Defending HItler

[barbos]

Yeah, not to the same extent.

Actually, short of publishing names of KGB informants pretty much everything more less is known.
The difference is, by the time USSR collapsed all these guys were dead. And again, Stalin was killing his own people and especially people who were somewhat opposing him politically, plus a bunch of polish POWs,
Hitler was quite a bit more insane because he was killing people based on their ethnicity - Jews, gypsies, Slavs, etc. And I doubt destroying archives would have helped nazi to hide their concentration camps, that's why they tried to destroy them but it did not work.
This idea that Putin is somehow rebuilding Soviet Union is stupid. He is not a true democrat and has fair amount of annoying mannerisms form his KGB past, but this is to be expected. In US South lost civil war 150 years ago and people can't still get over it. Commies did not even lose any war, they just collapsed merely 25 years ago. You need to at least let all people who grew up in Soviet Union to retire and/or die before worrying. Even in former East Germany older people are nostalgic about DDR, and they are clearly have no good reason to think that DDR was better than what they have now, still they are nostalgic and if you are a politician you have to take that into account when you are trying to bullshit them into voting for you. So you can't blame Putin for doing just that.

 

[steve_bank]

A survey was done in the 90s on general knowledge including college grads.

It showed a general ignorance of what Hitler and the Nazis were about/.

 

[steve_bank]

Stalin made a non aggression pact with Hitler to settle a score with Poland. It enabled Hitler to open WWII without worrying about Russia, who re4jected siding with the Allies'

Hitler was a mad genius, be played Stalin like a fiddle. Stalin made a bargain with the devil and the Russians suffered for it.

 

[barbos]

Stalin made a non aggression pact with Hitler to settle a score with Poland. It enabled Hitler to open WWII without worrying about Russia, who re4jected siding with the Allies'

Allies rejected USSR not the other way around, so they went to get something with Nazis.
Commies were considered weak and insignificant by the West. They expected Hitler to run over Russia like there was nothing there.

Hitler was a mad genius, be played Stalin like a fiddle. Stalin made a bargain with the devil and the Russians suffered for it.

Hindsight is 20/20. Back then Hitler had not done much shit he is now known.

 

[Hermit]

Stalin made a non aggression pact with Hitler to settle a score with Poland. It enabled Hitler to open WWII without worrying about Russia, who re4jected siding with the Allies'

Hitler was a mad genius, be played Stalin like a fiddle. Stalin made a bargain with the devil and the Russians suffered for it.

The motivation for the non-aggression pact was the same on both sides: to buy time. The inevitability of war between the USSR and the Third Reich was obvious to all. Both Hitler and Stalin wanted to buy time in order to get ready for it. Hitler needed time to finish off Great Britain (which didn't work out for him) and Stalin needed time to rev up the armaments industry, chiefly east of the Urals, for he knew Hitler was going to attack - and very likely make early inroads into the USSR.

This cartoon was published in the Evening Standard newspaper on 21 October 1939:

 

[Horatio Parker]

Stalin was hoping to do what the US did: walk in and pick up the pieces, just like WWI.

 

[Valjean]

Hitler was a mad genius, be played Stalin like a fiddle. Stalin made a bargain with the devil and the Russians suffered for it.

How was he mad? You meet people like him every day. All that's missing is opportunity.
Genius? He was a clever political opportunist, and worked hard at his craft, but I don't see genius in him.

 

[barbos]

Stalin was hoping to do what the US did: walk in and pick up the pieces, just like WWI.

No, this would have been correct for opportunists like Lenin, Stalin was a realist. He knew Hitler would attack USSR, question was only when.

 

[steve_bank]

Hitler was a mad genius, be played Stalin like a fiddle. Stalin made a bargain with the devil and the Russians suffered for it.

How was he mad? You meet people like him every day. All that's missing is opportunity.
Genius? He was a clever political opportunist, and worked hard at his craft, but I don't see genius in him.

I read a lot on WWII and the run up. IMO Hitler was the greatest politician of all time, albeit evil. We touched on it in a long ago polisci class.

He expertly sussed the Allies and Stalin, their will and capacity to fight. I watched the films and read some of the Nazi documents that are online. He knew exactly what he was doing at least in the beginning, and was good at risk analysis.

Like Napoleon his fatal flaw was believing his own myth and not knowing when to stop.

He was mad, insane if you like. He had a feel good doctor giving him daily concoctions of stimulants, depressants, and odd cures for his complaints.

I was initially fascinated by his speeches, After a while I realized he had a practiced repertoire of vocal tones, facial expressions, and body gestures.

He knew how to push German cultural buttons like 'blood and earth'.

If our institutions were not as strong as they are and Trump had a fraction of Hitler's skill we'd be in deep trouble.

 

[Valjean]

Didn't Arendt conclude there was nothing particularly remarkable about his psychological makeup?

 

[steve_bank]

I'll start another thread.

