World War II history

I wasn't sure where to post this but if it's inappropriate for this section, feel free to move it to whereever it belongs!

I'm fascinated by the WWII history period, specifically the Nazi Germany reign. This is one of the reasons Indiana Jones holds such appeal to me. I was wondering if anyone else is also interested in this area of history too, and whether it was because of Indiana Jones. I would love to discuss with other people the pyschological and archaelogical aspects of WWII.

Ask Jay, he is directly reltated to them all!

Cammy said:

I wasn't sure where to post this but if it's inappropriate for this section, feel free to move it to whereever it belongs!

I'm fascinated by the WWII history period, specifically the Nazi Germany reign. This is one of the reasons Indiana Jones holds such appeal to me. I was wondering if anyone else is also interested in this area of history too, and whether it was because of Indiana Jones. I would love to discuss with other people the pyschological and archaelogical aspects of WWII.

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The number one topic on my history favorites! Youv'e got questions, Iv'e got answers!

indifan101 said:

The number one topic on my history favorites! Youv'e got questions, Iv'e got answers!

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Please explain the german policy of provision of employment between 1936 and 1939 relating the so called Reinhardt-program and the Strassersche Sofortprogramm and try a brief excursion to the introduction of military duty, also during ´39 to ´45 and in context of the end of the republic of weimar.

@cammy: its a pretty interesting topic, of course. I´d say it was a kind of war in a new dimension of death. In psychological view it was really fascinating how hitler and his government caught the believes and hopes of millions of people.
And it´s similar interesting to see how the other nations in east and west was supporting him and his actions in the beginning of his time. But thats something completely different.

For info on the third reich http://www.axishistory.com/

Ps. This is not a nazi site, nazi comments wont be allowed there.

Balou said:

and try a brief excursion to the introduction of military duty, also during ´39 to ´45 and in context of the end of the republic of weimar.

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I believe it went something like . . .

"Remember how the American's kicked your a$$ before . . .well we will go out und do that again! Now go die like Germans!"

I too Cammy love this period of history and the Nazi's. It is in my opinion the most fascinating and dangerous time in all of human history. So much happend within a few decades. I also am interested in discussing the psychological and archeological aspects of W.W 2. You should read my posts with Balou in the Globe trotting thread called "Doing a hitler salute in Germany to be interesting."

To be honest and I do get alot of flak for this but if you ignore the holocost and the war, Hitler and his party did accomplish many amazing things. He turned a German economy around that was at the brink of starvation to a world superpower. No easy task. Personally I don't think Hitler was all that bad. I just think he handled the Jews wrongly. Instead of exterminating them, he should have just deported them out of Germany and sent them to America or anywhere else. Well that's just my thinking if he hated the Jews so much.

I think Hitler had an amazing power of manipulation. The way he gathered followers, manipulated them into believing he was right and that it was their duty to exterminate all the Jews, was really astounding. Of course it wasn't a nice thing to do, but in the WWII period, he managed to accomplish all that in such a short time.

He used fear and intimidation as his most powerful weapons. It's interesting how he slowly introduced the idea of separating Jews from the Germans and forced them to identify themselves at all times. It led to a growing fear in the population. Then slowly, he introduced more harsh measures. By the time anyone realised that they had to get out, it was too late. I read an excellent book (I forget the title but it starred a man called Marian and it was based on his own personal experiences) that show how and why they had trouble escaping out of Germany, and how things changed for the Jews.

I liked how we saw Indiana Jones bump into Hitler himself while they were burning books. They burnt books to prevent people from rising up and rebelling, they took away their means of educating themselves. Poor Indy had to escape from all those Nazis chasing him.

You know what I find the most interesting about the whole Nazi concept? They believed that the perfect race was the Aryan race, blue eyes and blonde hair. Interestingly enough, Hitler has neither of those features. So would that have meant Hitler wasn't "perfect" according to his ideals? What would have happened if they had just decided to eliminate everyone who wasn't "blonde or blue eyed"?

Yes I agree with your observations about Hitler's personality. The few books I have read about Hitler all mentioned his ability to rouse a audience and his excellent speech writing capabilties. When you read some of his writings, his wording and sentence structure is not amazing. But his choice of words and grabbing the emotions and sensing the feel and pulse of an audience and their mood and to get them motivated and interested is what I found very fascinating about this man. During the Nuremburg trials so many average German workers and civilians were asked how they could follow this madman and most of them couldn't really give a reason why except that Hitler made them feel proud of themselves as people and as a country.

