Germany's Awesome Power.

yea they are awesome.... i heard that their SF are great 2

Originally posted by russiankid

Originally posted by tomcat ha
Russia may could have won WW2 without the US but it would have been allot harder

nobody needed the U.S they only send weapons and food.... Russia didnt need that the were braking through cities...

We sent $11 billion in aid to Russia during WWII. Eventually Russia did get on its feet but that $11 billion was absolutely decisive for the early days of Russia's involvement. Let's not try to lower anybody's contribution to WWII. Americans, British, French, Poles, Russians, Chinese, Australians, Canadians, and many many more fought their a**es off to remain free. It's silly to say "oh we didn't need these people or these people".

What i also hate is how much US's role in the pacific was considered the only winning factor. GB did lots more than just fight a bit in new-guinea. They were the ones which really halted the japanese advance into india an made them turn around.

Any educated person knows that Great Britian did a lot in the East too. The fact is, however, that America still did a lot of fighting too. Again, any educated person knows that. Japan's first major defeat after 1939 was at Milne Bay, was handed to them by mostly Australian troops, with American help. In WWII you have to remember, no matter the difference in numbers or whatever, we all fought hard as hell. We are now off-topic however. We should restrict our conversation to Germany.

Originally posted by periwinkle blue
"Interested readers should acquire and peruse "The Arms of Krupp".... a huge non-fiction effort documenting the history of germanic arms from the 13th Century for a fuller picture.

I actually have this book, and highly recommend it.

Krupp sold munitions to England during WW1, and was actually paid a royalty for every round fired (interpretation: for every German killed) by the English companies he had ties with during the time.

The dynasty of the Krupps, from supplying bayonets to the Prussians, to building railroad tracks for the Americans; to the production of "Big Bertha", and the supply of arms to the Chinese (Boxer Rebellion), the English, French, the Russians, and his own German government, is something that every fan of militaria should read.

You really get an in depth view of how business works, how they influence politics, and that there are no boundaries to profit, even during a war that your own country is involved in.

wonder what some of you are thinking??
All this stuff about who invented what is basically true..but this in itself does not make for a great nation..on the world stage.

Suggest some of you start with a small book titled "The Empire of the City " by E.C. Knuth. That is if you can even find a copy. This book lays out the five doctrines or ideologies of world power and competition since about the year 1900.

1. Angle Saxon superiority and rule of the world.
2. Pan Americanism
3. Pan Slavism
4. Pan Asia or Asia for the Asiatics
5 Pan Germanism.

