No. Both the Nazis and the Soviets were a lot of authoritarian bastards. The mistake of WWII was that they stopped after Berlin. They should've kept going to Moscow and spread Stalin's cheeks with a Sherman.
Not really. Most germans were sick of Jewish bullshit, and fully supported the Nazi regime. Germany itself was authoritarian. That's why the Gestapo only had 7k members at its peak.
No, most Germans were sick of Communists, and I'm willing to bet you're going to tell me there isn't a difference. Most Germans were also not pro-Nazi, that's why they voted Hindenburg. Many Germans trusted the militarists of which the Nazis had stopped really being part of because of Hitler's personality cult.
The Fabian Socialist government had begun shifting rightwards and appeasing the NSDAP because they thought that they could control them, along with the military, and resist further Communist insurrections and rebellions.
But, it turns out you can't trust Socialists in any form, whether Fabian, National, or Revolutionary.
No, German anti-semitism saw a sharp increase towards the end WW1, and the subsequent color revolution in 19-20 had a lot of Jewish/Commie overlap, furthering that weariness. Hitler and the NSDAP were products of this time. German anti-semitism had very deep roots.
While you're correct that the NSDAP didn't come into power with overwhelming support, they quickly secured it through their robust social welfare programs and pogroms.
They never secured overwhelming support, they didn't even secure majority support. The best the outlook Germans had on the Nazis was immediately after France fell: "Apparently the Nazis know how to win wars, and the economy looks okay!" Neither was true.
Their Social Welfare programs were fucking insane, and tied directly to absolute party loyalty. When you've got girls coming home from Hitler Youth camps pregnant claiming Adolf Hitler is the father of the baby because it is a baby for Germany, and that Adolf Hitler will take care of the child (meaning the German welfare state), that's going to freak people the hell out. The insane propagandizing of every aspect of society being governed by ridiculous Nazi virtue signaling every second may have improved some support, but it would also polarize the rest of the country, even if it were silent.
The pogroms were even more unpopular as it genuinely stoked blowback against the government and sympathy for Jews, despite relentless anti-jewish propaganda. The fact that German Jews of mixed ancestry were also being relentlessly targeted as part of Nazi racial laws did not help. This is why the Nazis had to repeatedly lie about the actions taken against Jews. In many typical ethnic cleansings & genocides, the population participates in the extermination due to the radicalization of the population being fully successful. The Rawandan genocide was never hidden for a moment (it was actually disseminated by mass media in the country), and and the Indonesian genocide against the Chinese was also completely transparent. In many cases, ethnic cleansings are popular (at least locally if not nationally). Even in the United States. This was not the case in Germany as the Nazis had to claim that Kristallnacht wasn't even from their direction, but was a kind of 'grass-roots uprising'.
He basically argued the same thing a leftist today would use on CNN: 'This was just a righteous expression of communal anger, I'm not endorsing the riots... I'm just saying that this is the inevitable result of oppression.'
Germany was/is used to authority. The concept of democracy and freedom didn't naturally occur there and is anathema to the german mindset. Democracy was forced down their throats twice. And you can still see it today in that there is very little actual resistance to anything the government does because "the government is the law"
It wasn't really a mistake. There was no good causus belli to go to war with the Soviets so quickly, and there was certainly no way that the US could have reached Moscow, let alone the Ural Mountains. We got as far as we were going to get.
All we would have needed to do was stop shipping the Soviets arms and ammo on D-Day. By the time we reached Berlin, their own industry would have still been too far behind to put up an effective resistance.
The only reason the russians were able to produce something like 35k tanks is because they literally didn't have to produce anything since it was all coming from the US.
The Soviets wouldn't have been stupid enough to have assumed that wasn't anything except an act of aggression to halt the Soviet advance. I think you are grossly underestimating the Soviet's industrial capacity. Even if you manage to reach Berlin, you'll never get to Moscow, and the death toll for the US will skyrocket into the millions.
The Soviets were completely dependent on nominally allied nations' exports for half the war, and relied on them to fill gaps in production until near the end.
If the US and Britain had adopted a strict policy of 'not one bean, not one bullet, not one bandage' for exports to the USSR once Hitler committed to stabbing his former ally of convenience in the back, the Soviets would have been stretched too thin to put up an effective resistance - leaving the Nazis with too much ground to effectively hold. At that point, pushing the USSR out of Poland and the rest of its non-Russian holdings would have been simpler.
With the full might of the US economy backing the Soviet military for years, Stalin had staggering casualties. Imagine doubling those and then make the argument that the few survivors would have been able to hold everything east of Berlin.
