Nazis Were Given ‘Safe Haven’ in U.S., Report Says

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Originally Posted by Andres

That's a fair point and I think it is safe to say that most people who put themselves on the moral high ground nowadays, sitting in a comfortable chair behind their pc, after a good meal, would have followed orders if they would have been in the place of young Fritz who had the choice of gassing Jews or being shot.

There are distinctions to be made, there is need for nuance and abstraction, but I understand Louis' anger and frustration. All too much, under the guise of exactly that (nuance, distinction, abstraction), are people re-writing history in an attempt to make Nazism look like just another ideology or "not worse than the Allies". Certain things are not to be relativized (sp?); Nazism and death camps are among those.

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The thing though is that most of these people were not "Nazis" in the sense of being Jew-hating socoiopaths, many of them were members of the Nazi party (as the Waffen SS was a Nazi paramilitary organisation I'm assuming you had to be one to join) but that doesn't make them evil by default.

Loius points up the difference between the way RAF pilots wer seen and are now seen, but neglects to distinguish between Fighter Command and Bomber Command, one defended Britain from German bombers, the other conducted a systematic campaign designed to destroy not only the German infastructure but the will to fight - Dresden being the classic example, only fully repaired and rebuilt quite recently.

The point is, the men of Bomber Command were doubtless brave, but in the course of "doing their duty" they slaughter thousands of civilians and destroyed masses of civilian goods and property - I'm sure on some level they knew they were doing this, but they kept on "doing their duty". Of course, the Germans did this as well, and they also slaughter six million defenceless people in gas chambers, so what ther Germans did was more but the individuals involved have, perhaps, a similar level of culpability for their personnal sins.

The important thing to remember is that the Third Reich set out to impose it's political will over at least all of Europe by force, and they subscribed to an ideaology which effectively removed large numbers of people from the human race. THAT is what Nazism had to be stopped, and it was.

Persecuting old men for sins they committed in their Youth is pointless, and if you had all the evidence you'd probably end up prosecuting everyone in the German army up to 1945 for something they had done.

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Originally Posted by Andres

It is perfectly possible to admit that the Allies killed numerous innocent people and still hold the view that fighting the Nazis was the right thing to do :shrug:

That's a fair point and I think it is safe to say that most people who put themselves on the moral high ground nowadays, sitting in a comfortable chair behind their pc, after a good meal, would have followed orders if they would have been in the place of young Fritz who had the choice of gassing Jews or being shot.

There are distinctions to be made, there is need for nuance and abstraction, but I understand Louis' anger and frustration. All too much, under the guise of exactly that (nuance, distinction, abstraction), are people re-writing history in an attempt to make Nazism look like just another ideology or "not worse than the Allies". Certain things are not to be relativized (sp?); Nazism and death camps are among those.

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Oh, to clarify, I think morally the fight against the Nazis was clear. It should have started at the Sudatenland Crisis and it'd have been nice if America put its fists where its morals were, as opposed to using WW2 to cement its position in the world by gaining massive wealth in an export-led economy... But no one else is allowed to do this OK (China)?

I'm uneasy that history needs to be re-written to ensure the Correct Lessons Are Learnt. No one appears to be inclined to wonder why the Communists aren't being tarred for their actions which led to millions of civilians and conscripts.

But since things are based upon after the war started I think that much of what should be learnt is lost, and to waste airtime on a 90 year old former SS somethingorother further reduces the "why".

~:smoking:

I thought that for almost any decent job one had to be a card carrying Nazi, and that it was common to bestow honorary ranks to others for all sorts of divisive reasons (mainly related to control). If the SS offers you a honorary post, a brave man would refuse.

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Originally Posted by Louis VI the Fat

Oh Frags, you're part maniac, part fantastic poet. 'Directly into the shredder' - that's both ridiculous and brilliant. :laugh4:

[/Off topic. Carry on with thread]

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The UK deports people back to Zimbabwe. Not quite the shredder I agree, but come election time there are still gangs who will cut off extremities. I'm sure "embarrassing" the country abroad isn't going help matters either. Leaving aside 80% unemployment, no health system, etc.

