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Post by TheGoodMan19 on Dec 6, 2021 21:52:17 GMT
He made many but what was his biggest. I'm not including The Invasion of Poland or the Invasion of the Soviet Union. That was Hitler's whole Raison d'Etre. To me, it was undoubtedly the declaration of war on he US on December 11th, 1941. He didn't need to, the Tripartite Pact didn't force him to go to war with America after Pearl Harbor. The Japanese didn't go to was with the USSR. Was war with the US inevitable after December, 1941, probably. But not for a while. FDR broached the idea of declaring was on Germany and Italy on December 8th but was talked out of it. To paraphrase John Blutarsky, the Germans didn't bomb Pearl Harbor. Had the US just been at war in the Pacific, it would have been very difficult to justify arms shipments to Great Britain and the USSR. Hitler believed that the US was at war in all but "boots on the ground" by then. And he truly thought the Germany would knock the Soviets out by the time the US could make a contribution anyway. Dumb, dumb, dumb
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Post by truecristian on Dec 6, 2021 22:38:09 GMT
I am not a professional historian, but I *am* a professional academic. I know how professional academic research and publishing works. People study for years and years and years before they get a Ph.D. and enter the realm of professional scholarship. So, they have lots of research experience with archives and other sources long before they become a professional.
As a professional, they have more time than any amateur to examine all the available evidence to determine what did or did not happen in the past. It's their *job* to do research and to come up with new books and articles with new theories and information about the past. Because of the need to publish in order to keep their jobs, they have to find new things to say all the time, or publishers (and their peers) won't even look at their work.
If Suvorov's theories had the slightest basis in reality, do you think that young historians would pass up the chance to jump on his bandwagon and publish books and articles about his new information? Why don't they? I can tell you. Because you can't just publish anything. You have to have some meager evidence to pass muster in the professional realm.
Professional historians are in a field that is rife with conflict and disagreement. I've never known a History Department at any college or university that didn't have serious rifts among the members of the department over ideological and theoretical issues. Imagine how much disagreement and conflict there is, then, in the profession as a whole (if each individual institution in the profession is itself full of conflict and disagreement).
So, when professional historians *agree* unanimously that something is beneath contempt (as they've agreed about Suvorov's work), you can bet that there's absolutely nothing to it -- that it's on a par with books that claim Bormann is alive in the South Pacific or with tabloids that claim 500-lb. alien babies are being born in Idaho.
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Post by politicidal on Dec 6, 2021 23:48:00 GMT
I am not a professional historian, but I *am* a professional academic. I know how professional academic research and publishing works. People study for years and years and years before they get a Ph.D. and enter the realm of professional scholarship. So, they have lots of research experience with archives and other sources long before they become a professional. As a professional, they have more time than any amateur to examine all the available evidence to determine what did or did not happen in the past. It's their *job* to do research and to come up with new books and articles with new theories and information about the past. Because of the need to publish in order to keep their jobs, they have to find new things to say all the time, or publishers (and their peers) won't even look at their work. If Suvorov's theories had the slightest basis in reality, do you think that young historians would pass up the chance to jump on his bandwagon and publish books and articles about his new information? Why don't they? I can tell you. Because you can't just publish anything. You have to have some meager evidence to pass muster in the professional realm.
Professional historians are in a field that is rife with conflict and disagreement. I've never known a History Department at any college or university that didn't have serious rifts among the members of the department over ideological and theoretical issues. Imagine how much disagreement and conflict there is, then, in the profession as a whole (if each individual institution in the profession is itself full of conflict and disagreement).
So, when professional historians *agree* unanimously that something is beneath contempt (as they've agreed about Suvorov's work), you can bet that there's absolutely nothing to it -- that it's on a par with books that claim Bormann is alive in the South Pacific or with tabloids that claim 500-lb. alien babies are being born in Idaho.K.
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Post by yougotastewgoinbaby on Dec 7, 2021 6:41:56 GMT
Invading the USSR may have been his raison d'etre, but the timing of his invasion could be considered a blunder. Germany should have waited until they've either conquered Britain (not a sure thing, obviously), or just completely neutralized it before Operation Barbarossa. Opening a second front doomed them, especially once the Red Army got going.
