Heroes fighting for the wrong cause?

[JMeganSnow]

I'm with Capt. Jack. Fighting for your country would mean trying to fend off an aggressor, not ruthlessly conquering other nations on behalf of a facist dictator.

If you're interested in a real tough-call situation, look at some of the generals on both sides of the American Civil War. Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson were probably the most heroic of the military leaders in that war. Ulysses Grant was a drunk and from what I've read Sherman seems a bit psychotic. Granted, he did pioneer (or, perhaps, reintroduce) the concept of Total War.

 

[The Wooster]

I think it all depends on what the person in question believes. We like to believe Hitler was gay and semi Jewish because we find the idea of him being a power hungry hypocrite so much easier to swallow than the idea that he was actually, at least in his own mind, trying to make the world a better place.

 

[JMeganSnow]

Hitler was a hypocrite *on principle*--he recognized that rapidly and randomly changing his mind and his line were good ways to keep people under control. I wouldn't even know about the "gay and semi Jewish" bits, and who cares even if they are true?

Making the world a better place first requires that you discover what IS better and HOW to achieve it. If you skip those steps you're going to wind up like Hitler did.

 

[meatloaf231]

I think it all depends on what the person in question believes. We like to believe Hitler was gay and semi Jewish because we find the idea of him being a power hungry hypocrite so much easier to swallow than the idea that he was actually, at least in his own mind, trying to make the world a better place.

I despise euphemisms. What people, especially writers of any kind, need to realize is that "evil" people never see themselves as evil. Nobody goes out and says "I think I will be evil, and kill people for no other reason that I'm evil. And I hate puppies". Nobody does that in any seriousness. The "evil" people in history are just delusional.

I mentioned writers because villains who believe that they are doing what is right are far more interesting characters than people who just are evil for the sake of being evil. The Sith really come to mind about this. Could someone honestly believe they are good, just, and right with a name like Darth Plagus? Seriously? Plagus?

Nobody chooses evil. They choose their version of good, which is usually quite deluded. They just have different priorities.

 

[Capt_Jack_Doicy]

Doicy don't talk about WW2 without any credible backing.

In the African War Rommel was very respectful of the British, and Commonwealth forces, especially during the siege of Tobruk. At one point he lamented the British officers for using the colonials cannon fodder and treating their soldiers as material.

Plus given Germany's state between WW1 and WW2 its kind of hard to not understand their reasons for war.

credible backing? so you have some counter evidence?
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/chivalrous-rommel-wanted-to-bring-holocaust-to-middle-east-450304.html

as for your little quote, i several doubt that, but then we do have the fact the British Commonwealth had the lowest casualities of any of the major allies due to two many reason the need to conserve resources and as dunkirk proved the British unlike the Germans consider men the most valuable resource. the other factor were the lessons of ww1, which had nearly caused social turmoil when it appeared men like butcher haig were merely throwing away the lifes of enlisted ranks. thats why the British generals were also cautious in the war.

your last statement is quite frankly offensive and should be ashamed.

 

[Thaliur]

I'm flaming because i disagree? because you want to make heroes out of accomplices to genocide?

first Rommel was wrongly accused of participation in the plot and even if he had been a member that would of been no sign of heroism, the plot, which was merely the German army attempt to rid themselves of hitler once he had become a liability. his country was Nazi Germany by 1939 you couldn't extracate one from the other so he was fighting for the Nazi.

but here a simple question for you if rommel had surrender the afika corp to the allies as soon as it arrived, do you think that would of help or hindered the allies in winning the war?

Another simple question for you. Please answer this before you get my answer to yours...
If Rommel hadn't commanded the Afrika corps, and the troops had fought under a true Nazi who closely followed the Goebbels propaganda. How many more people do you think would have died a horrible death? Please use your brain and think a bit before you read on to my answer, because I don't want to use another post for it.



At the time Rommel commanded the Afrika corps Nazi Germany was highly capable of warfare. The moment he would surrender, he would have been replaced by a commander sufficiently fanatic to not really think about his orders (much like some people don't actually think about their posts, apparently), and conduct all the genocide and whatever else Rommel was ordered to do.
Rommel instead made the best out of his situation and fought with honour. More than today's greatest army could ever claim to have done.


[edit after reading what the captain posted in the meantime]
OF COURSE he was aiding the Nazi cause. It was their army he fought in, for heaven's sake. Sometimes historians seem to think it's their job to restate the obvious.
He just managed to cause the least possible damage while he was fighting. If he had just refused to command these troops, or even surrendered, some other commander would have been put in Rommel's place, as I said.

