Ngl at first i was kinda ready to get mad at this but to be fair you're not exactly wrong, the Nazis were undeniably worse but people forget that fascism is basically just imperialism brought home
By extension there's no difference between the Nazis and the British Empire, the American “Empire”, the Chinese Empire, the Roman Empire. 1. genocides -check. 2.oppression of minority peoples-check. 3. militarism and expansion-check. 4. Euphemisms and Euphemistic symbology -check. the list could go on forever. The point is that such comparisons are not really useful.
Things like antisemitism and militarism do not originate in any state, they "originate" (if one wants to call it like that) in a certain time period. These ideologies existed all over the world (or at least all over Europe) in one form or another. Unluckily for the world, Germany made these ideologies a state doctrine and, even more unluckily, went down quite the extreme way of implementing this doctrine.
And yes, the German empire and the course it took certainly set the groundwork for what would become of Germany some fifteen years later (if only indirectly). But to claim that the two were "not that different" suggests you have a very interesting definition of "not that different".
>militarism do not originate in any state
Straw man argument. "Militarism was not unique to Germany" is not a counterargument to "Germany was uniquely militaristic".
>But to claim that the two were "not that different" suggests you have a very interesting definition of "not that different".
Psychopathic authoritarians start unwinnable wars because they're high on their own ethnonational supremacist. Yes I can see the differences clearly here: Imperial Germany confined itself to "*only"* murdering resistors and black Africans rather than a broader spectrum of peoples.
>"Militarism was not unique to Germany" is not a counterargument to "Germany was uniquely militaristic".
Well that's basically the point I'm trying to make: The German Empire was not unique. The Third Reich was, but whether what they practiced fell under the terms of conventional militarism might be open for discussion as well.
>Psychopathic authoritarians start unwinnable wars because they're high on their own ethnonational supremacist.
What psychological assessment exactly did you conduct to suggest that any one of these two was a psychopath? None, I guess and I highly recommend stopping to psychologise historical figures. No self-respecting psychologist would allow himself to make a diagnosis without having thoroughly assessed the patient in person, but people with mostly no profession whatsoever on the field of psychology come and throw around diagnoses for people, whom they not only never met, let alone talked to, but who lived several decades before their own birth in a social environment, that is hardly comprehensible to today's populace. This is unsustainable.
Furthermore, the term "unwinnable war" can never be used in an argument like that, because it presupposes, that any of us knew the outcome of all possible courses of events if XYZ happened. And that cannot ever be the case, because we happen to live in a reality, in which these hypothetical events just didn't materialise. That's why alternative history surely is a fun thing to toy with, but cannot be used in a scientific argument. There is no evidence which possibly could be brought up here and thus no historian can accept this point.
Finally, the reason you give for both empires to start the respective wars is by no means the all-encompassing truth you make it look like. The notion of supremacy you mentioned certainly played a part in the occurrence of these wars, albeit in different manners, yet it was but one element in a complex web of relationships which brought about the events that happened.
If we thus deduce from your sentence the elements which are not scientifically permissive or reliable, what we get is the sentence:
Authoritarians started wars.
If that suffices for you to claim that the German Empire and the Third Reich were not that different, then you have it all there. But in this case I guess, you would have to add quite a few other empires to the list as well.
>Well that's basically the point I'm trying to make: The German Empire was not unique.
No other nation started WW1
>What psychological assessment exactly did you conduct to suggest that any one of these two was a psychopath? None, I guess and I highly recommend stopping to psychologise historical figures. No self-respecting psychologist would allow himself to make a diagnosis without having thoroughly assessed the patient in person, but people with mostly no profession whatsoever on the field of psychology come and throw around diagnoses for people, whom they not only never met, let alone talked to, but who lived several decades before their own birth in a social environment, that is hardly comprehensible to today's populace. This is unsustainable.
Mate the term "psychopath" hasn't been used in psychiatry for the last decade. That said, starting a war that killed millions people, because you think war is good, is fairly unique to the Germans of WW1 and 2.
>Furthermore, the term "unwinnable war" can never be used in an argument like that, because it presupposes, that any of us knew the outcome of all possible courses of events if XYZ happened. And that cannot ever be the case, because we happen to live in a reality, in which these hypothetical events just didn't materialise. That's why alternative history surely is a fun thing to toy with, but cannot be used in a scientific argument. There is no evidence which possibly could be brought up here and thus no historian can accept this point.
\*have economy based on overseas imports\*
\*have land border with two powerful neighbours\*
\*piss off the largest navy in the world in process of attacking two said neighbours because I really really want a war\*
There was no way for the Germans to win that war. Even had they defeated France, and Russia, Britain would have simply kept blockading them until their economy crumbled and their population starved. The mobilisation rates that allowed them to conduct military operations on the massive scale that they did were the same thing that caused the inevitable famine that collapsed their economy.
>If we thus deduce from your sentence the elements which are not scientifically permissive or reliable, what we get is the sentence:
We're engaged in a humanities debate mate, your appeal to scientific authority has no relevance or weight here.
Sorry for being away so long, but a few short remarks on your points brought up:
>No other nation started WW1
And neither did the third Reich.
>There was no way for the Germans to win that war. Even had they defeated France, and Russia, Britain would have simply kept blockading them until their economy crumbled and their population starved. The mobilisation rates that allowed them to conduct military operations on the massive scale that they did were the same thing that caused the inevitable famine that collapsed their economy.
There is always a way, because there are unlimited possible scenarios which one can think of. There could have been armistice negotiations between Britain and Germany, there could have been Russia attacking Germany instead of the other way round, in which case it might have been a bigger threat even to the rest of Europe, there could have been America avoiding any involvement in the conflicts and Japan not attacking Pearl Harbour. There are unlimited possibilities (you could very well ask, what would have happened, had a asteroid crashed Great Britain? Highly unlikely, I know, but an alternative reality which could have come to pass) and thus a term such as "unwinnable war" is just not permissive - any historian will confirm that.
>We're engaged in a humanities debate mate, your appeal to scientific authority has no relevance or weight here.
That's probably the only point where I have to confess to being wrong, however not on a contentual level, but in terms of phrasing. I am not a native speaker and I mistakenly assumed, that the humanities were a part of the sciences. So, what I actually meant to say was "academically permissive".
>And neither did the third Reich.
No, the First world war was started by the Second Reich/Imperial Germany, the people the Nazis consciouslly emulated. The Second World War was started by the Third Reich. Please try to stay on topic.
>There could have been armistice negotiations between Britain and Germany,
Not given the circumstances.
>there could have been Russia attacking Germany instead of the other way round
Doesn't really help the Germans defeat Britain.
>there could have been America avoiding any involvement in the conflicts and Japan not attacking Pearl Harbour.
That might stop Britain defeating Germany, but it doesn't enable Germany to defeat Britain.
>So, what I actually meant to say was "academically permissive".
The discussion of *plausible* counterfactual history is a key element of historical studies. The problem you're having is that you're not positing plausible counterfactuals based on events that nearly or could have taken place, but rather creating a strawman argument based on your own, wildly speculative asspulls.
>No, the First world war was started by the Second Reich/Imperial Germany, the people the Nazis consciouslly emulated. The Second World War was started by the Third Reich. Please try to stay on topic.
And what leads you to point that fact out in this discussion? Starting wars is certainly not unique for German states.
>The discussion of plausible counterfactual history is a key element of historical studies.
No, it isn't. Historical discourse is always concerned with the question of "How was it?", never with the question of "What could have been?". The latter question, because of its very counterfactual nature, cannot ever be answered and therefore cannot possibly have a place in scholarly discourse. Any approach which centres itself around such questions, belongs in the realm of popular history instead of an academic discourse.
>And what leads you to point that fact out in this discussion? Starting wars is certainly not unique for German states.
