Nazi Germany, overhyped?

originally posted by: audubon
a reply to: LABTECH767

also Hitler mysteriously stopped his general from crushing our army in France which gave them time to evacuate

My reading of that has always been that Hitler was demonstrating magnanimity towards Britain. A sort of "I could have crushed you, but I chose to let you retreat unmolested."

And he definitely could have shredded us, we were sitting ducks.

He was probably still hoping for a peace with Britain, as he had all along. But in this, as in so many other things, it turned out to be a big strategic mistake.

That is one possibility but another is that it was his Ego that drove the decision, even in the NAZI party he had opponent's and other's that wanted to step into his shoe's as the new Fuhrer of the Third Reich and his letting the Generals have there way rather than his maybe made him think he would seem weak to his opponent's.

Whatever the reason was it has been a talking point for over half a century now, certainly the German general's themselves were bewildered by his action's as they were later when he decided he wanted to take the strategically unimportant city of Stalingrad rather than consolidate his hold over the Crimean oil supply's and fortify them.

In fact as the war progressed the Western Allies decided NOT to assassinate him because he kept over ruling his able general's and making tactical mistake's often squandering vast military resources on such fruitless campaigns as Stalingrad, needless to say though the Russian's did want him assassinated and only came around to our way of thinking as late as late 1943 or 1944 but did try to assassinate him prior to this.

There were actual study's made on his psyche by the allies and they came up with some pretty strange but as yet not proven suggestion's about him, one was that he was actually a sexual deviant and it was suggested that he liked woman to pee on his face which sound's like anti Nazi propaganda but in fact it was a genuine projection of his personality that was never used as propaganda and indeed he did have a controlling tendency, his own niece could not escape him and eventually committed suicide OR was bumped off on his orders.

Of course those claim's were never proven but they do make you think, powerful men even today are often deviant's, take all those claim's of child abuse, satanic cults in high places etc And remember that the Nazi's did actually experiment with the occult including human, virgin and child sacrifice which Himmler is said to have performed in occult ceremony's.

And it make's you think how many potential Hitlers are there in the world now, perhaps how many have there always been but it take's a nation to be willing to let there leaders blind them, to take them down any road they choose even if that is to the slaughter house as Hitler did with Germany.

a reply to: crazyewok

Try one about the Gestapo... Nasty, nightmare inducing stuff.

a reply to: crazyewok

Didn't he commit suicide? Cyanide capsule, or some such??

a reply to: Robert Reynolds

Oh? What is the truth, then?? I'll admit to being some curious.

Go ahead, I'll wait.

Nope it was overestimating Germany and fear of them that prevented the UK for swooping in and taking them out when they occupied the Sudetenland when in fact if the UK had done Nazi Germany would have been over by 1937!

Nope. In 1937, Britain and France were hoping Germany would turn east and take out the Soviet bogeyman. They hated Stalin far more than they feared Hitler.

The British Establishment, from the Duke of Windsor down, adored Hitler. There's a great entry in Chips Channon's diary about going to VE Day parties and desperately wanting to punch so many people in the mouth because they had been pro-Nazi before the war.

a reply to: Whodathunkdatcheese

Yep. Quite a few, not just in Britain, were early supporters of the Nazi's. They bought into the, pardon me, hype.

Not necessarily because they were bigots and hated everyone different than them--though there was a lot of that, too--Ford as a prime American example. But because they saw how Germany had been rebuilt, and that they were a bulwark against the "Communist Menace".

That he was actually worse, in his own psychopathic way, didn't enter into many of their wildest dreams--or they didn't care--or they agreed with his idiocy.

a reply to: crazyewok

There's another reason why the Nazis are made out to be this ruthlessly efficient machine: propaganda.

During the war, we needed to dehumanise the Nazis, just like they dehumanised Russians and Jews. Just like many people dehumanise Muslims now. Its makes it easier to hate them and kill them.

After the war, we could not admit that the Nazis were people like us. The SS was mostly made up of farm boys, the same good old boys you can see in smalltown USA today. The metropolitan elites who bankrolled the Nazis are just like today's metropolitan elites, looking for a way to fit in and justify themselves. The men and women who stood by on Kristallnacht, the men and women who made the belt buckles with "God is With Us" engraved on them, the men and women who made sure the trains ran efficiently into the death camps, they were just like us. They could be us tomorrow.

Rather than confront this, we pretend the Nazis were cold, mechanical, evil.

originally posted by: nwtrucker

originally posted by: AugustusMasonicus

originally posted by: nwtrucker
I believe that British aircraft carriers would be an asset, of course. Turn the tide? Only if the tide was ready to be turned. If the current Chinese know where the U.S. carriers are, and they do, those carriers are at far more risk than the intended targets inland. JMO, though.