Pyromaniac1337 and unabomberman, I think you both were right, this thread seems to get derailed.

 

[Eyclonus]

Doicy, I'm talking about the Tobruk siege. It consisted of Australian and New Zealand volunteers dug into a coastal city, being ordered by British officers to go over the fortifications and charge entrenched germans in the desert. In Australia and New Zealand their is quite a bitter feeling about this as many soldiers were injured by incompetent officers using obsolete tactics from WW1.

Considering your just wailing on about Commonwealth and British forces are the same thing, I'm going to estimate your one of those despicable Americans who believe all that BS about the Nazis planning to invade while riding Dinosaurs.

Post WW1 German had Hyper-Inflation, burning firewood was more expensive then burning a mere 10s of thousand Papiermarks. When it costs nearly a weeks wage for an expert craftsman(Note I do mean Expert) to simply buy the minimum amount of food for his family, people are going to blame someone. In this case the countries that forced such ridiculous war debts on the newly formed German republic and stripped most of its valuable assets as Spoils of War.

As for being offensive, well its the Internet. Get the fuck over it and get on with your life.

 

[JMeganSnow]

I despise euphemisms. What people, especially writers of any kind, need to realize is that "evil" people never see themselves as evil.

Er, what euphemisms? I do not think it means what you think it means.

Yes, people generally aren't willing to consider themselves as evil. Sometimes they're trying to do the right thing and genuinely misguided, but some actually do know what they are and come up with the most tangled rationalizations imaginable to evade the knowledge that they're killers and thieves, like avoiding knowing is going to make it so they aren't actually evil.

It's truly amazing how people will twist their own psychology in knots rather than look at reality for five seconds.

 

[Eyclonus]

It's truly amazing how people will twist their own psychology in knots rather than look at reality for five seconds.

I could think of some examples...

 

[Capt_Jack_Doicy]

I'm flaming because i disagree? because you want to make heroes out of accomplices to genocide?

first Rommel was wrongly accused of participation in the plot and even if he had been a member that would of been no sign of heroism, the plot, which was merely the German army attempt to rid themselves of hitler once he had become a liability. his country was Nazi Germany by 1939 you couldn't extracate one from the other so he was fighting for the Nazi.

but here a simple question for you if rommel had surrender the afika corp to the allies as soon as it arrived, do you think that would of help or hindered the allies in winning the war?

Another simple question for you. Please answer this before you get my answer to yours...
If Rommel hadn't commanded the Afrika corps, and the troops had fought under a true Nazi who closely followed the Goebbels propaganda. How many more people do you think would have died a horrible death? Please use your brain and think a bit before you read on to my answer, because I don't want to use another post for it.

At the time Rommel commanded the Afrika corps Nazi Germany was highly capable of warfare. The moment he would surrender, he would have been replaced by a commander sufficiently fanatic to not really think about his orders (much like some people don't actually think about their posts, apparently), and conduct all the genocide and whatever else Rommel was ordered to do.
Rommel instead made the best out of his situation and fought with honour. More than today's greatest army could ever claim to have done.

Though i think it somewhat impolite to ask me to answer your question before you answer mine, i shall.
Typically when a General Surrendered so did his troops, but even if you took that just Rommel surrendered, first Germany's most capable general is lost to her, second he is a high ranking officer privy to tactical, strategical and logistical information all of which would of aided the allies, thirdly it would of been a massive propaganda blow for the Nazis, forthly it would of made the nazis to become more paranoid more suspisious of the officer core more likely to trust the incompentant SS, meaning Hitler is surrounded with inept yes men, and lastly it would set an example for other german soldiers to follow.

as to your second example, first that general would likely be tactically far less capable than Rommel, meaning an easier victory, second there weren't alot of genocide targets in the stretches of desert the war is fought over and the story about the orders that rommel ignored (that rommel should execute the Jewish Brigade if they were captured) has no reliable sources and is likely apochrypal particularly since the Jewish brigand didn't come into being until 1944.

your last statement is blatantly untrue, i don't know to whom your refering when you say greatest army, but lets assume its the Americans, the US army can not only claim but actually prove to have acted with more honour, because in World War 2 over a million young americans went to far off war that was not their own to liberate it from the horrors of the tyranny and behaved with unimpeachable honour, there were a few incidents the only one i can recall off hand was the incident at Dachau where the american soldiers gave guns to the inmates who proceeded to execute their tormentors, but can anyone judge them for that?