All of these groups have gone by the wayside except #1. PanAmericanism went down the tubes about 1898/99 when America secretly joined ideology #1 to become a junior partner. This was obvious by the time of the boxer rebellion in China and the Spanish American war when we clearly operated outside of the long standing Monroe doctrine. By this time America secretly gave up the Monroe Doctrine without the knowlege of the American people and without the knowlege of most of the Congress.
Pan Slavism..died after WW1 with the demise of the Czar...and the communists tried in vain to bring it back in communist form...but it too died obviously by the 1990s.
Pan Germanism...in spite of all the inventive genius of the Germans...died after WW1 and again after WW2 when Germany fell under the authority of the victors.
Pan Asia was decided after the Japanese determined to go it alone and become a world power after being industrialized by western nations to be the police force for western investments in the Orient. Part of this policing investment was western technology transfers enough for them to build a large land army and a navy including aircraft carrier/submarine technology in a time when most of the world had none of this and still dont today. Japan like Germany ..learned that the secret agreement between England and America meant that England would get the Lions share of the goodies and the rest of the world would do with the leftovers off the table. They decided to go it alone ..along with Italy by the time of the 1930s.
These are basically the causes that triggered WW1 and later WW2. It was competition for rescources that allowed industrialization and eventually markets/trade routes for goods and services. This is basically what the German "Lebensraum " was about "the living room". The ability of Germany to engage in markets world wide to ship and tranship her goods. For the Japanese too.
This is what determines empires. The ability to ship and tranship goods and services..on ones own nations terms ..not someone elses.
The Japanese , Germans, Italians , even the Communists have never been able to overcome the combined power of the Anglo/American combine in holding the control over world shipping routes and resources.
This struggle is not over yet. New players are coming on the scene. Oil and water resources are going to be a huge factor in the coming years. Oil for obvious reasons to support industrialization and simple food production. Water too for obvious reasons. Potable water.
Simply put ..if the food producing nations cannot get oil to their farmers...you are going to see starvation/die off of many nations including in the Orient. Most peoples do not have any idea how much food is shipped to the Orient and Africa from the major food producing nations.
In our ignorance we often tend to think of weapons and politics around theses weapons as having power. Food too is a weapon of diplomacy and politic. It will be a major weapon in the future.
Germany is not self sufficient in food or energy resources. Nor is most of Europe. You guys need to think this through. Energy resources are directly related to food production.
Germany and France were trying to secure independent energy resources in Iraq by trade agreements with Saddam. The US and England hijacked these agreements out from under these nations. This is why they are quietly angry with us but can do little about it.
The oil resources in Iraq are obviously being kept off the market so as not to influence prices..not by the militants...but by the western powers in control of it. If they wanted this oil on the market nothing would stop them ...period. What they want is like Vietnam and its oil...the nation in storage mode and others not getting access to the oil. Yes they discovered oil in Vietnam on and off shore. A war is the perfect tool to keep competitors out and the oil not flowing. If the oil was flowing prices at the pump would reflect this quickly just as it does when the oil gets cut off.
The Islamic nations are getting savy to this weakness of the West and backing the one ideology they have going for them...Religion. In almost everything else they are dependent on western technology. This struggle is now continuing with the muslim nations looking for a platform on the world stage..and other industrialized nations playing the muslims for advantage. New and strange partnerships are being formed before the real shooting starts. It hasnt started yet.
The Muslims too have a plan for expanding thier empire in continuation of the movements that swept Europe in the middle ages. If you look at Europe and England ...and their population make ups it becomes obvious. Think about this closely when you brag about military/industrial power. The native populations of Europe are becoming stagnant/inert...think about it.

There is more going on on the world scene than some of you are posting on this site. It is not all about weapons or technology per se as some of you seem wont to think.
Sorry for the long post but I felt it important to mention some of these facets.

Thanks,
Orangetom

The western world on its turn is all based on discoveries made in islamic countries long ago.

... Germany is strong cuz its in Europe... and because they are advanced

your post while somewhat true about islamic contributions doesnt mean much in the larger scope of things.

The facts are that for all this Islamic greatness and contributions the muslim nations did not do much themselves with thieir "discoverys".

You need to think this one through more thoroughly.

For all thier greatness the muslims must go outside their nations for sustainance in technology and knowhow to get things done. They are not in this technology oriented world very selfsustaining. The only area in which most of them seem to be selfsustaining is in islamic doctrine. For thier own oil buisness they must go to outsiders to maintain.