Bomber command required fighter screens to bomb targets. Going up alone would be tantamount to suicide. Those dashing young chaps in fighters needed to ensure the plucky Lancasters could drop their incendiaries.

I imagine that in most wars a high percentage of all front line troops committed war crimes. The rules were generally written by lawyers who barely know one end of the gun from the other in peacetime.

~:smoking:

To return to the opening post. Two seperate debates:


1) The hunt for Nazi top men after the war to bring them to the US.
After WWI Germany was left nearly fully intact, from the legal order to territorial and economical integrity. This Germany abused to render the peace nothing more than a German breathing space.
A hard lesson thus learned, directly after WWII the victors sought to render Germany incapacitated for the foreseeable future. Entire factories were shipped abroad, patents were confiscated, ordinary Germans had to perform forced labour, and top scientists were taken abroad.


2) The hunt for these German / Nazi émigrés in later decades, to bring them to justice.
One can question the wisdom of smuggling in a German / Nazi scientist directly after WWII, only to hunt down this same Nazi two, three, four decades later.

The main wrong to me is not that they were rendered incapacitated for Germany after the war - it was a fluid situation, there was a German threat which needed to be incapacitated, there were always the Russians too, other third countries.
The wrong to me is neither that these men were hunted down later. A war criminal is a war criminal, regardless of whether he was a useful rocket scientist.

The wrong then, to me, is that these men were not prosecuted after the war, but were instead offered a safe haven and new identity.

Having said that, I am not opposed to a sense of 'realism' in politics. The Soviet Union posed a real threat. Why let a former Nazi intelligence officer or rocket scientist go to waste by imprisoning him? Better to have him share his information with you, and then prosecute him after he has shared it, a few decades later.

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Soobzokov. In May 1977, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York opened a criminal investigation to determine whether Soobzokov had lied to INS in his sworn intervie\v, \vhether he was in fact involved in a bribery scheme with Social Security, and whether INS or the Social Security Administration had improperly th\varted an investigation.

http://documents.nytimes.com/confide...ases#text/p356

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Soobzokov. A Nazi who had fled to America. He lied to the immigration services. Lied and covered up his identity after the war. He managed to get a job at the CIA, where he sat about for decades destroying documents that incriminated himself and his Nazi friends.

He was found out eventually, and prosecuted.

Far from merely prosecuting poor senior citizens, this too, lest we forget it, was a facet of the wish to prosecute former Nazis. America is neither as stupid or as mean spirited as it is made out to be.

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Originally Posted by Louis VI the Fat

America is neither as stupid or as mean spirited as it is made out to be.

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It is actually far worse?

Post WWI Germany was bankrupt and given a government that the people despised. Their colonies were all taken and divvied up to the victors. To put the boot in they were made to pay a vast sum of money and even invaded by the French. Yeah, a great way of making friends. Germany could have been kept in line post WWI if the Allies have kept them to their tiny army, navy and no airforce. When a government linked entity has over 3 million male members again this should be something that raises alarm bells - but didn't.

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Originally Posted by Louis VI the Fat

Having said that, I am not opposed to a sense of 'realism' in politics. The Soviet Union posed a real threat. Why let a former Nazi intelligence officer or rocket scientist go to waste by imprisoning him? Better to have him share his information with you, and then prosecute him after he has shared it, a few decades later.

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How is a rocket scientist breaking a law? We have loads of clever chaps beavering away right now on things that aren't indirectly weapons like rockets, but are. In WWI all sides made loads of exciting chemical weapons to lob at each other, and no one was prosecuted for this.

Intelligence officers too are not guilty for holding a job. Just leave the SOE to trash whatever they can get their hands on? Leave the Partisans to sabotage in the East? The British were running possibly the biggest guerilla warfare operation, barring the Soviets. It rather smacks of punishing everyone on the "loosing" side. Why not the intelligence officials in the UK who offered German spies the option of being turned or being shot, for example?

