Why?! Why do so many morons worship the Third Reich?

[Steve]

I mean, Christ, it seems that they come out of the woodwork these days. Morons who look back and seem to think of the Reich, or at least it's armed forces, as honorable and heroic fighters with excellent professionalism and generalship, deserving of great respect.

Sometimes I think it's right-wing mindset, namely that the Wehrmacht fought the Red Horde and all, but it's just unexplainable.

This is a force that fought to expand and preserve an empire based on murder and tyranny, arguably the most horrible State of Tyranny to ever darken mankind's history.

And, like Sparta and the Confederacy, two other slavocratic States of Tyranny that had thrived on militarism, they fell to a Great March by one of the most noble and greatest generals in the history of warfare. All hail Patton!

Yes, it was George Smith Patton Jr., Ol' Blood and Guts, the conquerer of Sicily, the liberator of France, one of the greatest American generals to ever live, who led an army of basically-trained citizen-soldiers on a Great March from Avranches to outside Prague in nine months against the sometimes better-equipped and professional Wehrmacht, in only a fraction of a time that the Allied powers thought would take them to enter Germany.

Unlike the overrated chess player Montgomery, the incompetent and jealous bureaucrat Bradley, and the politician-general and conservative Eisenhower, Patton understood welfare all too well, and advanced with speed never before matched in the history of warfare. His was a march best compared with Sherman's grand March to the Sea, which ripped the Confederacy's heart out and demoralized it's citizens.

Unfortunately, unlike Sherman and an ancient fellow-thinker, Epaminondas of Thebes, Patton was not in absolute command nor did he have as accomodating a superior as Grant (who backed Sherman's plan even when the rest of the Union Army thought it unwise and accused Sherman of lapsing back into insanity). He was also dependent at petroleum, unlike Sherman or Epaminondas, who could simply forage for their transportation fuel (namely, the food for their animals and men).

Yet, despite his superiors' constant interference, Patton did more to win the war in the West than any other Allied general save for Harris and Spaatz. And while accused of being a prima donna (which he was to an extent), it was not Patton who waited to cross the Rhine to a grand press spectacle observed by Churchill, but some other general who's name should be obvious *cough*Market-Garden*cough*.

So, to those who have infatuations with Nazi Germany, I say this: grow the fuck up. Stop worshipping fascist bastards that aided, directly or indirectly, in murdering millions, and give a little credit to Patton and his "army of a season", the great and mighty Third Army, which went farther and in shorter time than any other Army in history, and fought in a manner that encouraged enemy surrender and the saving of lives than in the slaughter-filled slogging warfare favored by Patton's superiors, such as the "GI General".

It is no wonder that out of all the Allied generals, the Germans most feared Patton. Even moreso than they feared the Soviet generals.

And we all know the Soviets breathed a sigh of relief when the media fucked Patton over again and gave Ike the excuse to can a man who helped make him.

To Patton and the Third Army: heroes all!

[MKSheppard]

I mean, Christ, it seems that they come out of the woodwork these days. Morons who look back and seem to think of the Reich, or at least it's armed forces, as honorable and heroic fighters with excellent professionalism and generalship, deserving of great respect.

When a single country manages to hold off the combined forces of the world's
two major powers (US and USSR) and that of a lesser power (British Empire)
for six fucking years, that's pretty damn impressive.

Also, this guy said it quite well....

Does the fact that the US Military officer and NCO corps have
had a 6 decade "hard-on" for the germans mean anything?

"Oh sure, I'm glad they lost but......"<---starts a WHOLE LOT of
conversations I've had with US Military people for over 20 yrs now.

[Stormbringer]

I mean, Christ, it seems that they come out of the woodwork these days. Morons who look back and seem to think of the Reich, or at least it's armed forces, as honorable and heroic fighters with excellent professionalism and generalship, deserving of great respect.

They were a professional and well trained army. A lot of them fought with a hell of a lot of courage and skill. They put up a good fight and most of them did it because it's their country not necasarily out of warm and fuzzy feelings for Hitler. Virtue of one kind doesn't necassarily mean they had virtue in any other area. The cause they served was evil but then again a whole lot of honorable warriors fought for evil causes.