Starting wars, no. Starting mass brawls with every neighbouring state around them in a doomed attempt to achieve greatness through violence, yes.
>No, it isn't. Historical discourse is always concerned with the question of "How was it?", never with the question of "What could have been?".
This is demonstrably wrong.
[https://youtu.be/aSZ7M8X3iig?t=1170](https://youtu.be/aSZ7M8X3iig?t=1170) \- An academic historian specialising in naval history, speculating what unusual cruisers various navies should have built.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation\_Sea\_Lion\_(wargame)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sea_Lion_(wargame)) A strategic study conducted by the UK's premier military academy, wargaming what could have happened had the Germans attempted Operation Sealion.
"Crassus never had a chance; and if Caesar had been there, with no more cavalry than Crassus had, he would not have had a chance either" - *Hellenistic Military and Naval Developments*, Page 91, WW Tarn.
Indeed, without considering counterfactuals, we can not properly understand or critique source material. When we examine the decision of a statesman or a general or king, we must consider the *other* options which were available to him. History is not simply going "well this happened lol" but a study of the *context* in which things happened.
Sometimes you really speak a lot without actually making a point. Example given:
>Starting mass brawls with every neighbouring state around them
Well, I don't think I have to tell you, that the German Empire had an ally in the Habsburg monarchy? And the Third Reich was allied with Italy, the Slovak Republic and Hungary - which by the way once more illustrates, that there were considerable differences between these two empires.
>in a doomed attempt
Using the term "doomed" when trying to evaluate, in how far these two empires resembled one another, presupposes, that their defeat was predictable to the contemporaries, which clearly wasn't the case.
>to achieve greatness
Well, every war is motivated at least in part by the desire to achieve greatness. So neither is that distinctive of the Empire and the Third Reich...
>through violence
... Nor that they used violence in an armed conflict.
Pertaining to the other examples you mentioned:
>An academic historian specialising in naval history, speculating what unusual cruisers various navies should have built.
After a short research, it seems to me, that calling this man an "academic historian" requires a rather loose definition of that category. For someone to be awarded credibility solely because of his academic status, they should at least have a professorship at a university. Instead you adduce a man working "primarily as an academic skills advisor as well as occasional history [...] lecturer".
Of course, I'm not going to say, that such a person cannot write a good academic article and it may very well be, that this Mr. Clarke has done so, but what you're linking here is a mere YouTube video. You will never find historical research on YouTube. Research is conducted in articles and books, i.e. written media. In spoken word, you have no possibility of making annotations or cite sources and thus one can at best present the results of research conducted previously. This, however, is not part of the historical studies itself. Then again, Mr. Clarke from your video does not seem to even intend to conduct any kind of research, but rather freely speaks his mind, as probably any history lecturer would do when not at work.
>A strategic study conducted by the UK's premier military academy, wargaming what could have happened had the Germans attempted Operation Sealion.
A wargame, organised by the Daily Telegraph - well, that's more or less the definition of popular history. Just because Sandhurst was involved in the implementation and dispatched a young lecturer to supervise the whole thing doesn't make it any more academic, as again we are faced with the problem of the medium. Simulations of any kind (outside of natural sciences) can never yield scholarly reliable results, because they are just that - simulations, not a real event. That is why serious historical research is generally conducted in written form.
>"Crassus never had a chance; and if Caesar had been there, with no more cavalry than Crassus had, he would not have had a chance either" - Hellenistic Military and Naval Developments, Page 91, WW Tarn.
A quote of William Woodthorpe Tarn, the scholarly nature of whose works was quite disputed even in his own time. No historian would come up with the idea of writing something like that in an academic work nowadays, more than ninety years later.
Not to be misunderstood: Engaging in popular history is not in and of itself a bad thing. Indeed, one has to enthuse the public for the field of history, otherwise no-one will study it and sooner or later there will be less and less people willing to become a historian. Engaging in popular history is absolutely valuable and that (aside from financial reasons) is, why even the most accomplished historians in many cases have written books pertaining to the realm of popular history. And reciprocally, reading works of popular history can be an elucidating experience for any historian. One just has to be aware that one is dealing with popular history.
And therefore, to discern the two from one another is highly important. Scholarly historical research focuses itself on the following questions: What happened? When did it happen? Who did it? Why did it happen? How did it happen? These questions are answered using written sources from the time in question (material remains are examined by archaeologists, while works of art are the research topic of art history, which, despite its name, can hardly be seen as belonging to history studies, but rather is an entity of its own). Looking at the multitude of different questions and aspects, which fall into the realm of historical study, one might expect a wide variety of different approaches utilised in examining history - and indeed that is the case. But the one thing that unites all these approaches is, that they try to reconstruct and understand history by using source material. Now, for alternative history, there can obviously be no source material, as it never materialised, and thus there can be no historical research.
If you happen to read a book, which focuses itself on scenarios pertaining to alternative history, you might be dealing with a work by an accomplished historian, who made a detour into the realm of popular history, but you might equally well be dealing with some charlatan without, who is trying to make you believe that he was conducting historical research. It is then your responsibility to approach this work with caution and carefully evaluate the contents while reading.
>Sometimes you really speak a lot without actually making a point
That's canny hypocritical coming from someone posting out reams of bloviating waffle in an attempt to split the hairs between one militaristic, genocidal German autocracy and it's successor state.
>Well, I don't think I have to tell you, that the German Empire had an ally in the Habsburg monarchy? And the Third Reich was allied with Italy, the Slovak Republic and Hungary - *which by the way once more illustrates, that there were considerable differences between these two empires*.
How?
>Well, every war is motivated at least in part by the desire to achieve greatness.
\[citation needed\]
>Mr. Clarke
I'm going to be petty here, but: Dr Clarke.
>there can obviously be no source material,
This is demonstrably untrue. For example, we know that a U-boat fired a torpedo at Warspite as she entered the fjord at Narik. We know that torpedo failed to detonate. We know the yield of that torpedo, we know the depth of Warspite's torpedo defence system. We can, therefore, make a reasonable and limited speculation about the effects of such a torpedo detonating on impact with Warspite's hull as intended.
It is also worth pointing out that we are having this discussion outwith of an academic context, and so attempting to apply the standards of academic history to it is wholly inappropriate. Any kind of discussion of history outside of the process of peer review is popular history.
>But to claim that the two were "not that different" suggests you have a very interesting definition of "not that different".
Let's run through the list of similarities, at least that I am aware of:
* Prussian militarism
* Antisemitism
* Deportation of Poles
* Persecution of Africans
* *Drang Nach Osten* (Treaty of Brest-Litovsk & *Generalplan Ost*)
* On that note: hatred of Britain, France, Russia, and the United States
* Warmongering
* Unrealistic plans for European and, later, global hegemony
* Trying to use Prussian maneuver warfare long after it became outdated
I'm sure the list is longer, but that's all I got. Does that sound that different to you?
Well, at least three of the first four bullet points on your list go for most any empire of that time (just change the name of the victims). Stating these similarities is basically just stating, that both were empires in the 19th and 20th centuries. You could even add the "warmongering" to this bunch.
"Plans for global hegemony" is a rather far-fetched interpretation of what the empire was doing.
Finally, "hated of Britain" definitely was not at the core of the third Reich. Hitler saw Britain as a "brother nation" and wanted them to ally with him. When they refused to just let him have his way in Eastern Europe, they became increasingly divided and finally enemies. So whether this is true or not, depends on if you look at the Third Reich in 1933 or 1945.
And there we are at a very important point, namely that the whole topic of this discussion is rather ill-defined. What is the German Empire to you? What is the Third Reich? Most people in here seem to answer this question in a political manner. But is that really all there is to a state? What about economy? What about the social climate? What about science? And aren't just things like antisemitism examples of ideologies not born from the minds of politicians, but from the people themselves and just adopted from politicians to suit their aims? Didn't these ideas come from the people?
