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Thread: "Germany Is Responsible For WWI."

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    Default Re: "Germany Is Responsible For WWI."

    My conversation with Copperknickers

    Quote Originally Posted by Copperknickers II View Post
    Wholesale bombing did not occur in British cities until after the first British raids into Germany, but you are missing out a rather important part of the story, namely what happened in Rotterdam several months before:
    Aside from the bombing of Rotterdam itself the invasion of the Netherlands was more to secure a path into France and Belgium. The Germans asked the Netherlands if they could cross that country and the foreign minister to there was suddenly arrested. Hitler received reports strongly indicating that the Netherlands was not planning to stay neutral and so the Germans took the chance to cross that territory but also to occupy the coast to keep British troops out.

    Albert Kesselring was attempting to bomb the city in a bid to have Rotterdam surrender. Not saying it is moral but it has nothing to do with the Blitz on Britain, not only that but the Germans were most likely not trying to kill Dutch civilians seeing as the way the bombing was carried out does not suggest that at all... unlike say the bombing of Germany which more or less sought to burn as much as possible.




    I agree with you in principal, but that will never stop me admiring Churchill. I would have been killed at birth if not for him, because Hitler would have eventually taken control of Britain, and people like myself would have suffered the full horror of Nazi ideology's hatred of minorities.
    You may admire Churchill I am not telling you not to. But Churchill is very much a mythological hero, the opposite of Hitler. Not because Churchill was the epitome of morality but because he has been made out to be that way.
    Another myth is that Hitler was out to take over Britain. Is there any proof of that aside from Operation Sea Lion? Is there any German fleet which can accomplish this? Is there any reason for why Hitler would even attempt this?


    Jews, Gypsies, Homosexuals, the disabled, political dissidents... I'd say anything up to half of the populations of Romania and Hungary would have been on the Nazis' hitlist.
    granted, but what does this have to do with geopolitics? As I have said and many other historians have pointed out, this was in no way the goal of the Allies, we did not set out to liberate or do away with evil.



    Yes. Nazism was an extreme form of social darwinism, it would have resulted in the total destruction of Western civilisation in Europe if it had achieved domination, we'd have been a dystopian hellhole of genocide, torture and cruelty on an industrial scale. Soviet Communism was bad, but it had two salient features: firstly, by 1945 it hadn't actually resulted in anything hugely horrific that hadn't also happened in the British empire, namely political persecution and a couple of mass famines; secondly, taking on the combined might of Russia and China was totally unthinkable after war with Germany crippled us, they outnumbered the allied powers by about 2 to 1 in terms of sheer manpower.

    Hitler was the priority until his defeat, and after that the Russians were developing nuclear weapons and the game was changed completely. Besides, we eventually did achieve the fall of Communism in Russia, and with minimal casualties, so surely even you can't argue with that.

    If we had not given half of Europe to Stalin, we'd have had to go to war again, which was impossible, and would have involved further millions of deaths.
    So you are saying that fighting and winning a war against all odds was morally correct in 1940 but that winning a war against all odds in 1945 is morally incorrect. There were no guarantees that Britain would have won in 1940 either. There was still a gap until early 1950 for the Soviets to get nukes either way and the Soviets were pretty devastated. We may have defeated the USSR but how many people had to suffer until then?

    So it is okay to prolongue war and having 20 million die but any more than 20 million, God forbid it.



    Do not be ridiculous. Everyone with half a brain knows that it was Hitler's stated ambition to defeat first the great European powers, and then, if possible, their overseas allies and possessions. My university library in London has a plaque stating that it was Hitler's designated headquarters while he was conquering the British isles.
    Um no Hitler never said that, according to whom? Last I recall he made several peace offers to Britain and even offered to resign if this would make Churchill feel better. It was Churchill who insisted that Britain would never surrender even though they weren't expected to surrender.
    Hell if we look up the propaganda video "Why We Fight" it makes the claim that Hitler would have some how mustered the combined strength of the entire populations of Europe and Asia to invade the USA, why should anyone believe that claim?

    If I recall this was the exact same attitude that Britain kept pressing onto the evil French during the Napoleonic wars and the evil Germans in WW1. Despite the peace offers of Napoleon, Britain refused even when Napoleon was winning. Even in WW1 the Germans sought to negotiate but the Allies wanted nothing short of Versailles.

    In fact if one were to google Mein Kampf and look up "Britain" which I just did, Hitler's exact words on the matter is that "Germany does not need overseas colonies", "Germany need only seek military superiority over France so that France is no threat" and even "an alliance between Germany and Britain would be most beneficial". So much for that theory.


    Yes, but because of Hitler, not because of Churchill (who if you recall, wasn't actually our prime minister when we declared war on Germany).
    Except that Hitler's peace offers to Britain would have allowed Britain to freely do what ever it wanted with its economy. Churchill could have made peace if he so wanted. Neville Chamberlain, Hugh Dowding, the Queen Mother, the King and Lloyd George all criticized Churchill for not accepting the peace.


    Really? So what about the war in Korea? Look at South Korea today, one of the world's safest and most populous countries. Now look at North Korea: one of the worst. Now imagine if the West had not supported the South: all of Korea would have been North Korea. The same goes for the Falklands war: the Falkland islanders would have been thrown off their land and persecuted, or forced to flee thousands of miles to Britain. So we fought the Argentinians off, and voila, no major disaster, but relative safety and stability.
    So the ends justify the means is what you are saying? South Korea today is a nice place, it can hardly be compared to that in 1950 where Communists were being killed and a hard core rightist regime as in place. We cannot compare North Korea today to 1950 either since there is no indication as to what would have happened if Korea unified under Communism. At best I can only speculate that Korea would be no better than Maoist China. I will have to agree with you on this point but not because we were being so moral and kind hearted but rather because in this case the ends justified the means and politically (not morally) it was not in the West's interests to allow this takeover to happen.



    It was not necessary from a moral standpoint to stop the Holocaust? Do I detect the subtle hint of Neo-Nazi troll?
    The problem with the biggest claim in the world, is that we did not set out to stop the Holocaust because either we did not know about it and could not have gone to war to stop something we had no knowledge of or we did know about it (remember the enigma codes?) and we told no one about it for some strange reason. I'll let you guess which one is more likely (hint, it probably wasn't the first one).

    Moreover the Allies allowed the Jews to rot in a limbo state in the camps across Europe until after Israel became a recognized state. Not just that but many Jews were not allowed to immigrate simply because they were Jewish. So much for the "we fought WW2 to save the Jews".

    So, because Germany didn't have ambitions in France (which goes against the Shame of Versailles hypothesis), they didn't have ambitions of conquest and ethnic cleansing? Are we talking about WWII here?
    Germany wanted to reverse the Versailles treaty revoked internationally. That does not mean that Germany was willing to go to war with France over it nor was Germany willing to go to war with France over Alsace.

