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Keep in mind, though, that the leading Nazis were an unpublished author, a socially awkward chicken farmer and a fat morphine addict trying to cash in on his former fame, all lead by a failed artist.
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Apr 11, 2013 04:53
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Sunshine89 posted:Keep in mind, though, that the leading Nazis were an unpublished author, a socially awkward chicken farmer and a fat morphine addict trying to cash in on his former fame, all lead by a failed artist. I am absolutely convinced that the nazi party, and particularly hitler, would not have been possible in a world with internet forums and facebook as a sort of safety valve.
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Apr 11, 2013 06:36
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Slavvy posted:I am absolutely convinced that the nazi party, and particularly hitler, would not have been possible in a world with internet forums and facebook as a sort of safety valve. I've actually seen some of Hitler's paintings, and I have to wonder- what was so bad about them? Mind you, I suppose this would be a better question for an art megathread or something. Are there any good books/websites that cover Hitler's hobo period? Because I really want to know/see what led that homeless bum to become the most infamous man of the 20th century, and God willing, beyond. Mind you, I don't want Hitler discovering Deviantart, lest he begin exterminating anyone who isn't a furry otaku 
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Apr 11, 2013 08:59
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Göring is an interesting case, since despite him being a fat druggie (tho the jury might be out on if he actually had kicked his morphine habit before 1939), he was also a guy who had shown great personal courage and competence in WW1 and he had been a capable planner before the war and able to get the Nazis the contacts they needed inside the industrial elite of Germany. The paradox to him is that he was clearly a forceful personality, capable of outmaneuvering Himmler despite Himmler taking over the internal security functions of Nazi Germany, yet he lost his touch during the war and was a terrible leader for the Luftwaffe and incapable of standing up to Hitler. He also was apparently the only Nazi who was early on in doubt regarding the outcome of the war.
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Apr 11, 2013 10:52
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Slavvy posted:I am absolutely convinced that the nazi party, and particularly hitler, would not have been possible in a world with internet forums and facebook as a sort of safety valve. Might be. I think that Hitler would have totally been a E/N poster and a Pet Islander. And I've been thinking about others also. If ancient philosphers had had internet, they would probably have just wasted their time on procrastination instead doing anything productive. Napoleon would just have played Total War and Paradox games. Renaissance masters would just have photoshopped art before internet.
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Apr 11, 2013 11:21
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Kemper Boyd posted:The paradox to him is that he was clearly a forceful personality, capable of outmaneuvering Himmler despite Himmler taking over the internal security functions of Nazi Germany, yet he lost his touch during the war and was a terrible leader for the Luftwaffe and incapable of standing up to Hitler. He also was apparently the only Nazi who was early on in doubt regarding the outcome of the war. I get the impression he spent at least the latter part of the war basically going "gently caress it, I'm just going to party while I can".
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Apr 11, 2013 11:43
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Bacarruda posted:
Just wanted to clarify that these camps didn't have homicidal gas chambers, although one might have been tested once at Dachau and the jury's out on that.
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Apr 11, 2013 11:50
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Hogge Wild posted:Might be. I think that Hitler would have totally been a E/N poster and a Pet Islander. And I've been thinking about others also. If ancient philosphers had had internet, they would probably have just wasted their time on procrastination instead doing anything productive. Napoleon would just have played Total War and Paradox games. Renaissance masters would just have photoshopped art before internet. Greek philosophers would turn FYAD into their home.
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Apr 11, 2013 14:34
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CommissarMega posted:I've actually seen some of Hitler's paintings, and I have to wonder- what was so bad about them? Mind you, I suppose this would be a better question for an art megathread or something. Are there any good books/websites that cover Hitler's hobo period? Because I really want to know/see what led that homeless bum to become the most infamous man of the 20th century, and God willing, beyond. He wasn't bad, just not good enough to hack it as a pro. He definitely suffered from wobbly lines and uneven perspective, which are particularly bad traits to have when you're mostly interested in architectural paintings and cityscapes (he was worse at human figures.)
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Apr 11, 2013 16:48
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Sunshine89 posted:Keep in mind, though, that the leading Nazis were an unpublished author, a socially awkward chicken farmer and a fat morphine addict trying to cash in on his former fame, all lead by a failed artist. Wait, who is the unpublished author? Goebbels?