The tide was already turned after the Battle of Britain, Germany could not keep up production of aircraft to match the British.

I doubt that the tide was turned until the arrival of the Rolls-Royce powered P-51Ds and escorted the bombers all the way to Germany. That is what cut German production, not the Battle of Britain, per say.

Churchill said the tide turned at Stalingrad, but what does he know.

a reply to: seagull

Indeed.

You have only to look at the Texas Oil Corporation, now known as Texaco. In 1937, they gave Franco's rebels - and the Luftwaffe Condor Legion - unlimited credit so they could crush the democratically elected left-leaning Spanish republic.

originally posted by: seagull
a reply to: Raggedyman

Irrelevant?

Umm... Wow, not even sure what to say to that...

So, their roll in stopping the U-boats in the Atlantic is irrelevant. The roll they played in keeping Malta in the fight was irrelevant? The roll they played in protecting the African landings is irrelevant?

Dude. Really.

Dude what?
Germany kept their navy out of the Atlantic because the Royal Navy was so strong
The Nazis couldn't produce a navy to rival the Brits so they didn't even try to

The carriers are irrelevant to the discussion of the Nazis being overhyped, they didn't need carriers to be formidable, their u boats were enough when they entered the war to cause serious concern

originally posted by: AugustusMasonicus

originally posted by: nwtrucker
Interesting. Earlier works attributed the decision to Goering, himself.

I'll see if I can locate the footnote in the book, it may take me some time as it's 1,600 pages long.

Oh, I don't doubt you in the least. I am somewhat torn between 'recently released information' and the recent trend towards revisionism. Especially, when it's the victors...

originally posted by: seagull
a reply to: crazyewok

The US built over 100, I want to say around 130 but I'm probably misremembering, carriers of all sorts. The big Essex class carriers get all the glory and press, but the little jeep carriers did the dirty work. Arguably, the most glorious moment of the Pacific war involved a flotilla of jeep (escort) carriers and their destroyer/destroyer escort consorts off Samar in the Philippines.

Actually, I had to look it up, it was bugging me that I couldn't remember...

It was 158 carriers of all Classes during the second world war. 24 Essex class (CV), 9 Independence class (CVL)-built on light cruiser hulls, and the rest were Escort Carriers of various classes, and training carriers (3, I think). Plus the seven pre-war carriers (Lexington*, Saratoga, Ranger, Yorktown*, Enterprise, Hornet*, and Wasp*--* denotes lost in battle. The first escort carrier Long Island also survived the war. The US navy's first aircraft carrier Langley had been relegated to aircraft ferry duty just prior to the start of the Pacific conflict, and was later sunk by Japanese bomber in the Java Sea. Only the Ranger never served in the Pacific, it was in the Atlantic for the duration.

Sorry, I get going and it's hard to stop...

Good information to have.

originally posted by: ufoorbhunter

originally posted by: nwtrucker


You have been starved of provisions and materiel...without being invaded! The UK would sued for terms.

Deal with it.

Yeah but it didn't happen that way did it? Great Britain was in control of the greatest Empire the world has ever seen with all of its amazing resources both in man power and raw materials. We were never going to lose against what was a modern invention 'Germany.'

Please remember this thing we know today and even bak in the 1940's was a brand new invention. Germany was a new thing. It never existed before just 70 years ago pre WW2. It never has the history that we had in being a national group. Germany was a modern invention and was a loose collection a similar linguistic central and eastern European states that were forced to submit to a brand new central state with a capital, Berlin, that was virtually non existant a few hundred years before. Germany meant nothing until only recently, it was hot air and the creation of alcoholics and taken to almost total destruction by a group of amphetamine sulphate addicts and what you see today of Germany is the result of both these groups actions. It was back then and is today really nothing on the world stage but a menace and a pest to the rest of humanity and that is why the Germans are condemned to a sort of nothingness in the polics of planet Earth to this day.

Nazi Germany................ Totally overhyped for sure

Absolutely. My point was it was close. My response was to someone who believes it wasn't.

originally posted by: seagull
a reply to: nwtrucker

They built 158 of 'em, in all classes. From big Essex class, down to training carriers on the Great Lakes. Every ship yard of any size was building ships.

Those are impressive numbers. Frankly, I had no idea the volume of them. I would have thought, especially with German bombing, that British construction would be far more limited, to say the least. That was the point of my original query of 60 carriers.

Again my recollection is limited of British carrier actions. I actually spent more time researching the stories of German surface raiders, such as the Admiral Scheer,a pocket Battleship, that tied up the South Atlantic AND Indian Ocean British squadrons for most of the war.

