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Western Betrayal, or how badly did we screw over Eastern Europe?
Now, Evander, which government are you talking about?
Are you talking about the one that was put in place by the Soviets after the war? I'm pretty sure most Poles don't believe them exactly legitimate.
Remember, this government tracked down members of the Home Army and Polish Government in exile and executed them.
Oh, and everyone's shit was stolen after the war. It isn't an excuse, but think that it wasn't exactly easy to return people's items when those people aren't exactly alive anymore.
I'm not saying that there were no evil Poles, but remember that Poland had the harshest laws about helping Jews (Automatic execution for any aid given to Jews). And it still had the highest number of Righteous Among the Nations. And the Home Army executed any and all collaborators. And it took dozens of people keeping quiet to save Jews, and only one to expose them.
Oh, and everyone's shit was stolen after the war. It isn't an excuse, but think that it wasn't exactly easy to return people's items when those people aren't exactly alive anymore.
That is a bullshit line to wait until most of the survivors have died and then pull out. There have been attempts at returning property and reparations for DECADES.
Wait, you mean the authorities who were screaming at England about concentration and death camps, only to be ignored? The ones that delivered information from a pole who volunteered to go to Auschwitz?
Or how about the home authorities, the Home Army, which executed collaborators of any kind and welcomed Jews into the resistance?
Or are you talking about the Germans who invaded the country and claimed authority?
*Hint, only one of those was in the business of Jew killing, I'll let you guess which one.
Like I said, the Pollacks were BOTH victims and victimizers.
You don't get to ignore the wrongs you've done in light of the good you've also done.
When your choices are
Collaborate
Be executed
you don't really have a choice at all. As for the mass theft of jewish property, everyone was stealing everyone's shit post-WWII. You're ascribing racist intent where none likely existed.
Okay, I'm not going to flat-out agree with Evander here, but to automatically assume that the racism between Polish Catholics and Polish Jews was just simmering in the background, and had no effect on how occupied Poland treated its Jews...just seems implausible.
Racist hatred, and the use of it to justify theft (much less forced migration or murder) being so incredibly common throughout Europe and much of the world at the time, to say that Polish Catholics are somehow an exception to the rule seems a little naive.
Don't get me wrong--I agree that they didn't have many options, nor did the Jews. But the conspiracy of reasons, so to speak--the fear that Jews, some of which had good relations with their neighbors, might return to Poland and claim their property (made all the more valuable by the destruction of the war), the spreading of 'blood libel' accusations, and the popularization of the Judeo-Bolshevik conspiracy (even going to actual things that existed, like the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee)--would suggest that there was no shortage of racism and violence against Jews, even if those reasons were not necessarily deeply rooted in Polish culture.
So, can we talk about Pollacks selling out their neighbors?
Because when i think about Poland and Betrayal, I think you all know where my mind goes...
Could you just come right out and say what you're thinking then, instead of waiting for someone else to do it for you?
I already did earlier, before you get your panties in a bunch.
Poland tried to play both sides of the fence, and got what they deserved.
Poland were definitely victims, but they were also victimizers, the latter role they still refuse to admit to.
Is this the comprehensive post to which you refer? Forgive me for wanting you to come out and speak your mind, rather than just hinting at it until someone else mentions it (you're welcome) so you can jump on in.
So, can we talk about Pollacks selling out their neighbors?
Because when i think about Poland and Betrayal, I think you all know where my mind goes...
Could you just come right out and say what you're thinking then, instead of waiting for someone else to do it for you?
I already did earlier, before you get your panties in a bunch.
Poland tried to play both sides of the fence, and got what they deserved.
Poland were definitely victims, but they were also victimizers, the latter role they still refuse to admit to.
Is this the comprehensive post to which you refer? Forgive me for wanting you to come out and speak your mind, rather than just hinting at it until someone else mentions it (you're welcome) so you can jump on in.
Wait, you mean the authorities who were screaming at England about concentration and death camps, only to be ignored? The ones that delivered information from a pole who volunteered to go to Auschwitz?
Or how about the home authorities, the Home Army, which executed collaborators of any kind and welcomed Jews into the resistance?
Or are you talking about the Germans who invaded the country and claimed authority?
*Hint, only one of those was in the business of Jew killing, I'll let you guess which one.
Like I said, the Pollacks were BOTH victims and victimizers.
You don't get to ignore the wrongs you've done in light of the good you've also done.
When your choices are
Collaborate
Be executed
you don't really have a choice at all. As for the mass theft of jewish property, everyone was stealing everyone's shit post-WWII. You're ascribing racist intent where none likely existed.
Okay, I'm not going to flat-out agree with Evander here, but to automatically assume that the racism between Polish Catholics and Polish Jews was just simmering in the background, and had no effect on how occupied Poland treated its Jews.
Racist hatred, and the use of it to justify theft (much less forced migration or murder) being so incredibly common throughout Europe and much of the world at the time, to say that Polish Catholics are somehow an exception to the rule seems a little naive.
Don't get me wrong--I agree that they didn't have many options, nor did the Jews. But the conspiracy of reasons, so to speak--the fear that Jews, some of which had good relations with their neighbors, might return to Poland and claim their property (made all the more valuable by the destruction of the war), the spreading of 'blood libel' accusations, and the popularization of the Judeo-Bolshevik conspiracy (even going to actual things that existed, like the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee)--would suggest that there was no shortage of racism and violence against Jews, even if those reasons were not necessarily deeply rooted in Polish culture.
My family employed many non-Jews in the town of Kozienice. There was definitely resentment there at the fact that they were "forced" to be working for a Jew.
I have no interest in having possession of that lumber yard (or whatever is there now) turned over to me. I have no interested in ever returning to Poland, either. All that i want is a sincere recognition that wrongs were committed.
My grandfather deserved reparations. When he died in 2006, the reparations window closed, in my opinion. I don't deserve monetary recompense, but i DO deserve recognition of what occured.
Wait, you mean the authorities who were screaming at England about concentration and death camps, only to be ignored? The ones that delivered information from a pole who volunteered to go to Auschwitz?
Or how about the home authorities, the Home Army, which executed collaborators of any kind and welcomed Jews into the resistance?
Or are you talking about the Germans who invaded the country and claimed authority?
*Hint, only one of those was in the business of Jew killing, I'll let you guess which one.
Like I said, the Pollacks were BOTH victims and victimizers.
You don't get to ignore the wrongs you've done in light of the good you've also done.
edit: or are you denying that there was ever any significant number of polish individuals turning in their jewish neighbors and reappropriating their property as their own? If you ARE denying this, then can you tell me what happened to all of the formerly Jewish property after the war?
when I'm speaking about a collective, I'm speaking about the authorities
Is it about the authorities or random fuckwads who the authorities had limited realistic possibility of tracking down in a ravaged post-war Poland Evander? Much less recover stolen goods from?
why is it that when civilians wrong jews, the assumption is always that the authorities are helpless to stop them?
I think what I'm going to do is take down names here, because I expect to see ALL of you running to Israel's defense against palestine next time the topic comes up, because it was a tough situation with the english, and what else could the israelis do?
(For the record, I DO support Palestinian reparations, as with all else, though, I hold the caveat that attacks on civilians need to end first.)
Wait, you mean the authorities who were screaming at England about concentration and death camps, only to be ignored? The ones that delivered information from a pole who volunteered to go to Auschwitz?
Or how about the home authorities, the Home Army, which executed collaborators of any kind and welcomed Jews into the resistance?
Or are you talking about the Germans who invaded the country and claimed authority?
*Hint, only one of those was in the business of Jew killing, I'll let you guess which one.
Like I said, the Pollacks were BOTH victims and victimizers.
You don't get to ignore the wrongs you've done in light of the good you've also done.
When your choices are
Collaborate
Be executed
you don't really have a choice at all. As for the mass theft of jewish property, everyone was stealing everyone's shit post-WWII. You're ascribing racist intent where none likely existed.
