No.1 - When Hitler came into power, Germany was in a bad state, he was the one that brought them out of it.
No.2 - The main reason he declared war on Poland was because of their Jewish population. Once France was captured he wanted to have peace with Britain.
Yes, his death/work camps weren't the best idea he came up with but, from a poor Austrian family to the most powerful man in the world, you have to admit, is quite a success story.
>>1
i thought the real reason he invaded poland was because they were starting to take some of germanys land by the border or something
Name:
Anonymous2007-08-29 14:13 ID:xoZZkTGg
*yawn*
that really is contagious...
Name:
Anonymous2007-08-29 14:15 ID:7WgFzvrA
*yawn*
Name:
Anonymous2007-08-29 14:17 ID:r+YUlS5a
>>4
A lot of things started the war on poland. It was not only that. It was a chain of events(Joachim von Ribbentrop, Versailler Friedensordnung etc..). What >>1 said is just the stupid uneducated nazi stuff.
There was a well-defined intellectual backing to Hitler and his militants in the National Socialists, much like the Neo-Cons have the Project for a New American Century backing the Neo-Cons who now control the Republican party.
Both intellectual bases believed in the supremacy of their native culture over all others in the world. Hitler's backing believed in conquering Europe segment by segment, then using monolithic mainland European dominance to challenge the USSR. Forays into Africa and Britain could then be made. Eventually America's power across the Atlantic could be challenged. I might be getting the steps mixed up, but there WERE steps and they WERE that complete.
Now, anyone with a sense of history and technology could tell you that such a scheme could not prevail. The world is quite simply too big to conquer. No empire lasts long enough anyway, to conquer so far afield ... until internal problems long ignored cause it to crumble. Hitler and his Nazi power structure wasn't even able to rule all of France, which was a critical weakness in their conquering plan. That's the problem with ALL plans of conquering: they're weak on properly integrating conquered territories into the Imperium. As the reach extends OVER territories only partially conquered (at best), the "unconquered" enhance the already large Imperial internal problems. The end result is the Fall.
If Hitler had taken the time and energy to properly conquer ALL of France, and to use all his considerable persuasion to show that the Germanic way ought to dominate over the Gallic way, then there's a good chance that "Franco-Prussia" or something like that would dominate Europe today, being composed of the combined territory of greater Germany and France, joined seamlessly over the Maginot Line. But no, Hitler couldn't wait to ship out France's Jews. He also couldn't wait to continue stomping on France even though the initial territory was fairly thoroughly conquered. As well documented in books like "Occupation: The Ordeal of France", the French were so demoralized from the swiftness of the German advance in 1940 that French units surrendered in droves before the armistice was declared. That was a critical opportunity!
SIMILARLY, after 911, Bush and the Neo-Cons had the sympathy of the entire civilized world. That great opportunity was ALSO wasted as Bush couldn't wait to get into Iraq and steal her oil fields. He could have truly expressed a need for Western mediation in the Middle East to cut the legs out from under the culture of terrorism there. The "911 Report" well documented the efforts by Pakistan (of all places!) on our behalf after the 1998 Africa and 2000 USS Cole bombings. If fucking PAKISTAN was willing to kick down doors and go after terrorists inside their own borders, then a great and practical ally was evident. But no, Bush was too busy fighting Daddy's Little War from 1991.
>>15 FAIL. The Nuremberg Trial judges noted sardonically that it seemed that nobody among the high officials in the dock took responsibility for such things as the camps and the overall extermination program. The testimonials in the "Nuremberg Diaries" (by Gustav Gilbert) relate why that was so: because the lower orders of the Nazi command were acculturated into taking the blame for the orders issued from above. In reality, Hitler was fully responsible for the Final Solution, and so was everybody down the chain of command who did the incremental and real work to see the program through.