Thread: How large was America's role in WW1 and WW2?

Originally Posted by ViPER

you didn't even have to be German to be recruited under the service of the Nazi's - making them Nazi troops.

Not quite. There was even a term for these soldiers: Freiwilligen

Originally Posted by Sulayman

The vast majority of the Confederate soldiers fought to maintain slavery in the South even if they would never be able to afford or didn't want to own slaves themselves. There's no doubt about that. The South fought for slavery and nothing else. Since the war there has sprung up a guilty little industry trying to convince people that they fought to defend "States Rights". The right they were fighting for was the right to own Africans.

Slavery was the catalyst, no doubt. However the issue being fought over was far larger than simply slavery.

Originally Posted by ViPER

btw, Hitlers third Reich and the previous German Empire are not the same. The USA would not be the USA if Mickey Mouse declared a dictatorship.

It indeed was a continuation of that Reich given the fact that Hitler came to power within the framework of that Reich.

Originally Posted by ThorHammer

Not quite. There was even a term for these soldiers: Freiwilligen

Active 1940 -1945
Country Nazi Germany
Allegiance Adolf Hitler
Branch Waffen SS
Size Division

Yes.

Germans - no
Nazi's - maybe, maybe not
Nazi troops - yes

Originally Posted by reality

sorry dude, it just wasn't that important to me.

i don't mean it as an insult, merely a statement of fact. They were Nazi controlled troops. They were troops that fought for the nazi reich. They swore a personal oath of loyalty to the LEADER OF THE NAZIS for petes sake.

dude its a fact. They fought FOR the nazis, making them nazi troops. I know thats kinda a dirty word, but everyones got their skeletons in the closet.

if members of your family fought for the german army in ww2 they most definitely WERE nazi troops. If they didn't want to be associated with the nazis, they shouldn't have fought a war for them.

um ok..... is that supposed to be an insult or what? cause i don't give a fuck dude. I don't follow orders well, the army is not for me. And there hasn't been an invasion of my nation or anything like that that would make me join up. i was about 12 or 13 when 9/11 happened and by the time i couldve joined the war had become a total clusterfuck ruled over by retards who won't let our troops do their damn jobs. ive no intentions of joining a clusterfuck, nor do i need to. War is not the profession i wish to engage in.

"I swear by God this sacred oath that I shall render unconditional obedience to Adolf Hitler, the Führer of the German Reich, supreme commander of the armed forces, and that I shall at all times be prepared, as a brave soldier, to give my life for this oath."

Strange not one simple mentioning of the word Nazi (or Adolph Hitler being the head of the NSDAP) in the oath.

Don't get me wrong, the oath on the head of state was new, wrong and a break from German military tradition, but it was still an oath to the head of state, not the head of a party. That both later meant the same is clear due to the nature of the regime being a totalitarian dictatorship.

Anyway love your college (?) kid black and white logic, about my family members having much of a choice, whether to fight or not:rolleyes:

By the way mentioning the fact that you have't served was not meant as an insult. It just helped to make me understand your stand on things (e.g what motivates soldiers, what they care about and so on) and given your age the picture about your reasoning gets much clearer, that's all. Really no offense meant, kiddo. DUDE

Originally Posted by ViPER

Yes.

Germans - no
Nazi's - maybe, maybe not
Nazi troops - yes

What? You just posted some random statements without a source or any sort of reference.

Originally Posted by Stapo

Strange not one simple mentioning of the word Nazi (or Adolph Hitler being the head of the NSDAP) in the oath.

Don't get me wrong, the oath on the head of state was new, wrong and a break from German military tradition, but it was still an oath to the head of state, not the head of a party. That both later meant the same is clear due to the nature of the regime being a totalitarian dictatorship. Anyway love your college (?) kid black and white logic, about my family members having much of a choice, whether to fight or not:rolleyes:

By the way mentioning the fact that you have't served was not meant as an insult. It just helped to make me understand your stand on things (e.g what motivates soldiers, what they care about and so on) and given your age the picture about your reasoning gets much clearer, that's all. Really no offense meant, kiddo. DUDE

its the same thing. hitler WAS the leader of the NSDAP, or "nazi" party, which ruled german politics under a TOTALITARIAN DICTATORSHIP all through ww2. if you fought for the german government then, you were fighting FOR THE NAZIS, whether you were a nazi party member or not.

yes i'm in college. youve always got a choice dude. you may not like the consequences of some of your options, but you can still choose. They didn't HAVE to work for the nazis. They CHOSE to. doesn't mean they volunteered necessarily or that they were happy about it, or that they were party members. but they did work for them, making them troops of the nazi controlled german army, or Nazi army for short.

