MovieChat Forums > 49th Parallel (1942) Discussion > Fanatical Nazi U-Boat Crew exaggerated f...

Fanatical Nazi U-Boat Crew exaggerated for film

posted 15 years ago by southwestern71
20 replies | jump to latest

49th Parallel is a propaganda film & a good one made during the war so its portrayal of the fanatical Nazi is expected & understandable but in real life the two least Nazified branches of the German Armed Forces during WWII were the Navy (Kriegsmarine) & the Air Force (Luftwaffe).

Chief of Staff (Chef des Stabes): Kapitän zur See Harald Netzbandt was Jewish & died on the Bismarck when it was sunk in May 1941. There's photo's of him meeting Hitler with other Kriegsmarine (German Navy) high rankers, the only visible difference being him giving a standard military salute rather than a heil.

Now that's an incredible high rank for an "untermensch" and if there's one that high (Fleet Command Staff) there must have been thousands in the lower ranks. He was a great Officer and apparently very highly appreciated by Admiral Günther Lütjens who also died along with Captain Lindemann when the Bismarck was sunk by the Royal Navy on the morning of Tuesday 27th May 1941.

In a published historical inquiry in 1965 by Jürgen Rohwer over the sinking of the Jewish refugee-ships Struma and Mefkure in the Black Sea, it is proven that both Jew-ships had not been sunk by the Kriegsmarine as has been claimed until now.

"After as before, Jews were able to leave the country from the Black Sea ports. Even more: the Supreme Commander of the Kriegsmarine, Grand Admiral Dönitz, even gave orders not to hinder the Jew-transports Bella Citta, Maritza, and Milka departing from Costanza (Romania) in March and April 1944, but to treat them as normal ships.

The German Naval leadership instructed U-boats to tow those three ships past the mine barrages. It was Soviet warships, on the other hand, that sunk the Struma and the Mefkure.

[–] Steve Crook 15 years ago

That applies more to the surface fleet than the U-boats. Those who went to sea in U-boats had to be quite dedicated. And remember that Hirth isn't the captain of the U-boat, he's a senior officer but the captain stayed on board. There are also the rows between Hirth & Kuhnecke about which of them is the more dedicated Nazi

But yes, this is a propaganda film, not a documentary.

The Battle of the River Plate by the same team as this film showed that the captain of the Graf Spee was quite human, not a fanatic. When he buried his men, Langsdorff gave the old naval salute.

However those last three paragraphs of yours do suggest an agenda

Steve

[–] 15 years ago

[deleted]

[–] drystyx 15 years ago

I think the u boat crew was exagerated at all.

The six Nazis (7 if you count the commander who went down with the ship) couldn't have been more different, and for the time, they were beautifully subtle in a world without internet (too many people think we all had internet forever, and all people had access to all the information in the world-and that is about the most inane concept one can have).

The six Nazis were so different. One was the snobbish high born Nazi, proud of being one of the original, a boastful sort very common and very real.

One was a militant perfectionist, Atheist in Nature, but even his evil had a point of reality. He gave a cup of water to the dying man, and didn't try to wipe out the religious community. All that said, he was still quite evil.

One was a career soldier, who began as one of the more courageous, but later, when he became one of the three left, realizing they were now just outlaws instead of soldiers with uniforms, was said to lose his nerve. Very real.

One was a working man, who finally gave thought to the situation. He was the hero of the group, the one with the greatest potential, the one you would want on your side, or as a neighbor, the one with the most noble characteristics, and notice how the Nazis dealt with him. Very progound and symbolic. The character was very real, though. Even he stood up with the Nazis after the speech, although he didn't give the zieg heil sign.

One was a brutal thug, immersed completely in the Nazi evil. He was probably less evil than the leader, because he was taught this, but he was still an unthinking brute. He also was a soldier's soldier. He was dedicated to the cause.

