American congress get maid

[LittleGrizzly]

I always thought they were doing it to stop the spread of facism. Which makes me think, facist countries have tried to spread fasicm more then the USSR was trying to spread communism.

exactly, Hitler provided actual military support to the facists what did the communists do provide material support ?

Now, back to the other point. You talk about the firebombing of Dresden. You can't blame the Germans for that, no matter how hard you try. The Allied leaders had a choice on whether to commit atrocities against Germany, and they chose to.

I think you can blame the germans for the firebombing of dresden as much you can blame the allies for ww2, it was unjust and undeserved but through thier own injustice they triggered the actions, in both cases....

[KarlXII]

I always thought they were doing it to stop the spread of facism. Which makes me think, facist countries have tried to spread fasicm more then the USSR was trying to spread communism.

exactly, Hitler provided actual military support to the facists what did the communists do provide material support ?

Now, back to the other point. You talk about the firebombing of Dresden. You can't blame the Germans for that, no matter how hard you try. The Allied leaders had a choice on whether to commit atrocities against Germany, and they chose to.

I think you can blame the germans for the firebombing of dresden as much you can blame the allies for ww2, it was unjust and undeserved but through thier own injustice they triggered the actions, in both cases....

He seems to still be part of the "Red Scare" era.

Though Dresden was a shameful decision, when you look at German atrocities, they far outweigh the bombings.

[LittleGrizzly]

I didn't mean to compare them in terms of effect, obviously the germans causing ww2 (mostly) was far worse, i just meant in terms of blame, the allies helped make the ground for ww2 and the germans helped make the ground for dresden, in neither case does it absolve those that did wrong for thier actions, just helps us understand how it reached that point...

Another point is the harshness of the treaty of versailles meant that hitler could rip the treaty up and worldwide it was seen as a fair move, so each little step didn't seem quite so bad

I think you could also put some blame on the UK for not backing the treaty, at some point im sure the french wanted to hold germany to the versailles conditions but the uk wouldn't back them up, maybe my memory is fuzzy can anyone confirm or deny this for me ?

Additonally the politicians immediately after WW1 didn't shine out in competency (for starters, they should have bargained more during the peace negotiations).

I always assumed they where simply given the document and told where to sign, my understanding always was as losers they didn't really have any say... is this wrong ?

If i remember right they where present at the negoations but simply powerless...

[Kralizec]

I always assumed they where simply given the document and told where to sign, my understanding always was as losers they didn't really have any say... is this wrong ?

You're probably right, but in that case the republican government should never have signed the treaty. Germany was at rock bottom anyway, and the terms of the treaty would decide how much room they'd have to rebuild the economy. I don't think any of the victorious powers would be interested in an occupation of Germany if they rejected the first draft.

As for the 1871-->WW1 line of discussion, it's more complicated than that.
Napoleon III was as much of a military adventurist as Hitler (before anyone attacks me, I know that he wasn't interested in exterminating entire ethnic groups - but he was hardly peaceful) and I can't feel sorry for the humiliation France received after being at the wrong end of the stick for once.

Technically Germany was the agressor against France at the start of WW1, but you have to realize that if they went off fighting the Russians they'd expose their backs to the French. France and Russia were allies and France was still looking for a revanche. The Germans sent France an ultimatum demanding that they'd stay neutral while they were going to war with Russia; if France didn't respond they'd be considered hostile. After war with Russia was inevitable, they didn't have any other choice really.

On that point, as was mentioned before Wilhelm II did his honest best to defuse the situation and had pleaded the czar to leave Austria alone.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

*Ahem*

First of all, Meneldil, I see your point.

Second, I'll get to the whole "who bombed who first" tomorrow, because I'm exhausted now.

[Kralizec]

Actually, and bear with me here, I think that the bombing of Rotterdam could have been justified in the same vein as Hiroshima and Nagasaki - it may have saved the lives of people who otherwise would have died by forcing a surrender. Just a thought.

The Americans chiefly bombed these cities because they wouldn't need to suffer casualties in an actual invasion of Japan. It can be argued that more Japanese civilians would have died as well if they felt that they could still defend their country, but that's mostly a rationalization in retrospect.

In contrast, when Rotterdam was bombed the Germans had IIRC secured pretty much all of the Netherlands. To say that more inhabitants of Rotterdam would have perished in street fighting is misguided.