~:smoking:

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Originally Posted by Fragony

And how were they supposed to know that, SS was the elite devision of the best army in the world, that has appeal. When immigrants get no assylum in Norway and are flown out, do you ever wonder where they end up? Maybe they go directly in the shredder, would you buy that.

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When Hitler screams for the death of every jew, how can anyone think that he wasn't going to kill any jews....?

And yes, I am fully aware that immigrants we ship back are treated horribly in some countries - which is why I don't want to ship them back.

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Originally Posted by Louis VI the Fat

But the story of Germany is not nazism. Auschwitz was not the logical conclusion of German history. History could've worked out differently.

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Indeed it could have, if a certain neighbour to the west hadn't done its utmost to completely cripple and discredit the democratic Weimar Republic.

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Originally Posted by Rhyfelwyr

Indeed it could have, if a certain neighbour to the west hadn't done its utmost to completely cripple and discredit the democratic Weimar Republic.

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That strikes me as a bit simple the 1920's was a time of enormous change in the maps of Europe but it has almost disappeared from the international historical memory due to the two world wars. Russian expansion and an actual war with Poland plus disorder in Germany prob mean that 1920/30 foreign policy England was about ensuring a strong but not too strong hand arose in Germany.

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Originally Posted by HoreTore

When Hitler screams for the death of every jew, how can anyone think that he wasn't going to kill any jews....?

And yes, I am fully aware that immigrants we ship back are treated horribly in some countries - which is why I don't want to ship them back.

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But you aren't sabotaging railroads either, but that's not the point and you probably know that. Hitler never talked about extermination as far as I know anyway, as Magneto said, they just do it. You should buy Triumph des Willens if you see it laying around, nazi-propaganda movie , it's perfectly orchestrated mass hysteria

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Originally Posted by Fragony

Hitler never talked about extermination as far as I know anyway

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I suggest you find yourself some nazi propaganda and read it.

The events elsewhere with Poland etc weren't related, at the end of the day it was pure French self-interest that crippled the Weimar Republic. Britain certainly didn't have any idealistic principles in mind in supporting Weimar Germany, just doing the old trick with balancing the powers on the continent. But France had a lot to gain from a weak and divided Germany, and lucky for them the major industrial western regions were on their doorstep.

Does this in any way excuse Nazim? No. But there is not some particular inherent evil in Germans that means there are no other reasons for why it came about...

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Originally Posted by HoreTore

I suggest you find yourself some nazi propaganda and read it.

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You do understand that I have counter of doom here.

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Originally Posted by Fragony

You do understand that I have counter of doom here.

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No idea what you're talking about here.

But to continue on my previous post: in all the nazi propaganda, the jews are referred to as parasites, a disease and the cause for all the suffering of the German people. How on earth is it even possible to think that Hitler wouldn't have them killed when he could...?

And if people didn't think they were going to be killed; why did so many risk their lives to save the jews from the nazis?

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Originally Posted by Rhyfelwyr

Indeed it could have, if a certain neighbour to the west hadn't done its utmost to completely cripple and discredit the democratic Weimar Republic.

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Oh gosh :mellow:

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Originally Posted by HoreTore

But to continue on my previous post: in all the nazi propaganda, the jews are referred to as parasites, a disease and the cause for all the suffering of the German people. How on earth is it even possible to think that Hitler wouldn't have them killed when he could...?

And if people didn't think they were going to be killed; why did so many risk their lives to save the jews from the nazis?

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I thought that in the 1930's there was a push to deport them all to the Palestine region (and America too?), but the British didn't fancy the numbers as it would cause instability in the area...

If the Germans thought the Jews were going to be killed why did so FEW prevent the Nazis coming in to power in the first place? Perhaps policies changes over the years as power was consolidated and other options were cut off?

