"So, since might makes right in your ideology, you're going to admit that democracy and tolerance is the superior form of governance?"
"No, I'm actually just going to sulk here and spread Lost Cause style myths about how the Wehrmacht Wasn't That Bad(tm)"
I hate to be that guy, but, in the first years, they were steamrolling Central Europe. They also humiliated the French with their blitzkrieg (and fuckloads of amphetamines), expelled the British forces from the continent and got within a few kilometers of Moscow.
If memory serves, the biggest blow to their naval power was Britain sinking the French warships after they were forced to capitulate, lest the Nazis take and use them to fight the blimeys
IMO the biggest deal here was the Royal Navy. The UK started the war still clinging on to an empire that included almost half the world. They protected that empire with the biggest navy in the world. That meant that once Germany went to war with Britain by invading Poland, Germany couldn't ship in anything via the Atlantic or via the Mediterranean. When they were allies with the Russians, that at least meant that they had access to everything Russia had in abundance, but when they did the ol' red beard thing, they were boxed in on 4 sides. Meanwhile, their enemies late in the war had become manufacturing powerhouses with access to vast amounts of natural resources.
The whole story of U-Boats in WWII is really a story of how outmatched the German navy was. Rather than going toe-to-toe with the Royal Navy, the Germans had to snipe some of the constant shipments of goods flowing into the UK from around the globe. Even at the peak of their military power, they had ceded control of the seas to the British. Their only real naval force were stealth craft that could ambush and then run away. Since the British and then the Allies controlled the seas, it allowed them to invade by sea, first Sicily and then D-Day in France.
So, without the Royal Navy, Germany would have had access to goods from around the world, and wouldn't have been vulnerable to an invasion by sea in the later stages of the war.
As for Russia, the bigger deal about getting within a few km of Moscow was that at the same time they were also getting very close to Baku. If they'd managed to control the Azerbaijani oil fields, it would have cut off oil supply to the USSR while gaining a huge oil supply for themselves.
What the Germans did in WWII was very impressive, especially considering that 15 years before the start of WWII the German economy was in such a state of collapse that inflation was running at 3 million percent per month. Prices for regular goods doubled every 2 days. Kids were playing with stacks of bills because those stacks were effectively worthless. Germany went from being the losers of WWI paying massive reparations that destroyed their economy, to being a force able to conquer virtually an entire continent. Unfortunately, that continent lacked critical natural resources and so eventually they lost because they couldn't keep up with the manufacturing powers of their enemies.
Who did they decide to go to war with? The world.
So you'd think that would last all of about 5 seconds. But it was actually close.
They should have studied history and what happens when you invade Russia. In the fucking winter. Instead they were more concerned with finding magical artifacts.
Meth'll make you do some crazy things.
To be fair it was the strongest aryan army at the time. Unfortunately for them, the other armies weren't so concerned about everyone looking the same and had the advantage perspectives from many people from many walks of life gives to find novel ways to rain death on their enemies.
Shame Hitler had to be an asshat. Could you imagine what a charismatic man like him could do if he used his gift for good? We could live in a world where Germany led a global movement of empathy and understanding that brought on the longest period of lasting peace in earth's history? Instead he was so butt hurt that jewish people existed he did the opposite. I could be writing this post on the lunar settlement instead of the fourth Reich.
Nah, Hitler wasn't really that special. If anything he was a symptom of deeper problems in Germany at the time. If he hadn't risen to power someone else would have. And they would've been a racist shit head too, because that's how fascist movements work.
I understand what you're saying and the man himself wasn't directly controlling every aspect of his rise to power. But I think it's a disservice to history and to our present circumstances to deny that it actually does take a certain kind of charismatic sociopath/narcissist to lead a movement like the Nazis or their cover band.
If anyone could do it, it would happen much more often than it does. Hitler (and Trump) is a case of the "right" person, being in the "right" place, at the "right" time.
Maybe I'm too much of an idealist but I just wish for once, just once, someone comes along with a message of unity and mutual understanding and people actually listen.
But sadly this world really rewards the "dark triad" personality traits. Your version of Hitler would never ever reach a hint of power.
Got to be honest, losing is a very inferior gene trait.
They wanted to ally with the British. They ended up fighting them and losing.
Also the price the Americans could manufacture things at really controlled the war. The Americans saved the war for the small price of: them becoming the richest country in the world, lending huge amounts of money that wouldn't be paid of for generations, completely destroying the competition including close allies in a way that's never been done before or since, changing the world order in their favour. From a "Jewified" country maybe Hitler should have expected that.
Imagine losing a battle against a small island
Chinese: "Am I a joke to you?"
And that is why Nazis are the biggest losers in History.
Not only did they claim their army was the best, but their people were also the best. So losing after a single war proves their army wasn't the strongest and their people weren't the best.
They also got beaten by a combination of different countries who allow anyone to join.
Meaning, the Nazis were beaten by diversity and inclusivity.
The Confederates, for the non-Americans, take challenge to that.
They were the opposing force during the American Civil War, trying to keep slavery. Their reign was so short, even a can of beans last longer than they did.
And yet that doesn't stop chucklefucks in the American South proudly showing their Confederate flag, all because America is too chicken shit to call them losers.
you eat very slow dude
Now this just conjures up an image of a frenzied Liz Truss trying to outlast the lettuce by eating it.