The last was the opportunist, probably one that most people could identify with. He wanted what was easiest to get. Remember the shower scene? The evil Nazi leader insisted on being showered with cold water so not to besmirch his pure and savage might, but this one simply looked perplexed by that decision and continued showering in comfortable hot water.

The characters were among the best ever in a film. All their characters were just too subtle and well written.

Now go away or I shall taunt you a second time
that's not funny!

[–] 15 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Br007 15 years ago

Jew ships?

LOL. Hard to take anything you say seriously, Southwestern. Clearly, the propaganda of the film is dwarfed by your own insidious agenda.

[–] southwestern71 15 years ago

I’m not saying I’m conservative Br007 but as a teenager I use to wack off to pictures of Margaret Thatcher.

[–] Lockbar 14 years ago

You too?

[–] director_80 15 years ago

I don't agree and I think the way the Nazis are portrayed is very realistic, regardless of where they served. As for what you said about Jews being allowed to leave, that I know your right about. In the beginning, Hitler just wanted them out of Europe, and he even championed the idea of an Israel. Not because he wanted to do something good for Jewish people, but he just wanted them out of Europe, as he considered them racially inferior. The problem was any who wanted to leave Nazi occupied territory could only take one bag, and would lose their businesses, land, houses, and anything else they had. The second issue was the majority of the jews of Nazi territory were refused entry to all the places they tried to get to. So as seen in the movie Conspiracy, Hitler realized they weren't going to be able to deport them from Europe, so they executed them, which we all know was the Final Solution. I don't know about those ships that were sunk on the Black Sea, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was the Soviets as they were just as cruel if not worse. After all, Stalin decided towards the end of his reign that all Jews of the Soviet Union were traitors out to destroy him and communism.
Still the Navy and the Lufthassa were dedicated Nazis. I think the way the Nazis behaved in this film was pretty accurate to how they were. Take a look at how they treated Poland and then the former USSR. Poland resisted as did Greece, so they were brutal even after they defeated both countries. But many parts of the USSR were more then happy to see the Nazis, as they hated Stalin and Communism. The people of those countries were more then happy to fight along side the Nazis and get rid of the Jews in their countries. Even Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, were greatful to see the Germans after what the Soviets did to them when they were first invaded in 1939 by Stalin. Those 3 countries even formed their own kill squads and massacred many of their Jewish citizens prior to Hitlers final solution, and many times, the Germans had no control over these mob killings. My point is, much of the USSR were willing to cooperate with Hitler even to the extent of killing the Jews in their country and yet Hitler treated them all like they were less then human. Then the French and Dutch and even Finnish, who Hitler considered better then Slavs, and still the Nazis were cruel to them. Finland was happy to see Hitler and fought with him, to get the Soviets out, but then they turned on Hitler because of his brutality. France, Belgium, Holand, were all happy to see Hitler go and his brutality.
So The Nazis in this film were probably portrayed very accurately.

[–] fwsauerteig 9 years ago

Yes, Poland's occupation forces was totally composed of U-Boot flotillas.
I see a lot of "I think" in your post--not much facts though.

[–] edrebber 14 years ago

southwestern71,

This film accurately depicts the true cowardice of the nazi regime. The mission of the crew of the U71 was to make war. But when the ship is sunk and only a handful of crew members remain, all they can think of is to save their own skin and run back home to Germany with their tails between their legs.

Sinking refugee ships with no military capabilities is idiotic and sadistic. The nazis wasted ordinance that they needed for real military targets. The bigotry and sadism of the nazis was a huge factor in their demise, because they wasted so many resources on non military objectives.

Based on the content of your posting, I sense a parallel in your life and crew of U71.

[–] TheWanderingFish 13 years ago

This film accurately depicts the true cowardice of the nazi regime.

Oh come now - the "our side is brave and strong and the other side is cowardly" thing is old and tired. In reality, there is no correlation between what side someone is fighting on and the bravery of that person - there were just as many brave German soldiers as there were brave Allied soldiers. There were also cowards on both sides.