 

[JMeganSnow]

You may not want to carry out an order, but you HAVE to, and may bring it up after.

Seriously? This isn't the case in the U.S. Army. You are required by the terms of your oath of service to carry out *lawful* orders--or you can be court-martialed. This isn't the same thing as *Having* to carry out orders.

It reminds me of a quote from Jingo by Terry Pratchett (paraphrase): History is littered with the bones of good men who followed bad orders in the hopes that they could soften the blow. The time for them to think was before they started following the bad orders.

 

[Capt_Jack_Doicy]

I hate it when people assume that a german in the 1940s is automatically a nazi. (and by that I mean that they hold true to all Nazi beleifs. Hell, Shindler was a Nazi, does that make him bad?)
*looks at Captain Jack Doicy and shakes fist*

did you read my post? when i told him

if you want to be proud of someone be proud of Fritz Kolbe, Julius Leber or Kurt Schmacher, hell be proud of the SPD the only party that consistently opposed the nazis not like every other party that still around from those days that just cowered and appeased.
if you want to be proud of someone i've got a list for you of 450 Germans that are heroes, learn about their heroism here http://www.yadvashem.org/
and remember
whoever destroys a life, destroys the entire world. And whoever saves a life, saves the entire world.

Schindler's a czech but so he's on czech republic tally of the Righteous among nations not the 450 i mentioned there. trying reading post before you reply stops you looking foolish.

 

[meatloaf231]

I despise euphemisms. What people, especially writers of any kind, need to realize is that "evil" people never see themselves as evil.

Er, what euphemisms? I do not think it means what you think it means.

Curse you thesaurus! Mental euphemisms. I know what it means: to use a different, softer way of saying something in order to deliver something more tactfully. eg passed away for die, collateral damage for civilians killed, etc.

I meant when people convince themselves of something when they will not face reality. Such as the Hitler thing Doctorpus mentioned. They lie to themselves to soften the blow, to make things more justifiable. Denial.

Whatever the fancy word for that is.

 

[Eyclonus]

You may not want to carry out an order, but you HAVE to, and may bring it up after.

Seriously? This isn't the case in the U.S. Army. You are required by the terms of your oath of service to carry out *lawful* orders--or you can be court-martialed. This isn't the same thing as *Having* to carry out orders.

It reminds me of a quote from Jingo by Terry Pratchett (paraphrase): History is littered with the bones of good men who followed bad orders in the hopes that they could soften the blow. The time for them to think was before they started following the bad orders.

Its easy to say you wouldn't follow such orders, but in the field it frequently leads to your imprisonment for the duration of the war, and someone else with less scruples completing them. In the fog of war an officer's decision is assessed when there is the time and information to judge whether it was right or wrong, inevitably this can only happen in the hindsight of peace. Any member of a unit thats been in such a situation will tell you the same thing.

EDIT: Also the majority of conventions regarding the legitmacy of orders only developed during and after the War Crimes trials in the 1940s.

 

[Thaliur]

I despise euphemisms. What people, especially writers of any kind, need to realize is that "evil" people never see themselves as evil.

Er, what euphemisms? I do not think it means what you think it means.

Megan could be right about that, actually. I totally agree with you, meatloaf, but you should check the meaning of "euphemism". It's usually a term used to make something horrible sound less horrible. Like when animals are "put to sleep" instead of just "killed", which would be honest. I saw the cat I practically grew up with being "put to sleep", and no matter what the doctor said, I can't believe she didn't feel anything. If any parents are reading this: Should you, at any time, be forced to end the suffering of one of your pets (the cat had a bad case of lung cancer which at the time it was discovered already dissolved most of her lung, making her cough up blood), NEVER, under ANY circumstances, let your children watch the procedure.
A pet just falling asleep and dying in sleep is one thing, but a pet suddenly twitching and wailing uncontrollably was too much even for me, and I can endure a lot.


Noooowww... back to topic...
"Evil" is just a point of view. As Megan pointed out, no one aims to be evil, but helping evil along is not the same as being evil.
Admittedly, Rommel cleared the way for the SS troops. The SS, in fact, was a kind of secret order, above all other military personnel. As soon as you got a black uniform with a double Sowilo on the collar, you could give orders to even the highest general (as long as he wasn't an SS officer himself), so, Rommel was undoubtedly not the commander, nor did he have any control over, the SS unit following in his wake.
More important, if he had, when he noticed this unit, slowed down his progress, or even surrendered, he most likely wouldn't have lived another week, unless he were really good at talking himself out of trouble.