If you're going to respond - are you suggesting that the Rotterdam bombing was morally "better" then the Dresden firestorm? The latter was actually more useful from a military point of view, and they were at least part of the country that started agression in the first place.

[Kralizec]

One of the reasons of why German society became so polarized after WW1 is that it went immediately from a monarchy to a democratic republic- its aristocracy of dukes and petty kings had been a pillar of society. They were gone almost overnight.
Additonally the politicians immediately after WW1 didn't shine out in competency (for starters, they should have bargained more during the peace negotiations). There had been a Reichstag with political parties before, but they played a role that consisted largely out of giving advice or criticism rather than weilding any sort of real power.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

I think you can blame the germans for the firebombing of dresden as much you can blame the allies for ww2, it was unjust and undeserved but through thier own injustice they triggered the actions, in both cases....

To a certain extent, I can see your point. However, I'm not sure exactly how Germany triggered Dresden - it's a historical fact that German towns were bombed first. The German government asked the British to halt the bombings of German towns repeatedly, before German bombs fell on Britain.

[LittleGrizzly]

The German government asked the British to halt the bombings of German towns repeatedly, before German bombs fell on Britain.

the bombing off german towns actually saved the raf as german bombers where hitting raf airfields and doing a damn good job of it before hitler ordered bombs to fall on british towns as revenge.

Anyway that wasn't really my point, i was more making the comparison in terms of blame but i think the comparison works in terms of a trigger as well, it wasn't so much a direct trigger to bomb dreseden but ww2 up to dresden did build up some vengeful attitudes, i have always thought dresden was wrong but there was some strategic value in destroying it, it was full of industry not military but in its own indirect way it helped the nazi war machine.

Its too simplistic to say dresden couldn't have happened without ww2, but in terms of the blame game they partially brought it upon themselves and well by the time of dresden they where dropping bombs on our towns, even if we did start the bombing off towns they did start the war...

Maybe it doesn't work so much as a direct trigger, more of an indirect trigger... i was more making the point in terms of blame rather than direct triggers...

Edit
Technically Germany was the agressor against France at the start of WW1, but you have to realize that if they went off fighting the Russians they'd expose their backs to the French.

I think the fact that both france and russia mobilised thier forces first cancels out the fact that germany struck first, infact i think you could call mobilisation of both forces as much a declaration of war as an attack across the border...

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

the bombing off german towns actually saved the raf as german bombers where hitting raf airfields and doing a damn good job of it before hitler ordered bombs to fall on british towns as revenge.

Yes.

but there was some strategic value in destroying it

By that point in the war, I'd disagree. The sheer extent of the bombing, and the specific design of the bombing, as well as statements by Arthur Harris himself, show that the bombing of Dresden was intended to terrorize and destroy people. Of course, you could argue that there was strategic value in destroying it to show the Soviets what the Allied bombing machine could do, which was part of the objective (as I recall).

Maybe it doesn't work so much as a direct trigger, more of an indirect trigger... i was more making the point in terms of blame rather than direct triggers...

Indirect trigger I agree with.

[LittleGrizzly]

By that point in the war, I'd disagree. The sheer extent of the bombing, and the specific design of the bombing, as well as statements by Arthur Harris himself, show that the bombing of Dresden was intended to terrorize and destroy people.

I have to be honest i wasn't sure on the date for dresden, if were talking 44 there probably wasn't much strategic gain, though i would assume just through indirect means it would have slowed the nazi war machine, if dresden was purely to terrorize and to show off to the soviets then it is an even worse decision than i thought originally, its seems much nicer to imagine a hothead seething with rage causing atrocities than it being simple cold calculated political decision

Though i would still assume revenge played its part in helping get the plan through its various stages

Yes.

Did Britian pull off a brilliant move by bombing german towns and thus making hitler change targets ?

or was it because british pilots didn't have the means to get to better targets, i seem to remember hearing we had a problem flying too far into germany because we wouldn't have enough fuel to get back, or was it simply a way to strike back ?

[Kralizec]

I think the fact that both france and russia mobilised thier forces first cancels out the fact that germany struck first, infact i think you could call mobilisation of both forces as much a declaration of war as an attack across the border...

I'm not certain that this is true- quite sure it isn't, in fact. I have one of Keegan's books on WW1, I'll check.

[LittleGrizzly]

From what i understand, which ill admit isn't all that much, france and russia could simply not afford to keep thier forces mobilised for too long without using them, the simple cost of mobilising thier entire forces meant that it was an aggressive move, there is no way they would have mobilised thier forces without using them, or not logically...

this has been my understanding of the subject for sometime, im prepared to admit i may be wrong here...