Yes, Nazi policies were often sadistic (unfortunately, we were also guilty of some "idiotic and sadistic" acts - ones with no conceivable benefit to the military - though they weren't anywhere near the same level as the Axis) - but to claim that the actions of a small (also fictional) crew of men somehow represents the "true cowardice" of Nazis is foolish.

Many German soldiers were conscripts who weren't shooting civilians or running concentration camps or sinking refugee ships - rather they were out on the battlefield, fighting just as bravely as any other group of soldiers, no matter their nationality. Their cause was evil - but not all of the soldiers were evil, and many of them were simply trying to defend their homes, or, even more basically, trying to protect their friends and comrades.

Thought game: If an American soldier, not for any ideological reasons or reasons of conscience, but out of self-interest, tries to avoid service in the military, would you regard him as a coward (and there were several hundred thousand cases of draft dodging in America during WW2?) Now, if a German soldier, not for any ideological reasons or reasons conscience, but out of self-interest, tries to avoid service in the military, would you regard him as a coward? Similarly, if an American on the battlefield commits an act of bravery that saves the lives of five of his comrades, would you consider him a hero? Now what if a German did the same thing to save five of his comrades (and I can assure you that there were many instances of individual bravery on the German side?)

I suppose on a clear day you can see the class struggle from here

[–] hobnob53 12 years ago

I can't believe the kind of posts I've read on this thread, ranging from factual errors, to stupid wisecracks, to misstated, semi-literate half-truths, to out-and-out anti-Semitic outbursts. The couple of sane or balanced posts are far outnumbered by the honestly uninformed, followed by the liars, nuts, and bigoted idiots.

Now: the Nazis in this crew were not "exaggerated". While it's true that the Kriegsmarine was one of the less "Nazified" of the German armed services, there were millions of such people in the armed forces, as well as among German civilians. At most the film can be accused of gathering too many such types into this one crew, which is a case of propaganda, not exaggeration, and certainly not dishonest.

And though it's also true that many people in former Soviet territories initially welcomed the German invaders, many of these (as in the Ukraine) quickly changed their minds, as the Germans began mass killings and looting. But most people in every occupied country hated the Germans.

As to the issue of cowardice, first, there is a difference between perpetrating an act of cowardice, or acting in a cowardly fashion, and actually being a "coward". That said, shooting unarmed people (in the film and real life) and attacking those who are either defenseless or overwhelmed by the invader's power, each in its own way is an act of cowardice. It doesn't take guts to murder unarmed or outnumbered people. Unprovoked attacks are not acts of bravery. Yes, there were people who fought bravely on the Axis as well as Allied side, but the reasons for their fighting in the first place were in furtherance of the unprovoked aggression by their country in a war of conquest and annihilation. Invading peaceful countries, massacring civilians and prisoners, enslaving conscript labor, herding millions into camps or lining them up to be shot are not acts of bravery. By any measure, such things are indeed acts of cowardice.

Moreover, soldiers who may have performed individual acts of battlefield bravery on the Axis side are tainted not only by the fact that their cause was evil, but because they were the aggressors. Personally, while academically I might acknowledge such acts as "brave" in the narrow sense, I cannot give them much credit because these people had no business fighting the war they had begun in the first place. WWII was at its roots a war of enslavement perpetrated by the Axis powers, and I cannot consider acts in support of such goals truly "brave". They were certainly not, as at least one poster has said, acts in the "defense" of their country, for they were the aggressors. They may not have been cowards in the strictest sense, but bravery entails more than simply a willingness to risk one's life. Bereft of any morality, their bravery in combat is forever, and justly, discredited.

In any case, per this movie, the Germans did in fact act in a cowardly way. They may not have been cowards as such (though this is debatable in the case of some of the men), but their actions in killing, wounding and robbing defenseless people were cowardly.