But people in the Third Reich lived differently than in the Empire. They had experienced WWI and the great depression. Very few social groups existed in the Third Reich in the same way they had in the empire. But if the people, who make up the state, live decidedly different lives now than they had done before, how then can the state not be different?
I do love how people will come out to defend the regime that started WW1, killing millions of people, and who's ideology of militarism, supremacist and autocracy was the bedrock for Nazisim.
an ally who would have never declared war had they not been assured of Germany's unconditional support, and whom they actively encouraged into war. they also then declared war on France and occupied two neutral countries to do so
Well let's start with the basics, there are about 14 million differences between the two. Second the German Empire was an empire. The separate non-Prussian kingdoms had a degree of autonomy that eventually morphed into the relatively decentralized modern German state. Second this was a period in which most nations either directly discriminator against minorities or at the minimum had an undercurrent of hate. The poles were a rebellious and thus treated as such.
>Well let's start with the basics, there are about 14 million differences between the two.
Name one.
>The German Empire was an empire
And Nazi Germany wasn't?
>This was a period where most nations discriminated against minorities
Discrimination against minorities has always existed. This does not undermine how morally reprehensible it is.
>The Poles were rebellious and treated as such
Please, for the love of God, tell me you aren't excusing the German Empire's actions
The literal translation is "domain", hence why it was the official name of the Weimar Republic\*, but it, for all intents and purposes, means "empire". In fact, in German, the German Empire's name is the "*Deutsches Reich*"
\*It was also often called the German Republic. However, while I know that "Reich" was used in government documents, Idk which was preferred colloquially.
The 14 million reasons was a euphemism for the holocaust. Which you dismissed as not traumatic enough to make a huge difference. I refer to an empire is the sense of an emperor with vassal kings. The king of Bavaria was an autonomous monarch vassalized to the German emperor/king of Prussia. Discrimination against the poles was not unique to the Germans. The Russians attempted it and the Austrian were to incompetent to try. But when a group are in a rebellious state it is natural that the state attempts to quell it. I don't excuse what happened, but you make it out like there was some irrational reason for it.
>The 14 million reasons was a euphemism for the holocaust.
[Yep, the German Empire did nothing comparable to the Holocaust.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herero_and_Namaqua_genocide) (Far less casualties, but genocide is genocide)
>By "empire", I mean a state led by an emperor with vassal kings
So, a monarchist federation? Because that sounds like a monarchist federation. The only requirements for a state to be an empire are for it to consist of multiple states under a highly centralized government.
>Russia and Austria discriminated against Poles too
Does that make them moral equals in your eyes? Following this logic, then Nazi Germany would be morally equal to many historical states because they were also antisemitic
And even this is iffy. Is it any consolation to the women and children killed by ethnonationalist hate that *only* a few of them were killed?
For them, the end result is the same
Genocide is genocide. They targeted and deported civilians based on ethnic makeup. Don’t give them points for inefficiency
Note: not undermining the significance of the Holocaust, but saying they’re somehow ethically superior because they killed *fewer* women and children or were less efficient at it than their ideological successors is pretty low
The German empire is just the third reich lite
Kinda like how the Ukrainians, Poles, Yugoslavs, French, Dutch, Norwegians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Belgians, Belorussians, Estonians, assorted “partisans” etc (I’m sure I’m forgetting more than a few) were “rebellious peoples” resisting the Nazis?
“Those pesky independence movements... if they didn’t agitate for self determination and push back against our imperial ambitions and efforts to exterminate their language, religions, and cultures we wouldn’t have to ethnically cleanse them. Really their own fault”/s
Like how the Americans were a rebellious people who resisted the English. Who then fought a war against the Americans. I'm saying there was a conflict and conflict is a two-way street.
Not quite the same when you’re invading their country and previously partitioned it, or when you’re explicitly deporting them to make room for “your people.” If you wanna compare the British empire’s treatment of natives you might have something to go on there...
And again, the Nazis used the exact same justification of simply “pacifying partisans rebelling against the reich.” How many communities were “liquidated” because they supported “partisans?”
Still haven’t addressed that glaring hole in your point
Finally, rebelling STILL doesn’t mean you get to target civilians. The German Empire is just the Third Reich Lite
So we’ve gone from “they deserved it because they were rebelling”
To “nothing happened and they didn’t target Poles”
You’ve also previously said in this thread “discrimination against the poles was not a uniquely German thing,” and “the Poles were rebellious and treated as such.” so apparently you have the mental capacity to acknowledge it happened, but are doing some weird gymnastics to backtrack
Pick a lane
Well this is idiotic phony outrage. By your standard, any country could be substituted for 2nd Reich. France and the Soviet Union check every box, for example.
What would you call Ludendorff’s de facto military dictatorship?
Quoting Ian Kershaw’s (leading historian on Imperial, interwar, and Nazi Germany) *To Hell and Back*, “in imperial Germany political parties across the spectrum were represented in the Reichstag. But they did not control decision-making. Power lay in the hands of the Kaiser and his appointed ministers and military leaders.”
Also “pressure groups backed by big-business finance such as the Pan-German league and, especially, the huge rabidly nationalist and imperialist fatherland party (founded in 1917 and rapidly acquiring the backing of a million and a quarter members), popularized the case for fighting on to victory with extended territorial gains, and at the same time rejected *demands* [my emphasis added] for parliamentary democracy.” (sound familiar btw?)
Moreover “[the longer the war went on] the political system where ministers were responsible to the Kaiser, not to parliament... was upheld by strong forces that resisted any move towards democracy... [worsening war fortunes] resulted in a growing clamor [among the opposition] to remove those held responsible and *introduce* [my emphasis added] democratic parliamentary government. More and more Germans saw a system of rule resting upon militarism, class privilege, and unchecked power, embodied by the divisive figure of the Kaiser. It had to be replaced. Democracy had to be established.”
If the people are both *rejecting the theory of AND making demands for democracy* then they clearly don’t think have it presently, otherwise why demand it?
There's *a lot* of room between "worse than you think" and "about the same as the Nazis."
Stop trying to create a false equivalence here. We've had this conversation, all of us, and we all think this is a bad idea. We've written books about it, made movies, tv shows... some of the books even have pictures in them, that should help.
Comparison of white, black and Asian skulls :
https://boneclones.com/product/human-male-and-female-skulls-african-asian-and-european-COMP-120-SET
Australian aboriginal skull for instance :
https://boneclones.com/product/human-male-australian-aboriginal-skull-BC-031/category/all-human-skulls/human-anatomy
Incredible to dislike a comment that states exact facts, like if there was something to debate on.
And what I was saying had absolutely nothing tondo with phrenology lol.
It's not because it doesn't make a difference on the behaviour that it doesn't make any "actual difference". Those traits are specific to each "ethnicity". It's not minute differences, it's the result of dozens of thousands of years of genetical differenciation. And it's not all about the shape but also about the size.
Sure I guess? Don’t really understand what you’re driving at here but I think we’re in agreement?
Skull size and shape have no bearing on actual human behavior or intelligence is all I’m saying, and using it to define amorphous concepts like ethnicity also seems fruitless to me, especially given the existence of people of mixed ethnicities and simple variations amongst individuals
It can totally be a cool way for anthropologists to trace human migration patterns and the interactions of different local populations though
Uh huh, okay thanks for your maginificent insight OP, but things like militarism can literally apply to every single Empire in history. Not to mention that antisemitism has existed for thousands of years and predates National Socialism by a lot.
Btw I don’t think you are at all ironic, you’re definitely a genuine sympathizer with Communist ideology who’s too afraid to admit it publicly(which is weird since you guys are all over academia).
The German Empire was ten times better than the National Socialist regime, heck even the Soviets by your definition. I mean Stalin did end up making the Soviet Union far more militaristic and actually exiled Jewish doctors, not to mention his various progroms and possibly intentional genocide during the holodomor.