    Erm Hitler wrote a book preaching war with Poland and the Soviet Union, and built an army to do that. Then he did it.

    I can't see any merit in your statement.
    That he did, but when you have a neighbor like Pilsudski's Poland or Stalin's USSR then it doesn't really matter what you preach so much.
    No Hitler built up a Wehrmacht to defend Germany's borders. The Wehrmacht in 1939 sure as hell was not ready to fight France or Poland, anyone can confirm that. It was not until 1940 that soldiers were sufficiently well trained or equipped to even attempt going to war against France, attempt is the word. Moreover Germany's entry into the league of nations had Germany make several claims over the defense of the East all of which were ignored. The obvious response would have been to increase the size of the Wehrmacht.
    Last edited by Lord Oda Nobunaga; March 25, 2014 at 04:10 PM.

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    Default Re: "Germany Is Responsible For WWI."

    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Oda Nobunaga View Post
    Germany wanted to reverse the Versailles treaty revoked internationally. That does not mean that Germany was willing to go to war with France over it nor was Germany willing to go to war with France over Alsace.
    Germany didn't care about the Versailles Treaty at that point because they had already ripped it up. But the Versailles myth plays up the supposed financial ruin of Germany caused by the war debt and the need to restore German honor, which is something which required a rematch with the victors of WWI. That is the myth. I'm not arguing that Hitler wanted a confrontation with France or Britain, because he essentially wanted France and Britain to leave him alone while he went off enslaving Eastern Europe. However, the Versailles myth that is being argued in this thread does suppose that he wanted a war with the other major powers, as did the German people.

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    Default Re: "Germany Is Responsible For WWI."

    The truth is more in between in my opinion, Versailles was not the sole cause for Germany's poor economic state but it certainly would have contributed. I think it goes without saying that just because the Allies shortened those terms then that doesn't mean that Germany is doing fine.
    Hitler several times tried to negotiate with the Allies to revoke the Versailles treaty, when those negotiations as well as other issues were ignored the Germans decided that it was best to ignore the treaty altogether and rip it up.
    Some might point out that Germany was already working on rearmament as early as 1933 however this does not mean that the result of that made any effective German army combat ready. If anything the German rearmament correlates with every time Germany was trying to press its claims. Those same claims which had been constantly ignored in the past.

    "Famous general without peer in any age, most superior in valor and inspired by the Way of Heaven; since the provinces are now subject to your will it is certain that you will increasingly mount in victory." - Ōgimachi-tennō

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    Default Re: "Germany Is Responsible For WWI."

    The whole world was in a poor economic state in 1932-33. Still not a believable excuse.

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    Default Re: "Germany Is Responsible For WWI."

    So Versailles made them much poorer... and?

    Both Christopher Hitchens, Andrew Roberts and Victor Davis Hanson can claim that "Hitler never would have stopped" simply because that is not the mentality of Hitler. Or how about they provide some proof rather than pretending to know what Hitler is thinking that he would stem roll all of Europe, it's this random thinking that makes people believe that he for some reason wanted to conquer every nation on Earth.

    Moreover where Christopher Hitchens says that negotiations between Britain and Germany wouldn't have worked out because "the mediator was Mussolini and count Ciano" to that oh dear deceased Hitchens I say:
    "so what, you're point being?"
    Last edited by Lord Oda Nobunaga; March 25, 2014 at 05:03 PM.

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    Default Re: "Germany Is Responsible For WWI."

    I've repeatedly said in this thread that Hitler's war aims were in the East, not all of Europe or all of the world. Stop putting words in my mouth.

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    Default Re: "Germany Is Responsible For WWI."

    When did I do that?
    If I can read that last post correctly I was merely discrediting what Andrew Roberts, Christopher Hitchens and Victor Davis Hanson said.

    "Famous general without peer in any age, most superior in valor and inspired by the Way of Heaven; since the provinces are now subject to your will it is certain that you will increasingly mount in victory." - Ōgimachi-tennō

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    Default Re: "Germany Is Responsible For WWI."

    Haha, sorry, I misread your post and thought you were talking about me. I feel like a now, haha.

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    Default Re: "Germany Is Responsible For WWI."

    Quote Originally Posted by John F. Kennedy View Post
    "Germany Is Responsible For WWI."

    Never has a statement frustrated me so.
    I'm sorry you feel that way, but it also means that it is impossible for me to take you or your complaints seriously. First and Foremost, there are a lot more frustrating statements out there. WWI in and of itself and the events leading up to it contain *plenty*. Shall I demonstrate?

    Quote Originally Posted by Otto von Bismark
    Hit the Poles so hard that they despair of their life; I have full sympathy with their condition, but if we want to survive, we can only exterminate them; the wolf, too, cannot help having been created by God as he is, but people shoot him for it if they can.
    Quote Originally Posted by Lothar von Trotha, military commander of German Southwest Africa
    Any Herero found inside the German frontier, with or without a gun or cattle, will be executed. I shall spare neither women nor children. I shall give the order to drive them away and fire on them. Such are my words to the Herero people.
    Quote Originally Posted by (Allegedly By) Gavrillo Princip, on his murder of one of the few friends of the Habsburg Empire's Slavs and a white light for reform and peace.
    I am not a criminal, for I destroyed a bad man. I thought I was right.
    And I haven't even gotten into the wonders of Cadorna, Tsarist Russia, the Habsburg Empire, or the Young Turks. To say nothing of the horrible nightmare that was the WWI battlefield itself. To say nothing of even more frustrating quotes from outside WWI. But apparently not one of these things has frustrated you so much as a rather accurate statement that has killed nobody directly. As a historian and the descendant of people who got ground more than a little bit under the heel of Il Duce, I will be honest and say this sort of moral posturing and disregard makes my blood boil.

    The only ways I can assume this is true is if you have never heard any of these (rather common I might add) statements because you have not researched, or that you have heard of them but have simply privileged the first statement above them. And I have to ask "Why?"

    Not only "why is that so?" but also "Why- with this knowledge in our hands- should we take anything you say on this subject seriously?"

    Quote Originally Posted by John F. Kennedy View Post
    Not nearly as much as the fact its so common that people know almost absolutely nothing about the Great War and fill in all the bits they don't know from WWII, assuming that it only makes sense.
    That is perhaps the one area we can agree on, and I think it is a tragedy. The exception of course being those people who instead fill in all the bits they don't know from tripe like "Oh What a Lovely War" and apologist propaganda that popped up during the antebellum and assume that it only makes sense. But for the sake of simplicity, I agree, and I think the sheer neglect WWI has received is dismal.

