re: 70th Anniversary of Auschwitz Liberation: German Perspective

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I don't know if I agree with the popular notion that the harshness of Treaty of Versailles was what was to blame.

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I said largely to blame. There were of course other factors, one of which Darth mentioned: the complete incompetency of economic policy makers in Germany.

Check out a movie called "The Grey Zone" on Amazon Instant.

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They had no will to enforce the parts of the treaty that would have made Germany the losers. They amounted to suggestions.

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Did the French not occupy the Rhineland over 10 years? Did they not march troops into the Ruhr in 1923 to enforce reparations on Germany when the German political leadership indicated Germany could not afford the payments? The Treaty of Versailles was very much enforced on Germany.

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Check out a movie called "The Grey Zone" on Amazon Instant.

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Way more depressing than Schindler's list.













at least with Schindler's List, I could make out with a chick during that.

Hey Darth.Hope all is well.

The whole history of Germany in WW2,before and throughout it maybe overly fascinates me.

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Did Germany not take it back?

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Yes, in 1936, after the French had vacated the Rhineland as per the stipulations in the Treaty of Versailles. Forgive me, but did you expect Germany to leave their Western frontier with France unprotected and giving the French a major strategic advantage over Germany into perpetuity?

And I see you've ignored the French occupation of the Ruhr in 1923, which immediately preceded the hyperinflation and humiliated the German population.

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France suffered more from the war. So France needed to enforce a sufficient amount of sanctions to make the difference.

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You can suggest this, but the fact is it leads to exactly what happened, which is destitution and resentment in the other nation for decades after the war when the nations should be getting over their animosity. Not to mention, most Germans would have NEVER accepted the terms of the Versailles Treaty had they been presented up front. There is a reason the United States did NOT sign onto the treaty. It was simply more of the same European power politics and it directly set up the circumstances to create WWII. It didn't matter if the Nazis came to power or not. One thing that united the Nazis, the German conservatives, the Social Democrats, etc. was the injustice of the Versailles dictate and the preposterous notion of German war guilt. Germany was eventually going to resist these policies and any sane and proud nation would do the same. There were a great number of British diplomats who agreed in the 1930's that German attempts to overturn many aspects of Versailles were within reason.

And speaking of the British, the French were not the sole creators or beneficiaries of the Versailles Treaty. Great Britain and Italy gained tremendously as well. Did they suffer disproportionately to the Germans as well? Or perhaps was a weakened and pacified Germany beneficial to their national interests and power?

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In theory, Germany's military not being allowed to rearm did that. But they did rearm.

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Do you honestly think it reasonable to suggest that Germany never be allowed to rearm? And it was presented to Germany that their disarmament was simply a precursor to universal European disarmament. That was obviously a lie and the other European nations used their military power advantages to relegate Germany to a powerless state in all terms of European affairs. Which of course was the intention.

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Sure they enforced some

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They enforced the shite out of it. The treaty was only broken after 15 years of German destitution and humiliation. The treaty is the reason a more extreme political faction came to power. It was ultimately only this radical party that had the will to break it. Perhaps had the French and British governments allowed some, even if only for appearance, political victories to some of the Weimar governments then perhaps the Nazi message that Weimar governments being impotent and incompetent wouldn't have resonated so much with the German population.

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But, IMO, if you don't enforce enough of the treaty to make up for the arse-kicking you took on the battlefield, you are the loser when it comes to the war, regardless of who drew up the Treaty with what terms.

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This is insanity to me and completely unrealistic. The French suffered tremendously but so did the Germans. The French certainly lost more infrastructure but you present this like the French suffered millions more in casualties. The French didn't get their "arse kicked on the battlefield."

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And they didn't enforce enough, IMO. I mean, how effective could it have been if less than 20 years later, Germany is the greatest military machine in the world and rolled through France with British support like it was not nothing.

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I'm not even going to go into the explanations for the sweeping German victory in France. It wasn't because Germany was some megalithic military power.

If you expected Germany to submit to European servitude into perpetuity and to somehow accept this on the basis of a post-war dictate alone, then you are delusional. I suppose you wanted the French and British to occupy Germany and subjugate them and their population forever?

No major European nation would have tolerated those conditions for very long. It was foolish and I applaud the foresight of the United States Senate at the time for recognizing it as such.

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I was sitting on a bench talking to a 98 year old german woman in 2006 in Victoria, Canada. She told me all about life in Nazi Germany and it was one of the most interesting conversations I've ever had with a stranger.

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I bet her story was quite a bit different than the official version of events.

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Hey Darth.Hope all is well.

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All is well here and I hope the same is true for you.

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he whole history of Germany in WW2,before and throughout it maybe overly fascinates me.

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Considering the massive influence that Germany had in shaping the world from 1870 through 1945, your interest is very understandable.

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Considering the massive influence that Germany had in shaping the world from 1870 through 1945, your interest is very understandable.

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It is a shame that the world today only gets one side of the story.

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I just googled it, and read some excerpts, And I don't think is truthful, but I will buy it and read it, then I will have a more comprehensive opinion.

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what do you not believe? its one of the few surviving records of a unit of that type and the most complete. The guy who wrote Hitler's Willing Executioner's uses the same material as a basis for his book, they just come to totally opposite conclusions. I found Browning's arguments more convincing, but both are worth reading.