Just how "Nazi"was the average German soldier?
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- Опубликовано: 16 апр 2024
- Just how "Nazi"was the average German soldier?
With David Harrisville
Part of our ongoing Eastern Front series on WW2TV
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Today we are revisiting the question of "how Nazi was the average German soldier?," based on the latest research. The answer: it's complicated, but ultimately the soldiers did what Hitler wanted them to do even if they weren't all hardcore Nazis.
Of course, it goes without saying that we remain disgusted by everything the Nazis stood for. Their evil ideology had to be destroyed, and thanks to the efforts of millions of Allies - thankfully it was.
David A. Harrisville is an independent scholar. He has held various academic positions, including, most recently, Visiting Assistant Professor of History at Furman University. www.davidharrisville.com/
David's previous appearance on WW2TV
ruclips.net/user/live3cuxqtmt3Gc
The Virtuous Wehrmacht: Crafting the Myth of the German Soldier on the Eastern Front, 1941-1944
David A. Harrisville
USA bookshop.org/a/21029/97815017...
UK www.combinedacademic.co.uk/97...
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simple fact: you cannot get this spectrum of ww2 history anywhere else. WW2TV is unique and stands out as such. i'm still mulling over what i learned here today and for that i am grateful.
Highly recommend the channel "unauthorized history of the pacific war" for anyone that loves this channel. Very diffrent format, but similar in high quality deep dive historic discussion. They even share guests from time to time, on different subjects. They go good together.
On a lighter note, i suggest Simon Whistler's Into the Shadows and other chanells. Well-researched takes on 3rd reich in a concentrated way.
@dannydetonator interesting use of the word "concentrated" when referring to the Germans. Last year my than high school senior grandson took an Advanced Placement WWII History Class & living in New Orleans did a lot of research at the National WWII Museum & even did podcast on Apple called Tigers By The Fire. They even visited Normandy. He is now a plebe at a US Military Academy
Can't put it better myself
Absolutely. WW2TV is quite excellent and the level of detail is remarkable.
Unfortunately, many people aren't interested in details and don't have a long-enough attention span to benefit from this quality of content.
A very thought provoking presentation from David again.
As with all good discussions, it leaves more questions than answers.
Brilliant.
I may never catch up with all the content , but, am willing to try. Thanks for all the effort and the excellent experts presented.
I am Anglo -Greek with Greek mother who experienced the Italian and then German occupation in Greece . She and the family suffered tragically and harshly.
The Italians were more human in their attitude to the greeks.
My father was in 8trh army at El Alamain as a sapper crawling through the mine fields.
Omer Bartov has written some really good books on this topic, especially “The Eastern Front, 1941-1945: German Troops and the Barbarization of Warfare”
Yes, his work is referenced by David in the talk
@@WW2TV yeah I wrote the comment like 2 minutes before he brought it up
There is also a book "The Wehrmacht: History, Myth, Reality" by Wolfram Wette!
I’m 66 and so was fortunate enough to have met so many men who served in WW2 on all sides. The average German soldier I spoke with served out of obligation to their country and when in service had a great sense of duty. You never left the front even if wounded so that someone else took the bullet meant for you. The spoke of being drilled to respect the populations they encountered, and to give your seat up on a tram for a female. They tried not to plunder as they understood how poor and impacted the civilians were by the war. They respected the average Soviet soldier as a determined and worthy opponent. But they also said that that Soviet soldier would follow any order and be ruthless if told to be. Many also then said that if confronted by one personally, they were very human and even compassionate.
I spoke with very many US GI’s as well, and found their motivations and viewpoints similar. They told me they respected German soldiers for their fighting abilities and their sense of duty. They would almost to the man end by saying that, “Most of them were line us and just wanted to be home. They didn’t want war.”
Thanks, but just being devil's advocate, you say "The average German soldier I spoke with served out of obligation to their country and when in service had a great sense of duty". How can you be sure they were being truthful? Would any of them have had a reason to downplay or simply deny any fanaticism for Hitler? Don't forget, a lot of people in prison claim they are innocent
I sang in a German men’s choir with many old timers for 20 years and got to know 50+ men very well, even seeing them in hospital and on their death beds. After about a year, their true personalities shown through and they opened up to me, often for the first time. Once, I made a comment about the “Russians” being brutal people and a veteran admonished me and said that while he was in a Soviet labor camp until 1954, they Russians shared their food and shelter with the Germans as they were all humans.
I spoke with another man who was in the first wave to attack Malemy airfield on Kreta and he spoke of reprisals for their youngest being killed by civilians. After the war he was in E Germany and spied on the Russian airbase for the Americans. I asked him what he thought about the way the Greeks reacted to his invasion after what he did in EG. he said he realized how young and naive he was in 1941. He understood the Greeks sense of outrage when he was occupied by the Russians.
I used to sit with Major Winters and talk about the German soldiers he encountered, so I know that the people I spoke with gave me as clear a picture as anyone can get from another.
Where did you speak to these veterans? In Germany, if so, East or West?. Or are we talking about the USA?
Mostly in the Midwest of the US, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Detroit, and Ontario even. Many couldn’t get sponsorship to the US in the 1950’s. But also in Germany and Austria. I spent 2 weeks on Crete as a guest of the 7th Fallschirmjager veterans association and spent time with 3 Ritterkreuztrager. I also met a bunch of NZ and Oz vets and got their views of their adversaries. I was always surprised by the opposing groups camaraderie with each other, having shared experiences and understanding much of what their opponents went thru. People today with little to no personal experience with these men have formed opinions far different from the men that fought them. I’ll trust the US soldiers who lived that time and have had years to contemplate it.
Thanks for explaining
Great research my guy! Thank you for sharing
I'm sorry I've thought about this for days and I've struggled to try to get through this presentation and I want to consume the awesome and valuable knowledge that this man has put the smacking of the lips after every thought I guarantee you stops at least 10,000 people from getting a chance to learn this because they just can't get past it and he may not know this so I think this is a form of me trying to help him not criticizing him whatsoever because he's far smarter and better looking than I am and he's probably got great self-esteem so therefore he's not thinking about this
I recommend watching “Zone of Interest” and then thinking this all through again. I am not sure it would (or should) change anyone’s conclusions, but it did illuminate one point for me. If I ask the question “what is needed for a monumental evil to arise, spread and thrive?” I think the answer is “draw the curtains and turn your back.” Zone of Interest makes this point at a sort of visually literal level, but I think the point is very applicable. And the lesson is IMHO very important because unless you assign the situation to dysgenics or something like that it’s hard to answer the question in ways that might guide us in our own time.
Brilliant movie. But if you're plot driven, you may not appreciate it.
There is another book I recommend, it's from an German historian, but available in English: The German War from Nicholas Stargardt, it looks at the reports which the Sicherheitsdienst - security service conducted about the "mood" on the homefront. A real eyeopener about what the Germans knew about the war and the things happened in the East.
Yep, that's a great book! Given how many letters the soldiers were writing, I'd say the home front had a constant stream of information about the real nature of the war
Thank you Paul and David for this very interesting discussion! I found it enlightening & your conversation left me with aspects to think about further. Thanks again!
Thanks for watching!
Grateful once again to both of you, I love the simple technique of letting the expert speak.
As far as I have seen Nazis - A Warning From History ( Laurence Rees ) is the best source I have seen on Nazi ideology and the extent it was absorbed into the German population / armed forces . This was also a 6 part documentary on BBC so should be available .
All you need to know is look how most people behaved during so-called COVID-19
My mother was Parisian and spent her mid to late teens under the German occupation. She told me many things of the time. Her father ran an inn and boarding house so met many German soldiers during this period. She said the normal German soldier i.e. Wehrmacht Heer were not interested in the war and didn't want to be there. It was the SS and Gestapo in Paris who were the drivers. For example, the SS would offer extra food rations to French people to inform on their neighbors. The SS would then take the whole family out, shoot them on the street as a warning to others. The Wermacht normal German army she said were horrified and refused to have anything to do with the SS and were not involved in such crimes (in Paris).