Okay, I'm not going to flat-out agree with Evander here, but to automatically assume that the racism between Polish Catholics and Polish Jews was just simmering in the background, and had no effect on how occupied Poland treated its Jews.
Racist hatred, and the use of it to justify theft (much less forced migration or murder) being so incredibly common throughout Europe and much of the world at the time, to say that Polish Catholics are somehow an exception to the rule seems a little naive.
Don't get me wrong--I agree that they didn't have many options, nor did the Jews. But the conspiracy of reasons, so to speak--the fear that Jews, some of which had good relations with their neighbors, might return to Poland and claim their property (made all the more valuable by the destruction of the war), the spreading of 'blood libel' accusations, and the popularization of the Judeo-Bolshevik conspiracy (even going to actual things that existed, like the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee)--would suggest that there was no shortage of racism and violence against Jews, even if those reasons were not necessarily deeply rooted in Polish culture.
My family employed many non-Jews in the town of Kozienice. There was definitely resentment there at the fact that they were "forced" to be working for a Jew.
I have no interest in having possession of that lumber yard (or whatever is there now) turned over to me. I have no interested in ever returning to Poland, either. All that i want is a sincere recognition that wrongs were committed.
My grandfather deserved reparations. When he died in 2006, the reparations window closed, in my opinion. I don't deserve monetary recompense, but i DO deserve recognition of what occured.
(Darn, I got quoted before I finished editting. Small edit though.)
Of course, this has a great deal to do with the politics of the time. Despite the recognition of the Poles as a sort of "Nationality of Honor" (I think by Israel in the immediate decade post-war), I suspect both the Polish Home Army/nationalists, nor the Polish Communist Government set up by the Soviet Union had little interest in addressing the issu0e, and more with the matter of killing eachother. It's unfortunate, but the attitude seems to have been, "Everyone suffered, and we're very busy, so we have no intention of addressing it."
And there's the background racism. Historically speaking, Ukraine itself was the land of the pogroms (I think...but my history could be rusty), but even Moscow itself took an early position that the Holocaust was perpetrated against Germany's national enemies, rather than specifically the Jewish populations in those countries (though in the USSR, where +24 million die, more than half of them civilians, they have a convincing case). And this was before the government developed hostility towards Soviet Jews, leading to the "Doctor's Plot", et cetera.
It is, unfortunate, not an environment conducive to apologies and reconciliation.
(Darn, I got quoted before I finished editting. Small edit though.)
Of course, this has a great deal to do with the politics of the time. Despite the recognition of the Poles as a sort of "Nationality of Honor" (I think by Israel in the immediate decade post-war), I suspect both the Polish Home Army/nationalists, nor the Polish Communist Government set up by the Soviet Union had little interest in addressing the issu0e, and more with the matter of killing eachother. It's unfortunate, but the attitude seems to have been, "Everyone suffered, and we're very busy, so we have no intention of addressing it."
And there's the background racism. Historically speaking, Ukraine itself was the land of the pogroms (I think...but my history could be rusty), but even Moscow itself took an early position that the Holocaust was perpetrated against Germany's national enemies, rather than specifically the Jewish populations in those countries (though in the USSR, where +24 million die, more than half of them civilians, they have a convincing case). And this was before the government developed hostility towards Soviet Jews, leading to the "Doctor's Plot", et cetera.
It is, unfortunate, not an environment conducive to apologies and reconciliation.
The Polish Home Army was tracked down and killed/imprisoned after the war. They really couldn't do much.
why is it that when civilians wrong jews, the assumption is always that the authorities are helpless to stop them?
I think what I'm going to do is take down names here, because I expect to see ALL of you running to Israel's defense against palestine next time the topic comes up, because it was a tough situation with the english, and what else could the israelis do?
(For the record, I DO support Palestinian reparations, as with all else, though, I hold the caveat that attacks on civilians need to end first.)
(Darn, I got quoted before I finished editting. Small edit though.)
Of course, this has a great deal to do with the politics of the time. Despite the recognition of the Poles as a sort of "Nationality of Honor" (I think by Israel in the immediate decade post-war), I suspect both the Polish Home Army/nationalists, nor the Polish Communist Government set up by the Soviet Union had little interest in addressing the issu0e, and more with the matter of killing eachother. It's unfortunate, but the attitude seems to have been, "Everyone suffered, and we're very busy, so we have no intention of addressing it."
And there's the background racism. Historically speaking, Ukraine itself was the land of the pogroms (I think...but my history could be rusty), but even Moscow itself took an early position that the Holocaust was perpetrated against Germany's national enemies, rather than specifically the Jewish populations in those countries (though in the USSR, where +24 million die, more than half of them civilians, they have a convincing case). And this was before the government developed hostility towards Soviet Jews, leading to the "Doctor's Plot", et cetera.
It is, unfortunate, not an environment conducive to apologies and reconciliation.
The Polish Home Army was tracked down and killed/imprisoned after the war. They really couldn't do much.
That's not a secret (and also why I mentioned other nationalists who were incorporated into the new government). Then again, neither are their political alignments, with their understandably anti-left position putting them at odds with pretty much all Jewish resistance movements (at the same time, I'm not going to claim that all Polish nationalists were anti-Semites, but it would not be the first time that Catholic nationalism was tied to a distrust or outright hatred of Jews).
(On the subject of the Home Army specifically--I've read cases in which they've acted in support of Jews, such as supplying the Warsaw Pact with guns, as well as numerous cases where they deliberately acted against Jews for being, well, Jewish. And Soviet Jews, naturally, are as good to them dead as any other Soviets. So, kind of in the middle, I guess.)
Well, would you consider Stalin or Hitler the better alternative? By 1939 the Polish situation was that they were sandwiched between two nations that were both on some level inherently hostile towards the country's existence, so there was never going to be a pretty solution either way. Of course, they helped set it up themselves by participating in the dismembering of Czechoslovakia.
There was a pretty solution. It was to fight Germany and get help from Britain and France. Didn't work though.
Poland would have never taken help from the Soviets. They would have signed a pact with the Germans. Not the preferred solution but it was considered the lesser evil at the time.
Also Zaolzie was a dick move without a doubt, but I don't think Poland shares any responsibility for Munich, and the fall of Czechoslovakia. That one is all Chamberlain and Daladier.
How could that solution have worked out when France and Britain could not actually engage the German forces attacking Poland? By that Germany had actually gotten their Western defensive line running, and there would have been a long, hard slog any way you looked at it.
Concernign Poland's refusal - um, yeah, that's kind of what we were discussing, wasn't it? Their refusal to allow the one army that could have done some good to enter their territory was what doomed them.
By my understanding, although I'm aware hindsight is 20/20, Germany didn't have a very strong defence on the Western border in September 1939. Nearly all their motorised divisions were in Poland. Had France made a concerted effort at an offensive, they could have pushed pretty far into Germany.
Now maybe intelligence indicated stronger defences, I'm not sure, but my understanding is that the French Army were drowning in inertia and reluctant to go on the offensive anyway. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
I know we are off of France and it's decisions it made, but I just want to throw out an important part about Frances army and planned defense of it's country with regards to Germany. France's front line which was YEARS in the making and designing for completely stomping out a German advance was steam rolled, and when I say that, you can simply look up the dates of advance and casualty rates to understand just how effectively the main line was stomped out, to really understand just how effective the Blitz was against them. There was a reason this happened tho, it wasn't poor troops, untrained discipline or cowardly French unwilling to charge into Germany as tensions were mounting to halt an eventual assault on their country.
You need to remember the Blitz was a completely revolutionary assault that simply amalgamated all offensive units together in one swift effective assualt the likes of which the world had never seen. Artillery air and land support all coming together with hardened tanks to push the line continually forward. This is not the war France was prepared or could have invisioned. The line was a built in hardened set of bunkers with huge guns designed to repel what they saw during WW1. Trench warfare is what they prepared for, immobile dug in war. Hell the underground train system they had that went from bunker to bunker to supply and defend the whole line was one of the most complicated and advanced dug in defense in the world. I've watched actual footage of this line in action and it was increadible.
