 
|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
|
|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
24.242.116.115
In Reply to: :Downfall" - the Hitler's final days posted by Victor Khomenko on August 28, 2005 at 12:45:56:
Re: earlier comments about what led to Hitler's rise. I recommend Wilhelm Reich's "Mass Psychology of Facism". I agree with Reich: given a certain set of circumstances, this could happen ANYWHERE.And re: "Barbarossa" beginning in June...thank God for the Greek resisters that so angered Hitler that he spent 6 weeks putting them down just before launching his attack on the Soviet Union. One of the great unanswered questions of this period in history is: what if the German army had seen the spires of Moscow in late October instead of early December?
Follow Ups:
We of course don't know, but the fact is the plan was good, except... it underestimated the resistance. And from there it was all downhill. The unitial strike didn't reach for the heart, and it became a flesh wound - painful but not lethal.Perhaps if there was no Zhukov the outcome would have been different.
Victor, in one of my history textbooks, several pages from a German soldier's diary are reprinted. The soldier was fighting at Stalingrad and at first thought they would all be home for parades and honors by Christmas. A few entries later he is cursing the resisters and asking why they are sacrificing themselves for something that they will obviously lose. A few more entries later...well, I'm sure you know how it ends...the soldier is waiting for capture and imprisonment...and that's if he is lucky.But the Russians had to resist. As you have pointed out before, they had no choice. All they had to look forward to if the Nazis succeeded was slaughter and total, abject enslavement. Hitler had made that quite clear.
Your comments about American entertainment stereotypes of the "buffoonish" Nazis led me to ask my wife a question: Did her father enjoy programs like "Hogan's Heroes"? (He was a POW at Stalag Luft III). Unfortunately, she could not remember, and he was very tight-lipped about his experiences in the war. She and her brothers knew he had served, knew he had been a POW, but never thought to ask him about it...even when watching "The Great Escape" on TV (the events of which took place before he arrived at Stalag Luft III)!
The history we are losing from simply not knowing to ask is amazing.
That is exactly why we put my father-in-law in front of a camera and recorded about 8 hours of his stories - from childhood, through his service before the WWII, surrender and captivity, concentration camps, escape, partisans, then service in the Red Army again... he is 95 but his memory is sharp as the best katana. We will probably record more.But unfortunately that horrible war is receding in the past, and in a few more years will look just like any other war in history book - no big difference between the Zulu warriors and the Wehrmacht.
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:
Top of Page ]
[ Contact Us ]
[ Support/Wish List ]
[ Copyright © 2024, Audio Asylum, all rights reserved ]
