How long could germany had lasted, without the blunders?

[wokelly]

Yeah but how likely will any subscript soldier be able to do something like that under battle conditions. The simple fact that you have to take your hand of the trigger is the one big thing that brings all of the bolt-action WW2 rifles very close to each other. And don't give me some weird Aussie-shooting-with-the-middle-finger technique, beacause that was rarely done by subscripts and looks awkward as hell. Now someone's going to mention the thing about Germans thinking they were under MG fire in WW1 when really that were Lee-Enfields, but that's all hear-say and happened on a single occasion.

Again: It's the fact that you have to take your hand of the trigger which consumes much more time than the 10th of a second saved from a shorter pull.

Did you even watch the vid? He wasnt using the middle finger trick at all. Secondly the brits trained their men to fire at a rapid pace. IN reality I doubt they could fire off that many rounds because of the recoil of a 7.62mm round, but neither could a semi fire fast because of the recoil. Ask any guy who owns both the Kar and Lee, and they will tell you they'd rather trust their lives with the Lee then the Kar.

I've fired the Lee, the action is incredibly fast.I just recently got to shoot it again and timed myself because someone put this vid on the WWIIOL forums as well. I was about 1 shot every 2 or 3 seconds, and that is with little training. It is an extreamly noob friendly rifle, and a trained man could likely get off many more rounds then I could.

 

[wokelly]

So what? First, compare how many people were living in Germany that time and how many were living in Russia and UK.

Im sorry, how does the total population effect how many people were killed? Oh thats right! It might make it seem like the axis were victims too, just cause they were not fast enough slaughtering civilians so the deaths per 1000 look more even. I do consider the Axis worse then the allies. The Germans were going to kill off almost the whole population of Russia, then use the Rest as slave labour. Both the Germans and Japenese used Russian and Chinese civilians for biological tests with diseases and other ****. The japs used chinese civilians for bayonet practise, they burried the children of rebellious towns alive infront of their parents, hell I saw a video of it. The death camps killed more people then the combined axis nations civilian losses. What a joke, "compare the total populations blah blah". If thats the only way to make you feel better about what your country did in WWII as part of Nazi Germany, and as the birth land of Hitler.

Also, you are forgetting what damage the americans did with dropping the atomic bombs. Even today people living there still have to live with the consequences of it. Even if they axis had killed 99999999 million people, it doesn't mean what the allies did(aka Dresden/Hiroshima) was any better.

Humberg, Dresden, Hiroshima, Naggasaki. Funny I can name the allied attrocities all on one hand yet the axis attrocities fill pages of books. Germany was guilty of bombing civilians long before the allies. I'll admit, the allies stooped to the filth level the Germans and Japanese did, still doesnt change the fact more Russian POWs were murdered then civilians the axis lost in total.

 

[DraKon2k]

You're right. Just what I don't like is, you act like the americans had never done anything at all, which is simply wrong. And I'm not only talking about ww2.

 

[Oberst Freitag]

Invading Britain with the RAF intact would have led to so high casualties that you could forget about attacking Russia right away.

Im sure it could have been done...not without casualties...but what few invasion are carried out without any.

When the RAF was in tatters from teh constant attacks on airfeilds...thats when Germany could have launched there seaborne invasion...For it to be effeective they would have to have a constant supply of aircraft to cover them....and the Germans had plenty of Aircraft at that point in time...they could have overlapping CAP's all the time protecting the men....and remeber at this time...few of the fighter aircraft carried bombs...so the Spitfire and Hurricanes would have to straf the soldiers....and picking off infantry with machine guns in a plane isnt that easy unless they are massed out in the open

 

[Tomcat_ha]

If the luftwaffe kept on engaging the airfields then the invasion might have succeeded.

 

[Oberst Freitag]

even if they hadnt wiped out the RAF first...it still could have succeded...but it would have been a gamble...kind of like taking Kiev with 700,000 men or going for Moscow...

