Who Sucked the Most?

[Vengerak]

I'm trying to decide if I'm surrounded by Neo-Nazis or not...(jk) this is highly disturbing ppl supporting, Hitler, even if its just over a guy like Stalin. LOL.

Well the contention of some people here is that Stalin was far more evil than Hitler; if this is the case then logic would dictate "supporting" him over Stalin.

Why the heck did you even make this topic?

Meh, why does anyone do anything?  :-P

And I know that the Brits declared war on Hitler after he invaded Poland, but Hitler also knew that the Brits had an alliance with them... so you can't say he was focused totally east.

He was, though.  He didn't think the French or British would honour their pact with despotic Poland.

He made the non-aggression pact with the Soviets remember?

The Soviets were in the east also, Volky.  :wink:

Stalin's purge of the officer corps was bad for the socviet military yes, but he had alot more people left after that. Some of them arguably better tacticians than the ones he killed.

I'll grant you Zhukov was an above average commander (I'd rate him alongside von Arnim or maybe Rundstedt), but post-purge the Red Army was in a sorry state.  The purge wasn't just of generals and colonels, it went all the way down to your captains and lieutenants.  Regiments were being commanded by NCOs.  The remaining officers were too terrified to act with decisiveness.  This is what lead to the dramatic Kesselschlacht triumphs during Barbarossa.

And Hitler WAS stupid. The tactical and strategic decisions he made are why Germnay lost the war. For just one example, he got them into the war too early when he attacked Poland.

No-one's denying that Hitler's micromanaging tendencies lead to a lot of the Wermacht's failures (although there are notable occasions where he disagreed with his generals and was right), but that's not really got a lot to do with the topic at hand. But while 1939 was earlier than Germany would have liked they were still quite capable of winning the war, and Hitler could hardly be expected to stand by while the Polish authorities were massacring ethnic Germans in their thousands in West Prussia and Silesia.

And Hitler is directly responsible for every single battle death in WW2, because without him, there wouldn't have BEEN a WW2.

Well that's just ridiculous.  You could "directly" attribute every battle death to Hitler's mother, in that case, or the unreasonable Allied statesmen responsible for the Versailled treaty, or a huge variety of other people.  Many (a majority, I think) of historians believe that World War II was inevitable in the conditions created by the Treaty of Versailles.

The Germans were in a depression when he took power remember? And the only thing that brought them and the world out of it was gearing up for war.

That's only partly true. The rebuilding of Germany was an economic miracle in a great many respects.  It's true that the war was all that was able to bring America out of its depression, but in the Third Reich Germany wasn't geared to a Total War footing until 1943!  To say "gearing up for war" was all that brought Germany out of its depression is, therefore, patently absurd.

Its unlikely that Germany would have been able to recover without the Nazi's, at least as quickly as it did, and in the direction it recovered.

As far as Germany's concerned that's a point in favour of the NSDAP, Volkov.  I think I've missed your point.

You guys know obviously know alot about WW2, well so do I. If you wanna get in a pissing contest, which is what I suspect you made this topic for, Raine, I don't know who will win, but it would be long and boring for the rest of the board, if not for us, so I suggest we stop now.

Right after you've got to say your piece?  :wink:  Honestly, I made the poll because I was genuinely curious as to what the prevailing attitude on this forum was.  It's an interesting topic--a lot of people think an evil that causes less suffering is still greater because of motive, which I find interesting.  I am not, however, adverse to engaging in "pissing contests" when the opportunity arises; I enjoy debate  :-P .

I think it's weird to want to stop because such a debate would be "boring" for the board. This is, like, the only active topic in polling, and it isn't required reading every time you log in or anything.

And for the record, "putting all the germans under one banner" was just an excuse, and if you know as much about WW2 as I suspect you do, you know it too.

No, having read Mein Kampf I'm actually fairly certain that that "One People, One Reich, One F?hrer" was in fact the main goal of National Socialism.  Removing the (perceived) Jewish sphere of influence from Germany was seen as a stepping stone towards that.

Also, the other 6 million, like I said in the post, is from the others he killed besides Jews, and german deaths from battle, being in battle, and other related war time injuries.

Well, I've gone over why I don't think you can label German soldiers as among those murdered Hitler.  What I was really asking for was some figures--I think you're estimates are way, way off.

if your gonna have 43 million dead by stalin's hand, even though well over half of those were not his direct responsibility,

How so?

no matter how many died from purges and the famine he caused, the vast majority were still a result of policies not his direct orders,

Not the "vast majority" at all, and they were policies devised by him and made with the full knowledge that they would result in a horrendous death toll.

then Hitler gets the blood of all the civilians who died on his hands.

Um, why?

Also, my post DOES say ovens, not overns.

Never said it didn't.  A typo on my part.  Now modified.  :wink:

And just because the ovens themselves never provably killed anyone,

I bet they would have given half a chance.  Goddam kitchen appliances; wouldn't hesitate to run amok...

though I would suspect live people were sometimes thrown in with the dead,

Why?