Had the germans advanced in the style of WW1 they wouldn't have set a single german foot within the French boarders that line would have knocked out the few advancing tanks with the built in anti tank weapons and mowed down the advancing infantry in mere hours. But thier greatest strength was the lines greatest weakness, it was dug in, unable to adjust or counter new attacks or tech sent their way. You simply can't pick up and move a defensive line that took you 10 years to build and was in place to stop a german assault coming FROM germany. By simply going around this line, suddenly your defenses are gone and you are stuck with a chaotic force of infantry who planned to shoot from bunkers and artillery and tanks that had already been assigned their firiing locations years before the germans arrived, all trying to reorganize and relocate to unprepared locations all over the north east france. The French goal was to draw german troops to the line should they get pushed back and slaughter them there. Simply going around this line never really occured to them. It should be pointed out as well that the upcoming storm as churchill called it was generally seen by most military personal as another upcoming drawn out war of trenches with higher emphisis on anti tank units within the regiments to nulify the ability to storm infantry up to a trench behind basically a moving shield. The reason german guns on tanks initially out classed allied tanks is largely due to this idea.
German blitz was designed for fast moving rapid action advance, something the line and basically the entire training of Frances army was unable to cope with and was untrained for. No one had ever seen it before and to ask them to come up with a defense after realizing the entire basis they have been training their military with is obsolete is asking a lot, especially in a few weeks. So yes, they got steam rolled, but don't think it was from lack of courage or preparation. They just prepared for the wrong kind of war.
WE WILL SAVE YOU GUYS WHEN YOU START IT UP NO WORRIES
SORRY
SORRY I CAN'T HEAR YOU
ARE THOSE SMOKE SIGNALS?
WE'LL COME IN WHEN YOU STOP SENDING THOSE
The hell we did.
Do you know how many missions the RAF (and maybe USAAF) flew to try and get supplies to the AK, and how many bombers and crews were lost? So many that they had to be stopped due to heavy losses, and because the USSR refused us airfields anywhere near Poland. Fuck, we flew missions from Italy to try and support the Poles, and there was no practical political way to get access to the required airfields.
The fortresses around Strasbourg are open for visit, by the way. With a bit of luck you'll get an Italian guy with a cool accent who will tell you all about how the Frenchies managed to defend their fortress for ages while the Blitz just moved around them.
Kind of late (didn't see the post), but I should have reworded it: I think they were afraid of the USSR and Japan formalizing relations (since they hadn't since the Russo-Japanese War?).
But yes, the USSR did honor their obligations (I think at Potsdam?), declaring war at the eleventh hour. Of course, that did help deal with the +1 million reserve troops in Manchuria.
The involvement of the USSR in the eastern theatre wasn't really something the US wanted. They knew it would mostly be a land grab that did little to hasten the surrender of the home islands, and they didn't want Stalin horning in on the post-war situation in Japan. And while there were a million or so troops in Manchuria, that was a paper strength. The fighting strength was maybe 3/4 that, and the best troops had all been removed to fight the Americans as they chewed through Okinawa and other islands. Also, the Japanese had done very little to fortify the country, and were, at least in the first few days, caught unprepared with very little in the way of prepared defences. They were poorly equipped and had very little in the way of air support or decent tanks. They were, as was usually the case, superb when they had dug in to defensive positions, but they were always going to be crushed under the Red Army.
And Evander, if you want to insult a country you could at least spell the derogatory term correctly. It not 'Pollacks', unless you're in some way making insulting statements about the actor Kevin Pollack's family and their involvement in the persecution of jews. There's only one 'L' in the term you're using, dearie.
(Darn, I got quoted before I finished editting. Small edit though.)
Of course, this has a great deal to do with the politics of the time. Despite the recognition of the Poles as a sort of "Nationality of Honor" (I think by Israel in the immediate decade post-war), I suspect both the Polish Home Army/nationalists, nor the Polish Communist Government set up by the Soviet Union had little interest in addressing the issu0e, and more with the matter of killing eachother. It's unfortunate, but the attitude seems to have been, "Everyone suffered, and we're very busy, so we have no intention of addressing it."
And there's the background racism. Historically speaking, Ukraine itself was the land of the pogroms (I think...but my history could be rusty), but even Moscow itself took an early position that the Holocaust was perpetrated against Germany's national enemies, rather than specifically the Jewish populations in those countries (though in the USSR, where +24 million die, more than half of them civilians, they have a convincing case). And this was before the government developed hostility towards Soviet Jews, leading to the "Doctor's Plot", et cetera.
It is, unfortunate, not an environment conducive to apologies and reconciliation.
The Polish Home Army was tracked down and killed/imprisoned after the war. They really couldn't do much.
That's not a secret (and also why I mentioned other nationalists who were incorporated into the new government). Then again, neither are their political alignments, with their understandably anti-left position putting them at odds with pretty much all Jewish resistance movements (at the same time, I'm not going to claim that all Polish nationalists were anti-Semites, but it would not be the first time that Catholic nationalism was tied to a distrust or outright hatred of Jews).
(On the subject of the Home Army specifically--I've read cases in which they've acted in support of Jews, such as supplying the Warsaw Pact with guns, as well as numerous cases where they deliberately acted against Jews for being, well, Jewish. And Soviet Jews, naturally, are as good to them dead as any other Soviets. So, kind of in the middle, I guess.)
They didn't act against the Jews for being Jewish, they acted against them because they worked with another occupying force, the Soviets. They invaded Poland too, and thought killing Polish Army Officers was good fun. I see no harm whatsoever in attacking groups which support the enemy.
(Darn, I got quoted before I finished editting. Small edit though.)
Of course, this has a great deal to do with the politics of the time. Despite the recognition of the Poles as a sort of "Nationality of Honor" (I think by Israel in the immediate decade post-war), I suspect both the Polish Home Army/nationalists, nor the Polish Communist Government set up by the Soviet Union had little interest in addressing the issu0e, and more with the matter of killing eachother. It's unfortunate, but the attitude seems to have been, "Everyone suffered, and we're very busy, so we have no intention of addressing it."
And there's the background racism. Historically speaking, Ukraine itself was the land of the pogroms (I think...but my history could be rusty), but even Moscow itself took an early position that the Holocaust was perpetrated against Germany's national enemies, rather than specifically the Jewish populations in those countries (though in the USSR, where +24 million die, more than half of them civilians, they have a convincing case). And this was before the government developed hostility towards Soviet Jews, leading to the "Doctor's Plot", et cetera.
It is, unfortunate, not an environment conducive to apologies and reconciliation.
The Polish Home Army was tracked down and killed/imprisoned after the war. They really couldn't do much.
That's not a secret (and also why I mentioned other nationalists who were incorporated into the new government). Then again, neither are their political alignments, with their understandably anti-left position putting them at odds with pretty much all Jewish resistance movements (at the same time, I'm not going to claim that all Polish nationalists were anti-Semites, but it would not be the first time that Catholic nationalism was tied to a distrust or outright hatred of Jews).
(On the subject of the Home Army specifically--I've read cases in which they've acted in support of Jews, such as supplying the Warsaw Pact with guns, as well as numerous cases where they deliberately acted against Jews for being, well, Jewish. And Soviet Jews, naturally, are as good to them dead as any other Soviets. So, kind of in the middle, I guess.)
They didn't act against the Jews for being Jewish, they acted against them because they worked with another occupying force, the Soviets. They invaded Poland too, and thought killing Polish Army Officers was good fun. I see no harm whatsoever in attacking groups which support the enemy.
Yes, but I do see harm in killing Jews for being Jews. For example, the Eishyshok Pogrom, where villagers were killed by the Home Army for the crime of being Jewish. Simply put, some Home Army officers thought killing Jews was good fun, and their sub-units acted as such. Not all of them, as I'll be the first to say.
They killed Jews in other countries too. And they also helped Jews. As I said, there were cases of both. What happened at Eishyshok is in no was representative of the entire Home Army, but it did happen.