 

[Zbojnik]

Im sure it could have been done...not without casualties...but what few invasion are carried out without any.

When the RAF was in tatters from teh constant attacks on airfeilds...thats when Germany could have launched there seaborne invasion...For it to be effeective they would have to have a constant supply of aircraft to cover them....and the Germans had plenty of Aircraft at that point in time...they could have overlapping CAP's all the time protecting the men....and remeber at this time...few of the fighter aircraft carried bombs...so the Spitfire and Hurricanes would have to straf the soldiers....and picking off infantry with machine guns in a plane isnt that easy unless they are massed out in the open

Uhh, dude you just forgot to mention the British Navy the most formidable in the world at the time? Operation Seel

 

[KrazyKraut]

Humberg, Dresden, Hiroshima, Naggasaki. Funny I can name the allied attrocities all on one hand yet the axis attrocities fill pages of books. Germany was guilty of bombing civilians long before the allies. I'll admit, the allies stooped to the filth level the Germans and Japanese did, still doesnt change the fact more Russian POWs were murdered then civilians the axis lost in total.

Sure those are ALL Allied atrocities How about the murdering and raping that took place in Berlin, K

 

[Bolt]

Before you start counting those rapes and murders, which took place in Konigsberg and Berlin, first remember that russians, if they were seen doing such things, were shot. I remember reading that one of cavalry squads from South of USSR raped and killed women from church somewhere in Germany. They all were shot, even when most of them had lots of medals and badges. How many germans were sentenced to death for killing civilians in 41-45?
Of course there would be murdering and raping. Your home is burnt, your wife and mother are dead because of starvation, your daughter was raped, your friends were killed or died in death camps. Don't expect that all of soviet people will be as calm as possible, there were lot's of revenge ideas. We all are humans. And i don't know, what would i do if i were at those soldiers' place.
Now about Gustloff. It sinked and that is were that ship is belong, hail Marinesko! Because when ship transports more than FIVE THOUSANDS soldiers and officers, including 1300 u-boat crewmen, then torpedoed it must be. It wasn't a civilan ship, it was transpoting troops and all those civilans knew that, they knew the risk. It was a war and people die a lot in war, including civilians.

 

[hachichin]

This guilt-game is kind of boring, and mostly irrelevant as long you leave out WW1 and the Treaty of Versaille. Let's face it - a person like Hitler could never have seized power if it weren't for the utterly ridiculous burden of debt imposed on Germany after WW1. Please contemplate the absolutely massive poverty (relatively speaking) of Germany post WW1, which by the way was a war more or less started because Germany was beginning to threaten the economic and military dominance of the British Empire. A role that was taken over by the US after WW2, a country which, directly or indirectly, is responsible for the deaths of millions of people worldwide during the last 60 years.

Another interesting note is that the Middle East was as pivotal then as it is now. One of the things that scared the British into provoking the war with Germany was the initiative to build a railroad between Berlin and Baghdad, thus undermining the influence of the Royal Navy. Naval control of the world shipping routes was one of the pillars of the British Empire, just as it is today for the US.

A quick look at the combined natural resources of the Allies compared to that of the Axis indicate the very low possibility of Germany ever being able to win WW2, even without Hitler's many retarded decisions. A possible exception would be if Germany would have succeeded in creating the A-bomb well ahead of the US. Hitler was asked whether he wanted to concentrate R&D-resources into either the atomic research or the V1/V2-programs, and as we all know, he went for the latter (thank god).

 

[KrazyKraut]

Before you start counting those rapes and murders, which took place in Konigsberg and Berlin, first remember that russians, if they were seen doing such things, were shot. I remember reading that one of cavalry squads from South of USSR raped and killed women from church somewhere in Germany. They all were shot, even when most of them had lots of medals and badges. How many germans were sentenced to death for killing civilians in 41-45?
Of course there would be murdering and raping. Your home is burnt, your wife and mother are dead because of starvation, your daughter was raped, your friends were killed or died in death camps. Don't expect that all of soviet people will be as calm as possible, there were lot's of revenge ideas. We all are humans. And i don't know, what would i do if i were at those soldiers' place.