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Post by TheGoodMan19 on Dec 7, 2021 8:33:18 GMT
Invading the USSR may have been his raison d'etre, but the timing of his invasion could be considered a blunder. Germany should have waited until they've either conquered Britain (not a sure thing, obviously), or just completely neutralized it before Operation Barbarossa. Opening a second front doomed them, especially once the Red Army got going. I was going to add the failure to carry out Operation Sea Lion and knock the British out of the war but I thought of it too late. I’m not sure if Hitler ever could have invaded Britain, given the weakness of the Kriegsmarine. Phillip II couldn’t, Louis XIV couldn’t, Bonaparte couldn’t. I doubt Hitler could have. His only hope was to get the British to come to peace and The Blitz ended that
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Post by Winter_King on Dec 7, 2021 9:23:36 GMT
Invading the USSR may have been his raison d'etre, but the timing of his invasion could be considered a blunder. Germany should have waited until they've either conquered Britain (not a sure thing, obviously), or just completely neutralized it before Operation Barbarossa. Opening a second front doomed them, especially once the Red Army got going. I was going to add the failure to carry out Operation Sea Lion and knock the British out of the war but I thought of it too late. I’m not sure if Hitler ever could have invaded Britain, given the weakness of the Kriegsmarine. Phillip II couldn’t, Louis XIV couldn’t, Bonaparte couldn’t. I doubt Hitler could have. His only hope was to get the British to come to peace and The Blitz ended that German economy was in dire need of oil in order to carry the war effort and part of the reason for the push for Stalingrad was to gain access to oil fields in Caucasus. Hitler should've dropped the plan to invade Britain, very unlikely given the power disparity between the Royal Navy and Kriegsmarine and focus on the Mediterranean and Africa. Gain access to those oil fields in the Middle East first. While the Regia Marina was no match for the Royal Navy, it was better than what the Germans had. Take Malta and the British would have some logistical difficulties. Conquer Egypt and shut the strait of Suez and then the British are in real trouble. And if Hitler convinced to Spain to join, take Gibraltar and the British are done in the Mediterranean. Of course this would mean postponing the invasion of the Soviet Union.
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Post by TheGoodMan19 on Dec 7, 2021 10:51:24 GMT
I was going to add the failure to carry out Operation Sea Lion and knock the British out of the war but I thought of it too late. I’m not sure if Hitler ever could have invaded Britain, given the weakness of the Kriegsmarine. Phillip II couldn’t, Louis XIV couldn’t, Bonaparte couldn’t. I doubt Hitler could have. His only hope was to get the British to come to peace and The Blitz ended that German economy was in dire need of oil in order to carry the war effort and part of the reason for the push for Stalingrad was to gain access to oil fields in Caucasus. Hitler should've dropped the plan to invade Britain, very unlikely given the power disparity between the Royal Navy and Kriegsmarine and focus on the Mediterranean and Africa. Gain access to those oil fields in the Middle East first. While the Regia Marina was no match for the Royal Navy, it was better than what the Germans had. Take Malta and the British would have some logistical difficulties. Conquer Egypt and shut the strait of Suez and then the British are in real trouble. And if Hitler convinced to Spain to join, take Gibraltar and the British are done in the Mediterranean. Of course this would mean postponing the invasion of the Soviet Union. Postponing Barbarossa was a blunder. The Red Army was in shambles after the Purges as evidenced by the Winter War. Every month helped the Red Army get back into shape. Had Hitler invaded in 1940 or even in early 1941 (the conquest of Yugoslavia and Greece cost much needed time) , the Wehrmacht might have taken Moscow and Leningrad before the snow began.