Unless you're suggesting that the Nazis were the first democratically elected party to tell the truth in all the elections they stood in? :inquisitive:

~:smoking:

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Originally Posted by rory_20_uk

I thought that in the 1930's there was a push to deport them all to the Palestine region (and America too?), but the British didn't fancy the numbers as it would cause instability in the area...

If the Germans thought the Jews were going to be killed why did so FEW prevent the Nazis coming in to power in the first place? Perhaps policies changes over the years as power was consolidated and other options were cut off?

Unless you're suggesting that the Nazis were the first democratically elected party to tell the truth in all the elections they stood in? :inquisitive:

~:smoking:

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We're talking about what happened from 1939 to 1945, not what happened during Hitlers rise to power.

Different debate mate.

A staute of limitations of genocide? I like it.

Nazi revisonism is to Europe what Southern revisionism is to America

Utter and complete nonsense

What's that old saying? You can put lipstick on a pig but at the end of the day is still the industrialzed wanton murder of 6 million innocents

But the difficulty is that once powers are in place they're difficult to shift. UK protests against the Iraq war were widespread and were stomped out very quickly with several checks and balances in place.

By 1939 Germany, you've got the old chestnut of complaints = unpatriotic and the SA/SS/SD/Gestapo plus probably a number of others I've missed off to control information flow and polish off any real dissenters. Even by then the mass murder hasn't started. Some might be feeling uneasy, but with the euphoria of easy wins and a reputation returned who'se going to worry too much? Perhaps the Jews did stop Germany ascent as there is a correlation between success and discrimination. And how many years of brainwashing have people had by 1939?

1941 - bigger fish to fry in Russia! Massive attacks against the Slav. The Brits haven't folded yet. Jewish rights? There's a Goddamn war on!

And so on. No nice "one day Hitler whilst kissing children and rebuilding Germany announced he'd off 6 million people, and called a referendum with international oversight."

You can try and charge people with Genocide but how would you do that when there is precious little if any admissible evidence and probably no witnesses any more. Or are we going to throw away Habeus Corpus to ensure some convictions? Better yet, let's torture them into confessing. That'll let them see how focused we are against atrocities.

~:smoking:

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Originally Posted by rory_20_uk

You can try and charge people with Genocide but how would you do that when there is precious little if any admissible evidence and probably no witnesses any more. Or are we going to throw away Habeus Corpus to ensure some convictions? Better yet, let's torture them into confessing. That'll let them see how focused we are against atrocities.

~:smoking:

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I was using a bit of hyperbole as hope were the people who were claiming "Oh he likes like paw paw! He probably has some dulces! We can't charge him with anything"

Just because you've managed to skirt the law for 50 years does not man you can not answer for your sins. I have no problem with your average Fritz who went home to dussledorff and worked in a schnitzel shop as he is just one in the long line of exploited common folk. However, there are people who knew damn well what they were doing and what they were doing was wrong.

To not bring them to justice because a few suns has set is asinine and makes a mockery of any humanist

Hitler made few specific assertions regarding any sort of pogrom aimed at Jews prior to the outbreak of the war. However, it would be very hard to suggest that his general attitude was unknown given his frequent references to the uses of violence, "the struggle," and his oft-expressed attitudes that the Jews were the source of Germany's problems. You could argue that many Germans figured/hoped that this would be accomplished by some kind of forced expulsion, but it would be hard to argue that the common German was blissfully unaware of the Nazi regimes anti-Jewish intent. This did not bother enough of them to prevent a Nazi plurality in the Reichstag. I guess many people just simply and naively believed that it would be "hot air."

Beskar:

I would not, were I you, be so cynical regarding the USA's "angels of its better nature." Are we hypocrites, mouthing platitudes while playing the realpolitik game for our own betterment? Yes, on any number of occasions. But do you really WANT a USA that doesn't seek to reach for those platitudes at all and simply becomes another cynical player of the Great Game without anything but self-interest in mind? If we ever ended up developing any real skill for "putting the boot on someone's neck," I shudder to think of the world it would beget, however powerful it would make my nation.