Of course not all of them, though some did. The Pogroms were disgusting, and the people who participated in them are filth.
That article was a bit out there too. "Poland Without Jews" wasn't a popular slogan among the mainstream Home Army at all. The right wing section which opposed Jewish-Marxism and (falsely) saw all Jews as Soviet collaborator could definitely have said that. But to accuse the entire Home Army which specifically fought for Poles and Jews alike of such blatant antisemitism is ridiculous.
Phil G. on
0
RentI'm always rightFuckin' deal with itRegistered Userregular
Well, would you consider Stalin or Hitler the better alternative? By 1939 the Polish situation was that they were sandwiched between two nations that were both on some level inherently hostile towards the country's existence, so there was never going to be a pretty solution either way. Of course, they helped set it up themselves by participating in the dismembering of Czechoslovakia.
There was a pretty solution. It was to fight Germany and get help from Britain and France. Didn't work though.
Poland would have never taken help from the Soviets. They would have signed a pact with the Germans. Not the preferred solution but it was considered the lesser evil at the time.
Also Zaolzie was a dick move without a doubt, but I don't think Poland shares any responsibility for Munich, and the fall of Czechoslovakia. That one is all Chamberlain and Daladier.
How could that solution have worked out when France and Britain could not actually engage the German forces attacking Poland? By that Germany had actually gotten their Western defensive line running, and there would have been a long, hard slog any way you looked at it.
Concernign Poland's refusal - um, yeah, that's kind of what we were discussing, wasn't it? Their refusal to allow the one army that could have done some good to enter their territory was what doomed them.
By my understanding, although I'm aware hindsight is 20/20, Germany didn't have a very strong defence on the Western border in September 1939. Nearly all their motorised divisions were in Poland. Had France made a concerted effort at an offensive, they could have pushed pretty far into Germany.
Now maybe intelligence indicated stronger defences, I'm not sure, but my understanding is that the French Army were drowning in inertia and reluctant to go on the offensive anyway. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
I know we are off of France and it's decisions it made, but I just want to throw out an important part about Frances army and planned defense of it's country with regards to Germany. France's front line which was YEARS in the making and designing for completely stomping out a German advance was steam rolled, and when I say that, you can simply look up the dates of advance and casualty rates to understand just how effectively the main line was stomped out, to really understand just how effective the Blitz was against them. There was a reason this happened tho, it wasn't poor troops, untrained discipline or cowardly French unwilling to charge into Germany as tensions were mounting to halt an eventual assault on their country.
You need to remember the Blitz was a completely revolutionary assault that simply amalgamated all offensive units together in one swift effective assualt the likes of which the world had never seen. Artillery air and land support all coming together with hardened tanks to push the line continually forward. This is not the war France was prepared or could have invisioned. The line was a built in hardened set of bunkers with huge guns designed to repel what they saw during WW1. Trench warfare is what they prepared for, immobile dug in war. Hell the underground train system they had that went from bunker to bunker to supply and defend the whole line was one of the most complicated and advanced dug in defense in the world. I've watched actual footage of this line in action and it was increadible.
Had the germans advanced in the style of WW1 they wouldn't have set a single german foot within the French boarders that line would have knocked out the few advancing tanks with the built in anti tank weapons and mowed down the advancing infantry in mere hours. But thier greatest strength was the lines greatest weakness, it was dug in, unable to adjust or counter new attacks or tech sent their way. You simply can't pick up and move a defensive line that took you 10 years to build and was in place to stop a german assault coming FROM germany. By simply going around this line, suddenly your defenses are gone and you are stuck with a chaotic force of infantry who planned to shoot from bunkers and artillery and tanks that had already been assigned their firiing locations years before the germans arrived, all trying to reorganize and relocate to unprepared locations all over the north east france. The French goal was to draw german troops to the line should they get pushed back and slaughter them there. Simply going around this line never really occured to them. It should be pointed out as well that the upcoming storm as churchill called it was generally seen by most military personal as another upcoming drawn out war of trenches with higher emphisis on anti tank units within the regiments to nulify the ability to storm infantry up to a trench behind basically a moving shield. The reason german guns on tanks initially out classed allied tanks is largely due to this idea.
German blitz was designed for fast moving rapid action advance, something the line and basically the entire training of Frances army was unable to cope with and was untrained for. No one had ever seen it before and to ask them to come up with a defense after realizing the entire basis they have been training their military with is obsolete is asking a lot, especially in a few weeks. So yes, they got steam rolled, but don't think it was from lack of courage or preparation. They just prepared for the wrong kind of war.
http://www.amazon.com/Blitzkrieg-Myth-Misread-Strategic-Realities/dp/0060009764 would like to disagree with you. It's a good book, I wouldn't expect you to buy it but I bet you can get it through your local library and if you are into this kind of thing, it is a good rebuttal. He talks about the development of blitzkrieg operational and tactical thinking and how it was and was not applied in combat situations.
tl;dr: it was the more fault of the British than the French that the Germans broke through, and the blitzkrieg wasn't as slick as all the German officers who wrote their memoirs after the war would like you to think.
Of course not all of them, though some did. The Pogroms were disgusting, and the people who participated in them are filth.
That article was a bit out there too. "Poland Without Jews" wasn't a popular slogan among the mainstream Home Army at all. The right wing section which opposed Jewish-Marxism and (falsely) saw all Jews as Soviet collaborator could definitely have said that. But to accuse the entire Home Army which specifically fought for Poles and Jews alike of such blatant antisemitism is ridiculous.
For one person who was nearly annihilated for being Jewish, the distinction might not be all that important, for better at worse. And as I've said multiple times, there are cases of the Home Army assisting Jews (such at Warsaw).
That being said, I don't want to blow this out of proportion and claim that the entirety of the Home Army was anti-Semitic to the point of violence. And I haven't. At the same time, I'm not going to buy into those who claim incidents like Eishyshok were completely fictitious, and just attempts by the Judeo-Communist Conspiracy to slander Polish patriotism. The case that commanders in the Home Army, acting with a certain amount of personal freedom, had the choice of murdering Jews or helping them, and some took the former while others took the later, seems to be the most realistic answer. That, and Armies of every nationality marching in wartime often commit wanton atrocities for any number of reasons.
I've heard "Poland without Jews" before, myself, in research, but I don't think it was by any means a slogan of the whole Army...but it's appeared sufficiently to convince me that a number (by no means all) members of the Home Army saw the Jews as their enemy, regardless of political affiliation.
tl;dr: it was the more fault of the British than the French that the Germans broke through, and the blitzkrieg wasn't as slick as all the German officers who wrote their memoirs after the war would like you to think.
It was Britain's fault that France was successfully invaded? Really?
Looking at the book and reactions to it it seems that his arguments are not particularly well-supported by evidence.
Of course not all of them, though some did. The Pogroms were disgusting, and the people who participated in them are filth.
That article was a bit out there too. "Poland Without Jews" wasn't a popular slogan among the mainstream Home Army at all. The right wing section which opposed Jewish-Marxism and (falsely) saw all Jews as Soviet collaborator could definitely have said that. But to accuse the entire Home Army which specifically fought for Poles and Jews alike of such blatant antisemitism is ridiculous.
For one person who was nearly annihilated for being Jewish, the distinction might not be all that important, for better at worse. And as I've said multiple times, there are cases of the Home Army assisting Jews (such at Warsaw).
That being said, I don't want to blow this out of proportion and claim that the entirety of the Home Army was anti-Semitic to the point of violence. And I haven't. At the same time, I'm not going to buy into those who claim incidents like Eishyshok were completely fictitious, and just attempts by the Judeo-Communist Conspiracy to slander Polish patriotism. The case that commanders in the Home Army, acting with a certain amount of personal freedom, had the choice of murdering Jews or helping them, and some took the former while others took the later, seems to be the most realistic answer. That, and Armies of every nationality marching in wartime often commit wanton atrocities for any number of reasons.