And yet the Wehrmacht were responsible for many many atrocities
An army, any army does not excel in battle without belief in what they are doing, how they are led and how they are supplied. The Wehrmacht were transformed by the National Socialists after the restrictions imposed by Versaille. You are right in the driving force being the SS and Gestapo, and I accept your family accounts with those they interacted with. However it does not and could not include the whole of the Wehrmacht.
@@WW2TV True. However I'm relaying what my mother told me in her own experience of the German non-SS soldiers she met, and events she horrifyingly witnessed of the family shootings by the SS. A snapshot if you will. No doubt these 'normal' German army soldiers would have had perhaps a different perspective and perhaps even background to other German soldiers in other places in the war. As an aside, she told me so much detail and sadly for her she saw many Parisians turn against each other due to the SS psychological warfare she became by late teens disillusioned with her own people. After the war she graduated as a nurse, moved to the UK as she couldn't wait to get out of France, met my father who was an English paratrooper during the war. Want to know a really sad thing about her? She told me she hated her own people. Well, the SS really did a good job there.
I had a friend who was in the Wehrmacht, during the war. He didn't want to be there, either but told me "don't be fooled, we were all Nazis". Maybe his opinion but he had more to base his upon.
@@FuryMotoWorks Well, keep in mind, that your mother can tell you just as much as she knows. And she been told many of those things, mot like personally experience / known them. People had been saying "that SS" and that what she passing to you.
Great discussion. Thank you.
Hi Paul your analogy with the Football experience is the same as mine some of them were so Fanatical it was Frightnen
An excellent study on the Nazis by David, a really complex subject to deal with. Thank you Woody and David for bringing this to WW2TV
You're welcome Kevin
My father fought the Germans in Greece, Crete, North Africa and then Italy! He was wounded in North Africa taken POW and treated extremely well. My father was with the 1st Echelon, 20th Battalion of the 2nd NZEF. He along with one of his friends Charles Upham caught up with the veterans of the Fallshirmjager and Afrika Korp and they all got on extremely well.
Yes it is difficult to judge. I would have fought against communism as I find it to be inherently evil. However the Soviets were amazed by how advanced Germany was, toilets, plumbings systems, electricity, radios, heaters, insulation in their houses etc. Etc The Battle for Berlin by Anthony Beevor.
The 'joined the nazis to fight against communism' angle was mostly a farce - used cynically by former nazis after WW2 to conceal their true ideological motivations. The virulent opposition to communism in Europe of that period wasn't derived from staunch beliefs in free-market capitalism, democratic voting rights, freedom of speech etc - it was often conspiratorial and anti-Semitic in nature.
As a case in point, you mentioned you would have fought against communism - as though it disappeared. China, Cuba, Laos, Vietnam, North Korea, that's more than 1.5 billion people currently living under communism. How motivated are you to take up arms on their behalf?
@@ch.kv. Его отец воевал в реале, этот "борец с коммунизмом" вероятно готов воевать только с дивана.
Ordinary Men- Christopher Browning
Yep, referenced by David in the show
@@WW2TV Shocking and fantastic in equal measure.
I found myself in a conversation as you do with a neighbour. She and her husband were former German refugees. I never asked what he did during the war, though they were the right age for military service. She had given birth to her oldest son in a Redcross camp in Italy just after the war ended.
In the conversation which was about the then new invasion of Afghanistan, she remarked 'stupid polititicians and Slavs they never learn'. At that moment I had the epiphany that Nazism wasn't just a political view you got from a book or the newspaper, it spoke to a cultural 'Everyman' world view.
Just as someone votes for any other political party or not not because you've been indoctrinated, but simply because these politicians say things you already agree with, that seem as sensible and essential to you as the sun rising in the morning.
I also recall listening to an interview with a former member of SS Viking, who said he didn't have political indoctrination during his training, he said no one needed it, because you heard what you needed in church and a good Christian would fight Bolshevism. That to me also ties.
I think we dangerously look at Nazism as a doctrine only, and a few charismatic characters, symbols etc. In fact it's not that clear. That view is convenient and somewhat useful politically
With regards Hitler being awarded "Man of the Year" by Time magazine, it should be stressed that the "title" ("award" is something of a misnomer in and of itself) is given to "the person or persons who most affected the news and our lives, for good or ill, and embodied what was important about the year, for better or for worse".
Yes, but it was seen by many as a validation of his policies and stance in Europe etc. Look at people like Henry Ford
@@WW2TV People like Henry Ford and his ilk had already long since made their minds up about Hitler and National Socialism by this period in time. If you read the article itself, it is quite damning, both of Hitler and his actions, but also of appeasement and how "the West" is portrayed as just standing by and allowing him to do it. No one comes out of it looking good, although the article definitely possesses something of an "American bias", with Roosevelt being portrayed by the magazine as the only person "standing up" to Hitler.
On the side topic you briefly mentioned of England hooliganism, in 1996, I had the pleasure of having a drink with an Englishman in Tempe, Arizona after watching the FA Cup Final, the one where Cantona scored that volley to beat Liverpool 1-0. Has there ever been a more crap match punctuated by a more iconic single moment? I can still hear Gary Linekar summarizing the match, "it started badly, then fell away."
Anyhow, he was about 30, from Birmingham, a Blues supporter. "I hate Villa so much that if I were dying of cancer, I'd hijack a plane and fly it into Villa Park during a match."
He was married with a baby, living in America and had seemingly moved on from his violent youth. He said that he'd been a member of the National Front, and had had the time of his life. At that time, his two loves were "football and fighting." ❤😍❤
The National Front would provide a cheap suit and one way transport to England away matches. He'd wear the suit to cover his tattoos, but mostly to help allay suspicion to get through customs. As soon as he'd cleared passport control, he'd pitch the suit in the trash at the first opportunity. The only rule was, he had to be sober when the match kicked off, because a drunk is a useless fighter. The second the match ended, he was looking for a fight, which wasn't hard to find. The usual yob behavior would ensue until the local authorities arrested him. He didn't need a return ticket because the usual procedure was a slap on the wrist and deportation back to Britain. As he told me all this, I swear he was misty eyed.
Have met similar scumbags in Glasgow embarrassed to call them fellow countryman
It's like the national front had some kind of funding or something.
@@JohnKobaRuddy As I recall, he did say a name of who he thought was behind the National Front. I'm not well versed enough in British nationalist/anarchist(?) politics of the 1990's to recall the name. Do I think a then 20 year old yob actually knew the source of the funding? Doubtful. I'm merely passing along a conversation as I recall it 28 years after the fact.
You can pretty much overlay your conspiracy theory of choice. CIA, KGB, the Crown, Mi5, the IRA, FIFA, UEFA, the West German FA, the Argentinean FA, the Millwall supporters trust, etc. I endorse no conspiracy theory.
@@JohnKobaRuddy As I recall, he did say a name of who he thought was behind the National Front. He said it with the tone of, "of course as everyone knows, 'you know who' was behind it all." I'm not well versed enough in British nationalist/anarchist(?) politics of the 1990's to recall the name. Do I think a then 20 year old yob actually knew the source of the funding? Doubtful. I'm merely passing along a conversation as I recall it 28 years after the fact.
You can pretty much overlay your conspiracy theory of choice. CIA, KGB, the Crown, Mi5, the IRA, NASA, FIFA, UEFA, the West German FA, the Argentinean FA, the Millwall supporters trust, etc. I endorse no conspiracy theory. In a nation where loads of supporters seem to routinely spend thousands of pounds a year to follow their football club to even the most distant away fixtures when their club is in dire form, whose to say it was anyone you ever heard of?