[Tribesman]

I'm not sure exactly how Germany triggered Dresden - it's a historical fact that German towns were bombed first. The German government asked the British to halt the bombings of German towns repeatedly, before German bombs fell on Britain.

Oh dear oh dear Mars is off on the bombing again .
So then Germany repeatedly asked Britian .....isn't that nice , isn't that civilised , isn't it oh so pleasant , isn't it bollox .
After German bombing of Polish cities pressure was applied to get an agreement not to bomb civilian targets . The agreement was reached after much delay by Germany but was conditional , Germany quickly broke those conditions by bombing the hell out of Rotterdam .
So Mars Germany did trigger the bombing campaign that led to Dresden and no government was going to agree to another new deal when Germany had shown how quickly it was willing to throw deals out of the window .

[Meneldil]

Imposing harsh conditions in 1871 is alrighty, while doing so in 1918 is being shortsighted ?

1871 led to 1918, period. If it wasn't for the Archiduke and Serbia, France and Germany would have warred eachother for another reason.
The whole French ideology was back then was aimed at this war. Everyone was eagerly waiting for it, from the socialists patriots to the die-hard far right nationalists.
Germany knew it and prepared itself, as any nation would have done.

Unhappilly, the winners, mostly led by France, just did what Germany has done 50 years earlier. Call it being arrogant, short sighted or whatever, I think I would have done the same thing.
Germany, despite its glorious past and civilisation was widely seen as an agressive nation that deserved to be trampled. Invading Belgium, sunking civilian ships and making dubious diplomatic move probably justified these harsh conditions back then.

[Tribesman]

First of all, I'm going to make it clear to Tribsey that I'm not responding to his posts, or even reading them.

Thats fine , it isn't going to stop me rippng your nonsense about the strategic bombing campaign to pieces every time you post stuff that is clearly of the bollox variety .
Which when it comes to that particular subject happens to be just about every time you write about it .
Like this rubbish...

The British bombed German towns before Germany bombed British towns.

The allies only bombed german towns after the Germans bombed allied towns , and they only bombed German towns after Germany agreed to not bomb allied towns and then bombed allied towns .
Oh and only germany bombed towns by using a tourist guide to determine which ones were more culturally interesting to attack .

[LittleGrizzly]

Is this amature night or something? You're making plenty of conclusions based off of very little real knowledge.

Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, the Soviet Union founded many communist movements abroad and took control of most organic ones, often through subversion and violence.

I don't think anyone doubts that they helped fund these groups and had influence over them, but these people where not there to hand over power to the soviet union any more than franco would have handed over power to Hitler for his support or leaders in latin america hand over power to usa because of help getting into power. As clearly shown by the example of china...

[PanzerJaeger]

Is this amature night or something? You're making plenty of conclusions based off of very little real knowledge.

Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, the Soviet Union founded many communist movements abroad and took control of most organic ones, often through subversion and violence.


I don't think anyone doubts that they helped fund these groups and had influence over them, but these people where not there to hand over power to the soviet union any more than franco would have handed over power to Hitler for his support or leaders in latin america hand over power to usa because of help getting into power. As clearly shown by the example of china...

I'm sorry that just isn't correct. It was exactly the Chinese disaster that caused Stalin to tighten his control over foreign communists. Had they prevailed in Germany and especially Spain, they would have been direct proxies of the USSR, much like the Warsaw Pact nations.

By the spring of 1937 the intervention of the USSR and of
the Comintern as such was having profound effects not only upon
the conduct of the war but on the Republican regime. On the
military level, the Comintern organized through national
communist parties the famous International Brigades, which
eventually numbered some 35,000 men, including future leaders of
East and West European communist parties; these "Spaniards" (for
example, Laszlo Rajk of Hungary) were later systematically
purged during the Stalinist show trials of the late 1940s in the
East European countries.