[HemlockGrey]

Eh. The Wermacht lost in the end. Glory to the victors; nothing to the fallen.

[Mr Bean]

The Miltary Studies Romuel right along side Patton, think there might be a reason for that one Steve?

[HemlockGrey]

Rommel lost. In the end, they all lost.

You can praise them for their courage and valor, and sure, they were couragous, and they were valorous, and yeah, they had guts. But I reserve my praise for those who fought to end genocide, tyranny; I intend to honor those who gave their lives to bring down slavocratic police states, not those who served those states and furthered their government's goals.

[Patrick Degan]

When a single country manages to hold off the combined forces of the world's two major powers (US and USSR) and that of a lesser power (British Empire) for six fucking years, that's pretty damn

Hmm... that's a unique interpretation of history. Pity it happens to be dead wrong, but whatever floats your boat, I suppose.

[MKSheppard]

Hmm... that's a unique interpretation of history. Pity it happens to be dead wrong, but whatever floats your boat, I suppose.

It took Patton MONTHS to do what Manstein and Guderian did in 27 days
in 1940...There's a reason PANZER LEADER and ACHTUNG PANZER are
on US Army War College Reading Lists......

[Mr Bean]

Rommel lost because he was not reforced and from all accounts he was not exactly pleased with what he was serving under

Oh and Cyril to counter your point, Do you Honor Lee? He fought for the defense of the Confederacy, He fought aginst his country and for Slavery yet you will find a hundred books prasing him and his men, you will find his work and his methods studied in any American Military History class far more than Patton or any other of the "Victors" of WII

And yet he lost...


By your definition by the way, there are few we can Honor for every war is about tyranny, be it the minority over the majority or the majority over the minutiry
By your depecition of over-throwing goverments we can honor even fewer for there has never been a succesful American overthrow of a Foregn country and establisment of a succesful democracy that was not under our direct Rule

You may like to think we fought for Freedom and Democracy, But we failed time and time agian. Can you name a conflict in which we managed to overthrow a police state or dictatorship and establish democracy? Germany is Socalist, Japan is as Democratic as China is so long have they suffered under Dynastic Rule of one sort or Another, China? They are worse off then when we left them in 1945

According to your standerds we must honor those who fought but not those who lost

And frankly, we have lost

[HemlockGrey]

It took Patton MONTHS to do what Manstein and Guderian did in 27 days in 1940...There's a reason PANZER LEADER and ACHTUNG PANZER are
on US Army War College Reading Lists......

'course, if I recall, those two were going up against an inferior, unprepared army with inferior equipment and crappy leaders.

[Steve]

When a single country manages to hold off the combined forces of the world's
two major powers (US and USSR) and that of a lesser power (British Empire)
for six fucking years, that's pretty damn impressive.

Also, this guy said it quite well....

They did not hold off all of those powers for six years. That's a load of bullshit.

Germany's early successes were due to luck, for the most part. Luck that the French Army was less mobile than their's, luck that the Russians were re-organizing and re-equipping in '41 when they struck, luck that they weren't confronted earlier.

Their luck ran out when Patton arrived. Don't believe me? Consider that the Germans themselves so feared Patton that they kept significant forces at Calais waiting for him to land there when the Allies were running their diversion operation!

The best the Germans could do was slow him down in Lorraine, in unfavorable terrain, with Patton's own superiors withholding supplies from him because of their own political desires and even jealousies.

With a single army, fielding equipment of lesser firepower to the Germans (though not lesser overall quality), Patton advanced with boldness and emerged victorious whenever his superiors saw fit to not do things like cutting his supply lines to supply things like a certain ill-fated long grab operation made up by a certain overrated British general.

And Cyril is right. I have no sympathy for the Germans, who fought to keep the ovens and gas chambers running. You can give me all the crap platitudes you want about "defending the Fatherland"; every day the camps operated, hundreds, thousands, of innocent people were butchered.

