The only thing I speculate on is that Hitler did know and did order the holocaust (3rd time I've said it now). What I don't have is historical certainty on the matter, because there is no hard evidence either way. That's the difference between speculation and certainty. One has evidence backing it up and one doesn't.

Similarly, saying Holland and Austria both had groups of nazi collaborators does not "lump Holland in with Austria" (whatever that means). I would agree with you if you said Austria had a higher proportion of Nazi sympathizers than Holland, but that does not in any way take away from the fact that both countries had collaborators.

I guess it's possible you don't see what you do pretty consistently in your posts, but it would be baffling to me if you don't do it on purpose.

If you don't know what "lump Holland in with Austria" means, how can you assert adios didn't do it? It's pretty simple though. He listed them together with no distinction, which I think is not fair as the Nazis were generally received very differently in each country. I'm quite sure every occupied country in the history of the world has had some collaborators. (Though the general characterization of 'occupied' may not even fit with Austria.)

As for your post, my tone was a bit accusatory, but the suggestion that Hitler might not have known about the camps was somewhat shocking.

I don't remember arguing with you in politics, but that's a different forum a different culture and people's opinions and preferences and even how they reflect on personal character are not just fair game, but quite relevant there.

So everyone has to add caveats to their statements of fact now so that you don't draw false conclusions about what they're saying? Dont be ridiculous. He doesnt have to make distinctions. He made no general statement about either country whatsoever.

Statement of fact is just that. If you draw generalities from them either for yourself or from what other people are saying, that's your problem.

He wasn't talking about terms of degree. If you wanna talk about it though, Holland, Belgium, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Hungary, Denmark, and others all had multiple thousands of volunteers in SS divisions. In fact, the SS was around 50% foreign volunteers as the war progressed. Belgium and Holland also had quite popular fascist parties pre war with the Dutch one winning 4-10% of the vote in pre war elections 1931-1939.

As far as Austria goes, it's pretty clear you need to do some reading If you think the reason for unification was solely massive Nazi factions in Austria.

"Prior to the*Anschluss, there had been strong support from people of all backgrounds – not just Nazis – in both Austria and Germany for a union of the two countries.
The idea of an*Anschluss*(a united Austria and Germany that would form a "Greater Germany")[a]*began after the*unification of Germany*excluded Austria and the German Austrians from the Prussian-dominated*German Empire*in 1871. Following the end of*World War I*with the fall of the*Austro-Hungarian Empire, in 1918, the newly formed*Republic of German-Austria*attempted to form a union with Germany, but the*Treaty of Saint Germain*(10 September 1919) and the*Treaty of Versailles*(28 June 1919) forbade both the union and the continued use of the name "German-Austria" (Deutschösterreich); and stripped Austria of some of its territories, such as the*Sudetenland."

You can see from this alone that anschluss was a strongly desired outcome for 50 years before the Nazi party even existed!

Anschluss was widely desired in Austria, but that doesn't either take away from the fact that the anschluss of 1938 was the direct result of a Nazi coup d'etat. The Nazi party was small, and Schushnigg did everything he could to stop Hitler from the hostile takeover of Austria including announcing a plebiscite on unification that almost certainly would have failed. Hitler invaded Austria to prevent the plebiscite because he knew it would have failed, which pretty much murders your conclusion that "Austria accepted him with open arms."


For someone who so often draws quick, simple and unjustified conclusions despite the complexity of the subject matter, this isn't surprising to me. What is really not fair though is drawing conclusions about people's beliefs when you don't know anything about them. Please stop doing that.

Which is it, Germany was welcomed into Austria because they had wanted unification for 50 years or my suggestion that Hitler was welcomed with open arms was murdered?

I didn't suggest anything at all about adios' beliefs other than the degree to which Holland resisted invasion and the degree to which Austria resisted "invasion" were so far apart that it was not fair to just lump them together in a list of collaborators. My reaction was mostly based on some personal experience having nothing to do with what I think about adios. I spent a few weeks in Rotterdam and saw the extent of damage (mostly covered by post war construction, but still clear). Austria wasn't invaded in that manner.

What you're doing is disingenuous because I'm sure if you were tasked to compare and contrast the degree of collaboration and integration of the population and military and political structures of with the Nazi regime between Austria and Holland you could put out a hundred thousand words demonstrating a stark contrast.

What did I say that hurt your feeling so much in P? Dragging grudges from one forum to another is really pathetic. Stop being such a baby.

Austria wasn't invaded in that matter because the Austrian army was ordered to stand down. Had they not been, it can be relatively certain they would have fought to retain their sovereignty like they were trained to do. The key fact is that Hitler invaded the country because their leader planned a plebiscite on unification, and Hitler believed it would fail.

You didn't hurt my feelings at all, I just don't want historical discussions derailed with the same kind of misrepresentations and childish insinuations that were so common to your posts on the politics board. Obviously I'm not alone.

Bold added for emphasis:

The question:
The answer:


In microbet's reality this answer amounts to equating the Anschluss with the Nazi invasion of the Netherlands. That is completely ridiculous.

The question posed by Tabbaker was how did the Nazi's maintain control of the countries they took control of. Clearly the Nazis had Dutch collaborators that helped the Nazis in their occupation of the Netherlands.

Here's an interesting article criticizing the Netherlands for white washing their WWII history.

