure our rightful place in the world and to provide libensraum for the German volk " .
He proposed that in exchange for peace the Empire would remain and that the Reich and the British Empire would rule the world. There actually was a significant faction in the Cabinet that was willing to accept Hitler's proposal. Churchill wisely saw thru it and knew that there could never be coexistence with Hitler and the human race depended on his steadfastness and the destruction of the Reich

AggieDruggist89 said:

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Ag_EQ12 said:

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Goering had a lot to say so there's plenty where that came from.



A few more interesting notes. Again, paraphrased and translated on the fly:

- Goering claimed that Hitler continued to believe even after the outbreak of the war that he could come to terms with England.

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Interesting.

I'm not a WWII history buff. I can't even remember if I took a history class at A&M.

I always thought Germany declared the war on England and France. Ok...history is not my thing. I do know Hitler annexed Austria - peacefully and marched into Poland.

Now I'm seeing Hitler made several peace offers to Churchill... acceptable or not. Is this a revisionist theory or true?

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Hitler saw communism as the ultimate enemy and as a tool of international finance which was run by Jewish interests.

Hitler felt that London was largely cohorts with that but always saw England as a country that would overcome that and become his natural ally. Hitler's vision was his continental empire and England's maritime empire allied.

Did Germany declare war on the Soviet Union?

ABATTBQ87 said:

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Did Germany declare war on the Soviet Union?

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Yes, 1941

AggieDruggist89 said:

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ABATTBQ87 said:

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Did Germany declare war on the Soviet Union?

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Yes, 1941

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Not exactly
The way it was explained to me was that the Germans , even nazis , are sticklers for legalities. A formal declaration of war like what existed with the Allies would cause such niceties as Geneva protections etc. the Reich never issued a formal declaration against Poland or the eastern nation including the USSR but instead made proclamations of hostilities in a pure defensive fashion due to ( fabricated) aggressive actions by the Poles or Soviets. It's splitting hairs but it was important to Hitler. The war in the east was a war of extermination not a usual European conflict.

The Original AG 76 said:

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AggieDruggist89 said:

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ABATTBQ87 said:

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Did Germany declare war on the Soviet Union?

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Yes, 1941

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Not exactly
The way it was explained to me was that the Germans , even nazis , are sticklers for legalities. A formal declaration of war like what existed with the Allies would cause such niceties as Geneva protections etc. the Reich never issued a formal declaration against Poland or the eastern nation including the USSR but instead made proclamations of hostilities in a pure defensive fashion due to ( fabricated) aggressive actions by the Poles or Soviets. It's splitting hairs but it was important to Hitler. The war in the east was a war of extermination not a usual European conflict.

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Well..didn't Hitler invade USSR in June of 1941?

Fight communism.. sounds like it should have been the US interest at the time too.

AggieDruggist89 said:

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The Original AG 76 said:

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AggieDruggist89 said:

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ABATTBQ87 said:

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Did Germany declare war on the Soviet Union?

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Yes, 1941

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Not exactly
The way it was explained to me was that the Germans , even nazis , are sticklers for legalities. A formal declaration of war like what existed with the Allies would cause such niceties as Geneva protections etc. the Reich never issued a formal declaration against Poland or the eastern nation including the USSR but instead made proclamations of hostilities in a pure defensive fashion due to ( fabricated) aggressive actions by the Poles or Soviets. It's splitting hairs but it was important to Hitler. The war in the east was a war of extermination not a usual European conflict.

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Well..didn't Hitler invade USSR in June of 1941?

Fight communism.. sounds like it should have been the US interest at the time too.

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Yes he did just like he invaded Poland in Sept of 39. He didn't bother to issue a formal declaration of war against Poland either as is done by the " civilized" nations . He simply launched into what he termed an " armed response to Polish aggression ( the fake attack on the German radio station) and its time for Germany to permanently end the threat of the renegade and evil Polish state. He also called the invasion of the USSR a response to Soniet aggression ..blah blah blah. Remember we never declared a state of war against Best Korea, Panama, Grenada or N Vietnam either.

And in 1940 it was very much in vogue by the eastern elite and hollywood plus the intellectual artsy tartsy snobs to worship the Soviet Union and proclaim that Soviet communism and its leader Uncle Joe was the future for all of mankind... JUST LIKE THEY DO TODAY !!!

The Original AG 76 said:

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AggieDruggist89 said:

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The Original AG 76 said:

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AggieDruggist89 said:

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ABATTBQ87 said:

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Did Germany declare war on the Soviet Union?

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Yes, 1941

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Not exactly
The way it was explained to me was that the Germans , even nazis , are sticklers for legalities. A formal declaration of war like what existed with the Allies would cause such niceties as Geneva protections etc. the Reich never issued a formal declaration against Poland or the eastern nation including the USSR but instead made proclamations of hostilities in a pure defensive fashion due to ( fabricated) aggressive actions by the Poles or Soviets. It's splitting hairs but it was important to Hitler. The war in the east was a war of extermination not a usual European conflict.