Also, there were not "hundreds of thousands" of cases of draft-dodging in the US during WWII. That figure is absurd. Such cases numbered in the low five-digits at most, and probably fewer. Were such people "cowards"? In many cases, perhaps. Genuine conscientious objectors had a rough time of it but were brave for standing up for actual beliefs, and many of these did enlist for hazardous non-combat duties, so their bravery is unquestioned. Those relatively few who actually dodged the draft merely to save their skins were cowardly in their actions. But for some, more complex motives may have been at work than simple "cowardice" or "bravery".

As for the OP's "Jew-boat" remarks, and his subsequent asinine "joke" about Margaret Thatcher, the less said about this imbecile, the better.

[–] davidmrenton 10 years ago

i think what is being said was the average German Soldier in WW2 a rabid anti-Jew,anti-gay blah blah fanatic. Probably not, the thing about fanaticism is doesn't require 100% of the population to get behind it. Which has relevance today.

German soldier's where on the whole ordinary people, who probably through effective Nazi propaganda believe certain thing's, they where hard done by the treaty of Versailles, German land had been stolen, that this was a chance for Germany to regain it's dignity after defeat in WW1.It is very easy to make the aggressor look like it is being attacked.

The Jewish community in prewar Germany was quite small less that 1% of the population, most German's at the time would off had very limited contact with Jewish people.
It at the time was necessarily and easy to hate the German soldier as ultimately irregardless of motivation's they gave the German war machine it's leg's. to damm every German Soldier, Airman and Seaman is absurd.
I doubt in everyday life the average German soldier paid too much attention to the plight of the Jew's either way, their main priority was on Survival.

[–] hobnob53 10 years ago

Yes, most German soldiers were ordinary people -- as were the soldiers of every nation -- and killing Jews or other racial or religious minorities may not normally have been their primary motivation to fight. Instead, they fought a war of conquest and aggression against others, with the goal of seizing their land, their resources, and enslaving foreign populations. And hundreds of thousands if not millions of Axis soldiers did participate in massacring Jews, Slavs and others.

Whatever their opinions about Jews (and if Nazi propaganda was as effective as you say they mostly did dislike Jews), or their role in furthering the Holocaust, the main goal of the German armed forces was to wage a war of conquest and murder against peaceful nations. German soldiers, sailors and airmen were entirely supportive of the aims of Germany's aggression and had no qualms about invading, killing and subjugating others.

[–] fwsauerteig 9 years ago

What a load of crap.
France and Britain declared war on Germany for invading a German port (Danzig). That's a bit of a strident statement but you get the point. It is not as simplistic as that.
Of course this has little to do with the film=--other than to say the portrayal of the U boot crew as indeed a caricature. More sophisticated than most but still a caricature.

[–] hobnob53 9 years ago

To the thread topic: Of course the U-boat crew was a caricature. Most war films in every country (Germany included) made their enemies into caricatures for propaganda purposes. 49th Parallel was simply a bit more nuanced than most.

As for the irrelevant issue of Danzig (today the Polish city of Gdansk), in 1939 Danzig was actually a so-called Free City administered by the League of Nations with a Polish authority, though almost all its inhabitants were Germans. It had been taken (without justice) from Germany after WWI.

However, Britain and France didn't start the war (Germany did), and they didn't declare war on Germany for invading Danzig but for invading Poland itself -- as they had warned Hitler they would do, in fulfillment of their treaty obligations.

More pathetic lies and distortions to excuse German aggression, or in your own words:

What a load of crap.

[–] fwsauerteig 9 years ago

The point is, which you will forever fail to understand, is that Germany did in fact have legitimate territorial claims against Poland. Germany also had myriad other reasons to follow Hitler--without, of course, the advent of hindsight. They include overcoming the travesty of justice known as the Versailles Diktat, preventing Germany from being taken over by communists, and acquiring the military might to check Stalinsm.
For others reading along I suggest Buchanan's Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecessary War. Ernst Nolte is also highly recommended, for starters.
We aren't going to agree. You obviously have bought into the Allied propaganda. Not saying the Third Reich were entirely good guys, just that things are far more nuanced than the victors would have one believe, which is always the case and indeed something Hitler said himself.