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Originally Posted by Strike For The South

A staute of limitations of genocide? I like it.

Nazi revisonism is to Europe what Southern revisionism is to America

Utter and complete bull shit

What's that old saying? You can put lipstick on a pig but at the end of the day is still the industrialzed wanton murder of 6 million innocents

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One example would be lovely, which revisionism

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Originally Posted by Fragony

One example would be lovely, which revisionism

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It's not called "the War of Northern Aggression" for nothing. ~D

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Originally Posted by Rhyfelwyr

The events elsewhere with Poland etc weren't related, at the end of the day it was pure French self-interest that crippled the Weimar Republic. Britain certainly didn't have any idealistic principles in mind in supporting Weimar Germany, just doing the old trick with balancing the powers on the continent. But France had a lot to gain from a weak and divided Germany, and lucky for them the major industrial western regions were on their doorstep.

Does this in any way excuse Nazim? No. But there is not some particular inherent evil in Germans that means there are no other reasons for why it came about...

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Just to ensure your aware RHY I was not excusing NAZI Germany there is absolutely me chance of me doing that boss, in fact I'm related to people who were put in German camps through me brother marrying a Polish lass. The poor old fella who since passed away Lord have Mercy was at the wedding only 3 yrs ago he told us the whole sorry story plus the horror of Soviet occupation twas terrible.

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Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh

Beskar:

I would not, were I you, be so cynical regarding the USA's "angels of its better nature." Are we hypocrites, mouthing platitudes while playing the realpolitik game for our own betterment? Yes, on any number of occasions. But do you really WANT a USA that doesn't seek to reach for those platitudes at all and simply becomes another cynical player of the Great Game without anything but self-interest in mind? If we ever ended up developing any real skill for "putting the boot on someone's neck," I shudder to think of the world it would beget, however powerful it would make my nation.

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I for one would welcome an attempt by USA of actual hegemony of Western Europe sure the USA is basically Hiberno/Anglo-Saxon and even when (not if) the USA turns Hispanic sure were still quids in with them too.

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Originally Posted by Louis VI the Fat

Soobzokov. A Nazi who had fled to America. He lied to the immigration services. Lied and covered up his identity after the war. He managed to get a job at the CIA, where he sat about for decades destroying documents that incriminated himself and his Nazi friends.

He was found out eventually, and prosecuted.

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Soobzokov is a perfect example of OSI overreach. He did not lie to cover up his identity except when ordered to by the CIA and there is no evidence that he destroyed documents that incriminated himself. He did, however, help the West in the CIA in Jordan during the height of the Cold War and was later hunted down and harassed for the favor.

From the report:

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"OS1 also contacted the CIA and learned that Soobzokov had told the agency about his SS service at some point after he emigrated and before he became a citizen. 23 Although the statements by Soviet witnesses tied Soobzokov to possible persecutory actions, OSI personnel had not met the declarants. Moreover, "most of the better circumstantial witnesses" were dead. Without testing the testimony of the remaining witnesses "according to U.S. standards of due process and admissibility," OS1 was unwilling to base its case on their cIaims. 24 However, the ne\vly-established office wanted to file some cases quickly.25 The Soobzokov case was particularly pressing since he was the only subject in Blum's best-selling book against whom charges had not yet been filed. 26 Rather than charging him with involvement in persecution, the government focused on his failure to disclose his full military and criminal history to the State Department at the time of his visa application, and to the INS when he sought citizenship. OS1 filed charges in December 1979, alleging illegal procurement of citizenship (in that he had never been "'la\vfully admitted" because he had concealed pertinent information which \vould likely have barred his entry) and misrepresentations in his citizenship appl ication. The complaint also charged that Soobzokov lacked the good moral character necessary for citizenship; the lack of good moral character \vas based on his nlisrepresentations. The media, in reporting on the case, stated that Soobokov had "worked as a U.S. intelligence agent in Jordan in the 1950s, and may have been granted asylum secretly.,·27