I've heard "Poland without Jews" before, myself, in research, but I don't think it was by any means a slogan of the whole Army...but it's appeared sufficiently to convince me that a number (by no means all) members of the Home Army saw the Jews as their enemy, regardless of political affiliation.
It was more than just cases of them assisting Jews . The home army had a policy of killing collaborators of any kind, especially Jew extortionists. They helped Zegota as much as they could, they provided arms and food to Jewish resistance groups. These actions continued throughout the war.
It also has to be recognized that many Jewish Resistance group members who claim that the Home Army ran around killing Jews for fun are overlooking some things. Many Jewish resistance groups allied with the Soviets, who also invaded Poland. The Home Army could rightfully consider groups that support a regime which murdered thousands of POWs as enemies. Some Jewish Resistance groups were also part of Soviet/Ukrainian/Belorussian partisan groups that committed massacres against Poles for being Poles.
tl;dr: it was the more fault of the British than the French that the Germans broke through, and the blitzkrieg wasn't as slick as all the German officers who wrote their memoirs after the war would like you to think.
It was Britain's fault that France was successfully invaded? Really?
Looking at the book and reactions to it it seems that his arguments are not particularly well-supported by evidence.
It's actually a hotly debated book. 2 Years ago it was required reading in my Western Front class at university. Although probably not for the reasons Bogart was hoping. It is in fact a well thought out book and does have good arguments but its written through a purely subjective view and is written more like a history student writes in first year. Just takes a bunch of points that all adhere to his overall thesis and use it to back up what he is saying while leaving out and omitting any counter points and has no real opposing views in it. Most historians especially military vehemously despise this book, and the reasons start at missed facts to crazy conspiracy crap, oh the british don't want to admit how weak it really was because it would show their forces at the time were weak, blablabla. The reasons why people don't like the points of this book alone cause serious strife and arguement over just how rediculous some of the points thrown out there to credit/discredit the book are from people. The book itself isn't really what we studied anyway, it was more the re-evaluation of history 60 years later and how views and opinions can change through a number of different means and causes.
Don't get me wrong Bogart, I have read this book and I actually still own it on my WW2 shelf. This isn't the only book like this, there are two others I had to read for class although their points of why the blitz wasn't as effective as advertised were all varying, the views are definitely out there.
Just a side question tho, how did you come across this and why did you read it? It's one of those books i've only ever really seen floating around history profs shelves or assigned readings as an example of historical re-evaluation.
Of course not all of them, though some did. The Pogroms were disgusting, and the people who participated in them are filth.
That article was a bit out there too. "Poland Without Jews" wasn't a popular slogan among the mainstream Home Army at all. The right wing section which opposed Jewish-Marxism and (falsely) saw all Jews as Soviet collaborator could definitely have said that. But to accuse the entire Home Army which specifically fought for Poles and Jews alike of such blatant antisemitism is ridiculous.
For one person who was nearly annihilated for being Jewish, the distinction might not be all that important, for better at worse. And as I've said multiple times, there are cases of the Home Army assisting Jews (such at Warsaw).
That being said, I don't want to blow this out of proportion and claim that the entirety of the Home Army was anti-Semitic to the point of violence. And I haven't. At the same time, I'm not going to buy into those who claim incidents like Eishyshok were completely fictitious, and just attempts by the Judeo-Communist Conspiracy to slander Polish patriotism. The case that commanders in the Home Army, acting with a certain amount of personal freedom, had the choice of murdering Jews or helping them, and some took the former while others took the later, seems to be the most realistic answer. That, and Armies of every nationality marching in wartime often commit wanton atrocities for any number of reasons.
I've heard "Poland without Jews" before, myself, in research, but I don't think it was by any means a slogan of the whole Army...but it's appeared sufficiently to convince me that a number (by no means all) members of the Home Army saw the Jews as their enemy, regardless of political affiliation.
It was more than just cases of them assisting Jews . The home army had a policy of killing collaborators of any kind, especially Jew extortionists. They helped Zegota as much as they could, they provided arms and food to Jewish resistance groups. These actions continued throughout the war.
It also has to be recognized that many Jewish Resistance group members who claim that the Home Army ran around killing Jews for fun are overlooking some things. Many Jewish resistance groups allied with the Soviets, who also invaded Poland. The Home Army could rightfully consider groups that support a regime which murdered thousands of POWs as enemies. Some Jewish Resistance groups were also part of Soviet/Hungarian/Belorussian partisan groups that committed massacres against Poles for being Poles.
I don't doubt it in the least. And I don't deny that Hungarian and Soviet-aligned Partisans (Byelorussia was part of the USSR, remember) included Jews (including recruited Polish Jews, making this all the more complicated) as partisans. Indeed, a lot of them were decorated extensively by Moscow after the war. Though of course, not every Polish Catholic or Polish Jew is a partisan. At Eishyshok, for example, those Jews were probably far more loyal to Poland, for what it was worth, than they were the USSR (given their location in Lithuania). That was not a factor in that commander's decision, nor was the fact that they were armed (and again, his decision was not representative of the entire Home Army).
I've heard cases of Soviet partisans, including Jews, killing Polish sympathizers plenty of times, armed or unarmed. I'm sure this included Jews, even in a very small minority. And, of course, the USSR was war with Germany, and no one would dispute that Poles serving in the German Armed Forces, for whatever reason, were legitimate targets (or vice versa).
Some Polish Home Army officers happened to consider all leftist Jews (though not all leftist Poles, as there were leftist elements in the Home Army, I would expect) enemies to be killed immediately as well. Some, as Eishyshok shows, extended that to mean all Jews. And many such Jewish Resistance groups, as you said, saw the Home Army as their enemy.
Oh absolutely, but I think horses would still have their uses when you don't want to come flying over blasting Ride of the Valkyries from your boombox.
Yeah but you'll always want to do that
The Black Hunter on
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The Black HunterThe key is a minimum of compromise, and a simple,unimpeachable reason to existRegistered Userregular
WE WILL SAVE YOU GUYS WHEN YOU START IT UP NO WORRIES
SORRY
SORRY I CAN'T HEAR YOU
ARE THOSE SMOKE SIGNALS?
WE'LL COME IN WHEN YOU STOP SENDING THOSE
The hell we did.
Do you know how many missions the RAF (and maybe USAAF) flew to try and get supplies to the AK, and how many bombers and crews were lost? So many that they had to be stopped due to heavy losses, and because the USSR refused us airfields anywhere near Poland. Fuck, we flew missions from Italy to try and support the Poles, and there was no practical political way to get access to the required airfields.
(I was talking from the russian POV
I know all about the massive air drops)
WE WILL SAVE YOU GUYS WHEN YOU START IT UP NO WORRIES
SORRY
SORRY I CAN'T HEAR YOU
ARE THOSE SMOKE SIGNALS?
WE'LL COME IN WHEN YOU STOP SENDING THOSE
The hell we did.
Do you know how many missions the RAF (and maybe USAAF) flew to try and get supplies to the AK, and how many bombers and crews were lost? So many that they had to be stopped due to heavy losses, and because the USSR refused us airfields anywhere near Poland. Fuck, we flew missions from Italy to try and support the Poles, and there was no practical political way to get access to the required airfields.
(I was talking from the russian POV
I know all about the massive air drops)
To be fair, once the U-Boat threat was neutralized (and, indeed, before, since there existing Pacific Routes and the Soviets had a very comprehensive nation-wide railroad system), the USSR benefited enormously from the large amount of materials and low-end machinery (jeeps, cranes, trucks) that they received from the United States.
Not as much as they would have benefited from a second front in, say, 1942 or even earlier, but hey, you take what help you can get. A Second Front (as unlikely as it would have been) might have also resulted in the Soviets not getting into Berlin first, for better or worse.
But yes, even Stalin publicly admitted that the worse would have been most likely lost without American assistance in that regard. I sort of wonder, since the Soviets seemed to demonstrate that they would literally fight all the way to Vladivostok if they had to (they had already evacuated Moscow, after all), but it's useless to speculate. The reverse could be said to--given the American need to focus on the Pacific Front, having 4/5 of all German (and their allies) men and machinery permanently assigned to the Eastern Front certainly was a game-changer. Without that factor, the European War may have ended differently--especially since the USSR had been a major supplier of raw materials and oil to Germany right up to Operation Barbarossa.