    Quote Originally Posted by John F. Kennedy View Post
    Every time I hear some idiot say something that puts all the blame on Germany I want to facepalm. It was so much more complicated than Germany saying "RAWR! REICH SMASH!" and the Allies bravely defending democracy.
    Yes and no. It was more complicated than that to some degree, especially at the beginning. All of this was kicked off by a Serbian terrorist sponsored by a state terrorist group in what would be an Allied country, after all. On top of that the Russian mobilization helped get the ball rolling. And that's before I even get into the wooonderful behavior of Austria-Hungary's government standing on top of the corpses of some people they were all but happy to have killed as an excuse to wage what amounted to something that made Milosevic look like a boyscout. And that's before I get out of the parties that were "primarily" responsible for all this, without into those more peripheral to the actual responsibility like Britain and France.

    But let's not kid ourselves. By the end of the war it really was not much more complicated than that. We know this not only because Allied propaganda hailed it after the Tsarist regime (and the Serbian and Mont governments) got dispossessed, but also because *the Central Powers* yabbered on about it being an ideological conflict between Autocracy and Democracy. And surprise-surprise, they actually got a fair bit of traction off of that.

    Quote Originally Posted by John F. Kennedy View Post
    Right.
    I don't see how that is that complicated. While the causes were far more complicated than that, by 1917 at the latest it was painfully clear that Berlin, Vienna, etc. al. were determined to more or less expunge any democratic, constitutional, or republican elements in their sphere of influence. And their victory would have almost certainly seen that carried to its' logical conclusion in the territories they held sway over. The escalating repression and violence at the home front (often against domestic German politics) and in the occupied territories is sort of hard to ignore, and far more ideologically tinged than the (admittedly damn oppressive) wartime measures in the West. So yes, for lack of a better word the Allies- even if almost in spite of themselves rather than because of it- found themselves protecting democracy.

    Quote Originally Posted by John F. Kennedy View Post
    I don't necessarily blame people for not understanding the causes of WWI because it took me forever to figure out even the basic series of events that led to the outbreak,
    An admirable approach, I will admit. And because of that, I will treat you as you wish to treat others and try not to blame you too harshly for missing some of the finer points.

    Quote Originally Posted by John F. Kennedy View Post
    but at least I know what Serbia is. Nobody else seems to,
    So do I, amongst others. So rest easy in that; not all of us are idiots (at least to that degree).

    Quote Originally Posted by John F. Kennedy View Post
    or worse yet I've come across people who thought Franz Ferdinand was German.
    Depending on how much of a pendant I want to be, I could say he technically was; the Austrians- especially the Habsburgs- were more or less the far Southern part of the German Pale, were ethnically and culturally German, and identified strongly as such. They were only explicitly excluded outside of a definition of Germany in 1866-71, when Bismarck wrested supremacy from them and went on to form what was called the German Empire.

    So at worst I find it something of a faux-pas, even if a glaring one.

    Quote Originally Posted by John F. Kennedy View Post
    It's just that in light of things Germany was benign compared to the other powers and only got dragged in because of its alliance with Austria. It wasn't the land-grabbing Nazi of the next war, it was just a power with ties. The only thing similar about WWII and WWI is that Germany fought a war started by an Austrian.
    There is just about nothing in this sentence that is not inaccurate to the extreme, outside of maybe the statement that it was started by the Austrians and the Germans had an alliance with them.

    I don't even know where to start, but I'll do my best.

    1. Perhaps the most important bit: Germany was definitely not benign compared to the other powers, especially the Western Allies. In case you didn't notice the lovely quotes above from Bismark and Trotha, the German regime by this point in time was involved in acts of genocide as a conscious matter of policy, even if it was done by ways subtler/cruder than the assembly lines leading into the gas chamber. Often to the point of going over the heads of vast parts of its' own government, like the Reichstag (who- for instance- tried to bring Trotha to heel when they heard what was happening in Nambia only for the Imperial Cabinet and military to basically put them on mute). As the war progressed they only got ever more obvious and radical about it. The closest parallels I can think of are to Tsarist policy in the Jewish Pale and Central Asia and to Serbian policy during the times they waltzed through Bosnia and Albania. More on that later.

    But on top of being guilty of their own genocidal intent, they also knowingly aided and abetted that of their allies, providing cover and support for them even as pressure mounted. They turned a blind eye to the atrocities the Austo-Hungarians and Bulgarians committed throughout Serbia and Montenegro (in a harbinger of things to come), they knowingly supported the Ottoman Turkish Porte's efforts to "pacify" the non-Turkish non-Muslim populations in the Empire to the point where it started to undermine their own war effort (and over the objections of some of their own personnel such as von Sanders (no saint himself) and Wagner). And I could go on.

    But even besides these highest of crimes, the Second Reich had a longstanding record of lesser ones that they carried on. Not the least of which being their binding adherence to international military conventions. It is true that just about every combatant in WWI broke various parts of them, and I will not deny that. However, the OHL and the war machine (and system of satellites revolving around it) set themselves apart in how many they broke, how flagrantly they broke them, how early they broke them in relation to other combatants, and how involved the highest echelons of the government were in doing so. Even to the point where it ceased to be mercilessly pragmatic.

    The Prussian Army (and to a faaar lesser extent the other German Armies) had a long-standing policy of targeting civilians, using them as human shields, blatantly murdering them, and forcibly deporting and using them as slave labor even in the heart of Europe during regular wars between states (something that shocked the world even at a time when colonial policy was not exactly benign). They had done it as recently as their previous war with France in 1871, and in WWI they carried this on with them in all directions. In the East it manifested itself as a nasty occupation stretching over most of Eastern Europe (though not quite as bad as the Freikorps that followed them did). In the West it was evident in the so-called Rape of Belgium and the utter, unnecessary destitution of vast tracts of Europe and beyond that cannot be simply attributed to the normal nightmare of Trench Warfare.

    When they were forced to retreat, they made it a policy to force the local population to leave with them when possible, and to then forcibly employ these as slave laborers. When withdrawing from the Somme they not only took pains to destroy what items they could of military value (as would be normal) but also items that they *couldn't*, such as the organized poisoning of the wells in contravention of international law. When the war ended or was about to end with their defeat they began massive wrecking of the occupied territories, degenerating into things like murder sprees and the wholesale destruction of infrastructure (such as mines) more or less out of spite.

    In relations to the treaties governing the use of poison gas, treatment of ships (especially non-combatant ships), neutral nations, and occupied territory they not only broke many of them (as indeed, both sides of the war did) but in even more blatant and destructive ways than their enemies and some of their allies did. In some cases (like the treatment of non-combatant ships) there is some mitigating factor in that it was prompted partially by Allied violations of those international laws, even though the German response was by far the more inhumane and destructive than what prompted it. But in others such as the use of poison gas, the German regime took the lead for seemingly no reason other than because it could, and because it believed that as the expected victor it would not have be face punishment for crimes committed.

