Historical "facts" and popular representations of histrical figures that are wrong

C. Cain

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8-Bit_Jack said:
this is true, despite what i assume is an attempt to troll. Hitler took a disenfranchised nation who essentially went through the Great Depression ten years early, and made it STRONG again. He fixed the economy, the infrastructure, and paved the way for a military and scientific strength germany hadn't had since before the first world war. Sadly, he chose to build this power on racism, conquest, brutality, and his own private religion. He then mired Germany in an unnecessary war and reduced his people to eating sausages stuffed with newspaper.

So, good start, but flinched the landing
There, fixed it for you.
(...) Hitler took a disenfranchised nation who essentially went through the Great Depression ten years early and took credit for making it strong again, since it was already well on its way to recovery by the time he took over. He 'fixed' the economy by borrowing money from nations he later DoW'd, fixed the infrastructure by merely continuing what the Weimar Republic started before he came to power, paved the way for military recovery, and didn't interfere with the already strong scientific community other than removing the oftentimes excellent scientists who happened to be Jews. (...)
 

Quid Plura

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DugMachine said:
Stasisesque said:
Well, it is generally believed Hitler ordered them built. Or at least, he ordered the formation of the death squads (they had a proper German name, but... I can't spell it) and the concentration camps were built as an efficient way to keep unsavoury individuals in a convenient location.

Whether or not Hitler was... encouraged by his cabinet to make these orders is something people have been debating since the end of the war. But think of it this way: Hitler was more than happy to be the face of Nazi Germany, and under this, so many atrocities were committed. I doubt many people unworthy of demonisation would be okay with that position.
Well you just dropped a load of knowledge on me! Thank you :D
The Death Squads were callen Einsatzgruppen if I remember correctly.

Himmler was a very bad guy, but the one person who was even worse was Reinhard Heydrich. He started tests with gassing Jews (or the most efficient way to remove the Jewish problem, as he would've said). Himmler was a bureaucrat, Heydrich was a monster.

But don't forget that Hitler was the one who wrote Mein Kampf, in which he expressed his hate for Jews early on.
 

GrimTuesday

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DugMachine said:
Stasisesque said:
Confirm and deny. Heinrich Himmler is the one responsible for the concentration camps, thus the man who ordered the deaths of 6 million Jews, gays, Romani gypsies etc. So yeah, he was a very, very bad guy. Definitely a monster.

Himmler ignored orders from Hitler, and at one point tried to organise peace talks. He was eventually fired.

It doesn't mean Hitler wasn't a monster too, though.
So what role did Hitler have with the concentration camps? That's the whole deal with my friend, because of this Himmler guy my friend believes Hitler is demonized for no good reason.
Himmler was the leader of the SS and later the Gestapo. It was part of the SS's duty to guard and run the concentration camps. He also formed was in charge the Einsatzgruppen, who did a lot of the mass shooting of the "undesirables". Himmler was a bastard but he was enabled and empowered by Hitler.
 

Stasisesque

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Quid Plura said:
DugMachine said:
Stasisesque said:
Well, it is generally believed Hitler ordered them built. Or at least, he ordered the formation of the death squads (they had a proper German name, but... I can't spell it) and the concentration camps were built as an efficient way to keep unsavoury individuals in a convenient location.

Whether or not Hitler was... encouraged by his cabinet to make these orders is something people have been debating since the end of the war. But think of it this way: Hitler was more than happy to be the face of Nazi Germany, and under this, so many atrocities were committed. I doubt many people unworthy of demonisation would be okay with that position.
Well you just dropped a load of knowledge on me! Thank you :D
The Death Squads were callen Einsatzgruppen if I remember correctly.

Himmler was a very bad guy, but the one person who was even worse was Reinhard Heydrich. He started tests with gassing Jews (or the most efficient way to remove the Jewish problem, as he would've said). Himmler was a bureaucrat, Heydrich was a monster.

But don't forget that Hitler was the one who wrote Mein Kampf, in which he expressed his hate for Jews early on.
I dunno, I think I'd rank Josef Mengele or 'The Angel of Death' as equally monstrous as either of those two. Ugh, there were some rank individuals in Hitler's cabinet.
 

GrimTuesday

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Quid Plura said:
DugMachine said:
Stasisesque said:
Well, it is generally believed Hitler ordered them built. Or at least, he ordered the formation of the death squads (they had a proper German name, but... I can't spell it) and the concentration camps were built as an efficient way to keep unsavoury individuals in a convenient location.

