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All you have to do is read Mein Kamp to know Hitler wanted far more than a central european state. His desire for lebenstrum in the East was a common theme from the twenties on. He also wanted colonies outside Europe and in fact insisted on these in discussions with England.
Hitler was one of the most evil men in history and commited to agresive wars and racial genocide long before the Second World War. Comparing him to France or England in that regard rejects much of what is known about history.
To speak of plans for the Germans in the invasion of russia tends to distort the reality. While they existed they were commonly changed signficantly during the course of the campaign. This occured both during barbarossa and case blau. Hitler made ad hoc decisions commonly through the course of the campaigns that largely through out preexisting planning. German plans were also characterized by poor information and absurd over confidence. The 41 plan called for German troops to seize gorki, hundreds of miles to the East of Moscow. It badly underestimated Russian numbers.
All you have to do is read Mein Kamp to know Hitler wanted far more than a central european state. His desire for lebenstrum in the East was a common theme from the twenties on. He also wanted colonies outside Europe and in fact insisted on these in discussions with England.
Hitler was one of the most evil men in history and commited to agresive wars and racial genocide long before the Second World War. Comparing him to France or England in that regard rejects much of what is known about history.
To speak of plans for the Germans in the invasion of russia tends to distort the reality. While they existed they were commonly changed signficantly during the course of the campaign. This occured both during barbarossa and case blau. Hitler made ad hoc decisions commonly through the course of the campaigns that largely through out preexisting planning. German plans were also characterized by poor information and absurd over confidence. The 41 plan called for German troops to seize gorki, hundreds of miles to the East of Moscow. It badly underestimated Russian numbers.
That and badly OVERESTIMATED the quality of the Russian roads.
As long as the NAZI's insisted on treating the Easter Europeans as subhumans rather than people to be liberated from Stalin their plans for the invasion of the USSR were doomed from the start. It was simply TOO vast a challenge to overcome (too many enemy soldiers, too much enemy material, too large an area to conquer and control, too few quality roads, too COLD in the winter).
In a biography of Skorzeny (sp) one of Hitler's favorite SS officers it notes that the SS themselves quickly ceased to believe the russian soliders were subhuman. Fighting them tended to remove that illusion quickly if you survived.
Of course I dont know if he really believed that or simply told his biographer it. Still I suspect most German soliders did believe it.
You should probably leave the history forum, you seem to continuously show yourself to be quite ignorant and use non-sequitars, ad-hominem, etc in place of actual debate.
You are looking a history with a known outcome.
What possible reason did France & Britain have to declare war on Germany other than that they were scared of Germany rivaling their power?
Remember Britain and France occupied huge territories the world over as colonial powers. Germany had none.
Furthermore, Britain and France teamed up with the Soviet Union (with a leader who slaughtered millions of his own) a country which aggressively, and in violation of all international law, invaded Finland and then Poland.
Why did Britain and France not declare war on the Soviets?
And better yet, why did Britain not declare war on France and vise-versa because after all they had invaded territories the world over.
You are not debating what you quoted of mine. You are going off on an irrelevant tangent and throwing me into it.
My question posed was whether or not Britain or France had reason to declare war on Germany and not 1939, not debating a known outcome.
I didn't say whether or not Britain or France should of, looking back, but if at the time they should of.
I doubt any real 'long term vision of world domination'. It is quite obvious they wanted a German dominated central Europe but I doubt any further. If any countries wanted world domination it would of been the 19th century British Empire (which essentially was a world domination) or the Mongolian Empire which stretched from Europe to the end of Asia.
Europe was thrown into a world war because of a series of declarations and because both Britain and Germany wanted to invade countries such as Norway to prevent the other from gaining access to certain resources.
There was no 'genocide' of Slavs, Catholics, political opponents, etc. Political opponents of the state were thrown into Concentration Camps as were criminals and such... but the Catholic Church was quite active in Germany during the NS regime.
There's a difference between the Death Camps and the Concentration Camps (although some were 'converted). I've visited some of the so-called 'gas chambers," however the only ones I was able to view were post-war Russian reconstructions. I'm not sure which camps still have the original ones.
Huh? I didn't say whether they should, or should not of, but I asked why and stated that their declaration of war on Germany was hypocritical because both Britain and France had invaded country after country the world over for centuries.