THE NETHERLANDS: A COUNTRY WHICH REFUSES TO ADMIT ITS GUILT TOWARD THE JEWS

Quote:

The above cannot be viewed as unrelated to the consistent Dutch refusal to admit the disinterest of the Dutch wartime government and Queen Wilhelmina in exile in London regarding the fate of Dutch Jews. The same goes for the massive collaboration of Dutch bureaucracy with the Germans in the occupied Netherlands.

adios,

In adios' reality you are also taking this very personally. Sad. I thought all of you behaved differently in the History forum. Your points there are taken and may have merit, but are opposing. Which is it, should Austria and Holland not be lumped in together (Anschluss and all) or should they be (the Dutch collaborated to a similar degree)?

Neither. The world is not black or white.

Consider my world rocked.

Interesting thread and very good knowledge spread around on the subject. Since a lot of the discussions are about 1941 being crucial: Could have Japan made a difference? As I know it Stalin was only able to pull troops from the East because he knew Japan was no threat and would never attack. So what could have changed if Japan doesnt focus on the USA and instead invades in the East. The counterattack at Moscow by the Red Army would probably never happen. So Germany would have a different 1942 starting point I assume.
How long would the USA stay out of the war if Japan never attacks Pearl Harbour but rather attacks in the East. Or is it implausible since Japan had no resources or knowledge on building tanks and stuff to be effective.

Iirc, the generals that were loyal to the Emperor planned on expanding north and not attacking the US in the Philippines. These generals were displaced by the generals who took control of the government from the Emperor and decided to go south and attack the US holdings in the Pacific.

After success against Tzarist Russia around the turn of the century, Soviet Russia was much more difficult for the Japanese, and after the battles of Khalkhin Gol, the defeated generals were disgraced and the Japanese gave up trying to fight the Soviets.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battles_of_Khalkhin_Gol

There was a Soviet spy in Japan who informed Stalin of Japans plans in late 41 as well, which gave him the freedom to move troops from the East for the Moscow counterattack.

Regardless, Germany was doomed to lose in Russia even without these troops. It was not a military or manpower problem in 41-43 so much as a logistics problem. The further they pushed into the SU, the further away they were from their supply base and the closer the Soviets were to theirs. The Wehrmacht obliterated the Red Army militarily pretty much throughout the entire course of the war. They destroyed RA tanks at a ratio of about 7-1. They simply couldn't fight a long battle of attrition with them and especially so with very poor supply lines.

any formidable country can defeat most of the world by being pragmatic. humans will sit by and watch until they themselves are being victims. if germany went slowly and took years to take over country by country it would have gotten too big to stop. and at some point they likely would have gotten the atomic bomb first and then would have ruled the world.
look how far little worthless north korea has come from the world just talking and letting them get atomic weapons.
what do you think the world would do if china just marched into southeast asia and took it over. nothing but talk. would they have an atomic war. no. and all the so called European countries wouldnt lift a finger and send enough military to do any good.

russia just took Ukraine over and we had guaranteed them when they gave up their nukes that we would protect them. we didnt. if russia takes back a country every few years they will eventually get back the whole soviet union without a fight.

the world was lucky hitler tried to bite off more than he could chew too fast.

You really think this? I believe the Germans had a very small margin for error. They basically played their hand perfectly until June 1940, made a couple small mistakes and then totally bungled the invasion of the Soviet Union. They were doomed.

i was saying take one country at a time. over a period of many years so no risk at all as the world wont step up for only one country and risk its people until its the one attacked.

the soviet union should have been the last to fight with. large land mass countries are too hard to occupy.

china went in and took over little tibet and what did the world do. nothing.

Ray, for the above to be realistic, it would mean that countries would simply ignore their treaty obligations and watch each other get picked off individually.

This pretty much runs counter to how most major conflicts have developed in the past two hundred years.

It also means the absorbed countries just stay absorbed instead of rebel constantly. Unless everyone is murdered?

countries and parts of countries have gotten absorbed for centuries and nothing much was done. what about the present uraine.

how about how we got the s.w. u.s. from mexico. britain and france and spain taking over the world centuries back.

did we forget about when germany was east and west.

Poland was split between the USSR and Germany at the start of the war. France and Great Britain could not do much to help, besides honor treaties and declare war.

Germany could only be somewhat pragmatic since invading France pretty much finished off mainland Europe, but did not provide the vital oil reserves that are required to wage a worldwide war.

Eventually, you have to seize the resources you need quickly enough without running our of your most valuable asset first, namely well trained and provisioned soldiers.

remember when the taliban took over afganistan. nothing was done until u.s. was attacked. now only u.s. troops and their own army providing we keep financing it fight a losing battle there. the rest of the world is nowhere to be seen. except for token gestures.

But the U.S. allowed the Taliban by supporting the resistance fighters against the USSR in response to the original invasion by USSR.

The USSR was as pragmatic as possible.

The Cold War was largely about preventing small countries from being absorbed quietly by larger ones. Unfortunately, Tibet can not mount enough of a resistance for outside assistance to be viable.

But countries didn't stand by and it doesn't take an attack on someone for their interests to be threatened. That's why the UK and France finally decided they couldn't let Hitler go any further and went to war over Poland.

Also, Germany couldn't afford to take things slowly and take over a country at a time, even if others did sit back and let it happen. Other countries were re-arming as well and that's why Hitler felt he had to go for an early attack on Russia, he couldn't afford to sit back and let them continue to build up their own military with the resources they had at their disposal. Ultimately though Germany's economy couldn't really cope with a lengthy war or wars and that's why they had to rely on Blitzkreig, which was initially very succesful.

If german had the nuke, and nuke every country that possibly could bring them down , none of us wont be speaking english right now

Who created Taliban in first place? Why us in there in first place ?

Had Hitler played the long game he could have won... The africa front...really just should not have happened.

With the extra tanks I see Leningrad falling for sure...separate peace is possible. US/UK shake their fist for awhile but then decide it pointless and make peace.