All this talk of Hitler and German generals brings me now to listen to Wagner's Tannhäuser opera.

:P

(Please don't confuse the music of Wagner with fascism as it quite beautiful to listen to.)

Anyway, making your screenname "Furer" is honestly no worse than making it something like "Caesar Augustus"; they were both evil people that ordered the killings of millions of other people. Also, they were both good strategists.

Sorry but as a "fan" of the Roman empire and Augustus I just have to react on this dumb sentence.

First of all -as many have already said- Hitler wasn`t a good strategist at all. His generals did most of the work, and the (stategic) plans Hitler made mostly failed horrible.

Ceasar Augustus though, he came up with most of his tactics himself and he was smart when it comes to choose enemy and friends. Further more you shouldn`t forget that in that time you couldn`t just bomb a place and it was defeated. You had to travel a lot of kilometers/ miles on foot or with boats (which weren`t great in that time)and it all came to battle stragics on the battlefield.


You also said: They were both evil people that ordered the killings of millions of other people.

First of all, when it is war, then there will always be people who get killed. Both indeed killed with their armies a lot of guys, I won`t deny that.
The diffence is the 'evil' here. What was the big diffence between Hitler and Augustus?

Augustus was in a time a war and beated a very big opponent. After beating this opponent he controlled the roman empire and a period of peace starts for the romans (called the Pax Romana) although they still took over parts to expand, the villians in all the controld 'provincia' lived quite peacefully. Augustus respects their culture and leaves the people alone (of course he controls them, but doesn`t force them to do a lot of things.)

Hitler started a war. After beating some of his opponents he started to terrorize the villians of the countries. he doesn`t respect any other culture than his Nazi culture and decides that all the jews are evil. He kills millions of jews, just because he thinks that they aren`t good. Augustus never did such a horrible thing.

Not saying that Min got his facts wrong, but I don't think rome was against anyone during 30 BCE (i think that is what he means). Mark Antony was in a pretty bad position since he only had the egyptian army and a few loyalists with him, while Augustus had all of the Roman republic on his side. He also declared war on Egypt first. He does make a good point with the rest though.

Min34: "History is written by the victor."

Arc, does that take away the fact that with Augustus a period of peace started, while Hitler started killing a lot of jews?

Arc, does that take away the fact that with Augustus a period of peace started, while Hitler started killing a lot of jews?

As the devils advocate: Who is to say that if the jews had been exterminated and if the Germans were victorious in the end this also wouldn't have brought long lasting peace for the duration that it lasts ??

Personally with regards to extermination the great example in Augustus's life (Julius Caesar) was also not opposed to mass genocide in his war against the Celts

With regards to depths of strategy it's clear though that Augustus was the better of the two. Not that Augustus was sorely tested on that matter but more that the decisions Hitler made were stupid to see the least:
1) Sparing the british troops in Duinkerk by using them as targer practice for his Luftwaffe thus allowing them time to escape
2) Standing ground to the last man in Russia + the attack in the late autumn of that year

Personally it's sort of ironic to see how all the good German commanders were actually those military officers who already held their ranks BEFORE the rise of the nazi party.
- Paul Ludwig
- Von Rundstedt
- Gunther von Kluge
- Georg von Kuchler
- Fedor von Bock
- Erich von Manstein
- Erwin Rommel
- Walter Model
- Heinz Guderain
- Wolfram Freiher von Richthofen
- Karl Donitz
All these men actually made sound tactical and military decisions. It was only when their nazi puppet replacement officers took over that it all took a turn for the worse with regards to the german war machine. Several of these men btw also tried to assasinate Hitler and had to commit suicide as a result when this failed. Personally Rommel was also, along with limited others of this list, a commander who refused to deport Jews in the territories he held. As the British actually described him as fighting a "gentleman war".

Hear! Hear! Aranka nailed it cleanly. The only genius the Nazis had was for ruthless murder and intimidation. If any of the above German Generals named were in the Nazi party I imagined it was out of necessity for personal survival rather than of ideological leaning.

I do have some sympathy for the German people of that era. If it wasn't for the malicious pursuit of the French government of the time to exact extreme punative terms on the German people at the end of the Great War there might not have been the social and politcal climate for someone such as Hitler to rise up. So, although the Germans were complicit in the Nazi tyranny and crimes, much of the blame lies with the Western WW1 allies and in particular the French for pushing them over the edge.

Every nation is capable of this barbarity as history indicates and there is no suggestion in human social behaviour that it wont happen again and again. From Vietnam, Cambodia, South Africa to more recently in the Balkans, Iraq, Afganistan, Sierra Leone, Zimbabwe...

Only takes the right social, economic and political circumstance for a zealot sociopath to rise up in any country and lead the people into depravity under the banner of change and rejuvenation.

Yeah. If the french werent asking for it, why did they dress so provocatively? Everyone knows shes a slut, she probably enjoyed it anyway.

:)