Well, yes and no. As far as I can tell sometimes they were shot sometimes not. But there definetly wouldn't have been as much and as late as May or June '45 if all were shot on a regular basis. It's all depending on the officer in charge i assume. Same goes for the Wehrmacht by the way. Einsatzgruppen of the SS not included which were bastards of course. But I'm not calculating a crime/crime ratio here, anyone who commits those crimes is equally guilty no matter from which nation or what happened. Especially rape i see as the biggest crime even worse than murder and it is by no means justified or less evil because some guy with the same nationality as your victim did the same or worse to someone of your nation before.

Now about Gustloff. It sinked and that is were that ship is belong, hail Marinesko! Because when ship transports more than FIVE THOUSANDS soldiers and officers, including 1300 u-boat crewmen, then torpedoed it must be. It wasn't a civilan ship, it was transpoting troops and all those civilans knew that, they knew the risk. It was a war and people die a lot in war, including civilians.

Almost 10.000 people died there dude and they were not fighting, they got slaughtered. "Hail Marinesko" is not how I would comment such a tragedy. I better not write down what I thought when I read what you wrote there or lese I get banned.

But I'm curious about those numbers there, because what I read is very different.
From Feldgrau.com

Heinz Schon has set the number of people on the Gustloff as follows: 8,956 refugees, 918 officers NCOs and men of the 2.Unterseeboot-Lehrdivision, 373 female naval auxiliary helpers, 173 naval armed forces auxiliaries, and 162 heavily wounded soldiers, for a total of 10,582 people on board on January 30th.

So a percentage of about 10 per cent military personell, of which some were wounded, justifies the death of 9000 civilians. Well then noone better complain about the Blitz over London, because I bet 10 per cent of those killed were in some way associated to the military actions at the time, either as military personell, or homeguard, or logisitics or whatever else secondary target you want.

 

[Bolt]

Yeah, i searched some more on this topic and found out new numbers. http://avn.thelook.ru/ARXIV/GAZETA/DUEL/2001/34/34_6_1.html
During the War, Gustloff was a mobile high school for u-boat crews. Therefore, it's already a valiable target.
During that night there were 3700 uboat crewmen - that's a number of people needed to crew ~70-80 u-boats. There were also high-command officers, generals and a female battalion, ~400 people. Also there were 22 governors from East Prussia. This ship was one of the Kriegsmarine, not a civil ship. It had AA-guns. So, a kriegsmarine ship with ~9000 passangers onboard (some of them were army's elite) sinks down. Finnish newspaper wrote: "..

 

[KrazyKraut]

That site is plain wrong. The Wilhelm Gustloff was bulit as a "Kraft durch Freude"-ship: A luxury liner for civilian workers who worked exceptionally hard. It later became a hospital ship and then training ship for u-boat crews... but at the final days of WW2 it was used as a refugee ship: IT HAD NO OFFENSIVE ARMAMENT and NO there were NOT 3700, but merely around 1000 soldiers on it some of them wounded (not to even mention most of the civilian casualties were children). That's what all english sources tell me. I don't want to pull the propaganda card again but give me a less biased source as the link you posted please.

And don't act as if it wouldn't have been sunk if it didn't have AA guns.



My original point was that the Wehrmacht was in many cases found gulity of committing warcrimes where the Allies were declared 'not gulity' and that the popular Dresden, Hamburg and the a-bombs are far from the only occasions, i could name many more. I agree the Gustloff incident is on the edge, but sure hell a German pilot would have been sentenced to death for the same incident.