I can sleep at night with only glee at the finality of the crushing of the Third Reich. They do not deserve respect.

I can agree that the individual German soldier may have fought bravely, may have not intended for the ends of his actions, and maybe he had even been a pretty nice guy... but the point remains that he fought for the most evil State of Tyranny in mankind's history. I would rather give my respect to the American citizen-soldier, the GI, who fought to end that slaughter.

And no Americans did more to end it than George Patton and his great Third Army. It's no small wonder that Third Army soldiers tended to identify themselves as members of that Army, while other soldiers in other Armies identified themselves by regiment and division instead.

[MKSheppard]

'course, if I recall, those two were going up against an inferior, unprepared army with inferior equipment and crappy leaders.

The French had tanks with bigger guns and heavier armor than the Panzer
IIIs did......try again....the Germans had to use the same tactics they
later used against the T-34.....

[Steve]

Hmm... that's a unique interpretation of history. Pity it happens to be dead wrong, but whatever floats your boat, I suppose.

It took Patton MONTHS to do what Manstein and Guderian did in 27 days
in 1940...There's a reason PANZER LEADER and ACHTUNG PANZER are
on US Army War College Reading Lists......

Within two weeks of his Army's activation, Patton had broken out at Avranches, sealed off Brittany, and was racing east. He reached Lorraine, not even a hundred miles from the German border, by the beginning of September! And the only reason he was stopped was because of his backstabbing superiors and their cutting off of his supplies!

That's a pretty damn good advance against an enemy far more mobile and deadly than the Allies were in 1940!

And how about the fact that Patton was to the US what Manstein and Guderian were to Germany; he was the US Army's foremost armored warfare officer in the interwar years, and in a cruel twist of fate, was the man who taught Bradley and Eisenhower what they knew of armored warfare!

Respect for Manstein and Guderian is entirely that of a professional military nature. They are respected for their contributions to modern warfare, but that does not make them respectable men! Perhaps Guderian, who it is said came to despise Hitler and Nazis and one time came close to strangling the madman in a meeting, but definitely not Manstein, who accepted a plush estate in the Ukraine, taken from the people of that nation.

Respect for Patton goes beyond that. Like Sherman and Epaminondas before him, Patton rallied an army of citizen-soldiers, infused them with great moral purpose, and turned them into an army that would show their enemies the great and terrible wrath that armies of freedom can bring upon their unjust foes.

[HemlockGrey]

Rommel lost because he was not reforced and from all accounts he was not exactly pleased with what he was serving under

And why was he not reinforced? Did Hitler wake up one morning and decide, "You know what? Today I'm going to screw over Rommel and lose North Africa."

No, he was not reinforced because the forces were needed elsewhere. I.e. they were engaged elsewhere, i.e. they were losing.

Oh and Cyril to counter your point, Do you Honor Lee? He fought for the defense of the Confederacy, He fought aginst his country and for Slavery yet you will find a hundred books prasing him and his men, you will find his work and his methods studied in any American Military History class far more than Patton or any other of the "Victors" of WII

And? I do not honor Lee. He defended slavery. He fought to divide a nation on the path to equality because he could not bear to see his poor homestate defeated. No, I do not honor Lee, and I do not honor his strategy or tactics; Lee lost when Pickett charged.

You may like to think we fought for Freedom and Democracy, But we failed time and time agian. Can you name a conflict in which we managed to overthrow a police state or dictatorship and establish democracy? Germany is Socalist, Japan is as Democratic as China is so long have they suffered under Dynastic Rule of one sort or Another, China? They are worse off then when we left them in 1945

Socialist? So? It's a step up from Nazi Germany. Japan's royal family(I assume that's what you refer to by your 'dynastic rule' thing) has as much power as Queen Elizabeth. Oh, I nearly forgot

Germany, Japan, France, South Korea, the damned Cold War...

[Steve]

The French had tanks with bigger guns and heavier armor than the Panzer
IIIs did......try again....the Germans had to use the same tactics they
later used against the T-34.....