Thanks,
Orangetom

Germany going back to before the first world war industrialized with the aid of numerous buisnesses the most prominant that comes to mind is the buisness called Krupp. Krupp is still there but diversified into other areas such as heavy equipment construction .cranes and such. Same thing with Mitsubishi today ..the same Mitsubishi that produces automobiles and trucks is the same that produced airplanes and other materials of war during WW2.
To feed its industries Germany began to scour the world looking for raw materals. The problems that Germany found under the Kaisers is that most of the raw materials and trade routes to bring these materials home were under British control. The "Crown" or the world trading monopoly in London had the world pretty much locked up. (By the Crown I dont mean the Royals but the London Merchants surrounded by the Bank of England and the insurance company Lloyds of London which insures much of world shipping.) Much of the Orient was under British control by way of the famous Dutch East India Company which was known in history for opium trading to China. The Germans in WW1 tried to break out of the British monopoly on the sea lanes by building a railroad from Berlin to Bagdad and acquire trade overland. This railroad was known as the Orient Express.
The Germans lost WW1 and again WW2 with the help of the Americans. Both wars were a continuation of one war and failed policies of the last war.
Dont stress ...you can take this back to the early parts of the 1800s and Napolean Bonaparte in his bid against the British monopoly in world trade routes until his defeat. The Germans just came along later in their bid. After the French were defeated the French for a time became the boot lackeys for the British and doing the bidding of London all over the world but whenever the take was split up ...London got where the people and the stuff was and the French got the little outposts and coaling stations that were miles from no where. You can find this over and over in history ..the British keep the Lions share.
By WW1 the French and British together were not strong enough to take on the Hun. They needed new cannon fodder to help them out. The French had lost so many in the fight in Verdun and on the Marne it became impossible for the French to continue. The French army went on strike under General Petan. The British could never even to this day muster enough manpower. Late in this war it fell to the United States to do the bidding of London and bail out the war effort . We have been doing this over and over at the beck and call of the Merchant class at great cost to ourselves to this very day.
Only America and Americans can be so dumb that they sacrafice thousands and thousands of lives ..tons and tons of materials and goodies and dont bring home any spoils of war. No Goodies...to the victors go the spoils.....or do they. Or are we really fighting these wars for someone else???
Dont worry Russian kid...it is to deep a series of questions for the average school/sports/television/movie indoctrinated person. It will continue to be so ...for a long time. This is not a new phenomonon.
Germany and much of Europe is going to have a huge muslim problem if they dont get a handle on it. The native populations are stagnating and the muslims are outbreeding them and moving in to change government policys. I have relatives in Germany and hear these murmerings often. England will find itself in the same boat soon enough.
The muslims will not have to invade Europe as they did in the late 600s to early 700s AD before they were stopped at the battle of Tours in France by Charles Martel. They will simply imigrate and overpopulate a stagnating local population and replace them.
Germany and Europe will have far bigger problems in the future than you might think.

Thanks,
Orangetom

Originally posted by orangetom1999
All this stuff about who invented what is basically true..but this in itself does not make for a great nation..on the world stage.

Orangetom,

All your points are valid, and I doubt that anyone interested in the history of international relationships would say otherwise. I usually speak against people that equal military strength with power, too. But as this thread is in the weaponry forum, it is confined to the mere spaces of technology, engineering and capability.

Without a doubt the things that were truly decisive about the worlds wars go way beyond the question of who did what to win the war or exactly how moronic Hitler was. To name all the reasons and influences that caused the rise and downfall of of the pan-germanic (or all others we have seen so far) superpower is as impossible as it is to count the edges in a fractal image. But such a discussion wouldnt fit in this rather light-hearted part of the board

BTW I only mentioned the real inventor of the lightbulb because this bugged me ever since. Not particularly because it was a german nor to create a halo of greatness because "WE CREATED T3H SUPER i337 LIGHTBULB LoL"




[edit on 30-6-2005 by Lonestar24]

[edit on 30-6-2005 by Lonestar24]

Thanks for your post,

I am happy to see that someone else understands the concept tht military strength does not necessarily mean power. It also requires good solid leadership. Something often lacking in many nations by the records of history.
Military power is dependent on civilian buisnesses not the other way around as the Soviets have learned.
This, however , leads to alot of complicated buisness arrangements through which the success or failure of the history of nations is written. This is the cause of the bulk of wars through out history. I probably should have stated so in this shorter format and saved alot of space.
As to the lighthearted nature of this board..yes I agree. It is so with alot of the postings here. There do however seem to be a more noticable number who brouse these rooms who have actually been out here taking risks in their daily or past occupations who know the price to be paid for not taking a thing seriously. Not that these people dont enjoy lightheartedness or levity..they just know or have experienced the difference.... they are familiar with this difference in intimate terms.
This is obvious to me in some of the postings in these rooms.