    The Allies never even came close to this stupefyingly bloody list; even the worst actors of the lot (Russia, Serbia, and some Armenian radicals in particular) had some localized atrocities and oppression but no more, if only for lack of opportunity. So before we get into talks about how the Second Reich was not the Nazis (which is technically true), It is worth noting that that is not *always* a comparison that goes to their advantage. In one case, the Second Reich committed a crime that even the Third did not, prompted by Hitler's own experience of the results. He in fact forbade the use of poison gas on the battlefield. Which more than anything should underscore how much of a problem this was, and how largely pointless this particular decision was.

    2. I find the idea that any nation "just" got dragged into WWI dubious at best, but with Germany we have concrete proof that shows that was not so. The Austro-Hungarian government did not charge ahead and drag its' Northern ally in like a cartoon dog does to the person holding its' leash. We can clearly see that opinion in Vienna was rather divided, and that even the Hawks felt notably insecure about going to war with Serbia without German support (especially given the very, very, Very flimsy justification for it; non-compliance with a single point of the ultimatum that would have turned Serbia into another Bosnia). The involvement of the German leadership in the discussions leading up to it were decisive, and both the "Blank Check"
    and what was discussed around it (chief amongst them not only how willing Germany should be to go to war, but how willing it should be to accept a largely favorable peaceful solution) just hammer the point home.

    To excuse the Imperial Cabinet of responsibility for these actions is to excuse them of their actual role in history, and act like they were nodding bobbleheads.

    3. "It wasn't the land-grabbing Nazi of the next war". Well, this is technically true in that the Absolute(ish) Monarchy was far from being National Socialist. But the rest of it only might wash in the earliest days of the war, and it certainly doesn't past 1914.

    First, an issue needs to be addressed: part of the reason why many people don't understand this is because a lot of the claims used to make this point are bull-putty, and based on either false grounds or misunderstanding what is there. One of the most obvious points is the September Program of Bethmann-Hollweg, which has been blown up so much that it has been made into a sort of Master Plan accepted as policy like the Nazi ones. To the point where Fischer (a German himself) accused Hollweg of being WWI's Hitler (paraphrased). In reality, the September Program was sort of a public survey; a "what do we want to accomplish?" policy sheet being passed around Berlin etc. al. to see what the various movers and shakers wanted, which would then be submitted as a proposal. It was never explicitly accepted as an implement of government policy, and while Hollweg was in charge of carting it around it did not necessarily reflect his views, especially later in the war when he emerged as one of the beleaguered moderates. As thus, most claims based around it tend to be exaggerations or misconceptions.

    That being said, the September Program and its' standing (or lack thereof) are in many ways obscures the more relevant and important points; I do not condone the inaccuracies that have sprung up around how it has been portrayed and believe they should be squashed down where possible, but I can understand on some level *why* these things have been so enduring. One tell-tale fact is that this was the result of *polling in the German government* at all, and it says plenty about the minderset and psychology at play in the Imperial Cabinet and military; few if any of the other first year belligerants even remotely entertained designs this aggressive or far reaching (the one that comes to mind is Serbia per-capita, followed by Austria-Hungary), and by the end of the war the actual goals the German-led Central Powers entertained were more or less based on the September Program's mindset (ironically but fuitilely opposed by Hollweg himsef).

    Furthermore, the fact that the September Program is technically overblown does not change the fact that a lot of other things the German regime *actually* adopted as policy were just as damning as it could have ever been, if not more so. They betray an actual, land-grabbing ambition that far outstretched most of their rivals (especially in the West) and which definitely prefigured the rise of the Third Reich.

    First and foremost, we have lovely things like the "Cuba Memorandum" decades beforehand in the aftermath of Spain's defeat in 1898. This all but labeled the United States and its' Monroe Doctrine as a threat and obstacle to German interests, stated in terms most familiar to Hitler's rage about Yugoslavia that any assurances or rapproachments with the US must be considered dubious at best and futile at worst, and laid out that Germany must seek to undermine and destroy the Monroe Doctrine and establish hegemony in Latin America, the Pacific, and the Caribbean. In effect, it was a covert declaration of war against American interests, with the stated intent of tightening the noose around a power that was avowedly neutral in the conflict brewing. It also shows a profound intent to "grab land", and likely underlines that had Imperial Germany won WWI it would have likely continued on across the Atlantic.

    Secondly, we have the actual German occupation policies and programs, which were very nakedly land grabs on a scale not seen in Europe since Napoleon. And again, in contravention of the international laws Germany and its' allies were party to and foreshadowing of what the Third Reich would seek to accomplish just decades later. When the German military occupied Belgium, Luxembourg, and (to a lesser extent) the territories of France they seized, they began a policy of unalloyed and absolute military rule coupled with ruthless Germanization. The obligations they had to respect Luxembourgian and Belgian independence went the same way as their obligations to respect their neutrality: into the memory hole. This is particularly true in the former, where as an ethnic, culutrally, and historically German statelet part of the Zollvern it was viewed as ripe for direct, immediate annexation to the Reich. Likely without even the limited rights and privledges afforded to the royalty of the German states annexed into the German Empire, much less the people; in spite of the fact that Luxembourg was not only avowedly independent but also a constitutional monarchy.

    The occupation of Belgium and French territory was even harsher, because in addition to the above being applied we saw the widespread use of terror and atrocity to try and break the will of the population to remain independent. The "Rape of Belgium" has been subject to all kinds of issues since that trope was first coined, not the least of which the issue that in terms of German soldiers outright killing Belgian citizens the numbers were far lesser than a lot of the wartime propaganda went on about, and what happened in Belgium and occupied France in 1914 was certainly not the same as what happened in it in-say- 1944, or Poland in 1939, or even Namibia in 1904.

    The problem is that this has led many people to latch onto the idea that the "Rape of Belgium" was fictional black propaganda created purely by wartime sensationalism, that the German military forces in Belgium somehow humane, and so on and so forth. If anything, this is far further from the truth than the other extreme; it is just that direct killings like those the propaganda portrayed most heavily (and which was the main institution of Nazi tyranny) was a relatively minor part in how it happened.

    But even those did happen. The atrocities committed by the German military during its' march through and occupation of Belgium were not only real, they were sanctioned and mandated by the High Command, first in theater and then in the OHL itself. Perscriptions as inhumane as they were illegal- like the murder of a quota of Belgian citizens for every German soldier wounded or killed- were freely passed around from the occupation in question and in contravention of Germany's obligations under wartime law, in contrast to its' Western enemies but in keeping with the Prussian military traditions that mandated the targetting of civilians and a fanatical fear of "Franc-Tireur" stemming from at least 1870.