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
Oh absolutely, but I think horses would still have their uses when you don't want to come flying over blasting Ride of the Valkyries from your boombox.
tl;dr: it was the more fault of the British than the French that the Germans broke through, and the blitzkrieg wasn't as slick as all the German officers who wrote their memoirs after the war would like you to think.
It was Britain's fault that France was successfully invaded? Really?
Looking at the book and reactions to it it seems that his arguments are not particularly well-supported by evidence.
It was British troops who held the left flank of the Allied line, and while the French were standing and fighting and doing a decent job of holding against the Germans, the British were crumbling and retreating, allowing the Germans to flank the French line and the rest being history. The book is definitely ehhh on some of the evidence, and he completely ignores any counterarguments against his position, as TonyTheLeper said, but it is a viewpoint which I think should be considered, especially because the conventional wisdom is based on just as shaky evidence - German generals after the war telling everybody about how cool they were and the stereotype that the French got their tails whipped because the French suck at war. I dunno, I figured someone in the thread might be into WWII military history and that they would appreciate a suggestion of an interesting, if imperfect, book. This is way OT, so I'll stop posting about it.
That is a pretty ridiculous analysis of the Battle of France. The breakthrough at Sedan and Meuse was against French troops, and was designed to cut off the Belgian, French and British troops wheeling through Belgium in a doomed effort to support the badly-pressed forces there. The BEF didn't win much glory for themselves in the battle (unlike, say, the French 1st army at Lille, who were amazing), but it's just plain bullshit to suggest that they were the swinging gate through which the Germans were able to conquer France.
Perhaps the most telling argument against blaming the British for the defeat in the Battle of France is that the French aren't doing so. And if the British were culpable for their most inglorious hour you can bet we'd have never heard the fucking end of it.
I would say that the Wests actions in regards to Poland and eastern Europe in general where less than exemplary. However, they obviously couldn't have magically prevent the Nazi invasion or pushed out Russia. So the worst of it is really just Russia's fault.
HamHamJ on
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
I would say that the Wests actions in regards to Poland and eastern Europe in general where less than exemplary. However, they obviously couldn't have magically prevent the Nazi invasion or pushed out Russia. So the worst of it is really just Russia's fault.
I would say it would vary from location to location, though in Poland's case, the USSR was much to blame. But or other parts of the east that had it even worse...say, Belarus and the Ukraine (and, obviously, Russia itself) were very nearly thrown to the wolves by the Western Allies' decision to delay until 1944.
Of course, they could have done worse. Many were in favor of a hands-off approach, to whether Germany or the USSR would annihilate one another if left to their own devices. Thankfully, that suggestion didn't win out. And there were reasons to wait to 1944 (I doubt Soviets considered the lives of British or Americans worth that much either).
It could be said that the West failed Yugoslavia too, but given how quickly Belgrade fell, I don't know if it would have made much of a difference anyway. If memory serves, they failed to supply even the most basic support to the Yugoslavian Partisans, unlike the USSR, but from a logistical standpoint, I can't really figure out how they would (maybe when Germany was driven out of Africa?). Only the Chetniks were recognized by the West I think (because of their royalist standpoint), and by the time it happened, many of them were known to be collaborates with Germany and Italy if the money was high enough. The Chetniks were finally recognized for what they were (though I'm sure some of them genuinely wanted to fight the Axis) by '43 or so, and by then, it was a little late to be helping the Partisans. It could just be as simple as the Soviets knew who would actually fight the Germans, and the British did not.
Oh hell, maybe this is irrelevant given Yugoslavia's location. The thread topic isn't "How badly did we screw over Southern Europe?", and we haven't really talked too much about Yugoslavia, so maybe someone better informed could elaborate. My own knowledge is probably incomplete.
A couple of years ago I went to Hungary, and learned much of what happened to the country in the aftermath of World War II. One of our guides told us how she was on a tight leash when she visited Ireland once, with a limited allowed time out of the country. We visited the Museum of Terror, which was a really horrible place that highlighted what the Soviets did to the country and the people, centreing around the 1956 revolution. Even if the western powers wanted to help Hungary, Poland and the other countries badly affected by the war and Soviet occupation, what could they do? They were hardly in a position to dictate to the Russians what they should do with their newly-occupied territory, and a military solution was completely out of the question.
It was a sad, horrible thing that in an ideal world would never have happened... but then, if it were an ideal world, none of the world wars would have occurred in the first place.
Rohan on
...and I thought of how all those people died, and what a good death that is. That nobody can blame you for it, because everyone else died along with you, and it is the fault of none, save those who did the killing.
I would say that the Wests actions in regards to Poland and eastern Europe in general where less than exemplary. However, they obviously couldn't have magically prevent the Nazi invasion or pushed out Russia. So the worst of it is really just Russia's fault.
I would say it would vary from location to location, though in Poland's case, the USSR was much to blame. But or other parts of the east that had it even worse...say, Belarus and the Ukraine (and, obviously, Russia itself) were very nearly thrown to the wolves by the Western Allies' decision to delay until 1944.
Could they have pulled off DD before 1944 though? What I've seen and read gives me the impression that they really weren't ready earlier.
HamHamJ on
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
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Are you talking about the one that was put in place by the Soviets after the war? I'm pretty sure most Poles don't believe them exactly legitimate.
Remember, this government tracked down members of the Home Army and Polish Government in exile and executed them.
Oh, and everyone's shit was stolen after the war. It isn't an excuse, but think that it wasn't exactly easy to return people's items when those people aren't exactly alive anymore.
I'm not saying that there were no evil Poles, but remember that Poland had the harshest laws about helping Jews (Automatic execution for any aid given to Jews). And it still had the highest number of Righteous Among the Nations. And the Home Army executed any and all collaborators. And it took dozens of people keeping quiet to save Jews, and only one to expose them.
That is a bullshit line to wait until most of the survivors have died and then pull out. There have been attempts at returning property and reparations for DECADES.
Okay, I'm not going to flat-out agree with Evander here, but to automatically assume that the racism between Polish Catholics and Polish Jews was just simmering in the background, and had no effect on how occupied Poland treated its Jews...just seems implausible.
Racist hatred, and the use of it to justify theft (much less forced migration or murder) being so incredibly common throughout Europe and much of the world at the time, to say that Polish Catholics are somehow an exception to the rule seems a little naive.
Don't get me wrong--I agree that they didn't have many options, nor did the Jews. But the conspiracy of reasons, so to speak--the fear that Jews, some of which had good relations with their neighbors, might return to Poland and claim their property (made all the more valuable by the destruction of the war), the spreading of 'blood libel' accusations, and the popularization of the Judeo-Bolshevik conspiracy (even going to actual things that existed, like the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee)--would suggest that there was no shortage of racism and violence against Jews, even if those reasons were not necessarily deeply rooted in Polish culture.
I think it's quite clear why Evander really cares about this.
Is this the comprehensive post to which you refer? Forgive me for wanting you to come out and speak your mind, rather than just hinting at it until someone else mentions it (you're welcome) so you can jump on in.
Whoa, I didn't even notice that post.
They got what they deserved?
Are you fucking serious?
My family employed many non-Jews in the town of Kozienice. There was definitely resentment there at the fact that they were "forced" to be working for a Jew.
I have no interest in having possession of that lumber yard (or whatever is there now) turned over to me. I have no interested in ever returning to Poland, either. All that i want is a sincere recognition that wrongs were committed.
My grandfather deserved reparations. When he died in 2006, the reparations window closed, in my opinion. I don't deserve monetary recompense, but i DO deserve recognition of what occured.
Is it about the authorities or random fuckwads who the authorities had limited realistic possibility of tracking down in a ravaged post-war Poland Evander? Much less recover stolen goods from?
Pick one already.