I am in the shipbuilding industry. Building Aircraft Carriers and Submarines. It is a very serious buisness at times...no lightweights will make it for long. You have to know when to get serious and suck it up and get going. Not that I dont enjoy levity and lightheartedness but when I do certain work around my speciality ..I require eveyone around me to be on the same page and line. That is just the way it is.
By the way..this makes me curious about the other controlled areas of the boards which are not so lighthearted.

Thanks for your post,
Orangetom

Ok, I see this thread has taken a different turn but then again that's ok since we still hold on to the idea of militarism and Europe. The point made about the Muslims invaded Europe is a valid point. Britian has many problems now with Islamic communities and other indian communities. Nowadays you cannot restrict immigration without being called racist.

Anyway back to Germany, I don't think any other country in the World has faced the forces Germany has and the amount of countries in both of these wars. And the fact is that GERMANY NEARLY WON! In w1 after the defeated russia due to desertians and the revolution, Germany was able to grasp 30 percent of the Russian population, 50 percent of it's steel and coal and 30 percent of it's production!

Germany was now in a very strong position since they could focus on one front, western front, and have a good base of resources. But, and this is one thing the Americans did to win the war, the USA came into the war as Russia fell out and and sending of 250 000 USA troops per week sealed the fate of Germany. IF the USA didn't intervene then Germany would have won. The last offensive made by Germany was only halted by the arrival of reinforcement USA troops.

However Americans don't get too cocky since the USA kept out of the war while the Europeans crumbled, Britain at the time before the war was Europe's biggest economy in terms of trade. Britian was America's biggest economic contender and the USA kept out of both conflicts to secure their interests and eliminate economic competition. In ww1 and ww2 the USA only converted a fraction of their production to wartime production and managed to come out of ww2 the most powerful nation one earth.

The US came late into the war when there were a lot of German casualties? 1941 is late? When exactly do you think the war took place? Before 1941, ever hear of Lend/Lease? We were sending fighters and tanks to both the Soviets and British until their industry could replace the ones they lost. How do you figure building 100,000 planes in four years is a small portion of our industry? That's planes alone now, not counting the dozens of aircraft carriers and other ships that were built in that same time frame. I don't deny that Germany did wonders getting rebuilt after both WWI and WWII but let's not rewrite history. The US didn't win the war alone, but we made a HUGE contribution to winning it. Nobody else couild keep the convoys running across the Atlantic to get supplies to England so they could keep fighting, or had the industry to build the strongest army in the world in a few short years, from a standing start.

Your missing a point here...

Do you think the USA was doing a good deed building all those planes, tanks and sending supplies...while other countries crumbled?

Do you think they didn't want to take part in this and they were showing an interest in stopping Hitler?

Do you think that they didn't only convert a fraction of there industry?

The USA was getting stronger as the war went along. They sold tanks, planes and supplies not give them out for free. They made billions and trillions off the war. They made money of others misfortunes. The USA was supplying every major nation in the war, even some GERMAN ARMS WERE MADE IN THE USA!!! AND SENIOR GEORGE BUSHES DAD LAUNDERED MONEY FOR THE NAZI"S ALONG WITH MANY OTHER AMERICAN BUSINESSMEN!

The USA ddin;t care about helping the nations with their own men. They only got involved since they got attacked by Japan. IF they didn't they would of kept on selling arms and supplies to the allies getting richer as they went until the allies won.

Yes the USA played a role but the only role they played that really counted was in terms of supplies and exploiting the situation. Hitler would of lost anyway if the USA ddin;t make the d-day landings. Russia was already advancing into German territories before the landings and German desertions were on the rise. Stalin only called for another front so he didn;t have to do all the work by himslef. And the priduce a stalemate between communism and the democracies once they reached Germany.

The USA only converted around 30 percent of their industry to war. And this has been proven in economic records! So this is fact|!

All of this is fact so don't try and bs you way out of this one.

Ok, whatever. You're right. The US is a greedy, arrogant country that didn't contribute anything to WWI and WWII. I'm not going to bother arguing with you about it.