    That these actions tapered off was less due to humanity from the German command and more because it was recognized to be woefully ineffective and damaging to a front line the Germans were still deeply entrenched in years later. In fact, in the years after trench warfare began in earnest the dominant force involved was a combination of ethnic cleansing through deportation and forced famine, artificial even beyond the increasingly dire standards of territory dominated by the Central Powers at the time. Whereas direct murder against the civilian population may have killed a 12-20,000 at most in Belgium, over 120,000 Belgians were illegally deported by the German military to the "home front", usually to work as slave labor in all but name like many of their descendants would in WWII. The numbers in France were even higher.

    As for the latter, all but unrestrained looting was more or less given tact approval by the command (again, in violation of the rules of war) during the early days, and even aftewards food "requisitioning" was so severe that it drove the populations in occupied Western Europe to the brink of famine if not beyond. In Belgium at least, the effects of this policy were mitigated by considerable foreign aid- perhaps the largest coming into the WWI "Fortress Europe" from the outside- from under the guidance of Herbert Hoover's CRB. It was largely thanks to the prodigal amounts of that aid and the far higher scrutiny on Belgium and German activities in it following the early months of the war that famine on a wide scale was avoided by providing enough for both sides to maintain a desperate balance until the defeat of Germany ended the war.

    Not everybody was so lucky. As far away as Eastern Europe and the Balkans and as close as just South, the press coverage was less intense and the results were nightmarish. There, the German military's inhumane and excessive requisitioning of food, destruction of infrastructure, and other actions drove Northeastern France, the Baltic States, occupied future Yugoslavia, Romania, and Poland into famine that would kill hundreds of thousands. This was not only for the purposes of "robbing Peter to pay Paul" by taking food out of the occupied territories to feed their own increasingly hungry populations (which might be sympathetic on some level), but also as a calculated act of terror to try and force the Allied governments to concede to their demands.

    As the war dragged on, that behavior only got worse, first including a grandiose plan to deport or exterminate the Polish populations in an arbitrary "corridor" on the Eastern border so that it could be settled and Germanized. Then with the idea of creating a Baltic German regime vassal over the Baltics with similar goals but initially less bloody measures. And finally extending into a grandiose network of Eastern European satilites stretching deep from the North Sea to the Caucasus that would act as agricultural breabaskets and placeholders for racial colonization.

    That none of these policies- having been adopted by the German government and its' allies- succeeded is not a testament to their humanity or benignness, it is a testament to the refusal of the Allies- especially in the West- to yield and of local resistance to these attempts. The Western Allied victory in 1918 saved Luxembourg, Belgium, Poland, Serbia, Montenegro, and the Baltics from direct annexation into the Reich and Romania, Finland, and most of the rest of the European Russian Empire from arbitrary and heavy handed vassalage to Berlin (whose terms can again be seen on the agreements signed by the Central Powers with Russia and Romania, and with the "agreed upon" terms they would impose on the allies as a whole following their anticipated full victory). But it isn't surprising that the Nazis would adopt similar strategies and goals decades later, and believing there *isn't* a connection between that and the similar actions of the Second Reich that most of them served decades earlier is a stretch.

    Quote Originally Posted by John F. Kennedy View Post
    I apologize for this little rant but I just can't believe the mind-numbing ignorance of some people. Please correct me if I'm wrong in thinking Germany is not wholly responsible for the first world war.
    I can sympathize on some level with this issue, because I agree with many of these overall points, just with different points of emphasis. I too do not believe that Germany was wholly responsible for WWI; they did not fiddle with strings to make Princip and Dimitrijevic murder a rather innocent royal and his wife. They did not brainwash the Ottoman Turkish regime into the (justifiable) belief that Russia sought to eat them alive and the (unjustifiable) one that they had to wage genocide against their own people to make it work. They did not go back in time to give Russia its' absolutist and expansionist interests centuries ago, and they did not create Britain's cynical interest in the balance of power on the Continent. To act like they did is- in my mind- to commit a grave crime against them, against history, and against memory.

    However, beyond that I reject the idea that they were not to blame, or even "just as much to blame as anyone else." The Central Powers were by far the side with the more ambitious, unfettered, and bloody-minded goals, and of them no other great power in WWI was so much so as the German Empire. For whatever reasons it entered it to the war, it was not long before it did transform into an aggressive, racist, and genocidal regime that viewed itself as fighting an ideological crusade to stamp out anything we would understand as democracy or liberalism today in Europe, and which by the end of the war outright claimed it. The fact that the other rivals it had in the war were not saints (and in several cases were quite bad themselves- again, Russia and Serbia come to mind the easiest) just makes the fact that their side held on to the moral low ground just that much more staggering.

    As the all but undisputed war leader of the Central Powers, the government of the Second Reich deserves to be castigated for its' role in WWI as it actually happened (and not as the extreme slants on either pole would like us to believe it happened). The fact that this did not happen and the German governments- from Imperial to Weimar- refused to acknowledge their extremely large part of the responsibility (such as the justness of paying reparations that were far less punitive than they had inflicted, and were largely to cover the damages caused byt he occupations) was a harbinger of things to come. Just as the Kaiserreich refused to acknowledge responsibility for its' crimes in the wars leading up to WWI, so too did the immediate post-war German governments refuse to acknowledge not only their responsibility to pay off the reparations but the simple *pragmatism* of doing so as the French had displayed after the Franco-Prussian War*. And in my opinion - that is one part of the true root problem of why Hitler and his cabal- owing much to their prior experience under the Emperor's Eagle- rose again to be an even worse threat.

    Understanding and acknowledging this does not mean we must demonize Germany today or even Germany back then, much less all Germans. I fear that attempts in this direction have caused that to a vast degree (like again, the tarring of Hollweg as the "WWI Hitler" when he was closer to being a moderating force on Ludendorff, Hindenburg, Falkenhayen, and the Kaisers Wilhelm II and Franz Josef).

    However, I believe the best cure for this is the truth: an accurate understanding of what happened in WWI, Warts and All. Acknowledging German responsibility for its' share of WWI should not mean unjustly demonizing them, or discounting the records ofa ll the many other players involved and responsible (especially Serbia, the Black Hand, Russia, etc. al). both for the war and for various other problems like the Armenian genocide.

    On the other hand, acknowledging this reality should not blind us to the nature of the pre-WWI and WWI German Empire, and that it had a far higher portion of the blame than "the norm."

    And now after a century since the events in question, I hope that we can finally lay this to rest before too long.

    * Let's get a couple things straight: anybody who says that Versailles crashed the value of the Mark into what it became is wrong.

