674
Trump: ‘I Need the Kind of Generals That Hitler Had’
(www.theatlantic.com)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 22 Oct 2024
674 points (98.7% liked)
politics
19090 readers
4069 users here now
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
Is he aware that Germany lost?
Pretty sure he would consider murdering millions of Mexicans as a win, even if it ends with a bullet to his temple.
Ya know I realise this is complete conspiracy theory.
However, I'm still willing to give a 2-5% chance that if Trump gets back into power, within the last 12-18 months of his presidency he'll declare a special operation into North Mexico to 'secure the border', 'stop the illegal immigrants' and 'remove the drug cartels'.
Then he'll claim it's too dangerous to hold the election, or not appropriate, or whatever excuse because of the special operation. And then he'll postpone the election with the approval of the SC as a presidential duty and therefore not illegal.
And I know this is insane but every time I ask myself "would trump attempt something like this?" The answer is always "yes"
If someone tells you they're a Nazi, believe them and treat them accordingly.
He absolutely would, not even a risky bet. It wouldn't even be the first time we've invaded Mexico to take land (oversimplifying).
You’re just saying that because we took California from them and because we stole texas from them in a different conflict
True, sorry for the blatant hyperbole
It's a fucking terrifying thought. I'm not even American but the thought of the (now) power mad and vengeful Trump being in charge of the most powerful military on the planet, backed by project 2025...
It truly feels like an untenable position.
For the world or America? 🤔😂
I'm just about willing to rule out this being a problem for places further than the moon, but even that feels optimistic
Huh. Well Mars is out thanks to Elon. So I guess I'll see you on Titan or Europa. Both are kinda toxic yet still less toxic than Trump.
I expect he is a slow reader. He may not have gotten to that part of the book yet.
He said his favorite book is Mein.
Maybe he has good associations with that word because when he said lo mein at a Chinese restaurant a plate of greasy noodles arrived
Reminds me of the theory explaining why he say other countries are emptying their "insane asylums".
He was told immigrants are seeking asylum, has zero clue what that means, and determined that it meant countries are emptying mental hospitals and sending their patients to the US.
I fucking hate that things are so fucked that I actually took a second to evaluate that. In ANY other context I would giggle and move on.
Well done. I hate this timeline
In fairness, the one he's read ends before that.
Germany mainly lost by losing the economics and resources games. A secondary factor was when Hitler started taking over strategic and tactical planning from the generals.
My take on the generals themselves is that they were at least not terrible.
Dont understand why you get downvoted, as I assume you mean that the generals wrwe not strategical and tactical terrible. Think most historians will agree that Hitlers direct involvement in the war was a growing issue in conducting the war. Also Hitler stayed in power by making sure that the levels below him were at each others throats and not able to challenge him directly. Nazi Germany was not technically on a war economy until Speer took over, and the amount of corruption was immens.
This part has been revisited in the decades since the end of the Cold War. The problem was that most western sources were either written by the Allies or were from German generals who survived. In a repudiation of "history is written by the victors" (a phrase that should be expunged in general), almost everything known about the eastern front came from the German side of the story.
Those generals tended to point fingers at Hitler. Everything would have been dandy if they were the ones in charge.
Then the Cold War ends, and there's a flood of new information from the Russian side of things. Western historians start going over the new information, and some new conclusions start to come out. Hitler did fuck a lot of things up personally, but those German generals were full of shit in other ways.
Economic and resources problems are part in parcel with a despot with a desire for absolute loyalty.
Well they were probably too loyal to their idiot Fuhrer. Methinks it's the loyalty part that Trump wants.
The generals tried to overthrow or assassinate him on multiple occasions. The most famous one is the plot for the movie "Valkyrie".
Some generals tried this. Other generals just kind of tried to survive and fight for their country. Still other generals were ideologically Nazis and they fought for the cause.
Like anything in the real world, it's a mixed bag.
Wasn't Blitzkrieg like a brilliant strategy at the time that devastated their opponents?
Blitzkrieg was like the American football play of the same name. If you don't win real fast, you tend to find out that your motorized units are beyond reach of your supply lines. Then they get cut off, and the whole thing can collapse rapidly.
The Ardennes offensive was pulled off in 72 hours by using the powers of methamphetamine. Seriously, the German army issued a lot of meth to the troops. Imagine what would happen to the combat effectiveness if they had to keep fighting at that pace for a while.
Yeah it hasn’t really seen use since because it relies a bit on surprise and can’t handle an opponent that knows how to counter it and is prepared to do so. You buy yourself time. All the time you can. And while you’re doing that you attack their supply lines. They’re sprinting, make the fight a marathon.
Part of why the blitz worked was that it went against all understood military doctrine. It is both literally and metaphorically the fighting strategy of a meth addict.
Germany lost by declaring war on the United States on December 11th 1941.
By then, the Battle of Moscow already had winter blizzards setting in, and Germany would be pushed back within a month and start losing from then on. The British had already tossed the Luftwaffe into a wood chipper through the Battle of Britain. The Bismark had been sunk, and that signaled that Plan Z, a plan for building a German surface fleet that could challenge the Royal Navy, was crumpled up and thrown in the toilet.
It may not have been obvious at the time, but in hindsight, Germany was already set to lose. The only question was how and when. Maybe Russia overruns all of Germany and then effectively controls France. Maybe there's a negotiated peace before that happens. In any case, Germany was going to come out worse than it went in.
This was a serious mistake, yes. And Barbarossa was another serious mistake.
But I think that Germany was still destined to lose the war anyway, because they were running out of oil and getting out manufactured. And the United States was going to find a way to enter the European theater one way or another.
You mean the Red Army?