There's also the funny story that the Germans were trying to break the allies code at the same time as the allies were trying to break enigma + all the other non-famous ones that they had
The Germans didn't have a great lot of luck though with it because they were so dismissive of anyone that wasn't normal. So basically all the intellectuals and the mathematicians were either in a prison camp or were just not allowed to join on the basis they were a bit odd. The allies employed someone who couldn't really get the hang of cups, but he was a hell of a mathematician so they put up with it
Turing was just excellent. He’s one of those guys that the more I’ve heard about the more I just want to offer a big hug. Also he was probably autistic. There’s no way in hell the Nazis would’ve let him in.
Also the axis as a whole lost a lot of brilliant people due to the fact that Jewish people had been disproportionately economically forced into educated positions and thus educated people were more likely to be Jewish or at the very least cool with Jewish people. That’s how Italy lost Fermi, he defected because his wife was Jewish.
That’s also why nazi art was shit, but also because of the oppression of gay people. Ok nazi art didn’t have a chance for a lot of reasons.
Anon doubts WW2 Germany
It’s called mind games, if the Soviets ran into him they would think they went too far
They didn't 1v1
Same with the confederacy:
Yet their flags are waived around with pride 250+ years later. How perfectly normal
normie ❌: being anti nazi and anti confederacy because they are evil murderers
based ✅: being anti nazi and anti confederacy because they suck at winning
(sarcasm)
Yeah, certain people can only feel superior to others to cover up for inferiority within themselves.
Well, not to defend the nazis or anything, but they did manage to make considerable amounts of damage and it took multiple great powers working together to beat them back.
That's how Fascists work though. They pick fights with bigger and bigger opponents -- because they're invulnerable, you see -- until they lose. Their economy was absolutely insane, and required flat out pillaging their neighbours. Eventually your neighbours are too big to pillage.
Isn't that not just an imperialistic trait, not necessarily a fascistic one? Franco's Spain didn't collapse, while it was still very much fascistic.
All the while, this trait is very much applicable to the Roman, Ottoman, Soviet or US empires.
I would say that Imperialism overlaps Fascism, but (one of the) difference(s) between the two is that Fascism goes a lot harder into Ultranationalism. Under Imperialism you have a King or Queen, and they are ordained by God to rule. Under Ultranationalist Fascism your race (or whatever they count as 'race', nation, etc) is what makes you superior to everyone else. It was a lot harder to get people to fight for Kings and Queens they only knew from coins, than to say "we're fighting those EVIL (other nation people), whereas we are the PURE nation."
Another difference is that Fascism adores and requires total war. Imperialism wants to expand, but Fascism wants to dedicate every aspect of the nation towards that goal. There's that enigmatic 'other' that has to be destroyed, because it is both a weak and strong opponent. Fascism also says 'violence is good for the nation, if directed properly.' This means your January 6's, your political assassinations, etc, are all highlighted as good things. 'Drain the swamp' kind of rhetoric becomes literal violence to allow people being killed.
As mentioned below, Franco's Spain was quite bizarre, in that it had a lot of different traits (including fascist ones).
Imperialist nations can abandon overseas colonies, 'let' them become independent, etc. Yet Fascist nations need invasion and war to keep their economy going, which means they have to pick bigger fights. They also relied on slave labour (and I'm going to take this opportunity to name and shame the corporations that used those people as slave labour:
Among the slave laborers in the occupied territories, hundreds of thousands were used by leading German corporations including Thyssen, Krupp, IG Farben, Bosch, Blaupunkt, Daimler-Benz, Demag, Henschel, Junkers, Messerschmitt, Siemens, and Volkswagen, as well as the Dutch corporation Philips.
What people forget about Germany is that they had always planned to invade the Soviet Union. There's a lot of talk about 'if they hadn't,' but their lebensraum plan required it. In 1944 75% of their economy went to the military. They'd been deficit spending every year since the early/mid 30's. Fascism requires that all effort be put towards the military and war, regardless of if you're at war, but you need to be at war to get the land/money/etc you need to pay for the military that you made to... etc.
So anyway yes, fascist nations bully countries until either a bunch of them or one big one puts them back down.
Historians debate just how fascist Franco was. Hell, Orwell wasn't even quite sure, and he was very open about the fact that he went to Spain to kill a fascist.
Edit: a choice passage out of Homage to Catalonia, emphasis added:
But there were several points that escaped general notice. To begin with, Franco was not strictly comparable with Hitler or Mussolini. His rising was a military mutiny backed up by the aristocracy and the Church, and in the main, especially at the beginning, it was an attempt not so much to impose Fascism as to restore feudalism. This meant that Franco had against him not only the working class but also various sections of the liberal bourgeoisie—the very people who are the supporters of Fascism when it appears in a more modern form. More important than this was the fact that the Spanish working class did not, as we might conceivably do in England, resist Franco in the name of 'democracy' and the status quo; their resistance was accompanied by—one might almost say it consisted of—a definite revolutionary outbreak. Land was seized by the peasants; many factories and most of the transport were seized by the trade unions; churches were wrecked and the priests driven out or killed. The Daily Mail, amid the cheers of the Catholic clergy, was able to represent Franco as a patriot delivering his country from hordes of fiendish 'Reds'.
And as a side note, the Daily Mail has been terrible for a long, long time.
The great powers initially fucked up too
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