    Anybody who says that the post-war German governments *had* to tank the value of the Mark in order to stay afloat is even more obviously wrong. These things were put to rest by none less than our dear friend the Nazi War Criminal and Hitler's financial guru, Hjalmar Schacht. He was one of the people to diagnose Germany's financial history and its' problems, and to finish the late Weimar financial corrections that had begun taking Germany out of the hole.

    The truth is that the Mark got into financial hot water because the Weimar government decided it would be cool to stiff their wartime victims on the reparations payments. Several, several times. No matter how little pragmatic sense this made. Even *that* didn't cause the main breaking of the Mark, though it certainly helped it along.

    When the Western Allies got rightfully PO'd and decided to occupy the Rhineland as collateral, they helped trigger a massive industrial strike in protest, it was decided that they should continue paying the workers to do nothing, and at incredible rates.

    Bad idea. Fun Fact kids: printing out money to buy nothing causes inflation. Doing that to a major industrial region just makes it worse.
    Last edited by Turtler; March 25, 2014 at 06:00 PM.

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    Default Re: "Germany Is Responsible For WWI."

    I know we are originally speaking about WW1 but something the most people ignore regarding the start of WW2 is, that Hitlers government was financially broken. Hitler was quite popular at that time, but this was because of the social aid his government provided to the people. The problem was that the state wasn't able to effort it and together with the war preparations, his government would have been failed in the end of September. That is why the first thing the German troops were doing after conquering Poland, was to occupy the finance buildings and get the polish gold reserves. They did the same in Austria, Czech and all later invaded countries. Even if Hitler would have got the corridor to Danzig, he would have seen a major crisis short after. In short term, a war was the best solution to get his inner political problems solved.

    Proud to be a real Prussian.

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    Default Re: "Germany Is Responsible For WWI."

    Which I agree with but it's not fair to say that Germany was looking for a world war or a war against France or Britain.
    Either way we would likely have Polish aggression, after all Poland was the country that invaded the Ukraine and Russia, tried to fight the Czechs and wanted to annex Lithuania as well as did annex part of Czechoslovakia. A general conflict seemed likely and like Germany the Polish were no strangers to this post WW1 jingoism.

    Hell it wasn't even the superiority of the German army either that secured the victory, it was the superior strategic disposition and the deployment of the German troops such as in Bohemia. A Polish-German clash seemed likely and it sure as hell was not Germany that had an army well equipped or strong enough to deal with any such crisis. Which if we look back at the League of Nations ignoring Germany then the Germans wouldn't have had to build up the Wehrmacht as much as they did. After all the largest build up of the Wehrmacht didn't even occur until 1940 and even then they barely had enough respite from fighting Poland. Despite the Germans overrunning Poland the Germans could not have been expected to fight a defensive war seeing as how the Eastern border was barely defensible and the construction of fortifications was relatively difficult in that area.
    Last edited by Lord Oda Nobunaga; March 25, 2014 at 06:50 PM.

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    Default Re: "Germany Is Responsible For WWI."

    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Oda Nobunaga View Post
    Which I agree with but it's not fair to say that Germany was looking for a world war or a war against France or Britain.
    Agreed at least immediately, but I do believe that Hitler's leanings meant that marching West was a strategic and ideological necessity for him. I think he would have preferred to digest Central and probably Eastern Europe first, though.

    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Oda Nobunaga View Post
    Either way we would likely have Polish aggression,
    We already sort of did, at least in Silesia. Though suffice it to say the issue was a bit more muddled than that.

    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Oda Nobunaga View Post
    after all Poland was the country that invaded the Ukraine and Russia, tried to fight the Czechs and wanted to annex Lithuania as well as did annex part of Czechoslovakia. A general conflict seemed likely and like Germany the Polish were no strangers to this post WW1 jingoism.
    I agree that the Poles were not exactly the purely innocent lambs that a lot of people tend to make them out to be, but I think that- especially the first bit- is oversimplifying. The Poles largely went into the Ukraine in the interests of creating an independent Ukraine that could act as a buffer-client state lite, which was their main MO during the interbellum, especially the first. As for annexing Lithuania, they weren't altogether interested in doing that; if they could have gotten them into a union or leaning Polish they would have been more than happy. It's just that they were so fanatical about having Vilnius/Wilno that they shot themselves in the foot (I do believe that is probably one of the most glaring strategic errors the Poles made rather than trying to extend the stick out into a sort of resurrected Union of Lublin deal with the intention of letting superior demographics do the job).


    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Oda Nobunaga View Post
    Hell it wasn't even the superiority of the German army either that secured the victory, it was the superior strategic disposition and the deployment of the German troops such as in Bohemia.
    I'm not sure I buy this as The reason. It certainly was A reason, since unlike the slapshod Polish deployments (out on the borderlands where it was impossible to properly concentrate or salvage them) they had the A-game on. But I think the differences in equipment, doctrine, and training also made more difference than that. The fiasco of the Bzura is just one major point.

    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Oda Nobunaga View Post
    A Polish-German clash seemed likely and it sure as hell was not Germany that had an army well equipped or strong enough to deal with any such crisis.
    At what point?

    The Germans were able to deal with Polish pretensions fairly capably *even when they didn't have an actual army.* The Battle of Annaberg is just the most obvious example. They slapped down the first two Silesian uprisings, and even the far better supported and equipped third one was something they managed to fight to a draw before the Western Allies called a time out and split the baby. In the end, the balance of power still favored the Germans in a major war, even if not by as much.

    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Oda Nobunaga View Post
    Which if we look back at the League of Nations ignoring Germany then the Germans wouldn't have had to build up the Wehrmacht as much as they did.
    I fail to see how the Nazi Regime- or any German government- *ever* had to build up the Wehrmacht as much as they did during the interbellum if they truly intended it to be a peacetime military for defensive (or at most limited aggressive) service. Again, it just doesn't add up.

    If they were actually invaded by the Poles and needed to rally troops and mobilize, that is one thing. But there is no reason to believe the intentions of that was benevolent.

    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Oda Nobunaga View Post
    After all the largest build up of the Wehrmacht didn't even occur until 1940 and even then they barely had enough respite from fighting Poland.
    Not really. The Wehrmacht was still in a state of mobilization during 1940, but on the outbreak of war it had the majority of its' "proper" strength (before we count into the wartime conscription and bloating up that it causes) mobilized. The additional regulars/professionals raised were important, but not nearly as decisive as that.

