If Hitler had died in the summer of 1939 how would he be remembered?

[Provost Harrison]

He'd probably be remembered as a mediocre Charlie Chaplin lookalike...

[Andemagne]

Re: If Hitler had died in the summer of 1939 how would he be remembered?

Originally posted by Oerdin
...In one of the moments he was not talking about math he oddly mentioned that if Hitler had died in the summer of 1939 he would have been remembered as one of Germany's greatest leaders. I found this odd.

I've heard someone else say this too.




EDIT: History Forum

[Serb]

Originally posted by Lonestar
Hmm...none of the other countries had very lightly armored vehicles with big guns though,

All sides had TDs. How well they were armored is irrelevant.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Ecthy


Oh PLEASE no, I'll trust you on this one. The two of you form a congenial duo of some sort.

But I thought Saras was Serb's one true love.

[Patroklos]

All sides had TDs. How well they were armored is irrelevant.

Irrelevant to countries who don't care about peasant casualties, so....Russia.

For all the other combatants it was very important.

[Heresson]

Btw of Saras. I did mention that Lithuania persecutes Poland, polish areas being the only place where property isn't being restored, but sold away to rich Lithuanians from other parts of the country,
but I will mention something else:

polish passports are made in Poland. Earlier, they were made in Germany. It's because Lithuania can't print it itself.
According to EU, the passports must have the name of the printing company written on it. And so it is. Now some Lithuanians are enraged, because they have tiny sign saying "polska" (kompania druków papierów wartościowych - pr whatever) on it. polska = polish, but also Poland.

[SlowwHand]

Originally posted by Winston
No, I just want you to shut up.

I thought you were going to go see Barack Obama tomorrow? You should be a much happier man with little bunnies hopping around on your desk and lollipops instantly motoring into your mouth at the flick of a finger.

HOW did you come up with this?

[Serb]

Oh crap, another "war and peace" sized post from our famous Polish classic

Originally posted by Heresson
Blah-blah-blah...
Poland only took Cieszyn region when it was clear Tchechoslovakia is going to fall anyway, and since Hitler wanted to take this region as well.

Ok smartass, eat this:

USSR only took Western Belorussia and Western Ukraine regions when it was clear Poland is going to fall anyway, and since Hitler wanted to take these regions as well.
Happy now?

Blah-blah-blah...
Polish demands were extremly limited, taking only the things Poland was granted by 1918 czech-polish accord (and which was taken by Tchechoslovakia by force in 1919), and a couple villages.

Soviet demands were extremly limited, taking only the things which was taken by Poland by force in 1921.

Secondly, Poland couldn't just get SU right of passage and stay neutral. Germany would see it as declaration of war and would be right about it.

Who said you would stay neutral? The right of passage was needed in only one case - if Germany attacks Czechoslovakia over Suddets. That automatically means war vs. Czechoslovakia, USSR, UK, France and Poland. If UK and France confirmed its obligations like USSR did, Hitler would have never dared to attack.

I can understand if You claim that SU was afraid of German attack, and that it occupied Poland to not let Germans too close to Moscow.

That was a primary goal. The secondary goal was to return what you have stolen from us.

But, then:
- blah
- blah
- blah
- blah

No, it was said euphemistically, that in case of territorial-political changes in the territory of polish state, new border between Germany and USRR will be (on an exactly described line in the middle of Poland.

Well, in this case your German sucks completely, mate.
This text

ür den Fall einer territorial-politischen Umgestaltung
der zum polnischen Staat gehörenden Gebiete werden die
Interessensphären Deutschlands und der UdSSR ungefähr durch
die Linie der Flüsse Pissa, Narew, Weichsel und San
abgegrenzt.

http://www.ns-archiv.de/krieg/sowjet...griffspakt.php

should be read as follows:
In case of territorial-political changes in the territory of polish state, the spheres of interest (spheres of influence) of Germany and USSR will be defined by the line Flüsse Pissa, Narew, Weichsel and San rivers.

Not a single word about state borders.

No, it was to appease Germany and not go to war - only.
UK and France were not interested in Hitler's victory over Poland or SU, it would make him too strong and dangerous.

UK was interested in war between Germany and USSR, not in war between UK and Germany.

You might be interested iin the idea that Stalin, signing pact with Berlin, hoped that Hitler would attack UK, and it could stab him in the back...

Sure thing Stalin was interested in war between Germany and UK&France. It would give him time to prepare for war.

Huh? Soviet Russia officially declared that partages of Poland were illegal, null and void. And pre-partages Poland was 2,5 times bigger than the one after ww1. Therefore, it's not Poland who stole SU's land (SU was a new state and had no control over these lands anyway), but in fact Poland gave SU much of the lands it had valid, accepted by SU too, claim to.

Pure bullsh!t. Not even worth a comment. Un****ing believable bullsh!t. Damn.

If You do mind that Poland was re-established in historical shape,

What historical shape? Poland size varied all the time depending on its successes/failures in agression against its neighbours. You wanted all territories from Moscow to the Black sea? FY then.

Blah-blah-blah...