[–] hobnob53 9 years ago

No, we certainly aren't going to agree. Everyone knows the Versailles Treaty (only the Germans referred to it as a "Diktat", by the way) was an unjust one in many respects, including toward Germany. The French military leader Marshal Foch, upon reading it, presciently declared, "This is not peace. It is an armistice for twenty years." So its injustices were recognized by many at the time and have universally been so deemed ever since.

That said, what constitutes a "legitimate territorial claim" and more importantly, what constitutes a legitimate remedy for such claims? In 1938 and 1939, Germany forcibly annexed western Czechoslovakia (the Sudentenland, then Bohemia and Moravia) and with his fascist allies divided and removed the country from the map. What "legitimate" territorial claims did Germany have against Czechoslovakia? The Sudentenland had never been part of Germany, and certainly the Czechs were not Germans and had never been part of Germany either. Earlier in 1938, Hitler forcibly annexed Austria and conducted a sham plebiscite to get approval for this conquest. When had Austria ever been part of Germany?

When Hitler made his famous speech before the Reichstag in April 1939 he claimed he had "brought back into the Reich lands stolen from us in 1918." This was another lie; with the exception of the Saarland (which returned via a legitimate plebiscite in 1935) and Memel (which Hitler had threatened to invade if Lithuania didn't hand the land back), all the territories Hitler had added to the Reich by that time had never been part of Germany, and were not "stolen" from the country in 1918.

In any case, territorial claims do not justify unprovoked aggression, except to Nazi sympathizers such as yourself. As for Poland, if Hitler truly wanted only those lands taken from Germany, why invade and erase all of Poland -- in league with Stalin, I might add? Why not just take back the Corridor and Danzig, the only parts of Poland that had belonged to Germany before WWI? Why fake a supposed attack on Germany by Poland at Gleiwitz, to make it seem as though Poland were the aggressor? Your dishonesty is crystal clear. (I said clear, not nacht.)

I know Buchanan's book. He's an anti-semite, racist and isolationist, a hater of FDR and an apologist for right-wing dictatorships, and his book is filled with lies and half-truths of the kind Nazi sympathizers have always traded in.

You're right that things in life are always more nuanced than they appear to be. That said, "nuance" is not a word one normally associates with the Third Reich. One can, as you do, selectively choose isolated facts and dwell on them, or lie about the facts (like you comments about Danzig in your previous post), but you can't ignore the larger record, hard as you're trying to. It isn't "Allied propaganda" that Germany started the Second World War. If all Germany wanted was its so-called "legitimate" territorial claims, why invade countries against which it had no such claims (Norway, Netherlands, Belgium, etc., etc.)? Was every such German claim "legitimate"? Did Germany have a "right" to Schleswig-Holstein, which it had stolen from Denmark in 1866, or Alsace-Lorraine, taken from France in 1871? Borders have changed constantly in Europe, even in the 21st century. How far back do you go to call something "legitimate"?

Please don't tell me what I "will forever fail to understand". I'm clearly smarter and more informed than you and not burdened by having to lie about or distort the truth in order to make ideological points. On the contrary, it's you who will forever fail to understand what really happened between 1919 and 1945. Yes, the Germans followed Hitler for many reasons. That is important to understand but does not justify Hitler's actions (most of which you ignore) that resulted in mass exterminations and a world war -- not out of concern for Communism or righting wrongs from Versailles but from a murderous ideology that saw conquest and enslavement as legitimate ends in the name of one Master Race. Anyone who can preface his conclusion with the phrase,

Not saying the Third Reich were entirely good guys

has some serious delusions and deceitful attitudes contrary to reality. "Not entirely good guys"? You're entitled to believe what you wish -- a right that would not have been accorded you in the Third Reich, not that that would have been a problem in your case -- but others have the right to speak out against your rewriting of the truth and defense of one of the most blood-soaked regimes in human history.