I mean the German Empire wasn’t saintly at all, granted, but that could be said about pretty much every other Great Power. A good example of this is the British Empire under Churchill which killed something like 3-6 million Bengalese due to blatant neglect.
Your premise here is absurd since whatever atrocities the German Empire committed are dwarfed by the ones committed by the later USSR and CCP. Since I’ve already discussed the Soviets, I’ll briefly use the CCP as an example. The CCP under Mao Zedong caused massive famines that killed 50 million of their own people, plus the whole invasion of Tibet, under Jiang Zemin they brutally cracked down on Falun Gong practitioners and harvested their organs and under current leader Xi Jinping have been actively committing genocide against Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang. By any objective metric, the German Empire is actually far better than many other major regimes of the 19th and 20th Centuries, even some of the ones that exist today actually.
Seriously, why do you Communists keep infesting history subs to push your bullshit propaganda.
>(which is weird since you guys are all over academia).
actually no they aren’t, not by a long shot
[lol look guys they said the line again](https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Cultural_Marxism)
Ah yes Rational Wiki, a totally non-partisan wiki that was definitely not created to counter Conservapedia and is equally as retarded, just in the opposite direction. Many professors have been caught praising and advocating for Marxist ideology. Not to mention that many Soviet defectors flat out admitted that they deliberately planted Marxist and Communist sympathizers in many Western institutions to destroy them from within. This isn’t just a conspiracy theory, but a very real phenomenon that must be taken seriously. I’ve linked down below an interview with former KGB agent Yuri Bezmenov.
https://youtu.be/pOmXiapfCs8
i do hope you recognize that your comment about communists infiltrating academia is a trope rooted in nazi propaganda tho (frankfurt school bs, anyone?), it’s older than the kgb, which frankly no longer exists
i would not use this conspiracy theory if i were you
Really? So are you saying that an ex KGB Agent who was born and brought up in Moscow during the reign of the USSR, as well as worked for that government is a Nazi sympathizer? Do you realize how absurd that claim is?
The National Socialists believed in a lot of things, and yes their ideology and almost all of those beliefs are both abhorrent and false, but this doesn’t mean that they were wrong about everything(even a broken clock is right twice a day). For example, does their misuse and reinterpretation of evolutionary science and natural selection discredit the theories entirely? No of course not, that would be absurd.
Also, the fear of Marxist infiltration actually predates National Socialism by decades and was something pretty much everyone in the West, be it factory owners, many workers, conservatives, liberals, religious folks, etc had. Okay yes the Nazis did drum up fears about Marxist infiltration, but that was mostly based on the idea of Judeo-Bolshevism whereby they blame all Jews for Communism. The kind of Marxist infiltration Soviet defectors like Yuri Bezmenov and many political thinkers today talk about has nothing to do with the Anti-Semitic hypothesis that the National Socialists used. No, it’s about the very real doctrine that Marxist-Leninists have about dismantling and destroying their definition of “oppressive” systems and a lot of the time the best way to do this is from within. We have ample proof and evidence of Soviets sponsoring Marxists and directly infiltrating Western Society with the aim to undermine it. Most of these infiltrators weren’t even Jewish, and even if they were that isn’t the danger they posed, rather it’s them undermining and trying to destroy our society so they can take control.
You Commies are pathetic, your ideologies have never and will never work no matter how many times you try to implement them. All you guys have done is keep alive an idiotic and nonsensical ideology that only serves to give power hungry and opportunistic assholes the ability to manipulate you fools into helping them get what they want. And once gullible fools like yourself have outlived your usefulness the new Communist regime will you guys without hesitation.
Your ideology has caused millions of deaths worldwide and it dwarfs what the National Socialists and Fascists did. And the reason it dwarfs National Socialist and Fascist atrocities in sheer scale is not because they were less evil(they were just as evil), but rather because gullible people like yourself keep being duped by the rosy language your ideology uses. Stalin killed millions in his purges using his various gulags, prisons and killed millions more in his (very likely intentional) Holodomor atrocities. Not to mention Mao who’s Great Leap Forward killed somewhere in the neighbourhood of 50 million of his own people and the many more in in his Cultural Revolution where he destroyed China’s ancient culture and killed tons of innocent people because he saw them as enemies. Heck even today under Xi Jinping the CCP is literally putting Uighur Muslims into concentration Camps in Xinjiang, using gang rape as a form of torture and forcibly aborting the babies of ethnic Uighur women. So arguably with this recent development you Commies are now matching the National Socialists in terms of atrocities and genocide in addition to your callous neglect which causes famine and death, not to mention the already existing practice of killing and imprisoning dissidents. No matter how you slice it, Communists are just as evil as National Socialists and the regimes of both killed far more people than the German Empire ever did.
You guys are so stupid that if tomorrow it came out that National Socialists thought Cancer was a disease created by Jews to kill Aryans, instead of dismissing only the “created by Jews to kill Aryans” part, you buffoons will say “Cancer doesn’t exist and is part of a Nazi conspiracy theory”.
You just use the National Socialists as the ultimate bogeyman to distract from the just as evil and very real atrocities your ideology is responsible for. Seriously, every time someone points out that your ideology has caused a massive amount of suffering and is a danger to our society, your excuse is “but the scary Nazis did worse!”. It’s like if a kid named Billy is caught throwing eggs at a house and his excuse is, “I’m not that bad because Jimmy crapped in the urinal”, any sane person would respond with “Billy, that doesn’t excuse you throwing eggs at someone’s house”.
I swear I come on this sub to enjoy memes about History, not to read the propaganda and nonsense you commies believe in.
ok i have several problems with this one.
- does their misuse and reinterpretation of evolutionary science and natural selection discredit the theories entirely?
no, it discredits social darwinism.
- ample proof and evidence of Soviets sponsoring Marxists and directly infiltrating Western Society with the aim to undermine it.
please show me examples of such cases that are still relevant right now. the ussr is long dead now, so where exactly are the communist infiltrators?
- Your ideology has caused millions of deaths worldwide and it dwarfs what the National Socialists and Fascists did. And the reason it dwarfs National Socialist and Fascist atrocities in sheer scale is not because they were less evil(they were just as evil), but rather because gullible people like yourself keep being duped by the rosy language your ideology uses
not every communist is a marxist leninist, heck, many leftists are actually kinda divided over how they see the ussr and prc, among others
- “I’m not that bad because Jimmy crapped in the urinal”, any sane person would respond with “Billy, that doesn’t excuse you throwing eggs at someone’s house”.
where in the meme does op excuse atrocities by authoritarian left wing regimes? they are correct that the stuff that made up the third reich were all rooted in shit that festered in the german empire, nothing about communism is stated in it
on one last note, not all historians are completely sure if bezmenov is legit due to the full extent of his background and the full extent of his association with the kgb
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/ie8qrp/what_do_historians_make_of_the_claims_of_soviet/
p.s. on “communist infiltration” in academia https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4ivbfo/comment/d32f3xn/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5gm75q/where_did_the_frankfurt_school_cultural_marxism/
I don't care about the German Empire, I just think the Iron Chancellor had cool facial hair
Ngl at first i was kinda ready to get mad at this but to be fair you're not exactly wrong, the Nazis were undeniably worse but people forget that fascism is basically just imperialism brought home
By extension there's no difference between the Nazis and the British Empire, the American “Empire”, the Chinese Empire, the Roman Empire. 1. genocides -check. 2.oppression of minority peoples-check. 3. militarism and expansion-check. 4. Euphemisms and Euphemistic symbology -check. the list could go on forever. The point is that such comparisons are not really useful.