No. Both the Nazis and the Soviets were a lot of authoritarian bastards. The mistake of WWII was that they stopped after Berlin. They should've kept going to Moscow and spread Stalin's cheeks with a Sherman.
Not really. Most germans were sick of Jewish bullshit, and fully supported the Nazi regime. Germany itself was authoritarian. That's why the Gestapo only had 7k members at its peak.
No, most Germans were sick of Communists, and I'm willing to bet you're going to tell me there isn't a difference. Most Germans were also not pro-Nazi, that's why they voted Hindenburg. Many Germans trusted the militarists of which the Nazis had stopped really being part of because of Hitler's personality cult.
The Fabian Socialist government had begun shifting rightwards and appeasing the NSDAP because they thought that they could control them, along with the military, and resist further Communist insurrections and rebellions.
But, it turns out you can't trust Socialists in any form, whether Fabian, National, or Revolutionary.
No, German anti-semitism saw a sharp increase towards the end WW1, and the subsequent color revolution in 19-20 had a lot of Jewish/Commie overlap, furthering that weariness. Hitler and the NSDAP were products of this time. German anti-semitism had very deep roots.
While you're correct that the NSDAP didn't come into power with overwhelming support, they quickly secured it through their robust social welfare programs and pogroms.
They never secured overwhelming support, they didn't even secure majority support. The best the outlook Germans had on the Nazis was immediately after France fell: "Apparently the Nazis know how to win wars, and the economy looks okay!" Neither was true.
Their Social Welfare programs were fucking insane, and tied directly to absolute party loyalty. When you've got girls coming home from Hitler Youth camps pregnant claiming Adolf Hitler is the father of the baby because it is a baby for Germany, and that Adolf Hitler will take care of the child (meaning the German welfare state), that's going to freak people the hell out. The insane propagandizing of every aspect of society being governed by ridiculous Nazi virtue signaling every second may have improved some support, but it would also polarize the rest of the country, even if it were silent.
The pogroms were even more unpopular as it genuinely stoked blowback against the government and sympathy for Jews, despite relentless anti-jewish propaganda. The fact that German Jews of mixed ancestry were also being relentlessly targeted as part of Nazi racial laws did not help. This is why the Nazis had to repeatedly lie about the actions taken against Jews. In many typical ethnic cleansings & genocides, the population participates in the extermination due to the radicalization of the population being fully successful. The Rawandan genocide was never hidden for a moment (it was actually disseminated by mass media in the country), and and the Indonesian genocide against the Chinese was also completely transparent. In many cases, ethnic cleansings are popular (at least locally if not nationally). Even in the United States. This was not the case in Germany as the Nazis had to claim that Kristallnacht wasn't even from their direction, but was a kind of 'grass-roots uprising'.
He basically argued the same thing a leftist today would use on CNN: 'This was just a righteous expression of communal anger, I'm not endorsing the riots... I'm just saying that this is the inevitable result of oppression.'
Germany was/is used to authority. The concept of democracy and freedom didn't naturally occur there and is anathema to the german mindset. Democracy was forced down their throats twice. And you can still see it today in that there is very little actual resistance to anything the government does because "the government is the law"
It wasn't really a mistake. There was no good causus belli to go to war with the Soviets so quickly, and there was certainly no way that the US could have reached Moscow, let alone the Ural Mountains. We got as far as we were going to get.
All we would have needed to do was stop shipping the Soviets arms and ammo on D-Day. By the time we reached Berlin, their own industry would have still been too far behind to put up an effective resistance.
The only reason the russians were able to produce something like 35k tanks is because they literally didn't have to produce anything since it was all coming from the US.
The Soviets wouldn't have been stupid enough to have assumed that wasn't anything except an act of aggression to halt the Soviet advance. I think you are grossly underestimating the Soviet's industrial capacity. Even if you manage to reach Berlin, you'll never get to Moscow, and the death toll for the US will skyrocket into the millions.
The Soviets were completely dependent on nominally allied nations' exports for half the war, and relied on them to fill gaps in production until near the end.
If the US and Britain had adopted a strict policy of 'not one bean, not one bullet, not one bandage' for exports to the USSR once Hitler committed to stabbing his former ally of convenience in the back, the Soviets would have been stretched too thin to put up an effective resistance - leaving the Nazis with too much ground to effectively hold. At that point, pushing the USSR out of Poland and the rest of its non-Russian holdings would have been simpler.
With the full might of the US economy backing the Soviet military for years, Stalin had staggering casualties. Imagine doubling those and then make the argument that the few survivors would have been able to hold everything east of Berlin.