Of course, the French also used them improperly and their army was barely mobile, what motorized units they had racing north to Holland.

[MKSheppard]

They did not hold off all of those powers for six years. That's a load of bullshit.

Ok then, even going by smaller standards, it took over THREE years
for the numerically superior americans and russians to smash the
German Army all the way back to berlin.

Three years to win back what Germany had won in the space of a
few MONTHS......

Germany's early successes were due to luck, for the most part. Luck that the French Army was less mobile than their's, luck that the Russians were re-organizing and re-equipping in '41 when they struck, luck that they weren't confronted earlier.

I see you conviently leave out the part where the Russians counterattacked
with over 100 divisions in the Winter of 1941.....and made shit progress
against an army of ill-clad germans....The Germans were still within
40 miles of Moscow by Spring 1942...what a great counteroffensive....

I can agree that the individual German soldier may have fought bravely, may have not intended for the ends of his actions, and maybe he had even been a pretty nice guy... but the point remains that he fought for the most evil State of Tyranny in mankind's history. I would rather give my respect to the American citizen-soldier, the GI, who fought to end that slaughter.

What about our US Army cavalrymen who brutally exterminated the
Indians after the government broke treaties with the Indians? Oh that's
right, the US Government can do no wrong....

Besides, aren't you forgetting about the Communists? They massacred
more people than the Nazis ever dreamed of.

[Steve]

Lee may have been a good tactician, but his approach, that of a Gentleman, was more costly in human life than Sherman's destruction of Southern property. Sherman identified the key weakness of the South and exploited it to it's maximum effect. Thank God for that.

[MKSheppard]

Lee may have been a good tactician, but his approach, that of a Gentleman, was more costly in human life than Sherman's destruction of Southern property. Sherman identified the key weakness of the South and exploited it to it's maximum effect. Thank God for that.

You conviently forget about Kerosene Billy's army of "bummers" who
rampaged all over Georgia like a pack of drunken Red Army
soldiers in 1945....

[HemlockGrey]

What about our US Army cavalrymen who brutally exterminated the
Indians after the government broke treaties with the Indians? Oh that's
right, the US Government can do no wrong....

And we started talking about the cavalrymen...when?

They massacred more people than the Nazis ever dreamed of.

Another red herring. The Soviets were bastards too; how does that make the Nazis less bastard-y?

[Patrick Degan]

Hmm... that's a unique interpretation of history. Pity it happens to be dead wrong, but whatever floats your boat, I suppose.

It took Patton MONTHS to do what Manstein and Guderian did in 27 days
in 1940...

Hate to tell you this, but Monty could have gone through the French in 27 days. It's not exactly as if it was any sort of challenge to defeat the French.

There's a reason PANZER LEADER and ACHTUNG PANZER are
on US Army War College Reading Lists......

Oh, I'm not disparaging either Guderian or Rommel as field generals. But let's get real, shall we?

The war lasted six years (five and a half, to be more precise). The Nazis faced the Soviet Union for only 3 years, 11 months, and the United States for only two and a half years. Had Stalin not purged his officer corps and listened to his intelligence chiefs, the Nazis would not have gotten as far as they did in their invasion. Once the United States started coming at them, we kept coming and they didn't stop us. After Kursk and Normandy, it was all over for Hitler.

Of all their enemies, only the British were in for the whole duration. The Nazis tried to break them in the air war and failed. Their juggernaut was stopped cold in just a little over a year and a half after the declaration of war in 1939. Between El Alamein/Stalingrad, Kursk, and Normandy, the Nazis "held off" the combined weight of three superpowers (two of which were contesting in a global war at the same time) for about two years —and that only because of the time it took for the three to bring their full power to bear upon the enemy. Once the Allied juggernaut got rolling, nothing was able to stop it.

At the end, the Nazi dream was buried under the rubble of cities bombed flat and four million corpses (apart from Hitler's victims in the camps).

You'll forgive me, but whenever I see anybody extolling the "glories" of Nazi martial prowess, it's always brought me a chuckle or two.