The thing that any conspiracy overlooks is that there were, at the time, thousands of young men happy to travel to football matches and have a punch up. No dark conspiracy made that tendency pop up out of nowhere.
Hello Woody. By my definition of woke, you are definitely not woke. I also believe at one time you mentioned you are left leaning. By my definition of left leaning, you are not. I agree with your comments about definitions. Perhaps we should define words ahead of any debate/discussion? BTW, another brilliant podcast. So many subjects, of which I have very little knowledge.
This is me: aware of and actively attentive to important societal facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice).I'm also pro Lbgtq rights, snd a feminist .
@@WW2TV Understood. I try (emphasis on try) to address people as individuals and avoid grouping whenever possible. When someone says they support a certain group, it could be taken (even if errorneously) that other groups would not be supported. "Support" is a loaded verb and could have different definitions.
❤ brilliant as always
In a letter to his wife, Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg (The 20 July 1944 Plot "Hero") described his experiences at the front and impressions from Poland in 1939 :
“The population is an incredible mob , a lot of Jews and a lot of mixed people. A people who only feel comfortable under the thumb . The thousands of prisoners will do our agriculture a lot of good. In Germany they are certainly useful, hard-working, willing and frugal.”
- Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg
This is how von Stauffenberg was "Anti-Nazi" resistant as many ofthe 20th July 1944 Plotters (Alfred Nebe, Walter Model,...)
On the question of self-censorship, it's useful to remember that many letters were sent outside the official postal system--soldiers would give letters to comrades going home on leave or for reassignment, and those would get hand-delivered or posted from within Germany, and wouldn't pass through the hands of military censors.
Yes indeed, David Stahel said this on his show on Monday
But it would be small percentage in any case.
fascinating ...
Considering the enthusiasm of the Austrian people on the "Anschluß", I believe that Austrians, serving in the Wehrmacht, were as receptive for nazi-ideology as their German counterparts.
Thank you for this good question to make us thinking. God bless you🙏
This reminds me of a story told us by my old man in the 1960's who spent 1939/ 40 in Flanders with the Ox&Bucks LI. A program came on the BBC about the Battle of Britain giving the German pilots view how gentlemanly it all was. The old man said they weren't very gentlemanly when he watched them strafing columns of French refugees made up of women and children and the old. They did it daily over and over again turning the helpless into mincemeat.
My grandfather’s childhood was growing up in occupied Poland during the war. I was in disbelief when he first told me of his experiences being occupied by the Wehrmacht. German soldiers would give him chocolates and wooden toys they carved. The German military assigned officers to fill in the government for public utilities and civil services continued to operate. He said there was oppression and targeting of individuals, but the average person was mostly left alone. You had to be a political, partisan, or racial target to be in danger.
He then told me the Soviet “liberation” was hell on earth. That the Soviets were butchers and animals. They destroyed everything in their path, murdered without discrimination, raped women and children, stole everything they could, and left the local population to die from starvation and cold when the front advanced. He said the streets were littered with naked dead bodies because the Soviet soldiers would take everything from the dead and leave them to rot. He saw a man executed for riding a bike because a Soviet soldier wanted it. He also saw a jeweler dragged into the street and beaten to death because the Soviets wanted him to turn a wall clock into a wrist watch, and the jeweler told them it doesn’t work that way. He calls Russians barbarians to this day from his experiences.
Да-да, теперь стало модно такое писать. Настало время удивительных историй! А эти "животные" вашего дедушку не съели случайно при "освобождении" в его сладеньком от немецкого шоколада детстве?
I remember my grandmother telling me that most people considered the Nazis a 'political fad' which couldn't last but which just might shake up the status quo in the right direction - in respect of unemployment, inflation, redressing grievances which were considered reasonable, ect. She said that, at that time, they did not seem any more extreme than communists or other ideologies and regimes. It's easy for us to be shocked, given we know how it all turned out, but those folks were living in economically tough and chaotic times and hoping for better days.
I like your channel very much. Being German I always have been interested in this issue. My take away from this lecture is the inconsistency of opinions and the inconsistency between attitudes and behavior. Have you ever considered to pick out those who seem to be very consistent for an extra analysis? What about the soldier 's definition of being a Nazi?
Thank you. The main problem we face is there just isn't enough primary source material to work with. We just don't know how the great majority thought about anything
@@WW2TV I see. Well being raised in West Germany and having worked with elderly (I am a Neuropsychologist by profession) I have an anecdotal view on rural, Protestant German of the WWII generations. They considered themselves primarily as Christians and law abiding people. They worked very hard, but most of them were very poor until the 1930s. Anti-Semitism arose out of envy (money and women: Jews had a "Schlag bei den Frauen "). Life under the Kaiser was very rigid, strict and marked by corporal punishment (see the movie "the white ribbon" or the "Captain of Koepenick"), also by a "German mission": "Am deutschen Wesen soll die Welt genesen". The German virtues shall cure the world! There also has been a "counterculture": (nature lovers, Wandervogel, Reformbewegung)
I think its misnomer to ask how Nazi was the average German soldier, because what you're really asking is was there a distinct difference between the regular army and the SS. In all things there are shades of grey. The fighting in North Africa was largely 'clean' and conducted with the rules of war in mind. The real issues are on the ground in Europe on both the east and western fronts and it is here that the 'average' German soldier showed its true colours. Regardless of whether they wanted to be there or not, they were complicit in the wholesale mistreatment of the civilian populations and of prisoners of war. To blame it all on the SS and Gestapo is white washing of history. The myth of the good German is nothing more than an attempt to rehabilitate the German armed forces. And dont forget, what we know of the eastern front is told largely from the German side due to the cold war. Far too easy for all those regular army Generals to blame the SS for what went on. Admittedly, by the time the war started, the average German soldier had been bombarded by ideology and propaganda for years and this would not have helped their moral compass at all.
Boy, do you need to read more about the war in North Africa, the war there wasn't very clean and honourable as you would want to believe .
A recent PHD thesis has revealed Hitler sent his Jews termination specialised SS units in North Africa who definitely would have genocided all of Jews there if Germans won the war there.
Germans definitely created massacres in North Africa, the ideology of hate doesn't change because you are fighting a different army or different enemy.
I’ve been listening to WW2 tales on RUclips, and they are written journals and diaries from German POWs and Japanese POWs. It’s interesting because several of these in German third Reich soldiers were humerus and so much like Americans in goofy, but they would get mad and they really did not like the SS at all.!! so many of them starved and froze to death on the eastern front, because the SS behind them and Ukraine and other areas closer to the west would take all of the supplies and leave a little nothing for them and the SS were also paid more than them just because they were Nazis. 😊
The war in North Africa was not not "clean"! It was much the same as elsewhere on the German side! Here on RUclips you can find videos that debunk that myth spread by Germans! Rommel had SS units that chased jews and murdered them!
I wouldn't call the campaign in North Africa "clean". The Afrika Korps actively participated in the deportation of Libyan and Tunisian Jews, executed Jewish POWs, used both Jews and Berbers as forced laborers.
@@pantherace1000 Thanks for the info. Whilst I was refencing the fighting, what you have described is not something I was aware of. Puts a bit of a dent on Rommel's reputation!
Thank you for a presentation that tries to tackle such a "complicated" question. I think that that the average German soldier was a reflection of the society that produced him or her. This is true today as all armies are such a reflection of the cultural, political and nationalism that exists at the time. I wonder how many average German soldiers had read, or were at least aware of Hitler's thoughts in his book "Mein Kampfe?" I can't but wonder that the vast majority of German citizens were also aware of his plans based upon his book. This was a well presented subject that made for a lively discussion, although I think the live chat became rather political at times. I believe in the representative democracy concept where all are entitled to their opinions and should not be ostracized by another political viewpoint and accused of being unpatriotic. Too much of this reminds me of the Nazi point of view. I have seen it happening in my own country, much to our shame.
