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Of course you give up. If you questioned what your leaders at the time said, it would make you look stupid, so it is better to just give up.
Stop watching hollywood movies. American help never went beyond 5 percent of german GDP, even in years 1948-1949, when the support was the biggest. During the same time cost of allied occupation and war repatriations absorbed from 11percent to 15 percent of german gdp. So the money were flowing rather to you from Germany than the other way around. So much for your uneducated bull**** that you made Germany into what it is today. Absolute nonsense. Germany is what it is today thanks to its own work and entrepreneurship which was woken up in them by Erhard and its politicians who had enough of brain not to interject too much into economy during time of its economic "wonder".
This is somewhat historically true. The US did provide food aid and did protect Germany which obviously might have been razed even further by other powers if not for our protection.
So credit is due for that.
The US also allowed a defeated and vanquished enemy to re-industrialize. That in itself is a good thing.
So we were the Law and Order that allowed the Germans to help themselves.
No one can doubt the industry and capability of the German people. As one Belgian investor joked to me at dinner one night "send a German into the jungle with a butterknife and he'll come out with a Locomotive".
Had it not been for Germany having to fight two fronts world war, Soviet Union would be finished very fast, much faster than Russian empire was in first world war.
Germany fought on two fronts in World War I, and the western front was far more important and continuous too. Russia effectively lost in World War I, the Bolsheviks didn't believe in it and signed a humiliating peace treaty. The Soviet Union did not lose in World War II.
FDR, enabler of both Hitler and Stalin, also had his back.
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Originally Posted by bcgr
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Originally Posted by jbgusa
The ideology might have been stirring. Stalin did not believe any of it.
Proof?
Modern writer Thomas Reiss would beg to differ. See The Orientalist: Solving the Mystery of a Strange and Dangerous Life. Reiss is a Harvard graduate (1987) and a Pulitzer Prize winner. His opinions carry more weight with me than bcgr. The subject of The Orientalist was a 1920's and 1930's writer Lev Nussenbaum, who wrote under the name Mohammed Essad Bey. We'll call him "Essad Bey" for the purposes of this discussion. I went to the trouble of obtaining an old library copy of Stalin: The Career Of A Fanatic by Essad Bey. Essad Bey originally hailed from Baku, now in the state of Azerbaijan. So he knew a little bit about Stalin. He for one doubted that Stalin understood much about socialism.
You are correct - Stalin knew zero about collectivization, communism or socialism other than they were slogans and he attained total power to do anything using those memes.
He was basically a gang member who then became the leader of a gang. Obviously he latched onto the "people's movement" and as a youth probably bought the BS. But given the history of Russia that is no surprise.
He certainly had no idea how to put this Brave New World into practice and since he had been a crook and murderer from way back it was kind of tough for him to be a "good person".
Hitler may have become a power hungry madman, but he did actually fight in a War (decorated) and SOME of his basic ideals (making Germany Great Again) were not far outside the mainstream of German thought.
As we move away from that era the significance of these men and their names character and deeds began to be meaningless to the current generation very much like the half million bodies riddled with bullets at Normandy
You are correct - Stalin knew zero about collectivization, communism or socialism other than they were slogans and he attained total power to do anything using those memes.
He was basically a gang member who then became the leader of a gang.
Quite true.
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Originally Posted by craigiri
Obviously he latched onto the "people's movement" and as a youth probably bought the BS. But given the history of Russia that is no surprise.
From my reading I'm not sure he really had any beliefs beyond the Georgia street fight and courier robberies, which were called "expropriations."
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Originally Posted by craigiri
He certainly had no idea how to put this Brave New World into practice and since he had been a crook and murderer from way back it was kind of tough for him to be a "good person".
He was a horrible person but one of the few that apparently was not a crook.
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Originally Posted by craigiri
Hitler may have become a power hungry madman, but he did actually fight in a War (decorated) and SOME of his basic ideals (making Germany Great Again) were not far outside the mainstream of German thought.
I am reading The last days of hitler, written by an English historian who researched and wrote the book right after the war ended. It reinvigorated my interest in WW2, and I ended up watching many documentaries.
There seems to be a consensus among many people that Josef Stalin was a far worse person and a tyrant than Adolf Hitler. Do you agree?
Personally speaking, whilst Stalin was a sociopath who sacrificed his troops unnecessarily and even killed many of his own people, I don't see how he was worse than Hitler. If we use this hypothesis of killing millions of his own people then shoudnt China's Mao also be included?
Hitler "ruled" for barely 12 years and he did immense damage. Stalin ruled for much longer. I can't imagine if Hitler won the war and ruled for as long as Stalin did, what he'd have done, or how many millions more would have perished. Hitler was far worse imo.
That's sort of like saying, "Do you think it's worse having your left leg cut off or your right leg?" The difference is minimal, compared to the horror of either.