[MKSheppard]

Another red herring. The Soviets were bastards too; how does that make the Nazis less bastard-y?

When one describes the nazis as the most evil despots to walk God's Green Earth like steve does.....

but the point remains that he fought for the most evil State of Tyranny in mankind's history

[weemadando]

I don't worship the Third Reich, but being a student of History I have a hell of a lot of respect for it.

Pulled Germany from economic basket case to super-power.
Established the strongest army, navy and airforce of the time.
Politicked its way through about 6 invasions of other nations without the rest of the world saying a thing.

Despite some nasty policies and actions the Reich was arguably the most effective, powerful and popular political system of the 20th century.

[Steve]

They did not hold off all of those powers for six years. That's a load of bullshit.

Ok then, even going by smaller standards, it took over THREE years
for the numerically superior americans and russians to smash the
German Army all the way back to berlin.

Thanks, of course, to unimaginative and oft-times incompetent generals like Clark, Zhukov, and Bradley.

Patton was at Lorraine by the end of August '44, months ahead of the Allied schedule.

Too bad that Patton did not have a Pelopidas or a Grant, and had to deal with the jealous and incompetent bureaucrat Bradley and the appeaser Eisenhower, who sacrificed millions of lives (Allied, German, and the victims of the concentration camps) to keep that idiot Montgomery placated.

Three years to win back what Germany had won in the space of a
few MONTHS......

The timeline for that begins in June '44. And three months later, the Allies had liberated large swaths of France and had driven the Germans back to the Low Countries and toward the Siegfried Line.

All thanks to Patton and his audacity.

I see you conviently leave out the part where the Russians counterattacked
with over 100 divisions in the Winter of 1941.....and made shit progress
against an army of ill-clad germans....The Germans were still within
40 miles of Moscow by Spring 1942...what a great counteroffensive....

Oh, I'm not arguing that the Germans did good against ill-equipped Russian conscripts, some of which who were not even issued rifles and usually only had a handful of rounds, and commanded by a brutally-minded Zhukov who's idea of strategy was "drive forward until all my soldiers are dead or the enemy breaks".

It was precisely that sort of warfare that Patton avoided, preferring to go around the enemy.

Again, the results don't lie. Against an enemy far more mobile than the Allies of 1940, Patton drove to the Lorraine in a month's time, including stops at Falaise and the Seine thanks to his jealous peers and superiors.

What about our US Army cavalrymen who brutally exterminated the
Indians after the government broke treaties with the Indians? Oh that's
right, the US Government can do no wrong....

I never said they couldn't do any wrong. That's a strawman attack, and a rather pathetic one. Jesus fuckin' Christ, can't you do better than that?!

Besides, aren't you forgetting about the Communists? They massacred
more people than the Nazis ever dreamed of.

True, but never in the same insidious and industrial fashion the Nazis did.

The Communists, for the most part, wracked up their kill count due to famines, both intended and as a byproduct of their stupid collective system.

Only Pol Pot, an extremist even among Communists (and eventually overthrown because of other Communists), could begin to match the evil of the Nazi regime.

Sometimes, you scare me. Other times, you amuse me.

And, to get to the point....

The difference between me and you, Shep, is that you worship the fascist, murdering losers, and I worship the badass who beat their asses in.

[Mr Bean]

Sorry to say it like this

But Respond to my orgional points Cyril, about your definition of Praise(IE you can't realy prasie anyone by your defenition)

Sun Tzu and the Art of War
Grant(And Co) and Lee(And Friends)
Patton and Rommel

These are who people study when one studys Military Histroy, in the end with what is "Evil" and "Wrong" as being subjective one must ignore who or what they serverd and instead look deeper as to how they did it.

[Steve]

Another red herring. The Soviets were bastards too; how does that make the Nazis less bastard-y?

When one describes the nazis as the most evil despots to walk God's Green Earth like steve does.....

but the point remains that he fought for the most evil State of Tyranny in mankind's history

I stand by that quote, too. Not that the Communists were much better, but nothing approached the insidious horror of the Nazis and their racist policies of enslavement and extermination.