[–] fwsauerteig 9 years ago

I have better things to do thatn to proffer a point by point rebuttal of your screed. I have no inclination to exchange discourse with the likes of you, but others are reading along, and so I am obliged to respond IN PART.

A few highlights. Sudetenland was never part of Germany proper because it belong to the Hapsburg Austrian Hungarian Empire. That does not mean that Sudetenland was not German, or that Germany or the German people living in Sudetenland, did not have a right to self determination.
Calling Buchanan an anti-Semite, racist, or any of those other colorful names is the sort of tactic I expect from the likes of you. It does nothing to actually rebut the contentions he sets for.
If anythingf he does not go far enough, in that he fails to delineate Germany as the clearly lesser of not two evils, but all three. Let's set aside the abject hypocristy of the holier than thou Allies who escalated things to such a point as to set all of Europe ablaze--hypocrisy in the way of centuries of French aggression agsinst Germany in particular but most of Europe at one point or another, the British whose Empire spanned much of the globe at that point in time (which shen then lost by sticking her snout where it does not belong) or us Americans with our own imperial designs agsinst the Indians, Mexicans and even the Spanish at the turn of the last century.
Set aside all that and consider that *BOTH* Germany and the USSR invaded Poland. Germany however had ethnic Germans living in many territories wrongly taken from her in the Diktat. In addition though, the Soviet Union also invaded Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Finland. And yet the righteous allies ONLY declare war on Germany. Later they'd come to collude with Uncle Joe Stalin who killed far more many people before Hitler ever got started, but in a way benign with certain special interests that have takena foothold in the Anglo-American world. Add in the terror bombings that deliberately killed millions of German civilians and the poilcy of unconditional surrender, which translates to something far more ghastly in the German, a policy that forced Germany to fight to the last, during which about 60 percent of her casualties were suffered, and it is clear to me who the real war mongers are.
Don't worry though. Uncle Addie and more particularly those feldgrau columns of great heroes--those defenders of Germany and of Mother Europa--are laughing in their graves. Jihadi John, recently unmasked, is just desserts for Britain for esclating a war that destroyed BOTH civilizations. As Morrisey said, immigration is washing away the face of britain. And although I am of Scottish, English and Welsh heritage on my mothers side, I cannot help but feel this is just desserts in Britain's meddling. Gott straff Engeland!
It takes a century or more for history to truly unfold after the fact. Enoch Powell will have been proven correct, as will have the great Pat Buchanan, among others who I will leave unnamed, but I am sure you will be able to summon by telepathy or some other faculty.

[–] hobnob53 9 years ago

Being referred to as "the likes of you" by a self-evident racist, Nazi sympathizer and liar, and hearing you call others hypocrites, is at least amusing.

As you said, others are also reading, and I'm sure all of them are also amused, in a head-shaking way, by your bizarre screechings. Comments on some (I took the liberty of correcting most of your typos):

Sudetenland was never part of Germany proper because it belong to the Hapsburg Austrian Hungarian Empire. That does not mean that Sudetenland was not German, or that Germany or the German people living in Sudetenland, did not have a right to self determination.

Then why did Hitler claim it was a province "stolen from" Germany? What "right" did Germany have to a territory it had never possessed? What do you mean, in your illiterate sentence construction, that "Germany" did not have a right to self-determination? Come again? As to the right of self-determination by the Germans in Sudetenland, they were never permitted to determine their fate. No one in the Sudetenland was ever asked to vote on annexation. Germany threatened to invade a foreign, sovereign country to get the land it coveted. And those British and French you so despise -- you know, the ones who kept incessantly escalating events toward war -- are the ones who handed the territory over to Hitler without consulting any of the affected parties. Seems to me you should speak more kindly of them, at least in this regard. You know, a little thank-you. (And no mention I see of Hitler's annexation of the Czech lands in March of '39. How about a little self-determination there?)