Hitler did err in not building up the Kreigsmarine, especially the surface fleet. And he never deployed it properly. The Bismarck and Tirpitz were a match for any two Royal Navy battleships. Had he built a couple more or the planned H-class ships, kept them together with Graf Spee, Scharnhorst, and Gneisenau, and built the Graf Zeppelin carrier, all that, with the Luftwaffe and the U-Boats, the Regia Marina and it eh could have pried the French fleet from Vichy, that might have given him control of the channel for enough time to launch Sea Lion. He wasted Graf Spee and Bismarck as commerce raiders
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Post by Winter_King on Dec 7, 2021 10:57:06 GMT
German economy was in dire need of oil in order to carry the war effort and part of the reason for the push for Stalingrad was to gain access to oil fields in Caucasus. Hitler should've dropped the plan to invade Britain, very unlikely given the power disparity between the Royal Navy and Kriegsmarine and focus on the Mediterranean and Africa. Gain access to those oil fields in the Middle East first. While the Regia Marina was no match for the Royal Navy, it was better than what the Germans had. Take Malta and the British would have some logistical difficulties. Conquer Egypt and shut the strait of Suez and then the British are in real trouble. And if Hitler convinced to Spain to join, take Gibraltar and the British are done in the Mediterranean. Of course this would mean postponing the invasion of the Soviet Union. Postponing Barbarossa was a blunder. The Red Army was in shambles after the Purges as evidenced by the Winter War. Every month helped the Red Army get back into shape. Had Hitler invaded in 1940 or even in early 1941 (the conquest of Yugoslavia and Greece cost much needed time) , the Wehrmacht might have taken Moscow and Leningrad before the snow began.
Hitler did err in not building up the Kreigsmarine, especially the surface fleet. And he never deployed it properly. The Bismarck and Tirpitz were a match for any two Royal Navy battleships. Had he built a couple more or the planned H-class ships, kept them together with Graf Spee, Scharnhorst, and Gneisenau, and built the Graf Zeppelin carrier, all that, with the Luftwaffe and the U-Boats, the Regia Marina and it eh could have pried the French fleet from Vichy, that might have given him control of the channel for enough time to launch Sea Lion. He wasted Graf Spee and Bismarck as commerce raiders
Hitler was busy with France in May/June 1940 so I don't think that attacking Russia in that year would be viable. Late 1940 would mean invading Russia in Winter which would be problematic for obvious reasons. Hitler didn't know and most of the naval experts in the world were still convinced of supremacy of the battleship but honestly scrap those super battleships and build more aircraft carriers. Of course the shipbuilders, maybe to a lack of experience and material were having trouble finishing the Graf Zeppellin and the Luftwaffe would need some time to adapt planes and train pilots to take off from an aircraft carrier.
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Post by truecristian on Dec 8, 2021 2:56:50 GMT
I have yet to be able to find an account of what it was like for the Russians when the German's came. I would love to know what happened at first, then what happened once they saw the Germans weren't too nice, and then what happened at the end. Is there a book that offers a narrative of Russian occupation, or an account of it by someone who withstood it?
I've always thought that the sight of invaders coming into your lands, wearing crosses (swastika) emblazoned against a red arm band, coming in and shooting people and trying to establish a racist utopia where they were the "uberman" and you were nothing but a slave....that it must have been as scary and apocalyptic as anything could be. Yet I've never seen a book about it. The entire occupation of Russia is basically a mystery to me. Other than the fact that the Russians were dealt with harshly and that some were deported for labor, I dont' know much about it. Can anyone help with this?
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Post by twothousandonemark on Dec 9, 2021 5:51:52 GMT
Maybe the entirety of Barbarossa? Should've aimed right for the oil fields from the get, shoring up supply lines.
Their mad dash as it were to Moscow & environs was doomed yes? Nothing was sustainable about it all.
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Post by TheGoodMan19 on Dec 9, 2021 7:17:48 GMT
Maybe the entirety of Barbarossa? Should've aimed right for the oil fields from the get, shoring up supply lines. Their mad dash as it were to Moscow & environs was doomed yes? Nothing was sustainable about it all. The Baku Oilfields were a long, long way from the starting point.
A lot of people wonder about driving toward Moscow in the first place. After all, the city didn't do Napoleon a lot of good, did it. But Moscow 1941 was a lot different than Moscow 1812. First, it wasn't the capital in 1812. And it wasn't the industrial/communication/transport center that it was in 1941. I don't think Hitler believed that the USSR would be finished even if he took Moscow and Leningrad by the end of '41. He wanted the Urals and he had to know that line couldn't be reached by the time the winter hit. But it was a good resting place to start the final push in '42. And he thought Barbarossa would destroy the Red Army and undermine the Bolshevik Regime. After all, how could Hitler hope to conquer Russia when Charles XII and "Nappy" couldn't. But the Kaiser's army all but conquered Russia in 1917, due to the political and military collapse
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Post by Feologild Oakes on Dec 9, 2021 16:19:09 GMT
Germany would have lost in the end no matter what they did.