You don't need ovens unless you are killing a [poop] ton of people and don't have room to bury them. WE never had cremation ovens in our camps for Germans and Japanese. The few who did die were buried, and none of them were killed, it was old age, or disease.

Oh please.  It's well known that the Americans (among others) shot German and Japanese POWs out of hand on numerous occasions (in the Pacific almost as a matter of course).  You'll find very few who died of "old age" among them (not including the POWs held by the Soviets, of course. One Japanese soldier they took only made it back home in 1993!).

And yes, a great many of them were dying, making the crematoria necessary. That's because there was a typhus epidemic through the whole of Germany.  Germany was short of food, short of fuel, short of everything and being subjected to vicious Allied terror bombing on a vast scale on top of that around the time the final solution was supposed to have been implemented, the Allied homelands were not.  The Allies were simply far more capable of keeping prisoners alive than the Germans due to their better circumstances.

And again I would point out the figures and personal accounts that attest to the Stalin's megamurders being far more horrendous and on a far greater scale than this one major Nazi trangression.

[Barkclaw2]

I said Hitler. Don't know that much about Joseph Stalin.

[Vengerak]

Then you didn't make an informed decision and tipped the balance needlessly!  *packs Barkclaw off to a Siberian gulag*

[Gen. Volkov]

OK. So I used an excuse. Truth is, I don't have the enthusiasm right now to go toe to toe with someone about WW2. If it were like a real time thing, prolly, but the subject matter is highyl disturbing, the responses take to long, and frankly my time can better be devoted elsewhere. I still say Hitler is the worse guy, and its gonna be rather hard to change my opinion on that. And that's all from me. Sorry Raine.

[Arguia Zsah]

I don't have the enthusiasm even to vote Volkov... enough history at school! lol

[Neobaron]

*grinneth*

Im a History Major with a specialization in European Studies.

Loves my History =-)

Couldnt do much without it.

---

Raine = Correct on all accounts.

And no, Hitler didnt want to attack Britain, they were, in his mind, and due to languace, related ot the Aryans. Silly aint it?

[Gen. Volkov]

Bah. Hitler wanted Britain. Germany and Britain had a long standing feud since WW1 over colonies, and at the treaty of Versailles, Britain demanded that Germany be stripped of all colonies. I loves my history too, not a major, but have friend who is a major and have studied history quite a bit so I can be on an even footing with him. Currently taking a class about the world in the 20th century.

Like I said, not even enough enthusiam left to argue about it, but that is silly and the silliest thing is, Aryans aren't even white. They're Iranians! Or rather Persians, who then then became present day Iranians... unless I'm missing a migration, but I don't think so.

[Vengerak]

Bah. Hitler wanted Britain. Germany and Britain had a long standing feud since WW1 over colonies, and at the treaty of Versailles, Britain demanded that Germany be stripped of all colonies.

Nope.  Hitler saw Britain and Germany working together.  He had a great admiration for our empire.  You're quite right that there had been and continued to be rivalry, but there was no bitter hatred on the Germans' part.

As tot he Iranian thing--that's one usage.  There are many.  The Nazi use of "Aryan" was to do with Rosenberg's  Nordic-Atlantean theories.

[Gen. Volkov]

Rosenberg came AFTER the Persians. The Persians have precedence on what the name means. To them an Aryan was someone who lived in a specific area in the west of Persia. Besides, Rosenberg was an idiot. (I call lots of people who thought up dumb theories, idiots, I sometimes call Freud an idiot.. so yeah)

And Hitler had no intention of wrking together with Britain, he and the Germans HATED them. They hated the French even more, but the british had caused them no end of horrible things in WW1 for which he was determined to get revenge.

[Juska]

Too lazy to read the whole topic, voted Hitler, Stalin had more time to kill who knows what Hilter would have done.

[Gen. Volkov]

LOL. Good point. I hadn't even thought to put that down.

[Vengerak]

Because it's a dumb point.  Stalin had killed well over Hitler's score before the war had even broke out.

[Gen. Volkov]

He was also in power well before Hitler. Hitler didn't even get elected to his postion until 1933 I believe. it wasn't until 1936 that he started doing anything though. Stalin was in power for far longer than that, and for far after Hilter killed himself.

[Juska]

Seeing that Hilter was the cause of WW2 from what I've gather he was responsible for 50 million deaths between 1934 and 1945 so that  4,454,454 deaths per year of his reign.

Stalin on the hand was reponsible for 43,000,000 deaths and seeing he was in power from 1924-1953 that's 1,428,758 deaths per year, obviously Hilter is by far a bigger killer.

Even if we take the military and civilian deaths out of the equation due to WW2, Hilter only killed approx. 11 million people. So that's a 1 million per year, sources are hard to come by and accurate number evens more so.

Take what I said the way you want to.

[Gen. Volkov]

Which I'm sure they will, but were are you getting the figure of 11 million from? 6 million Jews I know, but where are the other 5 million coming from.

And the 50 million killed in WW2 is prolly a bit inaccurate, but I agree Hitler was responsible, unfortunately I already used that line of reasoning and the Stalin supporters didn't like it.