Hey ! Another Rhode Islander.
.WW2TV. I am 94. Met dozens of ex German soldiers read god knows how many books about the period. I am no expert,but have a rough idea of their attitudes toward others who did not share their views. The Nuremburg race laws , Crystal nacht. the people were fully aware of Hitlers ideas before he came to power.newspapers films rally’s.all expounding what would happen. and they voted for him,and their destruction 12 years later.
Has he factored in "Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust " by Daniel Goldhagen? I've only heard about and seen descriptions of what's in it, so I cant judge the quality or bias of the author. I'd like to see an airing out of that book. If we know what the ordinary German believed and knew, surly that would indicate what the ordinary soldier believed and acted on. Lets not forget that after the war there was a big move to change American opinion about the Germans because they were our allies against the Soviets. And we had actual Nazis running our space program because they had tech and we didn't. I can see the point about trying to define it. There were a lot of people back then who believed in "The White Man's Burden," who were not Nazis.
Thank you.
You are very welcome
Good video.
But what to think about group pressure when you’re a young boy in the Jügend. Ofcourse you would aim for a career in the army.
I’ve also heard from a soldier joining the army they don’t focus on politics or something.
It’s their job and they have to rely on their comrades. Despite the orders. So if the orders come from higher command (with nazi ideology)you obey.
And what about the history from ww1 and the weimar period? Even my parents had stereotype jokes about germans confiscating your bike or invading the dutch beaches in the summer. This faded away luckily when my generation became older.
Thanks!
Imagine how crazy it would be to live in Germany and see All this oshychotic behavior from your government and there’s nothing you can do. Must of felt unreal
Heinrich Muller apparently opposed the Nazis but once they got in power he became one of heydrichs executioners
The Hitler "Man of the Year" article was not pro-Hitler.
But many people around the world took it that way and saw it as an endorsement of his strong stand on certain issues and his effectiveness dealing with the European leaders. Look at people like Henry Ford
villians usually are more interesting.
If I picked up David's definition of a Nazi correctly I definitely don't agree with it.
I don't agree with the definition of a Nazi is what you do versus what you believe. When you were inside the German war machine in the 30's and 40's you pretty much did what you are told regardless of your background and beliefs. That is true for any successful military. The peer pressure and comradery of being a cooperative force is the reality of the everyday soldier. I would point everyone to the book "Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland" where middle aged men were plucked out of German civilian society to support the military in Poland which involved them in personally murdering Jewish civilians. The book recounts the shock many of them felt and revulsion but yet many went along with it.
Jumping to the possible definition that a Nazi is defined by what you believe, the Nazi party never receive a majority of the popular vote in Germany. In 1932 they peaked at 37% of the vote nationally which then prompted Hitler to call on on President Hindenburg to name him chancellor. The Nazis were not running on antisemitism out front so a typical Nazi voter was not deciding on that belief. A book called "Who Voted for Hitler?" by Richard F. Hamilton asserts that the Nazis came to power because every demographic group gave them enough support to make them a player and there was not strong enough opposition from any demographic group. There are several reasons for this including some political groups turned their back on certain parts of the electorate and left their votes up for grabs. Another reason is that the support from the educated and well off middle class was larger than anyone expected and was made possible by a brainwashing of these demographics precisely because they thought they were not susceptible to brainwashing. This should give every country and everyone pause who believes that they are immune from being manipulated and programmed through propaganda. In fact, Jewish people voted for Nazis. I can't give the statistics right now but it is on record. The business community supported the Nazis enough to help them gain power and the business logic was that they would be more successful becoming a European industrial base and expand their markets. Those same industrialists emerged from the carnage of WWII and reasserted their ownership of Germany's industrial economy. This should also give everyone pause to consider what the business sector believes. They believe in money.
Once Hitler consolidated power in 1933, everyone fell into line or was killed, deported or sent to a camp. Survival instincts were paramount. What you believed could get you killed or get you promoted. Young people had no chance to think independently or develop any beliefs as they were subject to propaganda from a very young age. Their beliefs were programmed. Business leaders cooperated with the Nazi party to win large government contracts.
What soldiers say in their letters about strategic geopolitical concerns in Germany should be looked at as being formed by propaganda and buzzwords. To make it more understandable, think about common words that have become popular when talking about contemporary politics. The word "existential" comes to mind. That word is used and overused by everyone and I don't recall anyone using it 20 years ago. But that word has become a popular tool in common conversation without many, if not most, people having any expertise to prove the word is used correctly.
This was the context and source of the average German soldier. To the extent they were young, they were naive and in various stage of brainwashing and confusion. To the extent they were older they were trying to survive and there was no venue to discuss their opinions or concerns.
Stepping back, the Nazi system was really a political power base run by thugs and political gangsters. They existed for their own power and pursuit of whatever random beliefs they may adopt that could get them to power. Antisemitism was and is a rampant European problem that Hitler adopted. He did not create it. He adopted it. Poland can't even begin to acknowledge their antisemitism. Yugoslavia, Greece and France have a dark past with antisemitism. Antisemitic pogroms and Jewish murder existed for many decades in other Euro countries dating back to the Crusades. Communist fears were real and Hitler exploited that fear as well. In the end, he was a psychopath that in turn blamed the German people for not living up to his beliefs and his vision for Germany.
It is complicated on the one hand, but to put it more simply, when thugs and political gangsters take over a country, the end result will be horrific. Authoritarians exist on the far left and right of political spectrum and they have provided the casting for this play over and over.
Good answer , by the way , you think it was digested . ?
@@TheYeti308 When you say "it was digested" what are you referring to? I am not clear on that.
Read & Reflected upon w an open mind .
@@TheYeti308 I. Don’t know
Excellent analysis!! Wow! Spot on. Ethnography is missing: I had a German girlfriend and the subtleties of any discussion are missing. Check Chris Evans' awful second book on the war. I don't think he interviewed anyone! Over-generalisation is rampant in these psuedo histories.
Why can’t I find stuff like this but with David Irving instead?? Original sources are key instead of opinions
Sorry, are you saying you would rather hear David Irving? Because in addition to his other crimes, he was notorious for bias in his selection of sources
@@WW2TV yeah I rather listen to the guy with direct sources even if biased, I can then form my own opinions. There’s a plethora of sources on one side, none on the other. Everyone is biased.
What "other side" do you mean?
BTW have you read Ordinary Men by Christopher Browning? Or Frank McDonough's trilogy about the Nazis? But please trust me, David Irving is not a good source for anything
@@WW2TV I have read about Eichmann yes. All my life I’ve read about the mainstream side of WW2, I’m Spanish so a”neutral” country, I’ve interviewed civil war soldiers in both sides and understand that memory is a funny thing, specially the longer time passes. Have you read Pringles WW2 letters?. The war in Gaza is what started me into questioning the narrative, and that’s what I mean by “other side”, I find myself living through a conflict that both sides say is black/white, yet I see truth and lies in both sides. Historians like you that simply warn others of reading different POV’s without giving you examples on how they are wrong don’t help either. How about having a rebuttal to him? Point out his factual errors? Bias sources is hardly a point, if anything it’s helpful to know the writers bias. Trust me bro..
I absolutely recommend reading widely. I have had hundreds of different authors on WW2TV with a whole variety of views. But David Irving was literally found guilty of spreading lies and false information in court and imprisoned for it. So if you don't believe me, read the court transcripts
The Overton window on Nazism has certainly changed recently.
Found this item belatedly via RUclips random search. I am in possession of a large collection of letters home written by my cousin who was ultimately lost at Stalingrad. It has never been translated and audited. I am now almost 90 years old and cannot begin to address that task, and. I cannot abide some people who have offered to do it for money. Suggestions?