On the ideological level this intervention was represented
by the appointment of political commissars throughout the
Republican (or "Loyalist") forces, by the export to Spain of
Soviet secret police activities and personnel, and by attacks on
Trotskyites and other non-Stalinist revolutionary forces. This
last policy culminated in May 1937, when the Communists and the
Catalan government (clearly under Soviet pressure) first
provoked the CNT Anarchists and the anti-Stalinist militants of
the POUM to armed resistance and then used the excuse to outlaw
and crush them. The leader of the POUM, the former communist
Andres Nin, disappeared, and most historians accept that he was
killed by NKVD agents. Questioned about this case in 1983 by
the exiled Romanian scholar Lilly Marcou, Carrillo said that he
did not know who had assassinated Nin, though he had tried to
find out. One could, he said, advance the hypothesis, no more
than that, that "it was the Soviets present in Spain who decided
on and organized the death of Nin."

The "May Days" in Barcelona in 1937 brought a turning point
in other ways. The left-Socialist Prime Minister, Largo
Caballero, who opposed the action against the poumistas, had
to resign and was replaced by the right-socialist Juan Negrin,
who proved a more accommodating partner for the PCE (and the
Kremlin). This is linked with the fact that the Kremlin's
policies on the civil war were governed by Soviet state
interests and had little to do with support for the cause of
revolution. Similarly, the PCE's domestic policies during the
war were notably moderate compared with those of the
anarcho-syndicalists, the POUM, and the PSOE: the objective was
to win the war, not to bring about radical reforms, let alone
social revolution. At the same time, the PCE, through its
organizational strength and the zeal of its members, was a
leading force in the Republican war effort, even after Stalin
ordered the withdraw of the International Brigades and ended
Soviet arms shipments in November 1938. This dilemma was
expressed by Fernando Claudin, a member of the PCE Executive
Committee until he was expelled in the early 1960s for
expounding prematurely "Eurocommunist" ideas (he now heads a
research center for the PSOE). In his critique of the history
of the world communist movement he wrote:

All the sacrifice and heroism of three years went down with
a policy that, from the first day of the civil war, had
turned its back on the essential demands of Spanish
revolutionary reality in order to adapt itself to the
international strategy of Stalin. . . .

Stalin helped the Spanish Republic in order that it might
prolong its existence and arrive at a compromise solution
acceptable to the "Western democracies," within the
framework of a system of anti-Hitler alliances, and not
that it might win.[4]

http://www.osa.ceu.hu/files/holdings...140-8-69.shtml

[LittleGrizzly]

Had they prevailed in Germany and especially Spain, they would have been direct proxies of the USSR, much like the Warsaw Pact nations.

I disagree entirely, people are mostly obsessed with power, what in gods name was going to make these foriegn communists work hard and then just hand it all over to the SU, they had thier own ideas thier own plans, they could have had good relations with su but they would have been under the su's control as much as france was under usa's control after ww2

I think the warsaw pact nations just proves the point even more, the only way for the su to rule over foriegn nations was through a huge army threatening any descent, and as this was one big land mass in eastern europe it was possible, but spain was half of europe away, through a load of countries or a damn long boat ride away, as shown by countless examples communists would not hand over power to the SU

[PanzerJaeger]

I disagree entirely, people are mostly obsessed with power, what in gods name was going to make these foriegn communists work hard and then just hand it all over to the SU

Because they were Soviet agents.

[Crazed Rabbit]

So was the treatment of Germany harsher after the end of WWI or WWII?

And if it was harsher after WWII, which did not lead to another world war, does it not seem to say that one must destroy an enemy entirely and not just partly, as was the case after WWI?

Maybe the allies were to lenient on Germany after WWI, and should have partitioned it then. Those idiots in Germany that led to WWII knew of the horrific scale of world war, and they started it. They had seen hell and again brought it to the world. That leaves me precious little sympathy for them. They just thought they could win this time, so it became necessary to more forcefully persuade them against ever thinking about it again. Bring back some of the hell they unleashed to their own doorstep.

And on air bombing, it seems Germany started that on Poland, then agreed not to bomb civilian targets with Britain and France, then proceeded to break that agreement by bombing Rotterdam.

To a certain extent, I can see your point. However, I'm not sure exactly how Germany triggered Dresden - it's a historical fact that German towns were bombed first. The German government asked the British to halt the bombings of German towns repeatedly, before German bombs fell on Britain.

Well, except for Poland and Rotterdam...

If you want to appeal to emotion, how many of your ancestors were tortured in Lubyanka? How many of your ancestors were shipped to Gulags? How many of your ancestors perished because of famine or fire? How many of your ancestors were conscripted into the Wehrmacht and sent to the hell that was the Russian steppes? Don't talk to me about death.

Again, I've little sympathy for when you dance with the devil and lose.

CR