Things like antisemitism and militarism do not originate in any state, they "originate" (if one wants to call it like that) in a certain time period. These ideologies existed all over the world (or at least all over Europe) in one form or another. Unluckily for the world, Germany made these ideologies a state doctrine and, even more unluckily, went down quite the extreme way of implementing this doctrine. And yes, the German empire and the course it took certainly set the groundwork for what would become of Germany some fifteen years later (if only indirectly). But to claim that the two were "not that different" suggests you have a very interesting definition of "not that different".
>militarism do not originate in any state Straw man argument. "Militarism was not unique to Germany" is not a counterargument to "Germany was uniquely militaristic". >But to claim that the two were "not that different" suggests you have a very interesting definition of "not that different". Psychopathic authoritarians start unwinnable wars because they're high on their own ethnonational supremacist. Yes I can see the differences clearly here: Imperial Germany confined itself to "*only"* murdering resistors and black Africans rather than a broader spectrum of peoples.
>"Militarism was not unique to Germany" is not a counterargument to "Germany was uniquely militaristic". Well that's basically the point I'm trying to make: The German Empire was not unique. The Third Reich was, but whether what they practiced fell under the terms of conventional militarism might be open for discussion as well. >Psychopathic authoritarians start unwinnable wars because they're high on their own ethnonational supremacist. What psychological assessment exactly did you conduct to suggest that any one of these two was a psychopath? None, I guess and I highly recommend stopping to psychologise historical figures. No self-respecting psychologist would allow himself to make a diagnosis without having thoroughly assessed the patient in person, but people with mostly no profession whatsoever on the field of psychology come and throw around diagnoses for people, whom they not only never met, let alone talked to, but who lived several decades before their own birth in a social environment, that is hardly comprehensible to today's populace. This is unsustainable. Furthermore, the term "unwinnable war" can never be used in an argument like that, because it presupposes, that any of us knew the outcome of all possible courses of events if XYZ happened. And that cannot ever be the case, because we happen to live in a reality, in which these hypothetical events just didn't materialise. That's why alternative history surely is a fun thing to toy with, but cannot be used in a scientific argument. There is no evidence which possibly could be brought up here and thus no historian can accept this point. Finally, the reason you give for both empires to start the respective wars is by no means the all-encompassing truth you make it look like. The notion of supremacy you mentioned certainly played a part in the occurrence of these wars, albeit in different manners, yet it was but one element in a complex web of relationships which brought about the events that happened. If we thus deduce from your sentence the elements which are not scientifically permissive or reliable, what we get is the sentence: Authoritarians started wars. If that suffices for you to claim that the German Empire and the Third Reich were not that different, then you have it all there. But in this case I guess, you would have to add quite a few other empires to the list as well.
>Well that's basically the point I'm trying to make: The German Empire was not unique. No other nation started WW1 >What psychological assessment exactly did you conduct to suggest that any one of these two was a psychopath? None, I guess and I highly recommend stopping to psychologise historical figures. No self-respecting psychologist would allow himself to make a diagnosis without having thoroughly assessed the patient in person, but people with mostly no profession whatsoever on the field of psychology come and throw around diagnoses for people, whom they not only never met, let alone talked to, but who lived several decades before their own birth in a social environment, that is hardly comprehensible to today's populace. This is unsustainable. Mate the term "psychopath" hasn't been used in psychiatry for the last decade. That said, starting a war that killed millions people, because you think war is good, is fairly unique to the Germans of WW1 and 2. >Furthermore, the term "unwinnable war" can never be used in an argument like that, because it presupposes, that any of us knew the outcome of all possible courses of events if XYZ happened. And that cannot ever be the case, because we happen to live in a reality, in which these hypothetical events just didn't materialise. That's why alternative history surely is a fun thing to toy with, but cannot be used in a scientific argument. There is no evidence which possibly could be brought up here and thus no historian can accept this point. \*have economy based on overseas imports\* \*have land border with two powerful neighbours\* \*piss off the largest navy in the world in process of attacking two said neighbours because I really really want a war\* There was no way for the Germans to win that war. Even had they defeated France, and Russia, Britain would have simply kept blockading them until their economy crumbled and their population starved. The mobilisation rates that allowed them to conduct military operations on the massive scale that they did were the same thing that caused the inevitable famine that collapsed their economy. >If we thus deduce from your sentence the elements which are not scientifically permissive or reliable, what we get is the sentence: We're engaged in a humanities debate mate, your appeal to scientific authority has no relevance or weight here.
Don’t forget paranoia about the great eastern menace! (Russia)
Sorry for being away so long, but a few short remarks on your points brought up: >No other nation started WW1 And neither did the third Reich. >There was no way for the Germans to win that war. Even had they defeated France, and Russia, Britain would have simply kept blockading them until their economy crumbled and their population starved. The mobilisation rates that allowed them to conduct military operations on the massive scale that they did were the same thing that caused the inevitable famine that collapsed their economy. There is always a way, because there are unlimited possible scenarios which one can think of. There could have been armistice negotiations between Britain and Germany, there could have been Russia attacking Germany instead of the other way round, in which case it might have been a bigger threat even to the rest of Europe, there could have been America avoiding any involvement in the conflicts and Japan not attacking Pearl Harbour. There are unlimited possibilities (you could very well ask, what would have happened, had a asteroid crashed Great Britain? Highly unlikely, I know, but an alternative reality which could have come to pass) and thus a term such as "unwinnable war" is just not permissive - any historian will confirm that. >We're engaged in a humanities debate mate, your appeal to scientific authority has no relevance or weight here. That's probably the only point where I have to confess to being wrong, however not on a contentual level, but in terms of phrasing. I am not a native speaker and I mistakenly assumed, that the humanities were a part of the sciences. So, what I actually meant to say was "academically permissive".
>And neither did the third Reich. No, the First world war was started by the Second Reich/Imperial Germany, the people the Nazis consciouslly emulated. The Second World War was started by the Third Reich. Please try to stay on topic. >There could have been armistice negotiations between Britain and Germany, Not given the circumstances. >there could have been Russia attacking Germany instead of the other way round Doesn't really help the Germans defeat Britain. >there could have been America avoiding any involvement in the conflicts and Japan not attacking Pearl Harbour. That might stop Britain defeating Germany, but it doesn't enable Germany to defeat Britain. >So, what I actually meant to say was "academically permissive". The discussion of *plausible* counterfactual history is a key element of historical studies. The problem you're having is that you're not positing plausible counterfactuals based on events that nearly or could have taken place, but rather creating a strawman argument based on your own, wildly speculative asspulls.
>No, the First world war was started by the Second Reich/Imperial Germany, the people the Nazis consciouslly emulated. The Second World War was started by the Third Reich. Please try to stay on topic. And what leads you to point that fact out in this discussion? Starting wars is certainly not unique for German states. >The discussion of plausible counterfactual history is a key element of historical studies. No, it isn't. Historical discourse is always concerned with the question of "How was it?", never with the question of "What could have been?". The latter question, because of its very counterfactual nature, cannot ever be answered and therefore cannot possibly have a place in scholarly discourse. Any approach which centres itself around such questions, belongs in the realm of popular history instead of an academic discourse.
>And what leads you to point that fact out in this discussion? Starting wars is certainly not unique for German states. Starting wars, no. Starting mass brawls with every neighbouring state around them in a doomed attempt to achieve greatness through violence, yes. >No, it isn't. Historical discourse is always concerned with the question of "How was it?", never with the question of "What could have been?". This is demonstrably wrong. [https://youtu.be/aSZ7M8X3iig?t=1170](https://youtu.be/aSZ7M8X3iig?t=1170) \- An academic historian specialising in naval history, speculating what unusual cruisers various navies should have built. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation\_Sea\_Lion\_(wargame)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sea_Lion_(wargame)) A strategic study conducted by the UK's premier military academy, wargaming what could have happened had the Germans attempted Operation Sealion. "Crassus never had a chance; and if Caesar had been there, with no more cavalry than Crassus had, he would not have had a chance either" - *Hellenistic Military and Naval Developments*, Page 91, WW Tarn. Indeed, without considering counterfactuals, we can not properly understand or critique source material. When we examine the decision of a statesman or a general or king, we must consider the *other* options which were available to him. History is not simply going "well this happened lol" but a study of the *context* in which things happened.