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Since the new information indicated that Soobzokov had told the State Department about his past \vhen he applied for a visa, the Department of Justice determined that it could not, in good faith, pursue the SS misrepresentation charges, \vhich were the crux of the complaint. And without misrepresentation, there was no longer a basis for the lack of mo~al character charge. The only charges left \vere those involving the unreported criminal record. Although the Soviets claimed Soobzokov had spent five years in custody, the statutes violated involved hooliganism and arbitrariness, both crimes used by the Soviets to pursue those who opposed the Communist state. 31 The Soviet Union was unwilling to give details about the alleged criminal activity. Without additional information, the Department was not willing to pursue this charge either. Accordingly, in July 1980, the government moved to dismiss the complaint. The motion detailed the efforts OSI had made to verify its facts both before and after the case was filed.

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Two other points:

Thousands of honorable soldiers fought in the Waffen SS, without any connection to war crimes. Thousands more served in the overarching SS and various administrative branches without incident. SS membership does not automatically make one guilty of war crimes, just as RAF or US Marines membership does not.

Also, while it was clear that he hated the Jews, Hitler was a bombastic politician and Europeans were used to aggrandized, dramatic political speech. Hitler also railed against communists, capitalists, the French and many other groups as enemies that had to be wiped out. Much of his language was cryptic and he never discussed specifics. However, it should be noted that the actual extermination was a highly secretive affair. The extermination camps were located mostly outside of Germany and in remote areas. Very few Germans actually served at the camps, which made use of Russians and Jews to fill the ranks, and those that did were barred from discussing what they had seen with others. There was a propaganda campaign launched to deliberately mislead Germans into believing that the camps were happy, healthy communities, as well. Finally, when the camps were deemed to have completed their task, they were razed to the ground and meticulous efforts were taken to destroy any evidence of what transpired.

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Originally Posted by rory_20_uk

Post WWI Germany was bankrupt

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Bollox. :laugh4::laugh4::laugh4:

Germany faced neither war damage, nor inter-allied war debt, nor large reparations. As a consequence, Germany was much better off than the European allies, who faced huge debts (UK), or huge debts combined with crippling reparations payments (France).
The economic peace reversed the military verdict.

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and given a government that the people despised.

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Bollox. :laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4:

The Prussian military had assumed control over the German state. Upon defeat, the Prussian junkers did what they traditionally do: be docile and cowardly in defeat. That is, beg for peace, then lie that they didn't start the war, that most of it hadn't happened, and that they hadn't lost. To this end, the mind-boggingly dishonourable Prussian military which had taken control of Germany then lost the war for Germany, quickly put civilians in power after the defeat, then shouted that it was the civilian government which had lost the war.

As a result, the government was left vulnerable to nationalist agitation. Sadly and strangely, people still fall for this stab in the back nonsense.

The democratic government was wished for, but not imposed by, the allies. The allies left the German legal order intact - for such was the lofty idealism of the peacemakers.

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To put the boot in they were made to pay a vast sum of money

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Bollox. :laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4:

The Fourteen points, the pre-armistice agreements, and the armistice itself spoke of full reparations for all civil damages in France. To this the dishonourable German military caste eagerly agreed, while never intending to keep their word.

In the peace treaty, the demand was lowered: Germany would now only be required to pay insofar as it could pay, France magnanimously would pay all of the remainder. Unlike Germany, France would pay regardless of whether she could do so.

Still this was not enough for the duplicitous Germans. Even as the German troops were driven out and the German military command was pleading for peace, promising to pay full reparations for all damages, the German army was under orders to steal what it could carry, and destroy all else.

The German army saw fit to flood and destroy France's largest coal mine right before signing its defeat. As compensation, France required coal shipments until such time as the reparations to the destroyed French coal industry was completed. When Germany failed to deliver coal for the 34th time in 36 instalments, France occupied the Ruhr to ensure shipment herself.