 

[Pycckuu]

That site is plain wrong. The Wilhelm Gustloff was bulit as a "Kraft durch Freude"-ship: A luxury liner for civilian workers who worked exceptionally hard. It later became a hospital ship and then training ship for u-boat crews... but at the final days of WW2 it was used as a refugee ship: IT HAD NO OFFENSIVE ARMAMENT and NO there were NOT 3700, but merely around 1000 soldiers on it some of them wounded (not to even mention most of the civilian casualties were children). That's what all english sources tell me. I don't want to pull the propaganda card again but give me a less biased source as the link you posted please.

And don't act as if it wouldn't have been sunk if it didn't have AA guns.

I'm looking through the Russian sources, and as you can imagine some of them are somewhat biased. The main justifications for the attack that I have gathered, if you can call them that, were that it happened late in the evening, the ship was painted in "defensive" patterns (I assume it means navy gray) and was traveling as a part of a convoy (or atleast had an armed escort). The number of the actual combat troops on board fluctuates from a little over a thousand(quoting German historians) to 3700(quoting a Swedish newspaper that popularized the incident). It is very unfortunate that so many civilians were killed when the ship sank, however as you may imagine Marinesko most likely didn't know about the refugees on the ship. Whether or not he would have fired if he knew is subject to debate, just as in the case with AA artillery (the presence of which is also questioned in some articles). Surprisingly enough, the Soviet navy did not put a propoganda spin on this incident, and the civilian casualties were part of the reason why Marinesko was not nominated for the Gold Star by the High Command, and pretty much fell out of the favor with the Navy.

However, I do think that puting warcrimes in ratios as to determine who the "real" culprits are is rediculous. They happened on all sides, and like you said, Germany's warcrimes or mistakes do not excuse the Allies from theirs.

 

[Ghad]

 

[Ghad]

How many germans were sentenced to death for killing civilians in 41-45?

On the western front, quite a lot in fact.

On the eastern front, the ratio is probably lower.

Nazi germany was a monster with two heads, with the fairer one turned west.

 

[|11.SS|Svendsen]

Before you start counting those rapes and murders, which took place in Konigsberg and Berlin, first remember that russians, if they were seen doing such things, were shot. I remember reading that one of cavalry squads from South of USSR raped and killed women from church somewhere in Germany. They all were shot, even when most of them had lots of medals and badges. How many germans were sentenced to death for killing civilians in 41-45?
Of course there would be murdering and raping. Your home is burnt, your wife and mother are dead because of starvation, your daughter was raped, your friends were killed or died in death camps. Don't expect that all of soviet people will be as calm as possible, there were lot's of revenge ideas. We all are humans. And i don't know, what would i do if i were at those soldiers' place.
Now about Gustloff. It sinked and that is were that ship is belong, hail Marinesko! Because when ship transports more than FIVE THOUSANDS soldiers and officers, including 1300 u-boat crewmen, then torpedoed it must be. It wasn't a civilan ship, it was transpoting troops and all those civilans knew that, they knew the risk. It was a war and people die a lot in war, including civilians.

My family is actually very interesting.... 3 great great uncles fought for britain, my great grandfather as a norwegian volunteer in the SS and another great grandfather for the russians, and from what I understand, my great grandfather in the russian army was the equivelant of a 2nd leiutenant, and he mentioned in his diary from the war that Stalin himself sent out an order stating 'no woman in berlin, no matter how young or old, is to go unviolated by a platoon of men' this isnt an exact quote, russian is hard to translate, but whats written is very close to that

Originally Posted by wokelly
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:W...e-Piechart.png

Your kidding, 54% of all people who died in WWII were allied nations civilians. 6% of all people in WWII who died were axis civilians. You are such a moron to even suggest we were anywhere near as bad as the axis were. Sure we were not perfect, but for every German, or Japanese civilian that died, the allied countries, mostly Russia and China, lost 9 civilians. Not to mention the Japenese and Germans systematically slaughtered civilians. Allies never implimented such a program. Ill compare both major axis countries that slaughtered civilians to their respective enemy.

