Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

A

[Loud Whispers]

I saw it on Bay12, someone said Hitler was a great guy because he killed Hitler

[TheDarkStar]

I saw it on Bay12, someone said Hitler was a great guy because he killed Hitler

That might have been me.

[penguinofhonor]

I think the joke is that probably at least a dozen people have said that here.

[MarcAFK]

I was quoting someone else when I said it.

[Dutchling]

I saw it firstmon reddit

Please pay me royalties now

[MetalSlimeHunt]

That joke is at least ten years old.

[Morrigi]

Because when you ignore all the Jew-killing and people-exterminating the rise and fall of Nazi Germany makes for a pretty awesome story: The country rises from the depths of defeat, united by a common idea  burning in their hearts - breaking down the defenses of their old enemies without much effort, achieving in a couple weeks what others took years to do - and then taking on the giant country to the east, a place with vast and incredible reserves of industry and population, ruled by a dictator and an idea the same way - and it almost won...

And goddamn did they have snappy uniforms and good music.

I wonder how much your arguments reflect the East/West cultural divide.

It does so very much. 'But he built the Autobahn!' would be enough to be branded a revisionist at the very least over here. Sometimes I wonder if reunification was a good thing...

The fact does remain that before the war, Germany went from being one of the poorest countries in Europe to a military superpower with one of the highest standards of living in the world. Hell, TIME Magazine even called Hitler man of the year in 1938.

Without the horrors of the camps and the piles of civilian bodies marring his record, Hitler would probably be viewed similarly to Napoleon these days.

[Antsan]

I wonder how much your arguments reflect the East/West cultural divide.

It does so very much. 'But he built the Autobahn!' would be enough to be branded a revisionist at the very least over here. Sometimes I wonder if reunification was a good thing...

It's also enough to be branded revisionist over here, but there are the people who mix up "learning from history" with "feeling guilty" all the time and who then go on trying to make themselves feel better by talking about stuff that supposedly wasn't that bad (as long as you ignore that these autobahn…s…en, this is weird… were built by jews, and, if I remember that right, partly with jew remains).
But you don't need to act all high and mighty: You people had politicians whose career spanned WWII and the beginnings of the BRD, mostly with these careers ending not due to political but health reasons. And today still nobody but leftist nuts like me talks about that.

We probably agree that the reunification was not a good idea. I still need to find something about the ideas that were floating around back then. Unfortunately my parents do not have a manifest or something like that.
Wait, I think I found something. I haven't looked into it yet.

[Antsan]

Wait, I think I found something. I haven't looked into it yet.

I've taken a look now. Seems interesting.
Although the first link on that page is of more interest than that page itself, I think.

I haven't taken a look at the other parties, yet. Its late. I should go to bed.

[mainiac]

The fact does remain that before the war, Germany went from being one of the poorest countries in Europe to a military superpower with one of the highest standards of living in the world. Hell, TIME Magazine even called Hitler man of the year in 1938.

The great depression hit German hard (along with the US and UK) but Germany wasn't by any stretch one of the poorest countries in Europe.  They definitely were in the top 10 richest countries in the world throughout the depression and might have been in the top 5 (I dont remember how the Benelux and Nordics faired).  And the poorest parts of Germany were it's backward agricultural sector which wasn't hit as hard as the urban areas.

[Culise]

I wonder how much your arguments reflect the East/West cultural divide.

It does so very much. 'But he built the Autobahn!' would be enough to be branded a revisionist at the very least over here. Sometimes I wonder if reunification was a good thing...

The fact does remain that before the war, Germany went from being one of the poorest countries in Europe to a military superpower with one of the highest standards of living in the world. Hell, TIME Magazine even called Hitler man of the year in 1938.

Without the horrors of the camps and the piles of civilian bodies marring his record, Hitler would probably be viewed similarly to Napoleon these days.

Of course, he also did that by robbing Peter (and Ezekiel, and David, and Eli...) to pay Paul.  Without the piles of civilian bodies (that is to say, the piles as a consequence of the War, rather than the Holocaust) and the seized gold stores of the conquered nations, the German economy would have overheated and crashed hard when all of those loans they took to pay for the recovery came due.  It also helps that a lot of their earlier policy was a continuation of that of the previous Chancellor, von Schleicher, before Hitler shifted to a non-productive military economy by steadily increasing investment into the armed forces to over 10% of the GDP in 1936 and still higher after, which doesn't actually generate wealth unless, as Hitler did, you go out and take it from other people.  Pressure on Germany's economy also declined due to the moratorium on all reparations decided upon at Lausanne in 1932, again before Hitler took power.  Indeed, German foreign capital reserves were so low in 1936 that they literally could not buy enough lead and copper to ensure the demands of their military industry.  Agricultural production did not exceed pre-Great War levels, arbitrary bans on automobile production and development restricted motorization of the populace, unemployment was "fixed" by effectively removing undesirable population and women from employment, and the production of consumer or other non-military goods stagnated while standards of living actually fell.

That said, I don't disagree that there are some deluded people who would view Hitler like Napoleon.  There are even today.  It's not for nothing that people claim that Mussolini made the trains run on time, even though he didn't. 

[mainiac]

Female employment actually rose.  However it would not have risen if it weren't for a technologically stagnant agricultural sector maintaining a high level of female employment by not replacing farm labor with machines.  So half the rise is due to women replacing men in the backwards farming sector due to lack of investment in that sector while the other half is a rise of urban female employment, mostly in the service sector.

[Helgoland]

But you don't need to act all high and mighty: You people had politicians whose career spanned WWII and the beginnings of the BRD, mostly with these careers ending not due to political but health reasons. And today still nobody but leftist nuts like me talks about that.

-The DDR had those too, if in lesser amounts.
-Hmm, I wonder where DIE LINKE has gotten most of its members from?
Nobody needs to act high and mighty about others doing stuff like this - most of the time it's a (sad) necessity. I still consider the biggest mistake of the SPD after '45 that they didn't allow ex-SED members to join after the Wall fell.

Wait, I think I found something. I haven't looked into it yet.

I've taken a look now. Seems interesting.
Although the first link on that page is of more interest than that page itself, I think.

Thanks, I'd been looking forward to that! I'll look into it as soon as possible.

[Antsan]

I apologize for that "high and mighty" comment.

Glad I could help you. Especially with this.

[Helgoland]

Hey, no problem - I can sort of see where it came from.

And yeah, I think there's an astounding disconnect between east and west to this day: I don't think any of my friends know much about the Wende. Die Mauer in den Köpfen, eh?