Whether or not Hitler was... encouraged by his cabinet to make these orders is something people have been debating since the end of the war. But think of it this way: Hitler was more than happy to be the face of Nazi Germany, and under this, so many atrocities were committed. I doubt many people unworthy of demonisation would be okay with that position.
Well you just dropped a load of knowledge on me! Thank you :D
The Death Squads were callen Einsatzgruppen if I remember correctly.

Himmler was a very bad guy, but the one person who was even worse was Reinhard Heydrich. He started tests with gassing Jews (or the most efficient way to remove the Jewish problem, as he would've said). Himmler was a bureaucrat, Heydrich was a monster.

But don't forget that Hitler was the one who wrote Mein Kampf, in which he expressed his hate for Jews early on.

The real evil force in the Nazi army was this man

 

Barciad

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Quid Plura said:
DugMachine said:
Stasisesque said:
Well, it is generally believed Hitler ordered them built. Or at least, he ordered the formation of the death squads (they had a proper German name, but... I can't spell it) and the concentration camps were built as an efficient way to keep unsavoury individuals in a convenient location.

Whether or not Hitler was... encouraged by his cabinet to make these orders is something people have been debating since the end of the war. But think of it this way: Hitler was more than happy to be the face of Nazi Germany, and under this, so many atrocities were committed. I doubt many people unworthy of demonisation would be okay with that position.
Well you just dropped a load of knowledge on me! Thank you :D
The Death Squads were callen Einsatzgruppen if I remember correctly.

Himmler was a very bad guy, but the one person who was even worse was Reinhard Heydrich. He started tests with gassing Jews (or the most efficient way to remove the Jewish problem, as he would've said). Himmler was a bureaucrat, Heydrich was a monster.

But don't forget that Hitler was the one who wrote Mein Kampf, in which he expressed his hate for Jews early on.
You are very astute to name Reinhard Heydrich. A friend of mine, currently planning his master thesis on European History compared that man to Hannibal Lector. Is in the fact here was a man of incredible gifts, and not an ounce of morals. To use the crudest term, he was in fact 'evil'. As close to the definition as one could imagine.
After all, it was he that ultimately was the driving force behind the Holocaust. Now, if one takes the theme proposed by the excellent docu-drama 'Conspiracy', it becomes even worse. The program is a staged reconstruction of the 1942 Wannsee conference. This being the conference where the where's and the how's of the Holocaust were mapped out.
Now what the script (taken directly from the minutes of the meeting) suggests that what we were seeing here was nothing more than a naked power grab by the SS. At the time, Heydrich was deputy to Himmler in the organisation, but his ambition would hardly have stopped there. Secondly, the SS can quite easily be compared to other 'Imperial Guard' organisations in history.
Like the Mamulks, Praetorians and Janniseries, here was an elite unit that used its close proximity to the centres of power to gradually become a state within a state. Ultimately in fact superseding the initial host. During the meeting, Heydrich outlines the present situation and his ultimate aims. He states directly that these orders have come from the Fuhrer and it is up to them to see that they are carried out.
By that he dictates that this grand 'Final Solution' and its execution has been placed solely in the care of his organisation, the SS. Thus, it is up to the other organs of the state to fall into line and make themselves at his disposal. Naturally, this ruffles some feathers in some of the older established bodies, especially concerning matters of law. This is well represented by the objections brought forward by Kritzinger and Stuckart. These however, were swiftly overruled and ultimately ignored by Heydrich's final announcement of the recent opening of Auschwitz. This ambush puts vast swaths of the German administration under Heydrich's direct control and amounts to nothing less than a logistical coup.
However, six months later, Czech resistance fighters (with British help) assassinated him. The only high-ranking Nazi official that Churchill sought to kill outright. The man was a monster beyond all reckoning.
However
 

NoeL

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chadachada123 said:
Christopher Columbus did not discover North America. He rediscovered it several hundred years after the Vikings.
And the Vikings "discovered" it several thousand years after people crossed over the land bridge from Asia. Everyone always forgets the natives...
 

e033x

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Sep 13, 2010
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My god, this thread has been Godwin'd to death...

OT: Vikings didn't have horns in their helmets FFS!
 

GrimTuesday

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e033x said:
My god, this thread has been Godwin'd to death...

OT: Vikings didn't have horns in their helmets FFS!
This fine historical documentary begs to differ

 

J3bba

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Dec 7, 2010
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It's a common misconception that Abraham Lincoln slayed vampires. He didn't really, he did many other great things, but ridding the world of creatures of the night was not one of them.
 