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Apr 11, 2013 18:32
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Amused to Death posted:Wait, who is the unpublished author? Goebbels? Reading the wikipedia entry on him it sounds like "struggling author" would be a more accurate description: Joseph Goebbels Wikipedia Entry posted:After completing his doctorate in 1921, Goebbels worked as a journalist and tried for several years to become a published author. He wrote a semi-autobiographical novel, Michael, two verse plays, and quantities of romantic poetry.
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Apr 11, 2013 19:38
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MothraAttack posted:Just wanted to clarify that these camps didn't have homicidal gas chambers, although one might have been tested once at Dachau and the jury's out on that. The chamber itself may have never been operational, but it was on the way. It was certainly constructed with mass execution and disposal capacity in mind.  The ovens themselves were described as being operational just for disposal, although I am unsure of to what kind of capacity.
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Apr 12, 2013 04:03
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How did the nazi party/Hitler reconcile their racist/aryan superiority views with their alliance with Japan?
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Apr 12, 2013 07:10
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I'm not an expert on the subject, and I'm sure the OP or someone else could give a better explanation of what was going on behind the scenes, but here's an interesting nazi propaganda pamphlet that lays out the logic they used publicly. http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/japan.htm
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Apr 12, 2013 07:47
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LeeMajors posted:The chamber itself may have never been operational, but it was on the way. It was certainly constructed with mass execution and disposal capacity in mind. Yeah, that's true. Of the several gas chambers at Dachau one was clearly fitted for homicidal purposes -- the others designed differently for delousing -- and the crematoria were certainly capable. Each oven could incinerate nine or ten bodies in under 15 minutes. Although the Dachau chamber was likely never used (or perhaps only on a handful of occasions) they could always send inmates to nearby Hartheim castle to be gassed, as such was the fate of thousands of mentally ill and handicapped victims.
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Apr 12, 2013 09:22
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MothraAttack posted:Yeah, that's true. Of the several gas chambers at Dachau one was clearly fitted for homicidal purposes -- the others designed differently for delousing -- and the crematoria were certainly capable. Each oven could incinerate nine or ten bodies in under 15 minutes. Although the Dachau chamber was likely never used (or perhaps only on a handful of occasions) they could always send inmates to nearby Hartheim castle to be gassed, as such was the fate of thousands of mentally ill and handicapped victims. Yeah but the chambers for delousing were at one end of the building and were actually designed to that end. They had heavy rotating doors and were pre-registration on the far left end of the building. The building was designed with an actual workflow with delousing first, registration next, then 'showers,' and finally the ovens through the opposite side of the showers. The actual homicide chamber is labeled 'Brausebad' or shower and could accommodate probably 100-150ppl. Edit: I can just walk through it, for those that don't know. Delousing chambers are here, that are much lower than head high and are before the 'registration desk' in the building  After the registration desk there is another room, not unlike a locker room, and this sign leading to the next chamber....  Which looks like a group shower.....  ...but has the distinction of being followed by these giant ovens through the opposite door.  I'm not trying to contradict anything you're saying, but I think it's pretty clear that they had set up Dachau to eventually be a death camp. If memory serves, my audio guide said something to the effect of the showers were not confirmed to be operational, but could've been tested on humans. There was another, smaller crematorium just across from this one that was used for the duration of the camp to dispose of the bodies of those that were being worked to death, died from disease, or were shot for whatever reason, but it was inadequate for the number of executions being performed as the liberation front approached from the west. Further edit: I'm not sure if you snuck a  edit on me, but I totally read your post differently the first time. Oh well, pictures are fun.
LeeMajors fucked around with this message at 10:53 on Apr 12, 2013 |
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Apr 12, 2013 10:31
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Gabriel Pope posted:He wasn't bad, just not good enough to hack it as a pro. He definitely suffered from wobbly lines and uneven perspective, which are particularly bad traits to have when you're mostly interested in architectural paintings and cityscapes (he was worse at human figures.) He was also pretty lazy at it. In Kershaw's biography, Hitler's former business partner/roommate said he didn't bother to actually paint enough for the two of them to make it. He mostly painted landscapes and local landmarks for tourists, and was sort of a low-rent Thomas Kinkade-style artist.