Yes, the whole Aryan point was pretty interesting. But Hitler was a very well read individual, he loved studying both science and spirtual and mystical books. Aryan, like the swastika are origanally Indian terms and symbols thousands of years old. Aryan in the gita means "A spiritually superior person than the comman man; people who are more in connection with god and the universe than ordinary people" Hitler and the Nazi's obviously misunderstood and twisted this term to mean people of fair skin, blue eyes and blond hair. Even the science of splitting atoms and radio and television waves were mentioned in Hindu scriptures called the "Upanishads" thousands of years ago. The Nazi and American scientists just read this information and managed to use the explosive power of splitting atoms on a global and destructive level.

This is very fascinating information and I look forward to reading more about this man.

The idea of the the perfect race is older than hitler.
He was just one guy who kept it. Just have a look in the present. Conflicts between reliigous thoughts, burning hate because of the colour of skin, pressure etc-

This ideas have their fundaments in the older theories of the social darwinism and was e.g. used by the britans during their occupation of india.

but thats not the topic

by roundshort
I believe it went something like . . .

"Remember how the American's kicked your a$$ before . . .well we will go out und do that again! Now go die like Germans!"

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oh, nice quote, roundshort. Just a bit stupid or a botchy attempt to be funny?

This is a very interesting thread.

I consider myself a very knowledgeable World War 2 scholar. I have many opinions about the whole world war 2 period, and Germany, that may not be popular, or accepted in today's world. so I won't express too much of them here.

Suffice it to say that I believe that Germany was more or less forced into war in 1939, and that the German people suffered horribly and very unjustly at the hands of the Allies after world war 2. I also believe that the 'Allies' are very guilty of war crimes for which they were never punished.
There is much documentation to support this.........but you won't find it at Walden Books.

Anyway.........that said...............

I too am very interested in the Third Riech's fascination, and excursions into the world of archaeology. The 1930's was a fascinating time for archaeology. Hitler and the Nazi regime did indeed have a great interest in the possibilities presented by archaeological knowledge. They were very interested in mysticism, the occult, etc...... And ancient knowledge, artifacts, and such were zealously sought after by the SS.

Raiders of the Los Ark draws a lot from the reality of the times.

I love reading about W.W 2 history and also consider myself some sort of scholar for that time period, especially the Nazi's which just fasinates the hell out of me. My friends think i'm weird in some part for admiring Hitler. Maybe I am. But I am just trying to understand all the psychological aspects of why this defeated, bankrupt country after the 20's felt "forced" to take up arms against most of europe and the world. Why Hitler was the spark that fired up a nation? Monkey you say you sympathize with the German people and they were forced to go to war. What are you reasons for saying that? I can understand Germnay wanting to extend it's sphere of influence over nations such as Polant, Austria and Hungry. But why did they take on France and Russia? If they hated the jews so much why didn't they take most of their money and deport most of them to other areas of Europe like France or Itlay or Russia, instead of attacking those countries? At these point I am confused. If you could shed some light on this monkey, either both factual or your opinion I would be very interested.

roundshort said:

Ask Jay, he is directly reltated to them all!

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aren't we all sons of our Führer?

you see I was right ages ago, when I called u a "nazi"

Cheers m8

JediIndy said:

I love reading about W.W 2 history and also consider myself some sort of scholar for that time period, especially the Nazi's which just fasinates the hell out of me. My friends think i'm weird in some part for admiring Hitler. Maybe I am. But I am just trying to understand all the psychological aspects of why this defeated, bankrupt country after the 20's felt "forced" to take up arms against most of europe and the world. Why Hitler was the spark that fired up a nation? Monkey you say you sympathize with the German people and they were forced to go to war. What are you reasons for saying that? I can understand Germnay wanting to extend it's sphere of influence over nations such as Polant, Austria and Hungry. But why did they take on France and Russia? If they hated the jews so much why didn't they take most of their money and deport most of them to other areas of Europe like France or Itlay or Russia, instead of attacking those countries? At these point I am confused. If you could shed some light on this monkey, either both factual or your opinion I would be very interested.

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Sure, well, first of all, I must tread lightly here. This is a subject that is often touchy with many people.

The whole World War 2 and early 20th century period of history is really a huge subject worthy of a very large discussion, which this probably isn't the appropriate place for right here. However I will give just a few brief explanations for some of my statements.

As for Germany being forced into World War 2. The Treaty of Versailles, imposed on Germany at the end of World War 1, is probably one of the most horrendously oppressive treaties ever imposed on any people. The real objective of Vesailles was the destruction of Germany, through starvation and economic oppression.