It's basically the difference between letting someone be overrun by a train or breaking some of their bones by pushing them so hard out of its way that you can still rescue yourself. Push weaker, and you probably will be overrun by the same train, and you can still not be sure you saved anyone.

 

[fulano]

Apparently my prophecy is coming true...

 

[Eyclonus]

The SS did force a lot of Wermacht Officers to commit atrocities, giving them the choice of either the Luger's barrel or handgrip. It is also a known fact that SS members would get captured so as to kill Wermacht POWs in the prison camps, if they were of importance to the German war effort.

EDIT:

Apparently my prophecy is coming true...

Oh so very true.

 

[meatloaf231]

I despise euphemisms. What people, especially writers of any kind, need to realize is that "evil" people never see themselves as evil.

Er, what euphemisms? I do not think it means what you think it means.

Megan could be right about that, actually. I totally agree with you, meatloaf, but you should check the meaning of "euphemism". It's usually a term used to make something horrible sound less horrible. Like when animals are "put to sleep" instead of just "killed", which would be honest. I saw the cat I practically grew up with being "put to sleep", and no matter what the doctor said, I can't believe she didn't feel anything. If any parents are reading this: Should you, at any time, be forced to end the suffering of one of your pets (the cat had a bad case of lung cancer which at the time it was discovered already dissolved most of her lung, making her cough up blood), NEVER, under ANY circumstances, let your children watch the procedure.
A pet just falling asleep and dying in sleep is one thing, but a pet suddenly twitching and wailing uncontrollably was too much even for me, and I can endure a lot.


Noooowww... back to topic...
"Evil" is just a point of view. As Megan pointed out, no one aims to be evil, but helping evil along is not the same as being evil.
Admittedly, Rommel cleared the way for the SS troops. The SS, in fact, was a kind of secret order, above all other military personnel. As soon as you got a black uniform with a double Sowilo on the collar, you could give orders to even the highest general (as long as he wasn't an SS officer himself), so, Rommel was undoubtedly not the commander, nor did he have any control over, the SS unit following in his wake.
More important, if he had, when he noticed this unit, slowed down his progress, or even surrendered, he most likely wouldn't have lived another week, unless he were really good at talking himself out of trouble.

It's basically the difference between letting someone be overrun by a train or breaking some of their bones by pushing them so hard out of its way that you can still rescue yourself. Push weaker, and you probably will be overrun by the same train, and you can still not be sure you saved anyone.

Look up. I said what I meant.

 

[Thaliur]

your last statement is blatantly untrue, i don't know to whom your refering when you say greatest army, but lets assume its the Americans, the US army can not only claim but actually prove to have acted with more honour, because in World War 2 over a million young americans went to far off war that was not their own to liberate it from the horrors of the tyranny and behaved with unimpeachable honour, there were a few incidents the only one i can recall off hand was the incident at Dachau where the american soldiers gave guns to the inmates who proceeded to execute their tormentors, but can anyone judge them for that?

Oh, yes, they defeated the Nazis, big deal...
Now let's talk about the Indians, as well as several Middle-Eastern states, shall we?

Oh, and that second example was actually my answer to your question, I'm sorry for not marking it, probably in red, or brown, if you'd like that better...
I usually don'T like quoting wikipedia, but it'S the quickest reference I could find:

and orders to kill captured Jewish soldiers and civilians in all theatres of his command were defiantly ignored

It's specifically mentioned that he ignored such orders "in all theatres of his command", not specifically in some year before 1944, not even specifically in Africa.

I'll go to bed now. MAybe tomorrow this thread will have arrived at Hitlers flying saucers, I wouldn't be surprised, considering the amount of bullshit people with enough time can manage to dig up (Yes, I know that there is supposed to have been a secret project called "Flugscheibe" along with some pictures of prototypes)

Look up. I said what I meant.

Yes, I'm sorry. Apparently, answers to this thread are coming in faster than I can even type one. At least you're one of the people who don't let this fact destroy their writing style

 

[meatloaf231]

Yes, I'm sorry. Apparently, answers to this thread are coming in faster than I can even type one. At least you're one of the people who don't let this fact destroy their writing style

Once you open the door of internet speak, it can never be fully closed again.