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Apr 12, 2013 10:51
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LeeMajors posted:
Nope, no edits. Think we're on the same page. That chamber was clearly intended for mass executions, probably to supplement the Hartheim gassing facility or for some future larger purpose. One Dachau doctor, Sigmund Rascher, even wrote to Himmler wondering about using the homicidal gas chamber for testing chemical weapons on live subjects. But yeah, pictures help regardless. Dachau is one of the most sobering places you can visit.
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Apr 12, 2013 11:06
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LeeMajors posted:Yeah but the chambers for delousing were at one end of the building and were actually designed to that end. They had heavy rotating doors and were pre-registration on the far left end of the building. The building was designed with an actual workflow with delousing first, registration next, then 'showers,' and finally the ovens through the opposite side of the showers. The actual homicide chamber is labeled 'Brausebad' or shower and could accommodate probably 100-150ppl. What were those 'showers' purpose? Were the oven's merely for the sole purpose of burning dead bodies, or would they burn people alive?
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Apr 12, 2013 13:20
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Guni posted:What were those 'showers' purpose? Were the oven's merely for the sole purpose of burning dead bodies, or would they burn people alive? While the Dachau "bath" was likely never used for its intended murderous purpose or only in trial runs, this was standard design practice for Nazi gas chambers from Treblinka to Auschwitz. It was decorated to convince victims they were going into a group shower or delousing area for anti-typhus purposes. Once the doors were sealed, Zkylon B or carbon monoxide gas would flood the chamber. The crematoriums were for incinerating the bodies, although there is some eyewitness testimony from Dachau suggesting that prisoners were burned alive on at least one occasion. That would not have been standard practice, however.
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Apr 12, 2013 13:27
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Scionix posted:How did the nazi party/Hitler reconcile their racist/aryan superiority views with their alliance with Japan? Japanese people were declared "Honorary Aryans". Hitler posted:Pride in one's own race - and that does not imply contempt for other races - is also a normal and healthy sentiment. I have never regarded the Chinese or the Japanese as being inferior to ourselves. They belong to ancient civilizations, and I admit freely that their past history is superior to our own. They have the right to be proud of their past, just as we have the right to be proud of the civilization to which we belong. Indeed, I believe the more steadfast the Chinese and the Japanese remain in their pride of race, the easier I shall find it to get on with them.
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Apr 12, 2013 13:46
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ashgromnies posted:Japanese people were declared "Honorary Aryans". It's also worth pointing out that we have a much better understanding of the origins of various populations now than was possessed in the 30s and 40s. Because of our modern understanding of just how far apart Japanese and Germans are historically, the idea of the Japanese being Aryan is patently ridiculous, but it was much less so at the time.
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Apr 12, 2013 14:58
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Azathoth posted:The Nazi conception of what makes someone an Aryan was, like much of the Nazi philosophy, based on negation. They could point to someone and say that they are not Aryan (Jews, Slavs, etc.) but actually saying who was Aryan had a surprising amount of flexibility. It allowed them to come up with a solid justification for a population being Aryan if there was a geopolitical reason for making an alliance with them. Strictly speaking, the idea of the Germans being Aryan is also patently ridiculous.
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Apr 13, 2013 05:34
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Did Nazi Germany have universal healthcare?
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Apr 13, 2013 05:46
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I'm wondering OP, do you ever study the Japanese Empire and the often similar atrocities they committed? The horrors of Nazi Germany seem as well studied as the Japanese horrors are hidden and paved over, like Unit 731. Does anyone else you work with research that side of the war?
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Apr 13, 2013 12:34
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What is the purpose of delousing someone just minutes before you gas and incinerate them?
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Apr 13, 2013 12:44
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counterfeitsaint posted:What is the purpose of delousing someone just minutes before you gas and incinerate them?
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Apr 13, 2013 13:42
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Silver2195 posted:Strictly speaking, the idea of the Germans being Aryan is also patently ridiculous.
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Apr 13, 2013 14:06
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When I read Gitta Serenys book on Speer, I was really struck by the byzanthine courtplay between Hitlers top men. Could someone draw up a really basic flowchart of how power fluctuated between the top guys? Things like Himmler taking over the internal security from Göring and Speer allying with Goebbles against Himmler to put the Total War policy in effect. It'll be kind of sisyphean, I know, but it'd be interesting!