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I think what I'm going to do is take down names here, because I expect to see ALL of you running to Israel's defense against palestine next time the topic comes up, because it was a tough situation with the english, and what else could the israelis do?
(For the record, I DO support Palestinian reparations, as with all else, though, I hold the caveat that attacks on civilians need to end first.)
(Darn, I got quoted before I finished editting. Small edit though.)
Of course, this has a great deal to do with the politics of the time. Despite the recognition of the Poles as a sort of "Nationality of Honor" (I think by Israel in the immediate decade post-war), I suspect both the Polish Home Army/nationalists, nor the Polish Communist Government set up by the Soviet Union had little interest in addressing the issu0e, and more with the matter of killing eachother. It's unfortunate, but the attitude seems to have been, "Everyone suffered, and we're very busy, so we have no intention of addressing it."
And there's the background racism. Historically speaking, Ukraine itself was the land of the pogroms (I think...but my history could be rusty), but even Moscow itself took an early position that the Holocaust was perpetrated against Germany's national enemies, rather than specifically the Jewish populations in those countries (though in the USSR, where +24 million die, more than half of them civilians, they have a convincing case). And this was before the government developed hostility towards Soviet Jews, leading to the "Doctor's Plot", et cetera.
It is, unfortunate, not an environment conducive to apologies and reconciliation.
The Polish Home Army was tracked down and killed/imprisoned after the war. They really couldn't do much.
http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showpost.php?p=11673050&postcount=1571
I tried going into Sar-El, but I couldn't scrape together the ticket money.
That's not a secret (and also why I mentioned other nationalists who were incorporated into the new government). Then again, neither are their political alignments, with their understandably anti-left position putting them at odds with pretty much all Jewish resistance movements (at the same time, I'm not going to claim that all Polish nationalists were anti-Semites, but it would not be the first time that Catholic nationalism was tied to a distrust or outright hatred of Jews).
(On the subject of the Home Army specifically--I've read cases in which they've acted in support of Jews, such as supplying the Warsaw Pact with guns, as well as numerous cases where they deliberately acted against Jews for being, well, Jewish. And Soviet Jews, naturally, are as good to them dead as any other Soviets. So, kind of in the middle, I guess.)
What a breathtaking non-position :rotate:
I support nuclear disarmament, but only if the other guys disarm first.
I support greenhouse gas reduction, but only if the other guys enact legislation first.
It's a complete avoidance of responsibility by one party to shift all responsibility to the other.
I know we are off of France and it's decisions it made, but I just want to throw out an important part about Frances army and planned defense of it's country with regards to Germany. France's front line which was YEARS in the making and designing for completely stomping out a German advance was steam rolled, and when I say that, you can simply look up the dates of advance and casualty rates to understand just how effectively the main line was stomped out, to really understand just how effective the Blitz was against them. There was a reason this happened tho, it wasn't poor troops, untrained discipline or cowardly French unwilling to charge into Germany as tensions were mounting to halt an eventual assault on their country.
You need to remember the Blitz was a completely revolutionary assault that simply amalgamated all offensive units together in one swift effective assualt the likes of which the world had never seen. Artillery air and land support all coming together with hardened tanks to push the line continually forward. This is not the war France was prepared or could have invisioned. The line was a built in hardened set of bunkers with huge guns designed to repel what they saw during WW1. Trench warfare is what they prepared for, immobile dug in war. Hell the underground train system they had that went from bunker to bunker to supply and defend the whole line was one of the most complicated and advanced dug in defense in the world. I've watched actual footage of this line in action and it was increadible.
Had the germans advanced in the style of WW1 they wouldn't have set a single german foot within the French boarders that line would have knocked out the few advancing tanks with the built in anti tank weapons and mowed down the advancing infantry in mere hours. But thier greatest strength was the lines greatest weakness, it was dug in, unable to adjust or counter new attacks or tech sent their way. You simply can't pick up and move a defensive line that took you 10 years to build and was in place to stop a german assault coming FROM germany. By simply going around this line, suddenly your defenses are gone and you are stuck with a chaotic force of infantry who planned to shoot from bunkers and artillery and tanks that had already been assigned their firiing locations years before the germans arrived, all trying to reorganize and relocate to unprepared locations all over the north east france. The French goal was to draw german troops to the line should they get pushed back and slaughter them there. Simply going around this line never really occured to them. It should be pointed out as well that the upcoming storm as churchill called it was generally seen by most military personal as another upcoming drawn out war of trenches with higher emphisis on anti tank units within the regiments to nulify the ability to storm infantry up to a trench behind basically a moving shield. The reason german guns on tanks initially out classed allied tanks is largely due to this idea.
German blitz was designed for fast moving rapid action advance, something the line and basically the entire training of Frances army was unable to cope with and was untrained for. No one had ever seen it before and to ask them to come up with a defense after realizing the entire basis they have been training their military with is obsolete is asking a lot, especially in a few weeks. So yes, they got steam rolled, but don't think it was from lack of courage or preparation. They just prepared for the wrong kind of war.
The hell we did.
Do you know how many missions the RAF (and maybe USAAF) flew to try and get supplies to the AK, and how many bombers and crews were lost? So many that they had to be stopped due to heavy losses, and because the USSR refused us airfields anywhere near Poland. Fuck, we flew missions from Italy to try and support the Poles, and there was no practical political way to get access to the required airfields.
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The involvement of the USSR in the eastern theatre wasn't really something the US wanted. They knew it would mostly be a land grab that did little to hasten the surrender of the home islands, and they didn't want Stalin horning in on the post-war situation in Japan. And while there were a million or so troops in Manchuria, that was a paper strength. The fighting strength was maybe 3/4 that, and the best troops had all been removed to fight the Americans as they chewed through Okinawa and other islands. Also, the Japanese had done very little to fortify the country, and were, at least in the first few days, caught unprepared with very little in the way of prepared defences. They were poorly equipped and had very little in the way of air support or decent tanks. They were, as was usually the case, superb when they had dug in to defensive positions, but they were always going to be crushed under the Red Army.
And Evander, if you want to insult a country you could at least spell the derogatory term correctly. It not 'Pollacks', unless you're in some way making insulting statements about the actor Kevin Pollack's family and their involvement in the persecution of jews. There's only one 'L' in the term you're using, dearie.
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They didn't act against the Jews for being Jewish, they acted against them because they worked with another occupying force, the Soviets. They invaded Poland too, and thought killing Polish Army Officers was good fun. I see no harm whatsoever in attacking groups which support the enemy.
Yes, but I do see harm in killing Jews for being Jews. For example, the Eishyshok Pogrom, where villagers were killed by the Home Army for the crime of being Jewish. Simply put, some Home Army officers thought killing Jews was good fun, and their sub-units acted as such. Not all of them, as I'll be the first to say.
They killed Jews in other countries too. And they also helped Jews. As I said, there were cases of both. What happened at Eishyshok is in no was representative of the entire Home Army, but it did happen.
That article was a bit out there too. "Poland Without Jews" wasn't a popular slogan among the mainstream Home Army at all. The right wing section which opposed Jewish-Marxism and (falsely) saw all Jews as Soviet collaborator could definitely have said that. But to accuse the entire Home Army which specifically fought for Poles and Jews alike of such blatant antisemitism is ridiculous.
Quid I love you
Awesome'd
http://www.amazon.com/Blitzkrieg-Myth-Misread-Strategic-Realities/dp/0060009764 would like to disagree with you. It's a good book, I wouldn't expect you to buy it but I bet you can get it through your local library and if you are into this kind of thing, it is a good rebuttal. He talks about the development of blitzkrieg operational and tactical thinking and how it was and was not applied in combat situations.
tl;dr: it was the more fault of the British than the French that the Germans broke through, and the blitzkrieg wasn't as slick as all the German officers who wrote their memoirs after the war would like you to think.
For one person who was nearly annihilated for being Jewish, the distinction might not be all that important, for better at worse. And as I've said multiple times, there are cases of the Home Army assisting Jews (such at Warsaw).