By most measures I think Stalin was worse. I will explain this side of the debate in this way.....
Much of the Evil of Germany in WWII was at the hands of certain young men (mostly SS) and a few others. Without all of those storm troopers, the amount of Evil done would have been much less - and perhaps it would have just been a more "military" campaign, which is not by definition "totally evil". That is, military campaigns made the USA and UK, etc. what they are today.
Germany, even under Hitler, entertained a "dream" of a very civilized world where people were healthy, well fed and had easier lives. They envisioned advances in medicine and science and industry (outside of war). They built the Autobahns and the VW, etc.
Stalin? Well, he started by starving and executing 3 Million Ukrainians in 1932. Forced collectivization was not something supported by the Russian people - the whole thing was a power play and a scam. People didn't matter to Stalin - and he didn't have a "dream" of anything good for his people or Europe or the World.
I'm not saying Hitlers "dream" was a net positive - not at all - but I am saying that PARTS OF IT were actual advancements for his people. Stalin didn't have much of that, IMHO.
In some ways we can judge the tree by the fruit. The "good parts" (industry, science, technology) of Germanys views - about making things better there for the people - are evident in the current country. On the other hand, Russia is a failed Petro State that has never come out of the shadow of Stalin, even to this day.
ALL the current messes - such as in Ukraine and the Wars in Chechnya - are the fruits of Stalin. Putins dad was Stalins Cook and modern day Russia is trying to resurrect him.
In the scheme of things I would say
Stalin is #1
Hitler is #2
We can then argue about Mao who some would say is #3, but again....in thought and in general his intention was too make China Great. And, in a sense, he did.
It's hard to step back and look at the Big Picture...but when you do I think you do find that the intentions matter. Russian "communism" was never real in any way. It was a reaction/backlash to other horrible times there...
Someday I hope they get it together. One only need look at China and Germany now and compare them to Russia to see some of the results. Stalin seems to have gotten the worst....score.
I am definitely judging somewhat on the results...so it's a bit of monday morning QB.
Stalin and Mao had very similar goals, which was to industrialise their respective countries and turn them into major powers. They both succeeded to that end. Stalin turned the Soviet Union into a superpower, which in itself was no small feat. Both also lead disastrous campaigns that resulted in millions of lives lost, far more so in Mao’s case (it is estimated that over 30 million died during the Great Leap Forward).
Going back to Hitler, I do agree that the average person was better off under his rule, provided they weren’t Jews or Gypsies. Stalin was far too paranoid, to the point, that a lot of people ended up suffering as a result.
P.S. I never knew that Putin’s father was Stalin’s cook.
I am reading The last days of hitler, written by an English historian who researched and wrote the book right after the war ended. It reinvigorated my interest in WW2, and I ended up watching many documentaries.
There seems to be a consensus among many people that Josef Stalin was a far worse person and a tyrant than Adolf Hitler. Do you agree?
Personally speaking, whilst Stalin was a sociopath who sacrificed his troops unnecessarily and even killed many of his own people, I don't see how he was worse than Hitler. If we use this hypothesis of killing millions of his own people then shoudnt China's Mao also be included?
Hitler "ruled" for barely 12 years and he did immense damage. Stalin ruled for much longer. I can't imagine if Hitler won the war and ruled for as long as Stalin did, what he'd have done, or how many millions more would have perished. Hitler was far worse imo.
P.S. I never knew that Putin’s father was Stalin’s cook.
Opp.....Grandfather....
"In the two-hour documentary, called Putin, the president said Spiridon Putin was a valued member of Stalin’s staff. The wartime Soviet leader, who died in 1953, conducted extensive purges during his around three decades in power.
“(He) was a cook at Lenin’s and later at Stalin’s, at one of the dachas in the Moscow area,” Putin said in the film seen by Reuters."
Sorta puts some things in perspective, doesn't it?
Stalins cook would be like the most trusted person in the country - and the fact that he wasn't purged is amazing. That his family would now be the modern version(s) of Stalin (and trying to fix the rep of Joe) is not surprising.
I think it's gives some "russia lovers" a bit of perspective on what they are loving....
The Soviet Union started in the 1920s with a backwards subsistence economy wrecked by world war, civil war, and foreign intervention and had what? One allied state, Mongolia? In 1917 the Tsarist empire buckled under a portion of the Reichswehr (+allies), in 1945 the Soviet Union, nearly alone, was victorious over the massive bulk of the Wehrmacht (+allies) and the USSR at the time was quite a bit smaller than the Russian Empire. What the Soviet Union achieved militarily alone far outweighs what the Tsarist empire could have ever achieved. And the Soviet Union saw a huge increase in the living standards for most people, and that's in spite of being encircled, invaded, and starting with a subsistence economy.
For me personally - it's amazing how Russians prevailed though it all.
This commands a lot of respect the way I see it.
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