Call me Baz

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Mussolini made one train run on time, that was to carry him to Rome when he rose to power (I believe that was what it was for)

There was NO evidence that Hitler had one ball, that was Chairman Mao the dictator that had one undescended testicle (so he still had 2, but only 1 dropped)

Winston Churchill was depressed for the majority of his time in power & an alcoholic throughout

Ghandi's name was Mohandas K. (standing for something very long that I forget) Ghandi; not Mahatma.
 

Nadia Castle

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"I've dealt with sociopaths quite a bit in my lifetime. They all think that they're God and they all want everyone to worship them as God. Their egos are too small and fragile to tolerate being anything but Top Dog."

There's no evident that Hitler was a Sociopath, by all accounts he seemed to have been a relevantly boring man who let power go to his head as the war dragged on. Stalin and Saddam were almost certainly psychopaths who relished in the deaths they caused, but Hitler always excused his crimes via god, discredited science or whatever else soothed his conscience.

Stalin would personally sign death warrants and said that there was nothing quite like ordering someones death, seeing it through then slipping off to bed for a peaceful sleep. Hitler had an army of office workers and fanatics to carry out death orders for him.

Regardless of his particular religious branch Hitler certainly had belief in a higher being. He and Himmler both indulged in the occult, ancient Nordic beliefs as well as astrology.
 

srm79

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doggy go 7 said:
In fairness the majority of the USSRs weapons and oil and money came from the US. US men may well not have won the war, but US money was a giant factor in it. (I feel I should mention I am English at this point)
To begin with, maybe. The Germans seemed to catch Stalin completely by surprise. Indeed, advanced units of the invasion force passed trains loaded with Soviet trade goods heading west. Most of their (largely obsolete) air force was destroyed on the ground and the Red Army were just pulled apart.

The British and the Americans supplied the Soviets with guns and aircraft, as well as provisions, ammunition and all the other various bits and pieces an army needs to function. Within two years though, Soviet military production was running at a crazy pace. Their dependency on western imports was incredibly short-lived.
 

direkiller

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Devoneaux said:
Not sure if this is common knowledge or not but for a brief time, America did have it's own little empire. It didn't come close to the size of say The british empire, but up until the end of world war two I believe, with a few minor exceptions with things like the panama canal, America did indeed impose itself on other people for economic gain.
I would not exaclty say we imposed our will on Panama.

we paid the Columbia off to recognize it as a country
& when we built the canal we bought the land rights for something like 150 years and gave it back much sooner then that.
 

BenTheWolf

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Dec 21, 2009
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The idea that Hitler was a great leader.

Flawed on every level but one. He was a phenomenal orator.

He couldn't write (see meine Kampf), he couldn't organize a war or intelligence service (read any of the Ben Macintyre books on WWII spies, in fact read them anyway) and he couldn't run government effectively.

Nazi Germany is amongst the worst run historical states on record. Hitler would make a proclamation (having risen late in the day as he was wont to do so) such as - "We must improve the economy", but not actually state HOW in any way. His underlings (who were in a contrary power structure themselves) would then compete to get their idea on how to do this become official policy. There was no continuity or organization

The best example of this is probably the 'final solution'. Hitler never told the Nazis to go kill all the Jews, he didn't object, but it was hardly his explicit idea. This is why no two concentration camps were the same, they were all different vehicles 'working towards the Fuhrer'.

So if in a different time being an outstanding orator with no follow up skills would make you the best leader in Germany's history, this being a history involving Otto von Bismarck the father of realpolitik who unified Germany post Napoleon then the original statement is indeed true :)

(Source being A level history coursework on the development of the German state from 1845 to 1945 and the 50-60 books/ articles I used to put it together)
 

Benny Blanco

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Not G. Ivingname said:
thebobmaster said:
America is responsible for winning World War II/America had nothing to do with winning World War II.

That's right, those are both false. Britain was holding out against Germany and Italy, this is true. Russia dedicated a lot of manpower, and the failed invasion of Russia weakened Germany, also true.

However, Britain didn't have the resources to fight against Japan. Meanwhile, Russia lost a lot of manpower in that failed invasion, so they would have had problems with an attack on Japan as well.

On top of that, without the atomic bombs that the U.S. developed, the back-up invasion plan would have resulted in many more deaths on both sides.

So it's not true that America is the only reason the Allies won World War II, but they were a large help.
It can be safely said that America won the war in the Pacific while the USSR won the war Europe (they were facing 80% of the German forces at any given time).
You forgot about China, as well as the resistance movements throughout SE Asia (from the Chindits in Burma to the Huk in the Philippines, there was enormous resistance to the Japanese. The worst offence historians commit is to underplay the role of these groups, especially in the light of the ridiculous number of war dead: 10-20 million, second only to the USSR.