The pissing contest of 'who did what in ww2' is usually a reaction to what American's are taught, that they fought Germany and Japan single handed, defeated them and then rebuilt the country. This isnt true of course. Nobody should deny the US role in WW2, but certainly not at the expense of denying the role of others.

The Allies on the western front faced 50 or so divisions (54 i think it was), The Russians faced over 220 divisions on the Eastern front.

Anyways I just think we should really just give up on what nation did what and concentrate on what the individuals in world war 2 did, because it is there we truly see the heroism of soldiers regardless of what side or nationality they were.

I also think mentioning the fact that today many Republicans in the US think democrats can't fight wars and they're weak, but they are obviously avoiding the fact that mr new deal himself FDR was a democrat (yes that evil socialist!
) and he rose to the challenge of fighting the war. Just goes to show that great men can come from both sides of the aisle and not just be restricted to conservative strongmen

thanks,
drfunk


[edit on 30-6-2005 by drfunk]

I was never taught that we fought the war single handedly, or that we saved Europes butt. But I was taught that we contributed a lot more than people are saying we did to the war effort. Especially in the Pacific. I know there were a lot of countries that contributed a lot, and bled a lot before we came into the effort, but that doesn't mean that we're greedy, arrogant, and didn't contribute crap except bodies.

The USA didn't enter into ANGLOSAXON rescue missions each time without extracting more and more of those decaying empires . As the 20 century progress it was becoming apparent that neither of those two countries could support their colonies and they were becoming more of a burden anyway.

In many ways Germany -in both wars - was only establishing the kind of imperial networks that the UK/France had already established. If it was good enough for them, it was good enough for Germany. Besides every one in western Europe before the war, hoped Germany would be able to stop Soviet expansionism...which is why they allowed limited german rearmament and establishment of an eastern european 'empire'.

What saved the UK in WW-II ,was the English Channel and one A Hitler. He was stupid enough to believe that he could cut a deal with the brits when the time came and thus neglect the KM....it was almost as stupid as Chamberlines belief that germans economy was about to collapse and if Germany continued rearmament at the pace they were doing, it would. It was only when it was spelled out to him that this was not going to happen, the british and french decided to start WW-II before things got any worse.

Infact Hitler was his own worse enemy. Since he was unable to settle on one coherent strategy [limited war vs european war vs global war], the german economy/industry just sat back and waited for him to make up his mind. Hitler believed he could 'limit war', when many believed that was impossible as was the case in WW-I. When he finally did imbrace the realisation that war meant global war, Germany was years behind there build up to 'total war economy' , while the french and brits where just hitting their stride.

Had he realised this strategy in 1935 ,when he established the 4 year plan in preperation for the war, then germany would have started WW-II with a Navy > 1/3 of the RN and strategic bomber force to wipe out the UK along with a synthetic fuel industry and weapons industrial out put [@ 1943/44 levels] enough to over run europe and Russia, before the USA could 'come to the rescue'.

USA was there to bail out the UK but that was done on their terms. It might seem absurd to think that hundreds of thousands of americans died bailing out the merchant class but
(A) millions of Europeans died fighting that monster [I guess their lives count for not] until the USA got there ...
(B) US wealth depended on strong markets abroad that they could control...thats why the 'Marshall Plan' was best move they made, since for a few dollars more, they were save their own asses by making sure western Europe was the front line agains communist expansion and they didn't fall to communism too. Imagin how much tougher the Soviets would have been with WEuropean technology and economic wealth to expend on the cold war.

Its not an accident that the USA ended WW-II owning 1/2 the worlds wealth. That gave them the ultimate weapon 'economic strength'.

Rant mode off...

Wodan...The U.S. was not involved at the end of WW2. Are you joking me?

1939 - 1945 = WW2 (some would argue a few years earlier, as well)

1941 - 1945 = U.S. involvement. Led: A) The most legendary invasion ever to liberate a country. B) Helped liberate over 5 countries. C) Helped save Britain from Germany during early involvement.

How is that "at the end" of the war? You are sadly mistaken, my friend.

-wD