    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Oda Nobunaga View Post
    Despite the Germans overrunning Poland the Germans could not have been expected to fight a defensive war seeing as how the Eastern border was barely defensible and the construction of fortifications was relatively difficult in that area.
    Except that's largely what they did, and faced considerable success in doing. The truth of the matter is that Poland was still smaller, far weaker, far less industrialized, and far worse equipped than the German military was by the time we get into the 1930's. The only time that might not've been true was probably at the height of the Polish-Soviet war era right on the bleeding edge between the late 1910's and early 1920's, but after that they lost that early punch. Could they have still won by attacking Germany? Perhaps. But it would hardly have been easy.

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    Default Re: "Germany Is Responsible For WWI."

    1. I don't really believe that the Germans wanted to fight Britain at all. Hitler was out to revoke Versailles and he wanted to avoid a military confrontation over them about it, he would rather negotiate. I checked in Mein Kampf and Hitler states that as long as France did not have the military capability to knock out Germany then they were no threat. So it seems that upon seizing the Eastern regions that the Germans would have undergone some sort of military build up to supplant France as the continental power. So long as France did not seek to fight Germany then it seems unlikely that they would ever come to blows willingly.

    2. What I sure as hell don't get is if the Polish had annexed Lithuania what then? Did that country even have any ports or anything useful to them? I certainly don't understand Polish aims, I think we would be to assume that it just ran on random jingoism. But I'm not even sure what Poland was out to get. While Hitler sure made a point of getting Poland out of the way in Mein Kampf (for Eastern expansion) it does at least seem that he was willing to cut some sort of deal with Poland and I'm not entirely sure why Marshal Pilsudski refused. What does seem likely is that if Poland could no longer head east then they might try to go west.

    3. I misspoke, you are right to point that out but what I mean is that the Germans overran Poland because they had both the Czech industry and that area to support their advance in the South. I don't think that the Germans could have gotten that far if they had not annexed Czech. Tactically the Germans may have dealt a blow to the Poles but strategically speaking I don't think that simply entering Poland was enough to advance as far as the Germans did. Even when we look at the campaign the Germans suffered some setbacks which could have even become quite serious. Otherwise I thin that the war against Poland may have just turned into a meat grinder on the latitude of Danzig or even nearer to the border.

    4. At what point? Any Polish-German war prior to 1939, I don't think that the Germans could have claimed a victory effectively. More of a stalemate really. I think we really should put emphasis on the acquisition of Czech.
    I don't know if we can compare the Polish insurgents against the Freikorps to a full blown war between Germany and Poland. I mean the full Polish army against whatever the Germans can scrounge up in 1921? Had the Germans not rearmed to their 1930s state could they even handle a Polish invasion for very long? Let alone make it all the way to Warsaw and Krakow?

    5. No I agree, I bet the Germans were very much willing to invade Poland but I think the real question is when, but we should seriously doubt whether that army could even look at the French sideways and expect not to die. More likely 1939 was a rather arbitrary date when all sorts of things happened to come together. The Germans saw an opportune moment and went for it, but to the Germans it must have been take them out now instead of wait for them to come at us.

    6. Well I would say the Wehrmacht was of a proper size in 1939, but as far as full equipment and training it seems doubtful that they could have engaged in a prolonged conflict. Had the League of Nations listened to Germany in the early 1930s then Germany would have had no excuse to build up as it did. But the Polish danger was there when Germany chose to build up and press its claims in the Saarland, the Sudetenland and Austria in order to accomplish those in the first place.

    7. What do you mean the Germans fought a defensive war against Poland? Not really following on this point.
    German fortifications in that area were rather poor and the Germans only made much ground in 1939 with an invasion of Poland proper and besieging Warsaw.

    My main point being that Germany can at least be justified in its war against Poland and that Germany did not seek war in the west. Moreover I would say that Operation Barbarossa can at least be justified in the sense that Stalin was not as innocent as he claimed. I'm not saying that Germany was benevolent but neither were the other guys. If Mein Kampf is any source then yes according to Hitler the USSR and Poland were fair game. But looking at the actual events, they were not as one sided as has been claimed.
    Last edited by Lord Oda Nobunaga; March 25, 2014 at 08:22 PM.

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    Default Re: "Germany Is Responsible For WWI."

    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Oda Nobunaga View Post
    ...

    That he did, but when you have a neighbor like Pilsudski's Poland or Stalin's USSR then it doesn't really matter what you preach so much. ....
    IIRC neither Pilsudski or Stalin were in power when Hitler declared Germany should extirpate Poland and Russia to make room for Germans. Would you like to try again?

    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Oda Nobunaga View Post
    No Hitler built up a Wehrmacht to defend Germany's borders..
    This is is a baseless statement. Hitler built his army to claim extensive portions of Europe. He said he was going to do it before he illegaly seized power, then he built the army to do it then he laid the plans to do it then he did it.

    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Oda Nobunaga View Post
    ...
    The Wehrmacht in 1939 sure as hell was not ready to fight France or Poland, anyone can confirm that..
    I am sorry, but thats inane. The Wehrmacht did fight Poland in 1939, and won handsomely. Furthermore it was mobilised to fight and war was instigated through a series of prefabricated shams. There was a detailed war plan that was executed quite brilliantly, despite facing a courageous and proven enemy.

    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Oda Nobunaga View Post
    ... It was not until 1940 that soldiers were sufficiently well trained or equipped to even attempt going to war against France, attempt is the word. .
    Indeed. It was considered insanity to open a Western front by Hilter's military planners. It wasn't a particularly sane decision to declare war on the USA either but Hilter's foreign policy led to that blunder too.

    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Oda Nobunaga View Post
    ... Moreover Germany's entry into the league of nations had Germany make several claims over the defense of the East all of which were ignored. The obvious response would have been to increase the size of the Wehrmacht.
    Not sure of the relevance of the League of Nations when we are discussing Hitler's illeagal military aggression. Hitler broke the Versaille treaty as par of a policy of expanding German territory at the expense of slavic people.
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    Default Re: "Germany Is Responsible For WWI."

    Quote Originally Posted by Cyclops View Post
    IIRC neither Pilsudski or Stalin were in power when Hitler declared Germany should extirpate Poland and Russia to make room for Germans. Would you like to try again?
    Except that they were both in power when Hitler came to power, both had been aggressive neighbors before and after Hitler came to power.
    I have no doubt that he said this in Mein Kampf but what some guy on the streets of Munich says and what a guy in the Reich Chancellery says might as well be two different things. But I have no doubt that he was willing to invade Poland and the USSR, question is were these guys willing to invade Germany? Yes is the answer.