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Post by clusium on Dec 9, 2021 17:08:31 GMT
Obsession with murdering the Jewish people & other groups of people.
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Post by Winter_King on Dec 9, 2021 17:26:36 GMT
Obsession with murdering the Jewish people & other groups of people. That's true. Because of virulent antisemitism of Hitler and the Nazis, this caused several Jews to leave Germany. A lot of these Jews were highly educated. Some of them were scientists. And some of them ended up working in the Manhattan project. Really shows what happens when you let ideology take over pragmatism.
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Post by SciFive on Dec 9, 2021 22:50:15 GMT
Obsession with murdering the Jewish people & other groups of people. That's true. Because of virulent antisemitism of Hitler and the Nazis, this caused several Jews to leave Germany. A lot of these Jews were highly educated. Some of them were scientists. And some of them ended up working in the Manhattan project. Really shows what happens when you let ideology take over pragmatism. Several Jews left Germany? Between 1933 and 1937, a total of about 130,000 Jews left the national socialist Germany. Many left for South Africa, Palestine and Latin America. Many also went to Eastern Europe, particularly families who had moved to Germany from there previously. However, thousands remained in Northern and Western Europe. In a letter to an acquaintance in Buenos Aires (Argentina), Edith Frank complained at the end of 1937: “I think that all the German Jews are searching the world today and there is no room for them anymore.” www.annefrank.org/en/anne-frank/go-in-depth/impossibilities-escaping-1933-1942/
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Post by SciFive on Dec 9, 2021 22:53:12 GMT
P.S.
Despite the enormous difficulties, 120,000 Jews still managed to leave Germany in 1938 and 1939. Of the approximately 185,000 Jews still remaining, about 18,000 to 20,000 still managed to leave the country when the Second World War broke out.
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Post by truecristian on Dec 10, 2021 14:20:40 GMT
n light of these figures, it appears that the timing of becoming a part of the Soviet Union is the best predictor of the severity of the sex ratio bias: the longer an area was part of the USSR, the higher the discrepancy between the two genders (and the lower the sex ratio figure) in the immediate pre-war period. This generalization is further confirmed by another data point, alluded to by Savchenko: Tyva, which became a part of the USSR only in 1944 and was little affected by the Soviet mobilization, has one of the highest sex ratios of any region in the USSR in 1959: 903, based on the 1959 census data here. (Again, only people aged 30-69 in 1959, the age cohorts that were subject to mobilization during the war, are being considered.)
All these figures underscore the immense human losses that the Soviet Union suffered, the “cost in blood” of the victory over Nazism whose 72nd anniversary is being commemorated today. These losses, skewed heavily against the “stronger sex”, were felt for a long time after the last shots were fired, and are perhaps still felt today. One consequence of this shortage of men is that the birth rate after the war, though higher than during the war, never reached the pre-war level, in sharp contrast to the U.S. and Britain, which experienced the “baby boom” in the same period. (The birth rates are shown by the blue line in chart
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Post by Stammerhead on Dec 10, 2021 15:34:06 GMT
Swapping art for politics. He would probably be unknown by now but you can have a successful career in art without becoming a household name.
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Post by SciFive on Dec 10, 2021 15:51:14 GMT
Hitler bombed London instead of bombing the military airfields.
It was emotional on his part to bomb civilians.
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Post by TheGoodMan19 on Dec 10, 2021 18:01:34 GMT
Hitler bombed London instead of bombing the military airfields. It was emotional on his part to bomb civilians. Hitler made zillions of mistakes. Kursk, Falaise, Tunis, sinking resources into the V-1 and V-2 instead of the ME-262 jet fighters, sacking/underutilizig his better generals like Manstein and Guderian. Putting the Blitz on London instead of the RAF airfields was another but, by then, the window for Sea Lion had passed. By September, weather in the English Channel was too iffy to cross with an invasion fleet.
Terror bombing of civilian targets with conventional weapons never worked. Britain, Hamburg, Dresden, Tokyo, Hanoi, it just made the bombed want to fight more.
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