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Apr 13, 2013 14:36
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Paxicon posted:When I read Gitta Serenys book on Speer, I was really struck by the byzanthine courtplay between Hitlers top men. Could someone draw up a really basic flowchart of how power fluctuated between the top guys? Things like Himmler taking over the internal security from Göring and Speer allying with Goebbles against Himmler to put the Total War policy in effect. It'll be kind of sisyphean, I know, but it'd be interesting! It's simple. Hitler on top. gently caress everyone else. If they're busy stabbing each other in the back, they're not even considering a coup. No matter how bad things get.
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Apr 13, 2013 16:14
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DasReich posted:It's simple. Hitler on top. gently caress everyone else. If they're busy stabbing each other in the back, they're not even considering a coup. No matter how bad things get. Unless you're Henning von Tresckow. But yeah, anyone in real power was in constant struggle with poorly delineated counterparts for much of the regime, to the point where people bowed to Himmler while he struggled with Polish occupation leaders. The whole thing was rotten.
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Apr 13, 2013 18:07
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Thanks for the replies, but I was kind of looking for specific feuds between top officials and how they were resolved
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Apr 13, 2013 19:09
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Paxicon posted:Thanks for the replies, but I was kind of looking for specific feuds between top officials and how they were resolved John Madden's arms would fall off before even he could explain the ins and outs of Nazi pecking order bullshit. I mean, who was in charge of what at what time was vaguely delineated and could sort of be drawn out, but it's not like there was any system for it.
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Apr 14, 2013 03:58
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Perhaps this is veering too far into military history and doctrine, but what was training like for a German soldier? In the US, we frequently get glimpses into what training was like through media like Band of Brothers, but you never really see what it's like for the other side.
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Apr 14, 2013 05:06
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Paxicon posted:Thanks for the replies, but I was kind of looking for specific feuds between top officials and how they were resolved There's plenty, but two are worth noting offhand. Wilhelm Canaris was head of the Abwehr intelligence agency, and Reinhard Heydrich, as Himmler's young deputy, was ambitious as hell and in a position to be so. Some historians credit him with fomenting the idea of mass gassing centers for the Jewish question, and some speculate he was priming to be Hitler's eventual successor. Heydrich sought to consolidate all German intelligence under his umbrella and readily turned against Canaris, an old family friend. Canaris caught wind, and each man had their staff memers spying on one another. Canaris sought to prove Heydrich's rumored Jewish ancestry, at one point trying to gather old photographic evidence and send it abroad. Heydrich's approach was more cautious, and he advised his spies to be wary of his foe's abilities. Nothing really decisive happened as Heydrich died shorly after the spy war started -- but a spy war that brazen was pretty remarkable. It's also worth noting that Heydrich's goal wasn't entirely unreasonable. The Abwehr produced questionable intelligence, partly because Canaris and much of his staff were secretly opposed to Hitler -- a fact kept hidden from Heydrich's prying eyes. On the other hand, you have someone like Erich Koch, Gauleiter of East Prussia and eventual Reichskomissar of Ukraine. Tight with Goering, Koch had a knack for funneling disproportionate resources into his fiefdoms. Initially this caused a collision course with agricultural minister Walther Darre that was so tense Koch once had Darre's deputies arrested. Unfortunately for Darre his powers were limited and Koch's ascension continued unabated. As administrator of Ukraine he drew stern flak from Alfred Rosenberg, who in a whiny letter accused Koch of acting as his own Fuehrer in Ukraine and expressed jealousy of Koch's one-on-one meetings with Hitler. So incensed was Rosenberg that he personally insisted on -- and got -- his presence at all future meetings between Hitler and Koch. I'm sure this chaffed Koch, but it did nothing to curb his power that included overseeing all Gestapo and police units in the East in addition to his administrative duties. Interestingly, Koch was an ardent socialist and former supporter of Gregor Strasser, earning him the nickname "Red Koch." His rise to power despite this is evidence of his ruthlessness, anti-Semitism and ability to "work toward the Fuehrer." So perhaps nothing too crazy here, but indicative of the regime's instability and infighting nonetheless.
