US won the war, but bungled occupation is losing the peace

[chequita guevara]

The U.S. did a half assed job in deNazification.

[Verto]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
The U.S. did a half assed job in deNazification.

It's hard to deNazify a country in which you either joined the party, or suffered the consequences.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Verto
It's hard to deNazify a country in which you either joined the party, or suffered the consequences.

The Soviets did a very thorough job in East Germany. The U.S. did a half-assed job deliberately, because they wanted to rebuild Germany quickly. Furthermore, only a small minority ever joined the Nazi party.

[VetLegion]

What went wrong with 'denazification' of Germany?

[Kirnwaffen]

The Soviets did a very thorough job in East Germany. The U.S. did a half-assed job deliberately, because they wanted to rebuild Germany quickly. Furthermore, only a small minority ever joined the Nazi party.

Perhaps the Western powers were slightly more concerned with humanity than the Soviets. Just a thought...

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara

The Soviets did a very thorough job in East Germany. The U.S. did a half-assed job deliberately, because they wanted to rebuild Germany quickly. Furthermore, only a small minority ever joined the Nazi party.

And you can look at the subsequent history of East and West Germany to judge the results.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Kirnwaffen
Perhaps the Western powers were slightly more concerned with humanity than the Soviets. Just a thought...

Nein. Any cursory look at the Western powers treatment of their colonies and neo-colonies should quickly disabuse you of that notion. No, the U.S. wanted to build up Germany quickly in order to use Germany (and in the East, Japan) in order to thwart the very real danger of Communism in the occupied countries.

Greece and Italy very nearly went Communist, Korea probably would have gone Communist, North and South, had the U.S. not strongly backed Korean fascists and those who had collaborated with the Japanese. The same in Vietnam and the Philippines (though different methods of keeping the Commies from power were used).

Obviously, the USSR had no such worries, since the vast majority of Communists were trusting fools and would follow Stalin blindly (often to their doom). In fact, in many countries, Stalin orderd the Communists to stand down, as in Greece, Italy, and China (though after a couple of years they began to ignore him - and the Chinese Commies never really listened to him after 1927).

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
And you can look at the subsequent history of East and West Germany to judge the results.

So we should ignore war criminals if it's to our benefit?

[Kirnwaffen]

All I'm saying is that it's very easy to denazify if you kill virtually all former male government officials down to level of postman.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Kirnwaffen
All I'm saying is that it's very easy to denazify if you kill virtually all former male government officials down to level of postman.

True, but that isn't what happened in the East.

[Kirnwaffen]

True, but that isn't what happened in the East.

Fair enough, that was exaggerated. It would not, however, be unfair to say that Soviet methods of denazification were frequently attrocious.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Kirnwaffen
It would not, however, be unfair to say that Soviet methods of denazification were frequently attrocious.

We are talking about Nazis here. And consider what the Nazis did to the USSR. If someone invaded and killed twenty million Americans, I shudder to think what we would do to them.

[Odin]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


We are talking about Nazis here. And consider what the Nazis did to the USSR. If someone invaded and killed twenty million Americans, I shudder to think what we would do to them.

Exactly, why do you think Uncle Joe wanted Hitler's skull? Russians absolutly hated the Nazis. We executed Nazi pary leaders, they executed Nazi party leaders.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


So we should ignore war criminals if it's to our benefit?

That depends - if you consider membership in the Nazi party in and of itself to be a war crime, with no other actions or control of other actions necessary, you have a bit of a problem.

Obviously, if the party membership was accompanied by a position in the SS/SD or Gestapo, etc. you could make a sweeping generalization that the scumbag in question was guilty of something.

Even down to the gauleiter level, getting rid of those people would not be an issue, since they were mostly scum who ass-kissed their way into their positions, but there were a lot of nominal party members that actually ran things - rail systems, utilities, communications, that were placed under party control for strategic reasons. Getting rid of those people, unless they were specifically involved and provably involved in criminal acts, would be silly.

[GePap]

Better than the troll about Saddam not being real..but not by much.