This much to the delight of the German government, which had sought to provoke France into this. Germany now cried murder. It was a fantastic diplomatic succes for Germany, for its effort to undermine the peace. The German public was rallied. The British were disgusted and embarked on their project to bolster Germany and weaken France, to preserve a military balance on the continent. (Boy were they misinformed...)
France was defeated, the country which had won the war had now lost the peace. France was now isolated, was left the only country defending the order on the continent, but was relegated to sit powerless while the inevitable unfolded. The world slept and refused to listen to the desperate pleas and warnings of France about the coming German-Russian attempt to overthrow European peace.

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and even invaded by the French.

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Bollox. :laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4:

Britain and the US ought to have done what they agreed to in 1919: preserve the peace in Europe with a democratic front. To abandon France and leave her the sole defender of democracy and the peace in Europe, in the face of a revanchist Germany and Russia was a mistake. The Rurh crisis was a German provocation to test the resolve of the allies.

It was a resounding succes for Germany. Germany had learned: there is no resolve to prevent a German attempt to overthrow the peace. Britain appeases, America remains absent. The real marvel is that it still took Germany another decade to install a man they entrusted with overthrowing the peace. The real battle was an internal German affair. Sadly, not just the national-conservative side won, but the man they thought their puppet.

The world failed itself, the world also failed Germany. It could all so easily have been prevented with a bit more wisdom, a bit more resolve.

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Originally Posted by Rhyfelwyr

Indeed it could have, if a certain neighbour to the west hadn't done its utmost to completely cripple and discredit the democratic Weimar Republic.

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:laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4:

That bollox is German nationalist-conservative / Nazi propaganda. German democracy was discredited by this very propaganda of internal nationalist and fascist agitators.

There is, however, no excuse for a serious historian to still be a useful idiot to nationalist-conservative / Nazi agitation. The ancient Manichean 'Harsh France, idealistic US, realistic UK' has not stood up to modern historical scrutiny. For decades now, serious scholarship has considered the French peace delegation the most moderate of all.

The harshest? Why, that would be the UK. Try for example Marc Trachtenberg, who way back in 1979 took the trouble to add up all demands:

http://www.jstor.org/stable/1877867?...rviceName=null


Surprising too is the work of Georges-Henri Soutou. He explored French offers of post-war economic cooperation with Germany. None were ever taken up by Germany. The plans were remarkably similar to post-1945 Franco-German economic coopration, showing the roots of France's foreign policy impulses run deeper than was previously remembered. This is more interesting history than the endlessly repeated 'France wished to cripple Germany'. That is German nationalist propaganda (in its modern Anglo form). It wasn't even believed by many Germans in the 1920s. That it still passes for meaningful history beggars believe.

One can wonder - if the allies really sought to completely cripple and subdue Germany, then they made a pretty poor job of it, eh? The slightest glance at the world in 1925 ought to reveal that Germany was left the most powerful state in Europe by far.

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Originally Posted by PanzerJaeger

Thousands of honorable soldiers fought and died in the Waffen SS, without any connection to war crimes. Thousands more served in the overarching SS and various administrative branches without incident. SS membership does not automatically make one guilty of war crimes, just as RAF or US Marines membership does not.

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What utter bollox :laugh4: :laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4:


Now then, Panzer, let's say that one man figures out when a girl is driven to ballet by her dad. Another man shoots the girl's father. A third abducts the girl and sells her to a paedophile ring. A paedophile abuses then murders her.


Is only man four responsible for the murder of the girl? Or are all four part of a criminal organisation intent on committing a crime all knew to be wrong?

Industrial murder knows many murderers. The desk clerk murderer is not absolved of blame. Neither is the Waffen SS member who did not personally kill any unarmed civilian.
The RAF or US Marine, disregarding blatant acts of war crimes, operated within a