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Well..didn't Hitler invade USSR in June of 1941?

Fight communism.. sounds like it should have been the US interest at the time too.

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Yes he did just like he invaded Poland in Sept of 39. He didn't bother to issue a formal declaration of war against Poland either as is done by the " civilized" nations . He simply launched into what he termed an " armed response to Polish aggression ( the fake attack on the German radio station) and its time for Germany to permanently end the threat of the renegade and evil Polish state. He also called the invasion of the USSR a response to Soniet aggression ..blah blah blah. Remember we never declared a state of war against Best Korea, Panama, Grenada or N Vietnam either.

And in 1940 it was very much in vogue by the eastern elite and hollywood plus the intellectual artsy tartsy snobs to worship the Soviet Union and proclaim that Soviet communism and its leader Uncle Joe was the future for all of mankind... JUST LIKE THEY DO TODAY !!!

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There is war with a capital "W" and war with a small "w". To compare the four conflicts you named with world war is not realistic (although Korea [which could still make the grade] at the time of the 1950 "police action"could have tsunami'd pretty rapidly into War had a few not so unlikely things not been avoided).

Vietnam, as did Korea earlier, absorbed significant effort and casualties but was never of a threat so immediate or an interest so vital as to require universal mobilization and focused national effort. The other two, while vitally important to those on the ground, were fodder for a few days of newspaper ( remember those?) coverage.

No conflict that produces deaths can be said to be unimportant. But when considering conflict of a magnitude to require a Declaration of War sanctioned by the Congress of the United States, a host of factors must be considered -- many of them not even extant the last time the U.S. declared war, just one of them being widespread nuclear weaponry and the almost instantaneous ability of many (and growing) players to deliver payloads. In many scenarios the ability to declare war, if practical at all, would only follow initial widespread devastation.

Also worthy of thought is whether we want to move even closer to becoming a living caricature of 1984, to which pass -- existence in a state of perpetual warfare -- commonly declared 'states of war' would officially bring us. This is not to say, of course, that we are not moving alarmingly close to such a de facto situation with or not formal declarations, but why further murk up already impenetrably opaque waters?

The Original AG 76 said:

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And in 1940 it was very much in vogue by the eastern elite and hollywood plus the intellectual artsy tartsy snobs to worship the Soviet Union and proclaim that Soviet communism and its leader Uncle Joe was the future for all of mankind... JUST LIKE THEY DO TODAY !!!

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And it just wasn't the artsy types. FDR's administration was littered with far left ideologues, some of which turned out to be Soviet spies. And also remember, the U.S. had never formally recognized the Soviet Union all the way back to 1918 when it came to power. That is, until early in the first term of the FDR administration.

In addition, organized labor was heavily influenced/controlled (in some cases) by communists. I think the worst was the west coast stevedore and dockworkers union that was pretty much full on commie.

Definitely a new interest of mine; WWII.

So was Patton correct in his statement "we defeated the wrong enemy?" And how is it that I've heard of holocaust but not holodomor. ...

Seeing some Holocaust denial.. this is illegal in Europe?

If Hitler's objective was to eliminate Jews, why keep them in concentration camps? There are easier methods of genocide I would think.

IDAGG said:

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In addition, organized labor was heavily influenced/controlled (in some cases) by communists. I think the worst was the west coast stevedore and dockworkers union that was pretty much full on commie.

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Oh man...I haven't heard the term stevedore in years. My dad was a merchant marine exec..also spent time in England to study. He used to ***** about longshore union.... in New Orleans.

There was never any real, ultimate plan to murder the Jews of Europe and there is an ungoing debate about how it arose and how it was implemented. Concentration camps were an aspect of one version of a final solution; that the jews would be worked to death but even this was a deviation from their original purpose which was to imprison political prisoners. Dachua opened in the 1930s and even in 1940, prisoners were being realized from Auchwitz. The solution to the jewish problem was first emigration (to Madagascar for instance), then to Siberia or the Lublin District to be worked to death, and finally by murder on an industrial scale; first with bullets then with gas.

This is were our intuitions fail us. When we (citizens of Western countries) think about the Holocaust we imagine an all powerful, fascist government taking away the rights of citizens, throwing them in camps and eventually killing them with the help of the bureaucracy but this is a distorted history. Most people who entered concentration camps survived and many wrote memoirs. The Holocaust took place over massive killing pits in Babi Yar, Rumubala, and the Ponary Forest and in the gas chambers of Treblinka, Sobibor, and Belzec. Almost no one survived the mass shootings or Reinhard camps. Virtually all of these jews were Soviet (meaning Ukranain, Baltic, Russian, etc) and Polish who were killed because they inhabited the land of a future German colony. Even Auschwitz, the great western symbol of Holocaust, gives us an incomplete view. By the time Auschwitz was a major extermination center, most Jews, including almost all of Polish Jews, were already dead. As terrible as the concentration camps were, they were not the center of the Final Solution

If there was no "real, ultimate plan" to murder the Jews of Europe, what was the Wannsee Conference?