Yes, contact a historian like David Harrisville
i dont want to reenact a bad guy
Me volunteers : Totally
Conscripts : Variable
So many books I have read. I wrote my final thesis in university comparing WW I soldiers from Germany to WW II soldiers from Germany and looking at their letters what reason to fight they would find. What were they fighting for? And it was interesting to see that so many soldiers in WW I had a huge variety of reasons while those in WW II seemed to be much more caught in the idea of a "war of existence" - socio-darwinism. A close, very close neighbor of Nazism. The step to just following Nazism is very small.
I would think that the clean Wehrmacht myth was a societal necessity in the post war environment, enabling some sort of social cohesion to aid in the recovery of the nation as a whole. Also, it was convenient for the western allies to enable them in turn to establish the Bundeswehr in the cold war period.
What! You didn't say BYE! Just Cheers...
?
From 2003, I was involved with Iraq. As a soldier, only a small percentage did not believe Bush & Blair, while the majority ignorantly or deliberately did believe them. Time has proved both leaders to be liars. Now does that make a soldier also a liar? Conversations, in any Military setting are full of bravado nonsense. The way you judge soldiers is by their physical actions, not their letters or words. If you look at the majority of WW2 Germany soldiers, airman and navy, as a collective, their evidenced actions were within the definition given of a Nazi. Hence common sense does not need data evidence to conclude, most were Nazi’s, within a sliding scale of extreme, moderate to mild; but ultimately, their actions evidenced Nazi traits. As a final counter balance, does the argument of Churchill starving India, mean he is a racist along with Allied troops who carried out arguably illegal activity, based on nationality, colour, religion and race during WW2? War, remember, is a chance for all the ugliness of human kind to be displayed in full evidence. Just look at Ukraine, Gaza and elsewhere around the world where conflict is happening today!
In recent years, probably since the UK became part of the EU, I've noticed that most programmes about WW2 now refer to us fighting "The Nazis" rather than "The Germans" - giving the impression that "Nazis" came from another country.
But the UK has not been part of the EU since 2020, or do you mean before then? But one of the reasons Nazis is used is that it includes the Third Reich forces from other Nations. Very few battles were ever just "German" forces there were always OST troops, Romanans, Hungarians, Italians etc etc
Many UK war films made during WW2 stressed that Nazis were the enemy, not so much the country Germany.
They all knew who the real enemy to humanity was and still is.
And what/who is that?
Fascinating and badly needed program.
What these discussions always leave out is: how old were these "ordinary" grunts when Germany became a dictatorship? Most were about 12 years old. So 6 years of going through HJ etc "education". Even if they weren't hardcore Nazis something will have rubbed off.
The other point is: there was no positive identification for these people before 1933. If you were born between 1920 and 1925 all you had experienced was poverty, loss of national pride, a democratic system that was seen as implemented by the victors, a system that was unsuccessful to renegotiate the Versailler Treaty that was seen as extremely harsh. German governments during the 20 always seem to bow before the "enemy". Even if objectively many of these points are wrong they were perceived as correct. So there was no positive alternative that these young people knew.
Spoken like a true apologist of the genocide, racially-motivated mass murder and war crimes carried out by your heroes: the Nazi regime.
I would say that 98 percent of German soldiers were Nazis but not all were hard core Nazis but to get anywhere in your military career you had to be a hard core Nazi at the time
I'm not disagreeing with you, but what data are you drawing on to say 98%
I don't think now many people would willingly sighn up or let themselves be drafted now , we literally have no common cultural identity, It hasn't been encouraged either . There is no strength in division.
Answer: no. 34:50
Propaganda is not the same as popular beliefs. In fact it is the opposite.
I think this depends upon the soldier's level of intelligence and their willingness to believe the lies told to them to create division amongst the German people, be them Jew's, communist, trade unionists, sub humans, gypsy, catholics etc... Differences were exaggerated to weaken these groups of people in order to conquer them.
Here is one for you. After WWI European leaders and people loved American President Wilson. Wilson was at one point the President of Princeton University. Wilson kept Princeton segregated. Wilson was a racist.
You want to find out that now? 80 years later? When all the guys who could have helped, have passed away?
The study and analysis of the past continues beyond life spans. The tools change that's all
@@WW2TV Of course.
Plus even if we spoke to thousands of German veterans, would they be honest about their level of Nazism?
@@WW2TV Their age favours honesty. Germany has had numerous events of aged people speaking out about cruelties during the 90ies, following the exposition "Verbrechen der Wehrmacht" (wehrmacht crimes). I remember one in my home region.
It is heavy work to repress counscience over long time. It works quite well for the younger years, but old people usually feel the need to free themselves. That is even something i observed in a lot of context.
Maybe, but look at all the interviews with Das Reich officers who totally denied, downplayed or dismissed Oradour for example
This will age poorly.
How and why? A discussion about how committed to the Nazi ideology the average soldier was, can't go out of date or be less valid
What is Communism? Stalinism differed greatly from the Communism Marx and Engels posited, writing in Manchester's Chetham's Library whilst workers disgarded by their Industrial Capitalist Bosses lay dying on the streets.
Thanks
The west’s reconstruction goals included a new German army. So labeling the Wermacht a criminal organization wasn’t an option.
Wrong question: there is no 'average' German soldier. Think again David.
Well, is it "extreme" German soldier? 😄
???? Every group of anything has averages of some attributes.
I think that some of the German soldiers were Nazi's of course. However, I do believe that the majority of the soldiers were just that. Soldiers. American Colonel Walter Fetterley was given the task of saving some Allied prisoners from a prison camp. Fetterley encountered some regular German soldiers. This small group took on the SS because they were angry at what has happened to their beloved Germany and what the ideals of the SS did to their country.
Both of my grandfathers fought on the side of the Germans in WW2. One grandfather, the older one, I never met, the other grandfather I was very close to.
My younger grandfather (born in 1926) left us with a detailed account (through his memoirs) of his youth during the war years and also his experiences in the war. His experience of battle was very limited, yet he describes it in harrowing and very unglamorous terms, particularly one encounter with a mortally wounded (Ukrainian) enemy soldier who he was able to communicate with briefly. My grandfather only saw battle in the final months of the war, before being shipped off under fairly brutal circumstances to a prisoner of war camp in Estonia. Because of his late entry into the war, and therefore having skipped the "glory years" of the Third Reich, his level of indoctrination seems to have been somewhat limited. In fact he also described being sat down by 2 uncles in a secretive all-night conversation in early 1943, during which it was conveyed to him that the war effort was doomed. He also describes how his encounter with Russian doctors in an effort to provide him with life-saving medicine, really opened his eyes to the humanity of the "Bolshevist enemy".
The older grandfather (born in 1922/23 I believe) my family has only little information on. Only after his passing, it was revealed to my father by relatives that he was a member in the SS. My father indeed recalled that he had a scar that would have been consistent with the location of the blood type tattoo that was common for SS soldiers. For obvious reasons, the history here is shrouded in some mystery. In particular, our relatives also stated that my grandfather's parents were allegedly communists and indeed perished in concentration camps. The only other piece of information I know is that my grandfather later was a POW in the United States and England before being repatriated in the late 1940s. I do wonder a lot about what sort of things he may have been involved in. It's unlikely he saw any involvement in the invasion of Poland and being captured by Americans suggests that he was deployed on the Western front away from the extermination camps or frankly the more brutal eastern front. But there has also been some speculation that he moved to East Germany specifically because he believed he could keep a lower profile there. Of course, none of this has been verified although I am curious to find more info.
So how Nazi was the average German soldier? I think the answer varies a lot.