    Quote Originally Posted by Cyclops View Post
    This is is a baseless statement. Hitler built his army to claim extensive portions of Europe. He said he was going to do it before he illegaly seized power, then he built the army to do it then he laid the plans to do it then he did it.
    Well first of all Hitler did not seize power illegally. Even if we want to get more technically Mein Kampf does not have Hitler say anywhere that he will invade X or Y country. It says that it would be in Germany's interests to defeat Poland and destroy the Soviet Union, but in politics it isn't as simple as saying you will do this and do it all while disregarding everything else. I could also say that Stalin wanted world revolution and Pilsudski was looking to grab as much as he could. As I pointed out before Poland was no stranger to jingoism, even when Hitler was writing Mein Kampf.
    Still I do believe he (Hitler) would have done it at some point and if not him then perhaps his successor.

    Second of all, as I said Germany's army wasn't even ready for a prolongued war, they may have beat the Polish but how would they even have confronted the Soviet Union? If we look at the reports of Halder, Keitel etc the only thing that the Germans had a particular abundance of was the Panzer 3. So if he laid the plans and then did it why was there no plan to invade the Soviet Union until some 3 months before it was done? The army of 1939 was in no way ready to defeat the Soviet Union. What Hitler did was take Czechoslovakia and use the industry and that strategic location to invade Poland from the South.


    Quote Originally Posted by Cyclops View Post
    I am sorry, but thats inane. The Wehrmacht did fight Poland in 1939, and won handsomely. Furthermore it was mobilized to fight and war was instigated through a series of prefabricated shams. There was a detailed war plan that was executed quite brilliantly, despite facing a courageous and proven enemy.
    -It has been put into question whether these shams were indeed fabricated. Perhaps the actual event that started it was fabricated but it is no secret that Polish guerrillas were an issue on the German borders and that all of the commanders in those areas were restless because of it (especially East Prussia).

    -granted the acquisition of Bohemia helped a lot, that is likely why the plan succeeded as it did. But that the Wehrmacht somehow operated exceptionally is not particularly true. There were multiple setbacks which may have cost the Germans the campaign and allowed to hold much longer than they did. Hitler was gambling on Stalin attacking the Soviets even though Stalin for some reason did not show up supposedly because he was not ready yet. The fact that the Germans reduced Warsaw and even managed to push as far as Krakow can be considered a miracle. If we read any first hand account of the campaign then we'll see that it certainly wasn't as easy as you claim.


    Quote Originally Posted by Cyclops View Post
    Indeed. It was considered insanity to open a Western front by Hilter's military planners. It wasn't a particularly sane decision to declare war on the USA either but Hilter's foreign policy led to that blunder too.
    Not sure why Hitler did that, I suppose that we will never know. Seeing as before 1941 Hitler had already said that they may hold Britain and they may hold the Soviets but as soon as America showed up then the war was over.


    Quote Originally Posted by Cyclops View Post
    Not sure of the relevance of the League of Nations when we are discussing Hitler's illegal military aggression. Hitler broke the Versaille treaty as part of a policy of expanding German territory at the expense of Slavic people.
    Why not? The League of Nations is supposed to help its members out not ignore Germany (which was most likely as a result of WW1). Yes Hitler broke the Versailles treaty but he still wanted everyone to recognize that it was broken. At least Hitler could make a claim that Poland was a threat so long as he is being ignored. If the League had bothered to do anything about it then he might be exposed or confirmed. That said I do not believe that we can have a straight answer on whether invading Poland was justified or not. Regardless the breaking of the Versailles treaty led to the joining with Austria, reclaiming the Saar and annexing the Sudetenland, all of which can be seen as justifiable to some extent.

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    Scharfrichter's Avatar Miles
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    Default Re: "Germany Is Responsible For WWI."

    Seeing as before 1941 Hitler had already said that they may hold Britain and they may hold the Soviets but as soon as America showed up then the war was over.
    The war was over the day the Third Reich invaded the Soviet Union.

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    Default Re: "Germany Is Responsible For WWI."

    Personally I would disagree, 1941 was a huge success (except the fiasco at Moscow) and they just needed to carry that success onwards. With the defeat at Stalingrad it did not seem likely that the Germans would move forward.

    My main point is that regardless of what Hitler wrote in 1924 the Polish were aggressive then and were still a threat to the German borders. Had it been anyone else in that situation we would have likely cheered them on.

    "Famous general without peer in any age, most superior in valor and inspired by the Way of Heaven; since the provinces are now subject to your will it is certain that you will increasingly mount in victory." - Ōgimachi-tennō

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    Scharfrichter's Avatar Miles
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    Default Re: "Germany Is Responsible For WWI."

    1941 was a huge success
    and what a big success it was! millions of soviets dead and captured, half of western russia invaded, thousands of vehicles destroyed.

    But i think Hitler overestimated himself and his Wehrmacht - just look at the map: with the soviet union 20x bigger than nazi germany, more than 26 millions able-bodied men to serve in the red army, thousands of tanks, cannons, fighters & bombers they could only prolongue the war, but not win.

    The entry of the USA to the war in europe just sped up the war, otherwise the soviets and brits would've won not in 1945, but 1947 or something around that.

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    Default Re: "Germany Is Responsible For WWI."

    Obviously the British declaration of war on Germany was a bid to keep a strong force off the continent, like it had always been. The French declaration of war was due to fear of a strong Germany on France's borders. Stalin's declaration of war on Poland was as an opportunist and Hitler's declaration of war on Poland was also as an opportunist.

    But even then multiple peace proposals to the Allies included terms such as a withdrawal from Poland, a withdrawal from Czechoslovakia etc. Hitler was a politician and so he could be flexible. There was no goal set in stone other than success.

    "Famous general without peer in any age, most superior in valor and inspired by the Way of Heaven; since the provinces are now subject to your will it is certain that you will increasingly mount in victory." - Ōgimachi-tennō

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    Default Re: "Germany Is Responsible For WWI."

    I find these fantasies about the innocence of Hitler offensive, Nazi Germany aggressively annexed neighbouring countries in violation of international law before and after the war began. Hitler's assumption of supreme power was IIRC in violation of the both the Constitution and the Nazi's own oppressive Enabling Law. Only Soviet Russia was nearly as aggressive and Hitler cooperated with the Soviets in their aggression. However this discussion is OT.

    While the Second Reich had atrocities to its name (eg the attempted genocide of indigenes in Namibia) they were not alone in their imperial crimes. Britain and France also had heavy hands in their imperial adventures. I have a strange impression that the Romanov regime (despite its large secret police force, second only to the Austrians) had a relatively mild treatment of many of its non-Russian subject peoples in central and east Asia, but of course they were notoriously cruel in the Caucases.

    One of the big changes from the stable Europe of the 1880's and 1914 was (as mentioned ) the decline of German diplomatic capacity. The rehabilitation of France is another change, before about 1905 no-one would touch the grubby republicans with a bargepole (least of all the Imperial Russians). So in one sense changes in Germany and France were at the root of the war.
    Jatte lambastes Calico Rat

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