Yeah, right.

Also, look at Russia itself. Why doesn't it give away Caucasus region? Or Karelia? Or most of Siberia?

Why the **** we should have? And to whom we should give it? Let me guess... to Poland, right?

If SU was keen on freeing nations from foreign rule, why did give Wilno/Vilnius region, with clear polish majority, to Lithuania, with only historical claim to it,

Because I hate the idea of Saras being born in Poland.

and Belarus?

'cause it's Belorussian land.

Why it gave Lwow (Lwiw) and entire Podole to Ukraine, though they were majorly polish?

'cause it's Ukranian land.

The answer is simple: Blah-blah-blah...

Exactly.

Even russian XIX-century revolutionaries, dekabrists etc, with mouths full of freedom of nations, when it came to anything, of all the nations of Russia could only think of independance of Poland, because it had strong traditions of its own statehood. That's nice for Poland, but wrong. The same, world was aware that Poland is something different from Russia, as well as Balkan nations. but it was not aware that Ukraine, Lithuania or Estonia have their own history.
Blah-blah-blah...

Lithuania - yes.
Ukraine - we share the history with them.
Estonia - don't make me laugh. Such country as Estonia never existed prior to collapse of the Russian Empire.

One important matter is that every state has a tradition of "once acquired is ours, and we'll never let it go" attitude, when it comes to territory.

And you are a perfect example of such attitude. Because it's a Polish tradition. Damn you guys come even further, in 30's you demanded (**** Poland DEMANDED!!!) colonies! Tell me, WTF you forgot in Brasil? And WhyTF Poland should have been granted colonies in South America?
Sometimes (well, most of the time actually) Poles are absolutely crazy in their greed.

That's why elites of former Russian Empire never stopped thinking of pre-ww1 borders of the state they grew in as the right borders of their state. Serb is well example of this.

Of course. Because that was right. Who the hell told you that change of the political system in the country means its desintegration? Provisional government replaced Tzar, Bolsheviks replaced provisional government, but why the **** state borders should change because of that?

Please note, that, apart from loss of automous Poland and Finland, USSR's post-ww2 borders are almost exactly the same as pre-ww1 ones of Romanovs' Russia.

And that was right. Why it should have been otherwise?

And almost the same Stalin wanted in 1939. They simply considered it as THEIR LAND. As Serb does.

And IT IS RIGHT. Because it was OUR LAND.

Who lived there, what the inhabitants wanted, what was the earlier history of those lands, that was a secondary matter.

The earlier history of those land was in the Russian Empire (which now changed its political system to Socialism and its name to SU). There lived former citizens of RE. What did the want? By the most part the same as inhabitants of the rest of the former Russian Empire - to stop oppression of "bloodsucking parasites" and to build a better future for themselves in accordance with Marx-Lenin teachings.

Anyway, Soviets wanted to attack Poland in other to pave the way to worldwide revolution. To help revolution in Germany Soviets needed to.

Bullsh!t.

YOU ATTACKED THE USSR, not otherwise.
And I heard your crap about "necessity of pre-emptive attack vs. USSR" a thousand times. So don't repat that lying BS once again.

And if Poland "got what it deserved", why don't You claim the same about Tchechoslovakia?

Because Czechoslovakia didn't backstab Germany to gain these territories after a victory in a war of agression.
1939 we did to you EXACTLY the same what you've done to us in 1920. We just returned what you have stolen from us earlier. What goes around comes around. You clearly deserved that. Case is closed.


p.s. I won't argue with you anymore, because it's pointless and very time-consuming.

[Serb]

Originally posted by Patroklos


Irrelevant to countries who don't care about peasant casualties, so....Russia.

For all the other combatants it was very important.

Oh crap. Patroklos, you should really better stay away from this thread.

Soviet tank destroyers were better armored than American TDs (and better in every other aspects as well). Do a basic research about ISU-152 and your M-36 for example (the rest of your TDs were a "paper armor + sh!tty gun" combination = crap).

[TheStinger]

Originally posted by Lonestar


Yeah, because fighting the bare-bones Germany military in '38 is such a worse idea than fighting them(signifigantly more modernixed) in '39.

Are you aware just how crap the British military was in 38, it was pretty rubbish in 39 but in 38 we had virtualy no single seat monoplane fighters, no armoured divsions, hardly any mechanised and had only just brought in conscription.

yes we betrayed the Czechs but there was little choice

[Serb]

Anyway, Germany of 1938 was much weaker than Germany of 1939. It would have been much easier to fight Hitler in 1938 with Czechoslovakia
(with Suddetes fortifications) and USSR on your side, than to fight Hitler in 1939 when Hitler had entire Czech's arsenal and Skoda military industries at his disposal and Soviets tired of your BS diplomacy were out of fight.

[Saras]

But then you'd NOT stop at the Rhine and conquer all of Europe, which would be very bad.

[Serb]

I bet Daladie and Chamberlen were alike paranoids.

[Serb]

On the other hand, in 1939 Brits valued Polish military capiblities higher than Soviet.

[Saras]

Quantity is a quality of its own.