For me, the most damning and shocking fact is that the generals in their 50s-70s believed in the ideology! They were not raised from childhood in it, but MANY adopted it and believed it thoroughly, like Model. That indicates strongly that AH was a reflection of at least upperclass German military thinking and not a creator of it. They overwhelmingly believed in the Lebensraum goal.
@@fazole The idea of eastward expansion was not entirely without precedent. The Brest/Litovsk Treaty had transfered most of modern day Ukraine and Belarus into the German Empire albeit it briefly and of course Catherine the Great had invited German settlers to relocate along the Volga river.
@@dpause10 Yes, and those Volga-Germans actually had an "autonomous republic" within the Russian SR. Separated from "Germany" for about 250 years, Stalin immediately ordered the republic dissolved and all Volga-Germans deported to the far East, after Operation Barbarossa.
That is actually a genocide (or at the very least very lethal and rabid ethnic cleansing) few have even heard of. The Volga-Germans were of German descent and spoke German, but had absolutely no connection to the Nazis in continental Germany and Austria. But it was reason enough for Stalin and his henchmen. This needs to be said as well.
I’m sure that some third Reich soldiers were involved, but the majority of them were not, and some of them knew nothing about concentration camps, and they were just part of the German military, and they were usually conscripted or joined with their buddies in the neighborhood. The average German third Reich soldier thought that the SS were assholes.! They were mean and cocky, and they were just totally ugly to people on the streets and the German soldiers were aware of the antisemitism and the Aryan race crap going on with the Nazi party, but many of them or not super fanatical about Hitler like the SS. However, I will say that there were several third Reich soldiers that froze to death and starve to death out in the far east in the Soviet union and up until their last few moments of life, they still believed that Hitler was going to come save them.. sad!!! They were expendable to him, but even though he was pretty popular in Germany, because of his leader ship, and the people doing better financially with the national Socialist party, then they had before, with these people did not realize by 1935 to 1936 is that where the Nazis were getting all of their wealth and money from was what they stole from Jews. Kristallnacht was started by Joseph Goebbels, and he was a propaganda minister, and by far the most antisemitic of all and far far worse than Hitler, and he was the one that even got people in Germany, and in Berlin to treat Germans like shit and spit on them and push them around.
Fights would break out & then the SA OR SS Would come up and arrest the Jewish person alleging they started at 19 times out of 10, they did not. I’ve been watching this channel on RUclips and it’s called World War II Tales & between January and April the German POWs that were being shipped over to America on Navy ships got a welcome three when they were able to bed and get three or four T-shirts and underwear, socks, and clean clothes. Goodness gracious they are you like crazy and the German boys were obsessed with you because even in the years that Germany have a really good they never eaten so well if they did with the Americans.’ They loved being with the American people. That’s why many of the third Reich soldiers didn’t even go back home and especially if they’re home was in the Soviet occupied area.. they wanted to be with their families, but they were scared to death of death. They went back home as the right soldiers they would be killed just because the Soviets had so much revenge.
One day after these soldiers, POWs had been on the ship about a week they were called in to attend a film to watch, and what they were shown were ghastly projector versions of everything captured from the concentration camps, starting with the original one, discovered in January, followed by one of the other wrapped in the other, and The third Reich soldiers were mortified and sick to their stomachs!! The young men writing the journals, who were anywhere between age 19 to 28 were unbelieving, and they just couldn’t believe that something that evil was going on in Germany and Poland but they made reference to some of the SS POWs in the same room that were smirking and clapping their hands and being exceptionally rude. They made a note in their POW journals that it was obvious the assess knew more about it than they did but they were aware of antisemitism and the Aryan complex, but that was proposed by the Nazi party. Even the German soldiers grew up believing they themselves were superior and the French were OK and the British were OK and so were the Americans but other groups like Slavic sent using gypsies or second and third rate people. They would lose people and groups like A, B, & C. The Jews and undesirables, and the bolsheviks were at the bottom, and then the Slavic people were in the second area, along with other undesirables like those that were born mentally retarded, or with cerebral palsy, or some other disability, and then in the A group, more Caucasians, why the Germans, French, Americans and British.
That’s the way the Germans have been raised and the ones who were young and I never knew anything different but they still were not afraid of concentration camp victims and they thought that when the Jews got arrested from their neighborhoods and they weren’t at home and they lost their businesses, etc.. They thought that the family was incarcerated and put in jail and if it was just the father figure going to jail then often times the wife and kids would get moved with a loved one organ moved to another European state
"I’m sure that some third Reich soldiers were involved, but the majority of them were not,"
What is this based on please? A hunch, if not what are your sources?
4:30 oh there's never a paper shortage when it comes to paper work ........ I'm old enough to remember how computers where going to usher in a new paperless society 😂
The pulp of the last tree on Earth will be used to make paper for paper work 😢
The german army slaughtered by grandfather's village of Kalavrita on 13/12/1943 . Iver 700 men and boys from 12 yrs old. Many mrmbers of my family. The reason ? Partusans had attacked germans and captured and shot prisoners, near the villsge.
Was the average German soldier n*zi or n*zi-adjacent isn't a particularly important question, aside from wanting to better understand the motivation of your average Landser.
The question should be was the Wehrmacht institutionally (meaning from the General Staff, to the Officer Corps, on down to the unit and branch institutional knowledge and experience and the average soldiers' attitudes) sufficiently n*zi to be the primary tool of the implementation of the n*zi agenda across continental Europe? From top to bottom, taken as a whole, the only answer anyone can actually come to is unequivocally "YES."
The Wehrmacht as a whole supported the regime enough to obey it, waged the war demanded of it (including the crimes), and - aside form individual officers arguing vociferously about whether the strategy of the leader and his clique were the most conducive to Germany winning the War (not whether it was morally appropriate) - stood by the regime until the last bloody gasp. Compelling arguments can be, and have been, made that by 1944 the Wehrmacht was no longer in any position to oppose the regime (or, more compellingly, was far too complicit to ever effectively intervene in any event) - the response must be that the regime was so secure precisely due to the early military success of an unapologetically supportive institution, and (in all likelihood) whose support would almost certainly have persevered had the military successes continued.
Well, "fighting communism" might sort of sound Ok from today prospective. But that not necessarily means that person is a humanist or whatever - that his motivation really make sense. Fighting communism was a big part of German propaganda and it well might be "fighting communism because that conspiracy of international jews". Very nationalistic sentiments - against changes and "instability" . As a matter of fact current Russian war against Ukraine supply very similar sort of motivations - they would just say they fight fascism rather then communism - but staff is really close.
"..the fascists of the future will not call themselves fascists."
Forgot the author of this idea, but it came true. There are too many things in current putinist (Duginist/Ilya Ilyin's/Sergey Timofeytsev's) ideology taken from AH/Mussolini (and Stalin's) rulebooks to list here.
well the ukranian army even has a formation wearing oscar dilgerwagners emblem on top of the rest, in past they bragged for 100.000 neona millitia on their website. (of 700.k total back then) and they were not fighting the ewish controlled soviet union for sure.
@@d.k8746 Well, I am not sure what are you saying, but feel that is is absolute BS 😁
@@vladimirpecherskiy1910well your feelings are not reality and that you are not sure or know much is evident. You urgently need to read a book or two as you wrote a bunch of ignoramus nonsense
@@d.k8746 No I need do not mind some idiots in internet, who spreading Russian propaganda, that is all 😁
Many millions of them were Nazi enough to perpetrate hundreds of thousands of crimes, having all sworn a personal oath to Hitler.
We must not mistake "being a Nazi" with "being a party member." If we act in accordance with the wishes of an organisation, we servants of and therefore in agreement with that organisation, whether we carry the card or not.
If my family is killed, or preproty destroyed by a non-card-carrying Wermacht soldier, but my neighbours' are killed or destroyed by a card-carrying Waffen-SS soldier, am I in a better position? Which of the two soldiers is more....excusable....than the other?