That being said, I don't want to blow this out of proportion and claim that the entirety of the Home Army was anti-Semitic to the point of violence. And I haven't. At the same time, I'm not going to buy into those who claim incidents like Eishyshok were completely fictitious, and just attempts by the Judeo-Communist Conspiracy to slander Polish patriotism. The case that commanders in the Home Army, acting with a certain amount of personal freedom, had the choice of murdering Jews or helping them, and some took the former while others took the later, seems to be the most realistic answer. That, and Armies of every nationality marching in wartime often commit wanton atrocities for any number of reasons.
I've heard "Poland without Jews" before, myself, in research, but I don't think it was by any means a slogan of the whole Army...but it's appeared sufficiently to convince me that a number (by no means all) members of the Home Army saw the Jews as their enemy, regardless of political affiliation.
It was Britain's fault that France was successfully invaded? Really?
Looking at the book and reactions to it it seems that his arguments are not particularly well-supported by evidence.
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It was more than just cases of them assisting Jews . The home army had a policy of killing collaborators of any kind, especially Jew extortionists. They helped Zegota as much as they could, they provided arms and food to Jewish resistance groups. These actions continued throughout the war.
It also has to be recognized that many Jewish Resistance group members who claim that the Home Army ran around killing Jews for fun are overlooking some things. Many Jewish resistance groups allied with the Soviets, who also invaded Poland. The Home Army could rightfully consider groups that support a regime which murdered thousands of POWs as enemies. Some Jewish Resistance groups were also part of Soviet/Ukrainian/Belorussian partisan groups that committed massacres against Poles for being Poles.
It's actually a hotly debated book. 2 Years ago it was required reading in my Western Front class at university. Although probably not for the reasons Bogart was hoping. It is in fact a well thought out book and does have good arguments but its written through a purely subjective view and is written more like a history student writes in first year. Just takes a bunch of points that all adhere to his overall thesis and use it to back up what he is saying while leaving out and omitting any counter points and has no real opposing views in it. Most historians especially military vehemously despise this book, and the reasons start at missed facts to crazy conspiracy crap, oh the british don't want to admit how weak it really was because it would show their forces at the time were weak, blablabla. The reasons why people don't like the points of this book alone cause serious strife and arguement over just how rediculous some of the points thrown out there to credit/discredit the book are from people. The book itself isn't really what we studied anyway, it was more the re-evaluation of history 60 years later and how views and opinions can change through a number of different means and causes.
Don't get me wrong Bogart, I have read this book and I actually still own it on my WW2 shelf. This isn't the only book like this, there are two others I had to read for class although their points of why the blitz wasn't as effective as advertised were all varying, the views are definitely out there.
Just a side question tho, how did you come across this and why did you read it? It's one of those books i've only ever really seen floating around history profs shelves or assigned readings as an example of historical re-evaluation.
I don't doubt it in the least. And I don't deny that Hungarian and Soviet-aligned Partisans (Byelorussia was part of the USSR, remember) included Jews (including recruited Polish Jews, making this all the more complicated) as partisans. Indeed, a lot of them were decorated extensively by Moscow after the war. Though of course, not every Polish Catholic or Polish Jew is a partisan. At Eishyshok, for example, those Jews were probably far more loyal to Poland, for what it was worth, than they were the USSR (given their location in Lithuania). That was not a factor in that commander's decision, nor was the fact that they were armed (and again, his decision was not representative of the entire Home Army).
I've heard cases of Soviet partisans, including Jews, killing Polish sympathizers plenty of times, armed or unarmed. I'm sure this included Jews, even in a very small minority. And, of course, the USSR was war with Germany, and no one would dispute that Poles serving in the German Armed Forces, for whatever reason, were legitimate targets (or vice versa).
Some Polish Home Army officers happened to consider all leftist Jews (though not all leftist Poles, as there were leftist elements in the Home Army, I would expect) enemies to be killed immediately as well. Some, as Eishyshok shows, extended that to mean all Jews. And many such Jewish Resistance groups, as you said, saw the Home Army as their enemy.
People are dicks.
In the context of warfare and other circumstances, yes, I'd agree.
People are dicks.
A lot of people tend to overlook one side of the coin.
Yeah but you'll always want to do that
(I was talking from the russian POV
I know all about the massive air drops)
To be fair, once the U-Boat threat was neutralized (and, indeed, before, since there existing Pacific Routes and the Soviets had a very comprehensive nation-wide railroad system), the USSR benefited enormously from the large amount of materials and low-end machinery (jeeps, cranes, trucks) that they received from the United States.
Not as much as they would have benefited from a second front in, say, 1942 or even earlier, but hey, you take what help you can get. A Second Front (as unlikely as it would have been) might have also resulted in the Soviets not getting into Berlin first, for better or worse.
But yes, even Stalin publicly admitted that the worse would have been most likely lost without American assistance in that regard. I sort of wonder, since the Soviets seemed to demonstrate that they would literally fight all the way to Vladivostok if they had to (they had already evacuated Moscow, after all), but it's useless to speculate. The reverse could be said to--given the American need to focus on the Pacific Front, having 4/5 of all German (and their allies) men and machinery permanently assigned to the Eastern Front certainly was a game-changer. Without that factor, the European War may have ended differently--especially since the USSR had been a major supplier of raw materials and oil to Germany right up to Operation Barbarossa.
Meh, Ode to Joy is better.
It was British troops who held the left flank of the Allied line, and while the French were standing and fighting and doing a decent job of holding against the Germans, the British were crumbling and retreating, allowing the Germans to flank the French line and the rest being history. The book is definitely ehhh on some of the evidence, and he completely ignores any counterarguments against his position, as TonyTheLeper said, but it is a viewpoint which I think should be considered, especially because the conventional wisdom is based on just as shaky evidence - German generals after the war telling everybody about how cool they were and the stereotype that the French got their tails whipped because the French suck at war. I dunno, I figured someone in the thread might be into WWII military history and that they would appreciate a suggestion of an interesting, if imperfect, book. This is way OT, so I'll stop posting about it.
Perhaps the most telling argument against blaming the British for the defeat in the Battle of France is that the French aren't doing so. And if the British were culpable for their most inglorious hour you can bet we'd have never heard the fucking end of it.
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I would say it would vary from location to location, though in Poland's case, the USSR was much to blame. But or other parts of the east that had it even worse...say, Belarus and the Ukraine (and, obviously, Russia itself) were very nearly thrown to the wolves by the Western Allies' decision to delay until 1944.
Of course, they could have done worse. Many were in favor of a hands-off approach, to whether Germany or the USSR would annihilate one another if left to their own devices. Thankfully, that suggestion didn't win out. And there were reasons to wait to 1944 (I doubt Soviets considered the lives of British or Americans worth that much either).
It could be said that the West failed Yugoslavia too, but given how quickly Belgrade fell, I don't know if it would have made much of a difference anyway. If memory serves, they failed to supply even the most basic support to the Yugoslavian Partisans, unlike the USSR, but from a logistical standpoint, I can't really figure out how they would (maybe when Germany was driven out of Africa?). Only the Chetniks were recognized by the West I think (because of their royalist standpoint), and by the time it happened, many of them were known to be collaborates with Germany and Italy if the money was high enough. The Chetniks were finally recognized for what they were (though I'm sure some of them genuinely wanted to fight the Axis) by '43 or so, and by then, it was a little late to be helping the Partisans. It could just be as simple as the Soviets knew who would actually fight the Germans, and the British did not.
Oh hell, maybe this is irrelevant given Yugoslavia's location. The thread topic isn't "How badly did we screw over Southern Europe?", and we haven't really talked too much about Yugoslavia, so maybe someone better informed could elaborate. My own knowledge is probably incomplete.
It was a sad, horrible thing that in an ideal world would never have happened... but then, if it were an ideal world, none of the world wars would have occurred in the first place.
Nothing's forgotten, nothing is ever forgotten
Could they have pulled off DD before 1944 though? What I've seen and read gives me the impression that they really weren't ready earlier.