The treaty also took from Germany much territory (territory full of.........German people). Much territory was given to Poland, and the newly created nation of Czeckoslovakia. The ethnic Germans in these areas suffered much persecution and atrocities at the hands of the Poles and Czecks. You won't read too much about this, because this has been deliberately omitted from much of the historical record. But the information is there, and it is quite clear. You just have to look for it.

Most people put the start of World war 2 at the German invasion of Poland. Most of the history books depict it as a militaristic adventure; as the first step in Germany's attempt to "conquer the world". But in fact the invasion of Poland took place to both stop the persecution of the ethnic Germans, and to retake German territory that the unjust treaty of Versailles had taken.

As for taking on Britain and France.......well, Britain and France declared war on Germany after the invasion of Poland. So they declared war on Germany FIRST, not the other way around. But by then it was too late.....it was already a World War.

There is much more to discuss, but as I said....this is a huge subject. I hope I gave some of the reasons for some of my statements.

Thanks Monkey that was very informative. I guess the old saying is true. "History is written by the victors." It's those western scholars who have seemed to conceal and hide certain facts to make there choices in the war a little bit more positive.

I just believe that there are two sides to every story.

A lot of bad things happened during the World War 2 period. But I just don't believe that the fault, the blame, the atrocities, etc. etc. belong to only one side. All sides were guilty of bad things.

What I don't like is when history is deliberately falsified or slanted one way. Or when facts are ignored intentionally. The only way to truly learn from history is to know the facts as they really occurred; To look at history objectively.

But, getting this thread back on to an archaeological theme.....I find it interesting that the Nazi regime was indeed very interested in archaeology...the occult...etc. They actually really did send archaeological teams out in the 30's to places like Tibet, and other exotic locales. They were also very interested in Norse lore, runes, etc. Indeed the swastika, while it is a symbol that is used in asia (usually backwards to the Nazi version), it is also a runic symbol. The SS lightning bolts are also runic in origin.

It is interesting too that one of the main themes the Nazis used to recruit soldiers for the Waffen SS amongst the occupied countries was the idea that the war was a crusade to save Western Christianity from the Bolshevik hordes. (which when all is said and done....it really actually was!!) But indeed the SS, and the Nazis basic philosophies were very much more of a throwback to Paganism. Many of the SS rituals were Pagan in their origins.

Y

It makes sense in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Lots of Nazis were trying to get a religious artifact because they believed it held great power. The same thing happened again with the Holy Grail. I find it interesting how the Nazis were so obsessed with power, and having power over people made them feel so important but it still wasn't enough for them. They always wanted more. The Indiana Jones movies demonstrates that aspect of the Nazis really well.

monkey said:

I just believe that there are two sides to every story.

A lot of bad things happened during the World War 2 period. But I just don't believe that the fault, the blame, the atrocities, etc. etc. belong to only one side. All sides were guilty of bad things.

What I don't like is when history is deliberately falsified or slanted one way. Or when facts are ignored intentionally. The only way to truly learn from history is to know the facts as they really occurred; To look at history objectively.

But, getting this thread back on to an archaeological theme.....I find it interesting that the Nazi regime was indeed very interested in archaeology...the occult...etc. They actually really did send archaeological teams out in the 30's to places like Tibet, and other exotic locales. They were also very interested in Norse lore, runes, etc. Indeed the swastika, while it is a symbol that is used in asia (usually backwards to the Nazi version), it is also a runic symbol. The SS lightning bolts are also runic in origin.

It is interesting too that one of the main themes the Nazis used to recruit soldiers for the Waffen SS amongst the occupied countries was the idea that the war was a crusade to save Western Christianity from the Bolshevik hordes. (which when all is said and done....it really actually was!!) But indeed the SS, and the Nazis basic philosophies were very much more of a throwback to Paganism. Many of the SS rituals were Pagan in their origins.

Y

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too bad the whole finial solution thing had to happen to tarnish such good intentions . . .

Too bad that Atomic weapons were dropped on civilians and non-combatants in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Too bad civilians were intentionally incinerated in firebombings of Tokyo, Dresden, and scores of other cities.

Too bad that millions of Germans starved to death after the war, despite the availability of food relief, which was denied by Eisenhower and the occupation authorities.

Too bad that millions of Germans were "ethnically cleansed" from Eastern Europe after the end of the war.

Jewish people suffered during the war, but they were not the only peoples that suffered.

Read history.........learn ALL of history...not only that which is spoonfed to you with an agenda attached.