Good points
The vast majority of those joining the German / American Bund were of German descent ( immigrants and onward ). It was easy to recruit during the depression using traditional values, then slipping in more pointed political ideology. Pearl Harbor caused it's collapse as an organization, but the membership just folded back into society. The ideology of racial superiority having long existed in the US, just found newer ( or old ) avenues of expression. I believe 'nazism' was just a contemporary political body of an ageless 'us against them' group hate that continues on.
How many attempts on Hitler's life? A good number, right?
That idea of pals detatchmants went out in ww1.A gimic for recruiting.
But there were still many units made up of men for the same area in both Allied and Axis units in WWII
Paul, Time's man of the year does not mean the person who did the most for humanity, but the person who had the greatest impact on the course of events during the year. Time had not yet been infected by Woke nomsence.
Yes, but look at some people's reaction to it. To many it validated his policies and methods and they just saw a "strong" leader taking a stance. I read a poll that said AFTER 1938, support for AH grew in some demographics. That was the point I perhaps clumsily made.
BTW I am woke
@@WW2TV Fair enough. As for woke. It can mean a number of things. I also support the original meaning of woke, but not where left-wing nut cases have taken the idea. I suspect that you do not support the campaign against the police here in America and excusing widespread criminal behavior. Or the tendency of British police to support Palestinian or Chinese Communists. (I assume you noted how the police took the side of the Little Pinks against the Piano Man.) Or the woke support for Hamas barbarity.
I'm usually somewhere in the middle on many matters these days
It would be interesting to know the age of the person whos letter hes reading. I would think the younger the soldier the more nazified they would be.
Most of the men I've studied were in their twenties. I'd say there's a consensus among historians that younger soldiers were more aligned with Nazism, since they grew up in that environment. Older men tended to be a bit more independent-minded
Most men I have met who never served have always said I wish I joined the army , blah blah blah for whatever reason didn't.
23.2 % allegedly speculatively
From what source?
@@WW2TV I conducted a rapid swift poll of surviving German combat veterans of my acquaintance. Though to be fair I only know one so the poll could be a bit biased but it was 79 years ago when the war ended so survivor's are very rare now
@@WW2TV the way it was explained to me was back in the day folks did not have the overview we have today and your local 'Nazi' officials where not necessarily 'bad' people think local councillors today. Age experience and maturity would have obviously affected people's opinion and outlook. I myself joined the British Miltary in 1990 and frankly cringe at some of the opinions and yes actions I did back then but it doesn't mean I regret my service
Its hard to believe it but the now generation seems to be more distracted by Nazis than those who actually fought Nazis. My great grandfather immigrated to the USA in 1910. He went back to visit family in the 1930's. He was horrified by the Nazi movement in his homeland. We have his letters written to my grandmother that show his concerns. He was a devout Christian, he believed in the 10 commandments, he might have even been a bit racist by today's standards. He was definitely not a Nazi. I think your definition of a Nazi is far too broad.
So what would your definition be?
Am I a nazi for wanting british culture to stay british, I believe people coming here should respect our culture, yet I would be called a nazi racist for preferring my tribe , I love England. Does that make me a nazi ? I don't see a problem in nationalism when being patriotic, I served in the army and I often think if none of us in service were patriotic why bother serving you country if you don't love it ?
Define British? Our culture is a mix of Roman, Norman, Viking, Saxons etc. Britain has always been multicultural and is better because of it
"Preferring your tribe" is at the heart of prejudice
@@WW2TV I don't mean it I a I hate others , and I'm well aware what you mean , exactly why I said british. I don't think it's a bad think wanting to prevent one's culture.
@@taylorbarrett384 I here that , but I don't see wanting to preserve british culture as a bad thing . Just like the way other countries want to keep there culture and have others respect it .
Is there possible to be anything other as anti-british than being a nazi. Visit Normandy for a start and so on and so forth. I have german and germanic roots but I find such comments not only frivolous but sick.
One of the points I was trying to make in the chat was, how are you going to respond to a label once you agree on it and for how long will you use it and act on it. For example, Nazi, enemy, right wing, left wing, capitalist, communist etc etc. Are you labelling yourself, others or both? How you view the world will affect your labels. For example Paul, you have stated your "left of center" beliefs many times yet some could call you a right wing capitalist. You have a RUclips channel in order to make money for yourself which is the very essence of capitalism.(nudge nudge wink wink - just trying to make an exaggerated point) :) Paul, as you very often correctly state - it is difficult and complicated to try and apply a "universal" label universally.
So again the important thing is how is someone going to use that label that they have come up with and for how long with they act on it. My Dad was a Canadian Army veteran of WW2 yet after the war he had customers and friends that were in the Wehrmacht(Panzer Grenadier) and the Kriegsmarine(U-Boats). They may "have been" Nazis but they very definitely were "the enemy" but the "enemy" label was only during the war, not after. During the war he would have done everything in his power to kill them yet he after the war he labelled them "customers" and "friends" and we as a family sat at their dinner table many times. So when does someone stop being an enemy? When does someone start and stop being a "insert label here"?
My Dad took the lives of German soldiers during close combat so does that mean my father should be labeled a "killer"? After all, he did "kill"! Throughout his life he felt guilt and sorrow for taking the lives of the people who were trying to kill him.
My Dad realized that you can't hold a 18-22 year old responsible for their actions decades later. You can change labels, you can show forgiveness, mercy and grace and realize that people can grow and change, just like he did.
Thanks so much for bringing these thought provoking guests and shows to us!!!!!!!
You're very welcome. In reference to me making money from a RUclips channel, you're right I do. BUT I follow my socialist/left principles by making all the content free to all. A true money-grabbing and self-serving way would be to have everything behind a paywall. So, of course we live in a capitalist world (necessarily so I guess), but there is a personal choice about staying ethical
@@WW2TV I agree with you 100% Paul especially the free part, because to you it is the right thing to do! That is why labels are so troublesome as they will never give you the complete picture. I am from Canada and moved to USA in my mid 50s, 10 years ago. To some of my Canadian friends I am a right wing nut and to some of my USA friends I am a left wing liberal! LOL Neither of which truly define who I really am. I do appreciate your views and your approach to life and again the RUclips comment was to make an extreme, exaggerated and incomplete(on purpose) point! Stay Safe! :)
Thanks Paul
10:45 from my reading of the German soldier World War II diaries I don’t get that impression at all. They were fighting for and with their units, and not Nazi ideology
What reading?
@@WW2TV various German soldier diary accounts on RUclips
So, that would be a sample size of how many? 14 million Germans under arms writing 6 billion letters. As we explored in the discussion the simple number of atrocities committed by the Third Reich seems to suggest huge numbers of men who served were (to some extent) motivated by ideology
@@WW2TV you say you’ve read 6 billion letters and/or diary entries … if that 6 billion number can even be believed. Every historian has a bias & the liberal bias here is clearly displayed
I did not say I had read all 6 billion, and David Stahel thinks it may be as high as 10 billion. What I am asking you is, what sample size would be considered enough to give an accurate idea of the thoughts of the average German? What we do absolutely have is a list of atrocities committed by Heer troops as long as your arm.
In what way did my previous comment indicate any liberalism BTW?
Please, get to the point...
The intro is important to understand the methodology
One of the reasons that the NAZIs were so successful was that they incorporated many widely held views and history in Germany. To name a few:
1. German racial and cultural superiority.
2. Mistreatment by the Allies after World War I.
3. Drag nach Osten
4. Resentment of loss of territory to France, Poland, and Czechoslovakia.
5. Dusenchamtment with democracy.
6. Criticism of capitalism especially the unemployment problem and the Depression..
7. Fear of Communism.
8. Respect for the military and the acceptance of using military power to solve international issues.
9. Desire for law and order.
Also, inability to accept they lost WW1 fair and square, stab in the back myth
@@taylorbarrett384 Yes. that became a big one.