So, their invasion of the enlarged-buffer state known of Poland in 1939.. it makes me wonder why Britain and France declared war when the actions were not any different than what they had been doing for centuries.
I don't think it's right for any country to invade another... but rather that the actions of britain and france were both incredibly hypocritical and motivated in self-interest of not wanting to have a strong Germany which may rival their own power.
He also needs to read more on just how many jews that the french government rounded up and sent to the gas chambers.French hands are far foe clean in that regard. Even the swisss truwend their heads when it came to gold and the jewish bank accounts;motivated by greed.
I was watching the World of War about the Russian invasion. In Dec 1941, shortly before the Russian counterattack, it was negative 40 C (which is about negative 104 F). All the German equipment and oils failed., the German troops lacked winter clothes. The Russians counterattacked with T-34 and Siberians...
I was watching the World of War about the Russian invasion. In Dec 1941, shortly before the Russian counterattack, it was negative 40 C (which is about negative 104 F). All the German equipment and oils failed., the German troops lacked winter clothes. The Russians counterattacked with T-34 and Siberians...
The germans needless to say got slaughtered.
Actually -40C equates to -40F.
As someone who's experienced that (spent 2 winters in North Dakota) it's brutal enough - especially if there's a wind too.
The Germans overreached. They expected it to be a summer campaign, and didn't plan for fighting under brutal winter conditions. Their soldiers were fighting in the harsh Russian winter with summer uniforms.
The 4-week delay caused by Hitler's urgent need to crush Yugoslavia and Greece probably made the difference between taking Moscow before it got too cold and failure.
The Germans overreached. They expected it to be a summer campaign, and didn't plan for fighting under brutal winter conditions. Their soldiers were fighting in the harsh Russian winter with summer uniforms.
The 4-week delay caused by Hitler's urgent need to crush Yugoslavia and Greece probably made the difference between taking Moscow before it got too cold and failure.
The USSR was essentially unconquerable by an outside force - or at least by the Germans. It was simply tooooooo big, with too large of a population to enslave and too many natural resources that could be marshaled against the invaders. The ONLY way the Germans had ANY chance of conquering the country was if they could encourage a large-scale revolt against Stalin and the switching of those forces to the German cause. On the surface this WAS a possibility. Stalin had mistreated (to use a "kind" word) millions of his countrymen - and so, with the right amount of encouragement a revolt could well have happened. Unfortunately for the Germans, their basic philosophy of considering the ethnic Russians, Ukrainians and other Eastern European peoples as inherently inferior lead naturally to mistreatment of those people - which destroyed ANY chance of a major revolt of those folks against Stalin - instead, such treatment solidified the people of the USSR around the leadership of Stalin - thus dooming the Germans.
The USSR was essentially unconquerable by an outside force - or at least by the Germans. It was simply tooooooo big, with too large of a population to enslave and too many natural resources that could be marshaled against the invaders. The ONLY way the Germans had ANY chance of conquering the country was if they could encourage a large-scale revolt against Stalin and the switching of those forces to the German cause. On the surface this WAS a possibility. Stalin had mistreated (to use a "kind" word) millions of his countrymen - and so, with the right amount of encouragement a revolt could well have happened. Unfortunately for the Germans, their basic philosophy of considering the ethnic Russians, Ukrainians and other Eastern European peoples as inherently inferior lead naturally to mistreatment of those people - which destroyed ANY chance of a major revolt of those folks against Stalin - instead, such treatment solidified the people of the USSR around the leadership of Stalin - thus dooming the Germans.
Ken
Yes, I think that's true. Had the Germans treated the conquered people's better, particularly the Ukrainians, they might have been able to bring them over to their side, and then Russia couldn't have gotten them back. Another case where their mindless cruelty helped to do them in.
Yes, I think that's true. Had the Germans treated the conquered people's better, particularly the Ukrainians, they might have been able to bring them over to their side, and then Russia couldn't have gotten them back. Another case where their mindless cruelty helped to do them in.
Yup - and due to the fact that the entire concept of the "Superior Aryan Race" was so central to the NAZI's it means that there was NO WAY the Germans would EVER have taken that approach.
So in effect, the Germans NEVER had a chance against the USSR - no matter how successful they might be on the battlefield. In truth, it wasn't a war that could simply be won on the battlefield (as actually is the case with ANY war).
Ken
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