I don't think Stalin believed Hitler would attack. He rejected Allied reports of an attack, and refused to mobilize even when troops massed on the border.

Before the war Stalin had eyes on Eastern Europe as a buffer. The Red Army and the NKVD were no better than the Nazis.

When Poland was attacked Germany had enough supplies for around 6 months of full scale war. Contrary to the myth of mechanized juggernaut, a large part of German transport was horse drawn. They never developed large scale transport like the American 2.5 ton truck.

Without a pact with Stalin beginning the war would be too risky. He could not have handled both the Allies and Russia.

 

[barbos]

I'll start another thread.

I don't think Stalin believed Hitler would attack. He rejected Allied reports of an attack, and refused to mobilize even when troops massed on the border.

He totally believed that war was unavoidable, he just did not believe it would happen that early. He thought Hitler was busy with GB and pact they just signed was not a ruse and it would be stupid for Hitler to attack Red Army. Stalin overestimated his Red Army, and Hitler underestimated it, hence a War.

 

[Hermit]

I don't think Stalin believed Hitler would attack.

Crap. Everybody knew that Hitler would attack unless Stalin would attack Germany first. Cartoons were made about that when the ink on the non-aggression pact was barely dry.

 

[steve_bank]

Anyone who read Mein Kampf would know Hitler's plan to expand East....apparently Stalin never read it. Conquer and depopulate for German expansion. I beleive in the speech at the end of the film Triumph Of The Will he talks about it.

The Volkswagen or People's Car was created as cheap transportation for an envisioned highway system to the East.

As the saying goes. Hitler was playing chess and Stalin checkers. He beat the Germans not by strategy but brute force attrition, and aid from the Allies.

 

[barbos]

Anyone who read Mein Kampf would know Hitler's plan to expand East....apparently Stalin never read it. Conquer and depopulate for German expansion. I beleive in the speech at the end of the film Triumph Of The Will he talks about it.

The Volkswagen or People's Car was created as cheap transportation for an envisioned highway system to the East.

As the saying goes. Hitler was playing chess and Stalin checkers. He beat the Germans not by strategy but brute force attrition, and aid from the Allies.

And you apparently have not read my post. Stalin knew Hitler was an enemy, he just did not believe he would attack so soon.

 

[Horatio Parker]

Stalin was hoping to do what the US did: walk in and pick up the pieces, just like WWI.

No, this would have been correct for opportunists like Lenin, Stalin was a realist. He knew Hitler would attack USSR, question was only when.

What, to you, is the difference? Stalin had territorial ambitions in Europe. Germany and the western allies depleting their resources fighting each other would improve his chances. No one, even Hitler at his most sanguine, could've predicted how easily Germany beat the west.

 

[barbos]

Stalin was hoping to do what the US did: walk in and pick up the pieces, just like WWI.

No, this would have been correct for opportunists like Lenin, Stalin was a realist. He knew Hitler would attack USSR, question was only when.

What, to you, is the difference? Stalin had territorial ambitions in Europe. Germany and the western allies depleting their resources fighting each other would improve his chances. No one, even Hitler at his most sanguine, could've predicted how easily Germany beat the west.

For the ten's time, Stalin had no territorial ambitions in Europe.
Now next question please.

 

[Hermit]

For the ten's time, Stalin had no territorial ambitions in Europe.

Nevertheless, he was perfectly aware that a war between him and Hitler was inevitable. Both knew the non-aggression pact was a sham before Molotov and Ribbentrop signed it.

 

[Horatio Parker]

What, to you, is the difference? Stalin had territorial ambitions in Europe. Germany and the western allies depleting their resources fighting each other would improve his chances. No one, even Hitler at his most sanguine, could've predicted how easily Germany beat the west.

For the ten's time, Stalin had no territorial ambitions in Europe.
Now next question please.

Sure, the Red Army slipped and fell on Finland, Baltic States, Poland, Bessarabia and Bukovina...

And when Molotov, in Berlin November 1940, asked for territorial concessions "closer to Europe" he didn't actually mean IN Europe.

Hitler, Ribbentrop and Molotov tried to set German and Soviet spheres of influence; Hitler encouraged Molotov to look south to Iran and eventually India while preserving German access to Finland's resources, and to remove Soviet influence in the Balkans.[2] Molotov remained firm, seeking to remove German troops from Finland and gain a warm water port in the Balkans. Soviet foreign policy calculations were predicated by the idea that the war would be a long-term struggle and therefore German claims that Britain would be defeated swiftly were treated with scepticism.[3] In addition, Stalin sought to remain influential in Bulgaria and Yugoslavia. These factors resulted in Molotov taking a firm line.[2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German–Soviet_Axis_talks

Nice alternate reality you have going there...

 

[barbos]

Sure, the Red Army slipped and fell on Finland, Baltic States, Poland, Bessarabia and Bukovina...

Actually yes. That's what happened.