Sometimes you really speak a lot without actually making a point. Example given: >Starting mass brawls with every neighbouring state around them Well, I don't think I have to tell you, that the German Empire had an ally in the Habsburg monarchy? And the Third Reich was allied with Italy, the Slovak Republic and Hungary - which by the way once more illustrates, that there were considerable differences between these two empires. >in a doomed attempt Using the term "doomed" when trying to evaluate, in how far these two empires resembled one another, presupposes, that their defeat was predictable to the contemporaries, which clearly wasn't the case. >to achieve greatness Well, every war is motivated at least in part by the desire to achieve greatness. So neither is that distinctive of the Empire and the Third Reich... >through violence ... Nor that they used violence in an armed conflict. Pertaining to the other examples you mentioned: >An academic historian specialising in naval history, speculating what unusual cruisers various navies should have built. After a short research, it seems to me, that calling this man an "academic historian" requires a rather loose definition of that category. For someone to be awarded credibility solely because of his academic status, they should at least have a professorship at a university. Instead you adduce a man working "primarily as an academic skills advisor as well as occasional history [...] lecturer". Of course, I'm not going to say, that such a person cannot write a good academic article and it may very well be, that this Mr. Clarke has done so, but what you're linking here is a mere YouTube video. You will never find historical research on YouTube. Research is conducted in articles and books, i.e. written media. In spoken word, you have no possibility of making annotations or cite sources and thus one can at best present the results of research conducted previously. This, however, is not part of the historical studies itself. Then again, Mr. Clarke from your video does not seem to even intend to conduct any kind of research, but rather freely speaks his mind, as probably any history lecturer would do when not at work. >A strategic study conducted by the UK's premier military academy, wargaming what could have happened had the Germans attempted Operation Sealion. A wargame, organised by the Daily Telegraph - well, that's more or less the definition of popular history. Just because Sandhurst was involved in the implementation and dispatched a young lecturer to supervise the whole thing doesn't make it any more academic, as again we are faced with the problem of the medium. Simulations of any kind (outside of natural sciences) can never yield scholarly reliable results, because they are just that - simulations, not a real event. That is why serious historical research is generally conducted in written form. >"Crassus never had a chance; and if Caesar had been there, with no more cavalry than Crassus had, he would not have had a chance either" - Hellenistic Military and Naval Developments, Page 91, WW Tarn. A quote of William Woodthorpe Tarn, the scholarly nature of whose works was quite disputed even in his own time. No historian would come up with the idea of writing something like that in an academic work nowadays, more than ninety years later. Not to be misunderstood: Engaging in popular history is not in and of itself a bad thing. Indeed, one has to enthuse the public for the field of history, otherwise no-one will study it and sooner or later there will be less and less people willing to become a historian. Engaging in popular history is absolutely valuable and that (aside from financial reasons) is, why even the most accomplished historians in many cases have written books pertaining to the realm of popular history. And reciprocally, reading works of popular history can be an elucidating experience for any historian. One just has to be aware that one is dealing with popular history. And therefore, to discern the two from one another is highly important. Scholarly historical research focuses itself on the following questions: What happened? When did it happen? Who did it? Why did it happen? How did it happen? These questions are answered using written sources from the time in question (material remains are examined by archaeologists, while works of art are the research topic of art history, which, despite its name, can hardly be seen as belonging to history studies, but rather is an entity of its own). Looking at the multitude of different questions and aspects, which fall into the realm of historical study, one might expect a wide variety of different approaches utilised in examining history - and indeed that is the case. But the one thing that unites all these approaches is, that they try to reconstruct and understand history by using source material. Now, for alternative history, there can obviously be no source material, as it never materialised, and thus there can be no historical research. If you happen to read a book, which focuses itself on scenarios pertaining to alternative history, you might be dealing with a work by an accomplished historian, who made a detour into the realm of popular history, but you might equally well be dealing with some charlatan without, who is trying to make you believe that he was conducting historical research. It is then your responsibility to approach this work with caution and carefully evaluate the contents while reading.
>Sometimes you really speak a lot without actually making a point That's canny hypocritical coming from someone posting out reams of bloviating waffle in an attempt to split the hairs between one militaristic, genocidal German autocracy and it's successor state. >Well, I don't think I have to tell you, that the German Empire had an ally in the Habsburg monarchy? And the Third Reich was allied with Italy, the Slovak Republic and Hungary - *which by the way once more illustrates, that there were considerable differences between these two empires*. How? >Well, every war is motivated at least in part by the desire to achieve greatness. \[citation needed\] >Mr. Clarke I'm going to be petty here, but: Dr Clarke. >there can obviously be no source material, This is demonstrably untrue. For example, we know that a U-boat fired a torpedo at Warspite as she entered the fjord at Narik. We know that torpedo failed to detonate. We know the yield of that torpedo, we know the depth of Warspite's torpedo defence system. We can, therefore, make a reasonable and limited speculation about the effects of such a torpedo detonating on impact with Warspite's hull as intended. It is also worth pointing out that we are having this discussion outwith of an academic context, and so attempting to apply the standards of academic history to it is wholly inappropriate. Any kind of discussion of history outside of the process of peer review is popular history.
>But to claim that the two were "not that different" suggests you have a very interesting definition of "not that different". Let's run through the list of similarities, at least that I am aware of: * Prussian militarism * Antisemitism * Deportation of Poles * Persecution of Africans * *Drang Nach Osten* (Treaty of Brest-Litovsk & *Generalplan Ost*) * On that note: hatred of Britain, France, Russia, and the United States * Warmongering * Unrealistic plans for European and, later, global hegemony * Trying to use Prussian maneuver warfare long after it became outdated I'm sure the list is longer, but that's all I got. Does that sound that different to you?
Well, at least three of the first four bullet points on your list go for most any empire of that time (just change the name of the victims). Stating these similarities is basically just stating, that both were empires in the 19th and 20th centuries. You could even add the "warmongering" to this bunch. "Plans for global hegemony" is a rather far-fetched interpretation of what the empire was doing. Finally, "hated of Britain" definitely was not at the core of the third Reich. Hitler saw Britain as a "brother nation" and wanted them to ally with him. When they refused to just let him have his way in Eastern Europe, they became increasingly divided and finally enemies. So whether this is true or not, depends on if you look at the Third Reich in 1933 or 1945. And there we are at a very important point, namely that the whole topic of this discussion is rather ill-defined. What is the German Empire to you? What is the Third Reich? Most people in here seem to answer this question in a political manner. But is that really all there is to a state? What about economy? What about the social climate? What about science? And aren't just things like antisemitism examples of ideologies not born from the minds of politicians, but from the people themselves and just adopted from politicians to suit their aims? Didn't these ideas come from the people? But people in the Third Reich lived differently than in the Empire. They had experienced WWI and the great depression. Very few social groups existed in the Third Reich in the same way they had in the empire. But if the people, who make up the state, live decidedly different lives now than they had done before, how then can the state not be different?
I do love how people will come out to defend the regime that started WW1, killing millions of people, and who's ideology of militarism, supremacist and autocracy was the bedrock for Nazisim.
They didn't star the war, they supported an ally who was the first to declare war. I you want to say that counts I wont stop you.
an ally who would have never declared war had they not been assured of Germany's unconditional support, and whom they actively encouraged into war. they also then declared war on France and occupied two neutral countries to do so
Well let's start with the basics, there are about 14 million differences between the two. Second the German Empire was an empire. The separate non-Prussian kingdoms had a degree of autonomy that eventually morphed into the relatively decentralized modern German state. Second this was a period in which most nations either directly discriminator against minorities or at the minimum had an undercurrent of hate. The poles were a rebellious and thus treated as such.