Awesome awesome awesome awesome guest, I wish that it was more relaxed or had a bottle of water nearby so that it didn't have to smack his lips at the end of each thought Because I can't get through the video
Before anybody replies to the grammar of that that is speech to text which the edit fails to post so I'm not going to worry about it I think my point is play smacking of the lips at the end of each thought is so distracting that I could not learn basic addition being taught in this manner much less get through this presentation which I find very interesting
Odd, because I didn't notice it at all
AH was more than just boss of Himmler; also implemented FDR like policies for job creation and was art collector inter alia.
He liked dogs too, but was still a mass murdering nutter
A better question is how "German" were the nazis.
That is to say how much did Nazi ideology reflect German culture? Then and now.
I disagree, I think the Nazi ideology, although rooted in the past was not "German" as such
@@WW2TV We will have to agree to differ.
Indeed, and that's fine
The vast majority of the Wehrmacht were draftees who didn't give a flip about the Nazis or Nazism.
It's an opinion, but what are you basing this on? You would need to cite a source. You can absolutely say you believe the average German was not a Nazi, but for it to be a fact, there has to be evidence of some kind. Which is exactly what David has been researching
@@WW2TV excellent point, Woody
No offense but this is simply a declarative statement based on no actual peer reviewed data.
Its your personal opinion: nothing more, nothing less.
I've started reading a book about German sociology, that touches on 'regional histories' a little, like it had on families - an emphasis on sociology and not so much history of towns and family genealogy.
It's a related but distinct dissertation to state why the party that did it was the party that was elected, and I think there are nuances that the "don't be a Nazi" -crowd are somewhat oblivious to - my point is that war is one thing but that party was elected on the basis of its value in time and place
@@straightrippnable706 This!
Well the biggest issue is trying to separate nazism from the political thinking of german nationalism. What about nazis in the US, the UK or other countries especially in the 20s and 30s, is it based on race or on german nationalism? And races identification can vary a lot from one intellectual to another, even among german nazi intellectuals, how was it perceived by the elites, by the working and wealthy classes etc.? Nazi ideology and concepts evolded throughout the 20th century, you can not get a fixated picture at one point in time. There was a lot of nazi sympathizers in socialist circles in the 30s, the jewish question was not always central and the viewpoints were not always commonly shared. The question of antisemitism in Europe is completely different from nazi ideology. And nazi and facist ideologies are not even closely related, neither is the question of jewish defiance or what would be called antisemetism, which was light years apart from the final solution. Both Franco and Petain opposed Hitler and did everything they could to stop Germany from seizing Gibraltar among other things. There's been an oversimplifacation through national narratives and in communist propaganda after the post war era that spreaded a lot of misconceptions. Getting to the bottom of all these interrogations is a titanic work. You can get a general idea, but even try to communicate those ideas to an audience without hours of conferences with sources and evidence.
I disagree with nearly everything you said there
@@WW2TV so do i
What are you trying to say? Be specific and cite sources of allegations and supposed information. From what I have just of what you have said, there seems to be a lot of bogosity attached to it.
Regarding the Nazis and Nazi sympathizers in the United States, there appear to be the same motivations in the 1930s and 1940s as now- intense pro-Aryan, white supremacy and antisemitism. In the 1920s and onward, there was substantial crossover in America between Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan. Donald Trump’s father was a noted member of both organizations and there is no indicator that he ever gave any of that up. I would also postulate that Donald himself was inculcated in this ideology and that if given the opportunity, he would continue to emulate his ultimate Hero, Adolf Hitler, to discard Constitutional government in the USA and ignore any pretense of rule of law in exacting vengeance against all possible enemies. So the ideology and methods endure a century beyond their origin in Post World War One Germany, specifically the small group of political misfits based in Munich that Hitler happened upon. They dis covered Hitler’s abilities as a rabble rousing speaker so he became their leader. The name Nazi is a sort of acronym of the name of their party which was Nazional Sozislistisches Deutsche Arbeiter Partei. - national socialist German worker’s party. In taking over the entire economic and political sphere of Germany, with cooperation of German corporations, Hitlerian Germany became as socialist as we now see Communist China to be. Germany was as extremely autocratic as was Stalin’s Soviet Union, also the cult of personality was approximately the same. And equivalence can also be ascribed to what is loosely described as the MAGA movement that has taken hold of the Republican party, which boils down to a Trumpian cult of personality. This phenomenon has be fed by the well developed web of right wing news and propaganda with organizations including Infowars, Breitbart, and Fox News and spinoffs from these organizations. This includes the radio talker Rush Limbaugh who managed to get his programs broadcast to US soldiers worldwide over the English language military radio networks.
Well, why "question of antisemitism in Europe is completely different from nazi ideology"? Big part of any of those had been radical nationalism. In any of those movement you mention. And nationalism is nationalism - that primate of your nation. Yes, level of antisemitism in particular Hitler's spin of nazi ideology was extreme, but in general - it was part of any of those.
@@vladimirpecherskiy1910 Anti-semitism precedeed the influence of the national socialist party in Germany and the exclusion of jews from german institutions and society started way before Hitler came into power and it had nothing to do with nazis. Some historians argue that the holocaust would still have happened without Hitler.
Now anti-semetism in Europe was widespread on both politcal spectrums, you can find litterature from communist to royalist intellectuals, for the left jews organized capitalism and for the right jews were anti-national and were part of the oligarchies that schemed against the nation, along with free masons, foreigners and protestants in catholic countries. Some of that is based on historical events and was theorized by some of the most influencal intellectuals of their time, like Charles Maurras, Edouard Drumont etc. Even Marx linked capitalism to jews.
You also have to keep in mind that jews supported harsh anti-clerical and anti-catholic policies in both France and Germany, that were pushed by free masons and protestants. Some of the most anti-catholic and most anti-clerical political figures were jewish, like Adolphe Crémieux and Alfred Naquet for exemple.
French royalists while sharing hatred for jews never had anything in common with nazis nor did they have any relation. French royalists killed hundreds of nazis during the occupation of France and they were deeply germanophobic.
This is why I don't see how nazi ideology can be separated from german nationalism. Hatred for jews has never lead to mass genocide in deeply anti-semitic countries.
Nazi ideology is deeply rooted in german nationalism.
Horrible
What's horrible?
Really feel this is just presentism ,trying to apologize for the people who caused the death of millions
Then you missed the point completely. David's work is on the MYTH of the clean Wehrmacht
I didn't get much from this interview, personally. Söhnke Neitzel says a lot of the same things. Stahel's books are loaded with soldier's letters which detail thoughts. What it boils down to, is that once a soldier is on the Eastern Front, where everyday is a fight for uncertain survival, ideology, politics is thrown out the window. However, it seems ALL soldiers absolutely hated and had NO mercy for partisans whom they viewed as criminals violating the rules of war, i.e. the conquered should shut up and submit. Also there are cases mentioned in writings and interviews where bypassed surrendered Soviet troops picked up their weapons and shot German soldiers in the back. And in those cases, the soldiers just went beserk and could not be stopped. It seems to be in rear areas where the most atrocities occured. Stahel writes about r*ping a villager then using her as grenade practice. I think it's high time we start looking at what war and mentality does to young men. The things Calley's platoon did in Vietnam sound a lot like the things we heard happening on the Russian front in WW2. MACV-SOG was accused of being an American SS.
Are you referring to this show with David Harrisville or the one with David Stahel? Or both?
All you’re talking about is letters.start talking about what your programme is supposed to be about .
How do you think the question can be answered without looking at the possible evidence?
Painful exposition...lots of humming and haring.
Why say anything though? Do you feel better being critical? It's your first ever comment on WW2Tv and it's negative. Have you watched other shows you did like?