Calling Buchanan an anti-Semite, racist, or any of those other colorful names is the sort of tactic I expect from the likes of you. It does nothing to actually rebut the contentions he sets for.

True, but then I don't have the space here to refute an entire book, do I? Those "colorful" and accurate descriptions do, however, help make his agenda plain. And the fact that you consider him an authority doesn't make him one. Incidentally, I once met Pat Buchanan, in the 70s, and spoke to him for a few minutes. Nice guy, actually, very friendly and engaging. This was not long before Nixon resigned and Buchanan asked Ford to appoint him our ambassador to South Africa, then still governed by a white supremacist regime that patterned much of its ideology on Nazi Germany. In other words, your kind of place. Of over 170 countries around in the world with which we had diplomatic relations, Pat asked to be sent to the one explicitly racist nation. What a coincidence!

Let's set aside the abject hypocrisy of the holier than thou Allies who escalated things to such a point as to set all of Europe ablaze

Oh, right, it was those vicious Allies who dragged Europe into war by their relentless opposition to Germany throughout the 30s, who shamelessly escalated each petty event into a crisis with their incessant, unyielding demands. Hitler, we command you to remilitarize the Rhineland! Hitler, we demand you tear up the Treaty of Versailles! Hitler, we insist you re-arm! Hitler, we compel you to annex Austria! Hitler, we're giving you Czechoslovakia whether you want it or not! My God, how did Adolf put up with so much for so many years?

Set aside all that and consider that *BOTH* Germany and the USSR invaded Poland. Germany however had ethnic Germans living in many territories wrongly taken from her in the Diktat. In addition though, the Soviet Union also invaded Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Finland. And yet the righteous allies ONLY declare war on Germany.

Yes, they both invaded Poland -- under a treaty signed by both nations in which they agreed to invade and divide up Poland, and in which Hitler specifically acquiesced to the USSR's invasions of Finland and the Baltic states in 1939-1940. Since you excuse Germany's aggression on the basis that there were Germans living in lands ceded to Poland after WWI, what about the Russians and other peoples in Polish territories formerly in the Russian Empire? Oh, and one minor point you neglect: Hitler invaded the Baltic states in 1941. In fact, in the original draft of the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact, Germany was to be "given" Lithuania, but later exchanged it for Polish territory Stalin had taken. Not many Germans in Lithuania or the Baltic states. As for the Allies, their only treaty obligation to declare war was with Poland -- they had no such treaty with any of the Baltic states, which Hitler has expressly given Stalin a free hand in. Obviously your problems with Stalin don't extend to his treaty with Hitler.

Add in the terror bombings that deliberately killed millions of German civilians and the policy of unconditional surrender, which translates to something far more ghastly in the German, a policy that forced Germany to fight to the last, during which about 60 percent of her casualties were suffered, and it is clear to me who the real war mongers are.

Ah, yes, how shameful of the Allies. There certainly weren't any terror bombings or other military assaults on innocent peoples by the benign Reich. Germany "forced" to fight? What bilge. Perhaps -- just a thought here -- perhaps if Germany hadn't started the war and invaded or attacked so many nations, the poor Germans wouldn't have suffered so much. (That includes invading or attacking over a dozen countries that didn't have any German minorities within them, a vast aspect you conveniently ignore since it discredits your half-witted efforts to justify German aggression on the basis of "self-determination" of ethnic Germans.)

Gott straff Engeland!

Yay! There it is! You must really feel out of place, now that it's 2015 and not the heady days of 1940. By the way, in German "England" is -- England. No extra e.

As to your other ravings, well, blather away. Back to the basement now, the one bedecked with Confederate and Nazi flags and lots of books in Gothic print. Cuddle up with your racism and delusions and psychoses and all that ignorance and hate brimming over and dream of a world made clean thanks to the sane and indulgent humanity of Adolf Hitler and his pals...just trying to make a better world, what's left of it.

Thanks for a fun post, and, you know, Heil and all that....