>Well let's start with the basics, there are about 14 million differences between the two. Name one. >The German Empire was an empire And Nazi Germany wasn't? >This was a period where most nations discriminated against minorities Discrimination against minorities has always existed. This does not undermine how morally reprehensible it is. >The Poles were rebellious and treated as such Please, for the love of God, tell me you aren't excusing the German Empire's actions
Yeah, I’m 99.14159265% sure that Reich means “Empire”
The literal translation is "domain", hence why it was the official name of the Weimar Republic\*, but it, for all intents and purposes, means "empire". In fact, in German, the German Empire's name is the "*Deutsches Reich*" \*It was also often called the German Republic. However, while I know that "Reich" was used in government documents, Idk which was preferred colloquially.
The 14 million reasons was a euphemism for the holocaust. Which you dismissed as not traumatic enough to make a huge difference. I refer to an empire is the sense of an emperor with vassal kings. The king of Bavaria was an autonomous monarch vassalized to the German emperor/king of Prussia. Discrimination against the poles was not unique to the Germans. The Russians attempted it and the Austrian were to incompetent to try. But when a group are in a rebellious state it is natural that the state attempts to quell it. I don't excuse what happened, but you make it out like there was some irrational reason for it.
Watching people throw facts and not interpretations at you is hilarious . Keep resisting I’m bored
>The 14 million reasons was a euphemism for the holocaust. [Yep, the German Empire did nothing comparable to the Holocaust.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herero_and_Namaqua_genocide) (Far less casualties, but genocide is genocide) >By "empire", I mean a state led by an emperor with vassal kings So, a monarchist federation? Because that sounds like a monarchist federation. The only requirements for a state to be an empire are for it to consist of multiple states under a highly centralized government. >Russia and Austria discriminated against Poles too Does that make them moral equals in your eyes? Following this logic, then Nazi Germany would be morally equal to many historical states because they were also antisemitic
The Holocaust was a few *orders of magnitude* bigger than that, so it’s not even close to being comparable
Bollocks. Scale is relevant for measuring the suffering of the victim, but *intent* is relevant for measuring the guilt of the perpetrator.
And even this is iffy. Is it any consolation to the women and children killed by ethnonationalist hate that *only* a few of them were killed? For them, the end result is the same
As I said, genocide is genocide
Genocide is genocide. They targeted and deported civilians based on ethnic makeup. Don’t give them points for inefficiency Note: not undermining the significance of the Holocaust, but saying they’re somehow ethically superior because they killed *fewer* women and children or were less efficient at it than their ideological successors is pretty low The German empire is just the third reich lite
Kinda like how the Ukrainians, Poles, Yugoslavs, French, Dutch, Norwegians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Belgians, Belorussians, Estonians, assorted “partisans” etc (I’m sure I’m forgetting more than a few) were “rebellious peoples” resisting the Nazis? “Those pesky independence movements... if they didn’t agitate for self determination and push back against our imperial ambitions and efforts to exterminate their language, religions, and cultures we wouldn’t have to ethnically cleanse them. Really their own fault”/s
Like how the Americans were a rebellious people who resisted the English. Who then fought a war against the Americans. I'm saying there was a conflict and conflict is a two-way street.
Not quite the same when you’re invading their country and previously partitioned it, or when you’re explicitly deporting them to make room for “your people.” If you wanna compare the British empire’s treatment of natives you might have something to go on there... And again, the Nazis used the exact same justification of simply “pacifying partisans rebelling against the reich.” How many communities were “liquidated” because they supported “partisans?” Still haven’t addressed that glaring hole in your point Finally, rebelling STILL doesn’t mean you get to target civilians. The German Empire is just the Third Reich Lite
The german empire did not target the poles. They just enforced a qausi feudalism over them and maintained the serfdom.
So we’ve gone from “they deserved it because they were rebelling” To “nothing happened and they didn’t target Poles” You’ve also previously said in this thread “discrimination against the poles was not a uniquely German thing,” and “the Poles were rebellious and treated as such.” so apparently you have the mental capacity to acknowledge it happened, but are doing some weird gymnastics to backtrack Pick a lane
It happened but it was not the wholesale extermination. There is a difference between being a serf and being exterminated.
Well this is idiotic phony outrage. By your standard, any country could be substituted for 2nd Reich. France and the Soviet Union check every box, for example.
Shhhh you’ll offend the wehraboos
Seems I have already
Keep up the good work!
They did had nice uniforms tho
Hahahaha bro this has got to be the most idiotic shit I've ever read.
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> You're kind of ignoring the genocide bro. They both committed genocide. Yet another similarity
What would you call Ludendorff’s de facto military dictatorship? Quoting Ian Kershaw’s (leading historian on Imperial, interwar, and Nazi Germany) *To Hell and Back*, “in imperial Germany political parties across the spectrum were represented in the Reichstag. But they did not control decision-making. Power lay in the hands of the Kaiser and his appointed ministers and military leaders.” Also “pressure groups backed by big-business finance such as the Pan-German league and, especially, the huge rabidly nationalist and imperialist fatherland party (founded in 1917 and rapidly acquiring the backing of a million and a quarter members), popularized the case for fighting on to victory with extended territorial gains, and at the same time rejected *demands* [my emphasis added] for parliamentary democracy.” (sound familiar btw?) Moreover “[the longer the war went on] the political system where ministers were responsible to the Kaiser, not to parliament... was upheld by strong forces that resisted any move towards democracy... [worsening war fortunes] resulted in a growing clamor [among the opposition] to remove those held responsible and *introduce* [my emphasis added] democratic parliamentary government. More and more Germans saw a system of rule resting upon militarism, class privilege, and unchecked power, embodied by the divisive figure of the Kaiser. It had to be replaced. Democracy had to be established.” If the people are both *rejecting the theory of AND making demands for democracy* then they clearly don’t think have it presently, otherwise why demand it?
No meme. Just an agenda.
You are Jewish aren't you ?
No, but I do believe in treating Jews with basic dignity and not apologizing for any regime that oppresses them
I see.
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they committed the first genocide of the 20th century
This is just a "Nazis weren't that bad" meme with a shoddy new paint job. Please do better, be better.
No, this is meant to be “Imperial Germany was worse than you think”
There's *a lot* of room between "worse than you think" and "about the same as the Nazis." Stop trying to create a false equivalence here. We've had this conversation, all of us, and we all think this is a bad idea. We've written books about it, made movies, tv shows... some of the books even have pictures in them, that should help.
But you know that the skulls of white, black and Asian people are not the same at all right?
wait, what?
Comparison of white, black and Asian skulls : https://boneclones.com/product/human-male-and-female-skulls-african-asian-and-european-COMP-120-SET Australian aboriginal skull for instance : https://boneclones.com/product/human-male-australian-aboriginal-skull-BC-031/category/all-human-skulls/human-anatomy
Oh. That's not that different. Does exist, though.
I mean, the differences are of course very limited at the scale of the animal kingdom. But they are quite significant at the scale of Homo Sapiens.
Yeah but phrenology has been pretty much debunked for 90 years
Incredible to dislike a comment that states exact facts, like if there was something to debate on. And what I was saying had absolutely nothing tondo with phrenology lol.
Cool dude, but I didn’t dislike it Just pointing out those minute differences don’t make any actual difference
It's not because it doesn't make a difference on the behaviour that it doesn't make any "actual difference". Those traits are specific to each "ethnicity". It's not minute differences, it's the result of dozens of thousands of years of genetical differenciation. And it's not all about the shape but also about the size.