Russian Civilian deaths:11,500,000
German Civilian deaths: 1,840,000

Chinese Civilian deaths:6,000,000
Japenese civilian deaths:700,000

So I am sorry, but the axis were FAR worse then the western allies. 56% of WWII deaths were ALLIED civilians, 6% of WWII deaths were axis civilians.

The only allied country that was anywhere near as bad to civilians as the axis were to allied civilians were the Russians, and even then it was a fraction of what the axis did to them.

So many russians died due to an order by Stalin himself, when the Germans invaded stalingrad, Stalin ordered all the civilians inside to stay in the city, most of the population died, not due to battle or executions, but simply by starvation because Stalin sent almost no supplies to his own people. This isnt the only instance where Stalin sacrificed his own people...

 

[Bolt]

You mean, Stalin ordered his men to rape every woman in Berlin? He ordered that?? Wow, that's one of the biggest bull**** i've ever heard. No, really. So i've searched a little bit on this topic. HEre you are: http://forum.vif2.ru:2003/nvk/forum/archive/110/110799 In russian, somehow i'm not in mood to translate all this to you (because, hell, you won't listen, will you? But if you will, you can use e-translator or something.. Personally, i recommend you to translate it and read - a lot of interesting information there for all you Beevor's fans)

19 january 1945 Stalin made an order, where he demanded not to let RA soldiers to use violance on civilian population. Every soldier knew about it. After this, similar orders were made by Army commanders, divison commanders etc. For example, 2nd Belorussian front's Council's of War order, which was signed by Marshal Rokossovskij, said to shot all maradeurs and rapers right on the spot.

And btw, that's too bad, that you didn't ask your great grandfather, how were they controlled - did they rape every woman in Berlin or not? Did NKVD asked for evidence that this specific soldier raped a woman? And if not, was he was sent to GULAG?

 

[|11.SS|Svendsen]

You mean, Stalin ordered his men to rape every woman in Berlin? He ordered that?? Wow, that's one of the biggest bull**** i've ever heard. No, really. So i've searched a little bit on this topic. HEre you are: http://forum.vif2.ru:2003/nvk/forum/archive/110/110799 In russian, somehow i'm not in mood to translate all this to you (because, hell, you won't listen, will you? But if you will, you can use e-translator or something.. Personally, i recommend you to translate it and read - a lot of interesting information there for all you Beevor's fans)

And btw, that's too bad, that you didn't ask your great grandfather, how were they controlled - did they rape every woman in Berlin or not? Did NKVD asked for evidence that this specific soldier raped a woman? And if not, was he was sent to GULAG?

Thats the amazing thing about a communist regime like Stalins, the public only learns what theyre allowed to learn, Stalin controlled every aspect of everybodys life, he could have easily hidden hundreds of orders like that

 

[PilotPirx]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:WorldWarII-DeathsByAlliance-Piechart.png

Your kidding, 54% of all people who died in WWII were allied nations civilians. 6% of all people in WWII who died were axis civilians. You are such a moron to even suggest we were anywhere near as bad as the axis were. Sure we were not perfect, but for every German, or Japanese civilian that died, the allied countries, mostly Russia and China, lost 9 civilians. Not to mention the Japenese and Germans systematically slaughtered civilians. Allies never implimented such a program. Ill compare both major axis countries that slaughtered civilians to their respective enemy.

Russian Civilian deaths:11,500,000
German Civilian deaths: 1,840,000

Chinese Civilian deaths:6,000,000
Japenese civilian deaths:700,000

So I am sorry, but the axis were FAR worse then the western allies. 56% of WWII deaths were ALLIED civilians, 6% of WWII deaths were axis civilians.

The only allied country that was anywhere near as bad to civilians as the axis were to allied civilians were the Russians, and even then it was a fraction of what the axis did to them.

Yes,but when you know Russian,you can read this .. http://zhurnal.lib.ru/a/aristipp/chelowecheskiepoteriwowtorujumirowujuwojnuzawysheny.shtml

That isn't infallible and single one true,but explain something...