Vastly outnumbered and outgunned the German surface navy- I'd have to say their U-boat crews, as well- were not lacking in courage and innovation, themselves.

a reply to: Raggedyman

Actually they tried on multiple occasions to get their fleet, such as it was, into the Atlantic. Fleet units, surface raiders, and of course submarines.

That they failed to make an appreciable impact outside of the aforementioned submarines and maritime attack aircraft such as the FW-200 Condor is quite beside the point. They attempted and it cost them virtually everything they tried with.

They most certainly did try to form a navy to rival, in some ways, the Royal Navy. Not to the extent of fighting another Jutland, but a fleet in being, to quote Mahan, that had to be taken seriously by the Royal Navy. Given the resources that were tied up by Home Fleet, they succeeded admirably.

Too bad the execution sucked. Graf Spee, Bismark, Tirpitz, Scharnhorst, Geisnanau (sp?), and many other surface combatants, including the never finished Graf Zeppelin, all were either sunk, or rendered useless.

The fact that they didn't have an aircraft carrier ever in commission isn't because they didn't need one, their gloriously deluded leader didn't see the need. More idiot, he.

originally posted by: Whodathunkdatcheese

originally posted by: nwtrucker

originally posted by: AugustusMasonicus

originally posted by: nwtrucker
I believe that British aircraft carriers would be an asset, of course. Turn the tide? Only if the tide was ready to be turned. If the current Chinese know where the U.S. carriers are, and they do, those carriers are at far more risk than the intended targets inland. JMO, though.

The tide was already turned after the Battle of Britain, Germany could not keep up production of aircraft to match the British.

I doubt that the tide was turned until the arrival of the Rolls-Royce powered P-51Ds and escorted the bombers all the way to Germany. That is what cut German production, not the Battle of Britain, per say.

Churchill said the tide turned at Stalingrad, but what does he know.

I was thinking more of the west. Stalingrad, in the east. A no-brainer. Besides, this was post war books on the subject. I'm sure Churchill wasn't about to broadly announce the advantages he held in his backyard.

a reply to: nwtrucker

As regards the British building them in Britain, you've got to take into account that most of Great Britain was out of reach of all but a few bombers in the German inventory. The Germans quite simply couldn't reach 'em...but the British could and did, reach them, with large 4 engined bombers, along with the later arriving US 4 engined Liberators and Flying Fortresses.

The Consolidated Liberator based out of Canada, and Iceland and the Azores under both British and American command helped close the Mid-atlantic gap, until the escort carriers came into play in sufficient quantity to form hunter-killer groups, and escort convoys.

It was the Carrier, especially the escort carrier, that really spelled the doom of the U-boat. That, and the strategic bombing of ship yards and subpens.

a reply to: Whodathunkdatcheese


That, sir, is a bit beyond a 'stretch'. Some valid analogy, but overall no nation has committed more sins-close seconds by Stalin and Mao
- than those good old farm-boys.

a reply to: Whodathunkdatcheese

Yes, it turned. But there were still two years of fighting, hard fighting, left.

Just as Midway was considered the turning point of the war in the Pacific, but the bloodiest fighting of the war remained ahead.

originally posted by: seagull
a reply to: nwtrucker

As regards the British building them in Britain, you've got to take into account that most of Great Britain was out of reach of all but a few bombers in the German inventory. The Germans quite simply couldn't reach 'em...but the British could and did, reach them, with large 4 engined bombers, along with the later arriving US 4 engined Liberators and Flying Fortresses.

The Consolidated Liberator based out of Canada, and Iceland and the Azores under both British and American command helped close the Mid-atlantic gap, until the escort carriers came into play in sufficient quantity to form hunter-killer groups, and escort convoys.

It was the Carrier, especially the escort carrier, that really spelled the doom of the U-boat. That, and the strategic bombing of ship yards and subpens.

So sonar wasn't the biggest reason for defeating the 'wolf-pack'? I assume they'd catch the U-boats on the surface, then?

This is intriguing.

My 'excuse' is I spent much time in our school libraries as a kid. They were full of recent publications of German exploits. I'm just guessing here, but there seemed to be more 'factual' information in print, in the day, of enemy actions than our own. I suspect, our of many own efforts were still classified due to the cold war(?).

In any event, thanks for this. It expands my understanding and is appreciated...

I, for example, am quite surprised by that lack of information is out there of the Guderian and Rommel actions with their 'ghost divisions' befuddling the French. It was quite common in the sixties. Guderian seemed to be the strategic innovator and Rommel more the tactical. I have seem nothing on Guderian since then.