I should have said singular or monolithic meaning that the Nazis had no final plan to kill all of Europes Jews before Fall of 1941 and it was something they had to work out as they went along. Starting in June 1941 by first shooting intellectuals and communists then shooting jewish men, then shooting men and women and children and by August and September eliminating entire communities. Gas vans were then introduced in Chelmno in December and, finding them inefficient, gassing centres at Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka were all operational by July 1942 to eliminate Polish Jewry. It wasn't until 1944, during the deportation of the Hungarian Jews, that Aushwitz would become the main gassing center and by then most victims were already dead. Because of this most Western Jews survived while most Eastern Jews did not.

As for Wansee, it was an incredibly significant event but for other reasons. The decision to kill European Jews had already been made and more than a million had been shot in the second half of 1941. The meeting really only concluded that as soon as the deportations took place the SS was in control and they attempted (and failed) to determine what to do with 'mixed jews'.

AggieDruggist89 said:

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Oh man...I haven't heard the term stevedore in years. My dad was a merchant marine exec..also spent time in England to study. He used to ***** about longshore union.... in New Orleans.

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Well, I am old as dirt. As I was telling my stablehand this morning as he was getting my carriage ready...well dang I forgot what I was going to say.

RPag said:

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I should have said singular or monolithic meaning that the Nazis had no final plan to kill all of Europes Jews before Fall of 1941 and it was something they had to work out as they went along. Starting in June 1941 by first shooting intellectuals and communists then shooting jewish men, then shooting men and women and children and by August and September eliminating entire communities. Gas vans were then introduced in Chelmno in December and, finding them inefficient, gassing centres at Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka were all operational by July 1942 to eliminate Polish Jewry. It wasn't until 1944, during the deportation of the Hungarian Jews, that Aushwitz would become the main gassing center and by then most victims were already dead. Because of this most Western Jews survived while most Eastern Jews did not.

As for Wansee, it was an incredibly significant event but for other reasons. The decision to kill European Jews had already been made and more than a million had been shot in the second half of 1941. The meeting really only concluded that as soon as the deportations took place the SS was in control and they attempted (and failed) to determine what to do with 'mixed jews'.

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You seem to have thoroughly researched the subject.

As horrible as the holocaust was, do you believe the six million death figure is inaccurate? And why do we today consider it as one the most significant atrocities and not others? I'm not trying to corner you into holocaust denial. Just interested in what your thoughts are.

Thanks,

I think the general scholarship sits at about 6 million and probably less than that. Timothy Snyder puts the figure at 5.7, 5.4 killed by German policy and an additional 300,000 killed by Romanian policy. The numbers have been greatly influenced by governments as well. For instance, the original Auschwitz memorial had an inscription stating that up to 4 million had been killed there (I'm not positive about that figure but it was something wildly above the actual number). This was used by Stalinists to help concentrate their role as the liberators. The real number of those killed at Auschwitz is around 1.1 million, maybe closer to a million.

As for the unique nature of the Holocaust I think it is because of a few aspects:

One is the shear scope of the crime. Across the entirety of Europe, from the English Channel Islands to Crimea, Jews were gathered, deported, and killed (or in the case of Eastern Europe, killed were the lived). What was necessary for this to happen was collaboration at a level I don't think has been experienced elsewhere. Every country and nationality that experienced Nazi power collaborated to ensure the Final Solution (some more some less).

Secondly is how well documented the killings were. Orders from East regarding mass shootings and replies asking for higher quotas, train logs of deportations to Treblinka and other extermination camps, pictures and videos taken by perpetrators and survivors along with their testimony, etc. I should note in regards to holocaust denial I have not seen in a single war crimes trial the defendant deny what happened. Nuremburg, the Auschwitz trials, the Dachua trials, the Eichmann Trial...they all deflected blame but none denied what happened.

Finally, and perhaps most controversially, is the fact that it was Germany that enacted such policies. A country renowned for its education and scientists. A country that jews fled to from places like Poland and Russia. It is incredible what people are capable of when the conditions are right.

Re: Hitler speeches

Saw a documentary where Hitler before huge rally and before start time practicing his speech .

Quote:

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Because of this most Western Jews survived while most Eastern Jews did not.

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RPag:

You relate lots of good information and highlight some very relevant facts. But in terms of Western European Jews I don't think it is quite accurate to think that "most" survived. You are absolutely right that the survival percentages of Western European Jews was higher than Eastern European Jews, but a large number of Western European Jews were murdered, in various ways, by the Nazi's.

The one thing that brought culmination and or to possibly expediency to the absolute killing of the Jews by the Germans/Nazi's was basic outright robbery. When WWII erupted all out there was basically no longer the avenues to "ransom/(fleece)" many Jews via immigration and thus it just became more expedient to kill them and take their wealth. The amount of wealth stolen from the Jews, and in a much smaller scale others, basically astounded the Nazi's and the process became an orgy or wealth seeking blood lust as well.