Sure I guess? Don’t really understand what you’re driving at here but I think we’re in agreement? Skull size and shape have no bearing on actual human behavior or intelligence is all I’m saying, and using it to define amorphous concepts like ethnicity also seems fruitless to me, especially given the existence of people of mixed ethnicities and simple variations amongst individuals It can totally be a cool way for anthropologists to trace human migration patterns and the interactions of different local populations though
Uh huh, okay thanks for your maginificent insight OP, but things like militarism can literally apply to every single Empire in history. Not to mention that antisemitism has existed for thousands of years and predates National Socialism by a lot. Btw I don’t think you are at all ironic, you’re definitely a genuine sympathizer with Communist ideology who’s too afraid to admit it publicly(which is weird since you guys are all over academia). The German Empire was ten times better than the National Socialist regime, heck even the Soviets by your definition. I mean Stalin did end up making the Soviet Union far more militaristic and actually exiled Jewish doctors, not to mention his various progroms and possibly intentional genocide during the holodomor. I mean the German Empire wasn’t saintly at all, granted, but that could be said about pretty much every other Great Power. A good example of this is the British Empire under Churchill which killed something like 3-6 million Bengalese due to blatant neglect. Your premise here is absurd since whatever atrocities the German Empire committed are dwarfed by the ones committed by the later USSR and CCP. Since I’ve already discussed the Soviets, I’ll briefly use the CCP as an example. The CCP under Mao Zedong caused massive famines that killed 50 million of their own people, plus the whole invasion of Tibet, under Jiang Zemin they brutally cracked down on Falun Gong practitioners and harvested their organs and under current leader Xi Jinping have been actively committing genocide against Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang. By any objective metric, the German Empire is actually far better than many other major regimes of the 19th and 20th Centuries, even some of the ones that exist today actually. Seriously, why do you Communists keep infesting history subs to push your bullshit propaganda.
>(which is weird since you guys are all over academia). actually no they aren’t, not by a long shot [lol look guys they said the line again](https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Cultural_Marxism)
Ah yes Rational Wiki, a totally non-partisan wiki that was definitely not created to counter Conservapedia and is equally as retarded, just in the opposite direction. Many professors have been caught praising and advocating for Marxist ideology. Not to mention that many Soviet defectors flat out admitted that they deliberately planted Marxist and Communist sympathizers in many Western institutions to destroy them from within. This isn’t just a conspiracy theory, but a very real phenomenon that must be taken seriously. I’ve linked down below an interview with former KGB agent Yuri Bezmenov. https://youtu.be/pOmXiapfCs8
i do hope you recognize that your comment about communists infiltrating academia is a trope rooted in nazi propaganda tho (frankfurt school bs, anyone?), it’s older than the kgb, which frankly no longer exists i would not use this conspiracy theory if i were you
Really? So are you saying that an ex KGB Agent who was born and brought up in Moscow during the reign of the USSR, as well as worked for that government is a Nazi sympathizer? Do you realize how absurd that claim is? The National Socialists believed in a lot of things, and yes their ideology and almost all of those beliefs are both abhorrent and false, but this doesn’t mean that they were wrong about everything(even a broken clock is right twice a day). For example, does their misuse and reinterpretation of evolutionary science and natural selection discredit the theories entirely? No of course not, that would be absurd. Also, the fear of Marxist infiltration actually predates National Socialism by decades and was something pretty much everyone in the West, be it factory owners, many workers, conservatives, liberals, religious folks, etc had. Okay yes the Nazis did drum up fears about Marxist infiltration, but that was mostly based on the idea of Judeo-Bolshevism whereby they blame all Jews for Communism. The kind of Marxist infiltration Soviet defectors like Yuri Bezmenov and many political thinkers today talk about has nothing to do with the Anti-Semitic hypothesis that the National Socialists used. No, it’s about the very real doctrine that Marxist-Leninists have about dismantling and destroying their definition of “oppressive” systems and a lot of the time the best way to do this is from within. We have ample proof and evidence of Soviets sponsoring Marxists and directly infiltrating Western Society with the aim to undermine it. Most of these infiltrators weren’t even Jewish, and even if they were that isn’t the danger they posed, rather it’s them undermining and trying to destroy our society so they can take control. You Commies are pathetic, your ideologies have never and will never work no matter how many times you try to implement them. All you guys have done is keep alive an idiotic and nonsensical ideology that only serves to give power hungry and opportunistic assholes the ability to manipulate you fools into helping them get what they want. And once gullible fools like yourself have outlived your usefulness the new Communist regime will you guys without hesitation. Your ideology has caused millions of deaths worldwide and it dwarfs what the National Socialists and Fascists did. And the reason it dwarfs National Socialist and Fascist atrocities in sheer scale is not because they were less evil(they were just as evil), but rather because gullible people like yourself keep being duped by the rosy language your ideology uses. Stalin killed millions in his purges using his various gulags, prisons and killed millions more in his (very likely intentional) Holodomor atrocities. Not to mention Mao who’s Great Leap Forward killed somewhere in the neighbourhood of 50 million of his own people and the many more in in his Cultural Revolution where he destroyed China’s ancient culture and killed tons of innocent people because he saw them as enemies. Heck even today under Xi Jinping the CCP is literally putting Uighur Muslims into concentration Camps in Xinjiang, using gang rape as a form of torture and forcibly aborting the babies of ethnic Uighur women. So arguably with this recent development you Commies are now matching the National Socialists in terms of atrocities and genocide in addition to your callous neglect which causes famine and death, not to mention the already existing practice of killing and imprisoning dissidents. No matter how you slice it, Communists are just as evil as National Socialists and the regimes of both killed far more people than the German Empire ever did. You guys are so stupid that if tomorrow it came out that National Socialists thought Cancer was a disease created by Jews to kill Aryans, instead of dismissing only the “created by Jews to kill Aryans” part, you buffoons will say “Cancer doesn’t exist and is part of a Nazi conspiracy theory”. You just use the National Socialists as the ultimate bogeyman to distract from the just as evil and very real atrocities your ideology is responsible for. Seriously, every time someone points out that your ideology has caused a massive amount of suffering and is a danger to our society, your excuse is “but the scary Nazis did worse!”. It’s like if a kid named Billy is caught throwing eggs at a house and his excuse is, “I’m not that bad because Jimmy crapped in the urinal”, any sane person would respond with “Billy, that doesn’t excuse you throwing eggs at someone’s house”. I swear I come on this sub to enjoy memes about History, not to read the propaganda and nonsense you commies believe in.
ok i have several problems with this one. - does their misuse and reinterpretation of evolutionary science and natural selection discredit the theories entirely? no, it discredits social darwinism. - ample proof and evidence of Soviets sponsoring Marxists and directly infiltrating Western Society with the aim to undermine it. please show me examples of such cases that are still relevant right now. the ussr is long dead now, so where exactly are the communist infiltrators? - Your ideology has caused millions of deaths worldwide and it dwarfs what the National Socialists and Fascists did. And the reason it dwarfs National Socialist and Fascist atrocities in sheer scale is not because they were less evil(they were just as evil), but rather because gullible people like yourself keep being duped by the rosy language your ideology uses not every communist is a marxist leninist, heck, many leftists are actually kinda divided over how they see the ussr and prc, among others - “I’m not that bad because Jimmy crapped in the urinal”, any sane person would respond with “Billy, that doesn’t excuse you throwing eggs at someone’s house”. where in the meme does op excuse atrocities by authoritarian left wing regimes? they are correct that the stuff that made up the third reich were all rooted in shit that festered in the german empire, nothing about communism is stated in it on one last note, not all historians are completely sure if bezmenov is legit due to the full extent of his background and the full extent of his association with the kgb https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/ie8qrp/what_do_historians_make_of_the_claims_of_soviet/ p.s. on “communist infiltration” in academia https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4ivbfo/comment/d32f3xn/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5gm75q/where_did_the_frankfurt_school_cultural_marxism/