dude ive got friends i grew up with in the every branch of the service, and all on active duty. mostly marines. i know what motivates them and what they care about. family, country, duty, getting home, taking care of their fellow soldiers. I'm not saying that the nazi troops in world war 2 were any different.
youre taking nazi for a slur, when its simply a descriptive term in this instance. youre overreacting. I think its because in germany, (where youre from right?) all the normal animosity and stigma surrounding the nazi party and even the term nazi is magnified 10 fold (and understandably so) and is even in most cases illegal. a soldier who fought for germany in ww2 being called a nazi can be grounds for some serious legal hoopla yes? aren't yall still trying SS members over there?

i'm not yelling "hey you fucking nazi" or something like that. I'm simply stating that the german army in ww2 was in actuality the nazi army, since germany was a single party totalitarian dictatorship ruled by the nazis at the time and their leader, hitler, had the army swear a personal oath of loyalty to him specifically.

Originally Posted by reality

yes i'm in college. youve always got a choice dude. you may not like the consequences of some of your options, but you can still choose. They didn't HAVE to work for the nazis. They CHOSE to. doesn't mean they volunteered necessarily or that they were happy about it.

Hell as long as you apply the same logic towards all other parties involved in WW2 I'm fine with it, especially when you blame the war death on the national politicans of the countries involved, instead on our door as it's done usualy.

I mean noone forced Stalin to send his forces in mass attacks against us and so to pill up a giant number of death, noone forced other Europeans to join terrorists /partisan groups and due to their action endanger their fellow citizens and so on. It was all tue to their own choices.

Originally Posted by reality

i'm not yelling "hey you fucking nazi" or something like that. I'm simply stating that the german army in ww2 was in actuality the nazi army, since germany was a single party totalitarian dictatorship ruled by the nazis at the time and their leader, hitler, had the army swear a personal oath of loyalty to him specifically.

The Nazis were mostly Germans ( okay in another thread an Austrian poster mocked Germany for picking his fellow countryman to do the ill adviced ruling/fuehrering, but that's another story) and as they had been Germans, the army under their command was still the German army.

Apart from that, you might get me on the wrong track, if you believe that I just have a proplem with the term Nazi troops due to the insulting meaning (you are right on spot, it is much more insulting over here ( btw I'm German)).

I've witnessed the tendancy to talk about my country during the years of 1933 -45 as Nazi Germany, Nazi troops, Nazi...for a long time (also over here) and for me it also has another negative side effect as well. People refering to Germany as Nazi.. during that time, make it seem like as if the Nazis were aliens, foreigners, strangers and not simple Germans on a dangerous track.

It implies a certain amount of disconnection with the back then society/people/history and which I'm (today) part of and for me that's wrong. Hell for 12 years Germany has been ruled by German Nazis and that's all.

People should (and have) learn(ed) their lesson, make sure that such an ideology never gets hold on the country again and still feel proud about the sacrifices Germans commited during this years as well.

It's about akknowledging once country history for the good and the bad and still having the healthy attitude " wrong or right, my country"!

Everything else is bullcrap in my view.

Originally Posted by Stapo

People should (and have) learn(ed) their lesson, make sure that such an ideology never gets hold on the country again and still feel proud about the sacrifices Germans commited during this years as well.

The blessing in disguise of Hitler is that hopefully other countries in the future don't fall into the same trap of maniacal nationalistic totalitarianism .... because the history of Hitler's rise to power is so well documented, future countries might be able to nip the process in the bud.

Originally Posted by Disillusioned_1

The blessing in disguise of Hitler is that hopefully other countries in the future don't fall into the same trap of maniacal nationalistic totalitarianism .... because the history of Hitler's rise to power is so well documented, future countries might be able to nip the process in the bud.

I don't have much faith in it and given that we have already seen crazy douchebags like Pol Pot and others, the chances are high that totalitarism will continue to hunt/hurt humanity till it's very end.

That's why for example I believe it's so important to label those involved in it as simple Germans and not as Nazis, Nazi toops or whatever.

I mean if it could have happend over here, it can happen everywhere!

Originally Posted by Sulayman

Do you agree that the heer is deeply implicated in the crimes of the party?

Of course, but responsibility has to be judged individually. Noone was a criminal just by joining the Heer. His conduct there could make him one though.

Originally Posted by ThorHammer

Slavery was the catalyst, no doubt. However the issue being fought over was far larger than simply slavery.

I've studied the American Civil War rather intensely for thirty years but I didn't know that the South was fighting for something far larger than slavery. Don't know how I could have missed that. Perhaps you can tell me what it is?

Originally Posted by Voland

Of course, but responsibility has to be judged individually. Noone was a criminal just by joining the Heer. His conduct there could make him one though.

Well, that's a start.