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Apr 14, 2013 12:22
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Kemper Boyd posted:Göring is an interesting case, since despite him being a fat druggie (tho the jury might be out on if he actually had kicked his morphine habit before 1939), he was also a guy who had shown great personal courage and competence in WW1 and he had been a capable planner before the war and able to get the Nazis the contacts they needed inside the industrial elite of Germany. And Goering's brother, Albert was the complete opposite. From all I've read, Hermann was a very amoral man who would stoop any evil to advance and live the "good life". Hogge Wild posted:Might be. I think that Hitler would have totally been a E/N poster and a Pet Islander. And I've been thinking about others also. If ancient philosphers had had internet, they would probably have just wasted their time on procrastination instead doing anything productive. Napoleon would just have played Total War and Paradox games. Renaissance masters would just have photoshopped art before internet. But it would've been very good photoshopped art.
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Apr 16, 2013 15:22
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CommissarMega posted:
Hitler actually made some fan art: 
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Apr 16, 2013 19:07
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What is Dopey doing with his hand?
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Apr 16, 2013 19:34
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Can we have more interesting personal details about the third reich's leadership? I'd love say, an indepth critique of hitler's art.
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Apr 16, 2013 23:49
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surf rock posted:To what extent was the Holocaust justified by, or derived from, American eugenic practices? There's a great book on the American eugenics movement and its links to Nazi Germany called War Against The Weak by Edwin Black; most of what I'm saying below is covered by it. Black also wrote IBM and the Holocaust, just in case you'd like to be more discouraged and cynical about corporate greed turning a blind eye to what the Nazis were doing. Anyways - someone talked earlier about the "Latin" races, and dividing Europeans into different races with different personality traits (and a distinct heirarchy of superiority), and that is rooted in much of the same terrible anthropology that claimed that the Germans were part of the Aryan tribes; the leading book on this subject was from American author Madison Grant in The Passing of the Great Race. In the teens and '20s, much of the thought on eugenics and racialism was defined by Americans: The American Eugenics Society had a lot of direct correspondence with German scientists passing information back and forth. Hitler's Mein Kampf even specifically cites U.S. immigration and sterlization laws as a model for a future Germany to follow. Post-1930 the AES began to fall apart; advances in science caused many leading eugenicists such as Carl Brigham and Goddard to renounce their previous work, and once the Nazis took over in Germany, the chummy relations between AES leadership and German scientists drove many out of the organization, especially as much of the 'eugenic science' the AES was practicing devolved into doing family trees and denoting known personality traits of people in those trees. What extent was the Holocaust justified or derived from American eugenics? There's absolutely a linkage - The Passing of the Great Race was the first non-German book the Nazis allowed to be printed, and Hitler called the book "my bible" in a letter to Grant. Harry Laughlin, then-president of the AES, received an honorary degree in 1936 from Heidelburg in the "science of racial cleansing." But that has to be balanced against the fact that there were German eugenicists at the same time - Baur, Fischer, and Lenz - who were writing about the supremacy of the Nordics at the same time as Grant, and who served in high scientific positions under the Nazis. Even more so, I think you'd go crazy trying to sort out which ideas did the Nazis start with as racists and anti-semites in early 20th century Germany, and which were taught to them by eugenics writers, and whether those writers were the American ones or the German ones. Eugenic science in the early 20th century was essentially racist wish-fulfillment, turning standard, every-day racism that may have been socially awkward into FACTS OF SCIENCE which could therefore not be disputed. None of the ideas of the eugenicists were new - they weren't the first anti-semites, or the first to define racial stratification, and certainly not the first to do so and declare themselves the top of the heap. And outside of Germany, that 'science' was rapidly falling apart and being renounced even as the Nazis were taking power. But this 'scientific proof' was still certainly great cover, and allowed the Nazis to portray themselves not as thuggish reactionaries, but as progressives following the tenets of academia. Hess said in 1934, "Nazism is nothing more than applied biology". One further creepy connection between the AES and the Holocaust: the AES in the mid-'30's ran an article fawning over the eugenics research of Dr. Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer, who was head of the Institute for Genetic Biology and Racial Hygiene; it specifically lauded and encouraged the work he was doing in eugenics research by running comparison testing on twins. As the war dragged on, Dr. von Verschuer had trouble getting specimens of twins to work with; luckily, he had a former assistant who was able to get him a great deal of data on twins.
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Apr 17, 2013 03:10
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