Thought Experiment : 1935

@Poseidon,

Poseidon wrote:

Hmmm ... I was actually looking for a solution that could have avoided the war, or at least made it less important. An economic or education strategy.

How could the Germans themselves have been convinced to perhaps overthrow Hitler from inside? A German civil war would have been a much smaller problem.

Also a good point about Japan and Manchuria. Could an internal Japanese rebellion have brought about a civil war in that part of the world?

Or even better : can we envisage a result that avoided war altogether?

Avoiding what war the war your talking about or the war that could have come about because you avoided that war...go back to the begining of time because all our histories are explicably linked...ww1 caused ww2 ...what caused ww1..the austro.hungarian war? what caused the austro.hungarian war???

@Poseidon,

xris makes a good point

We look at villains, like Hitler and Osama Bin Laden and Kaiser Wilhelm and Emperor Hirohito, etc, etc. far out of proportion to the large movements that they're figureheads of.

Fundamentally the world in the 1920s and 1930s was a seething, brewing cauldron of potential energy. There were extremists everywhere, there were idealogues, there was severe factionalization along ethnic and political lines, and there was economic disaster.

So if you killed Hitler, or you fomented some other kind of revolution, or whatever, maybe the actual history would have been different -- but I don't think you could have avoided a huge war.

Just looking at the European front, remember that the center of this war, THE main story of it, was the war between Germany and the USSR. This was the war that Hitler wanted, this was the big clash of ideologies, this was the war in which 25 million Russians, 5 million Germans, 3 million Poles, 6 million Jews died. By 1935, I don't think THIS war was avoidable. What might have been avoidable was the war in Western Europe. I mean Germany could have simply fortified its own border with France, then gone and wreaked havoc in the USSR without France and Britain ever really challenging them.

The "phony war" is the term for the interval between the declaration of war against Germany by Britain and France (after the invasion of Poland in Sept, 1939) and the actual onset of hostilities against France the next year. France and Britain did not want a cataclysmic land war on the continent. Hitler only wanted one against Stalin.

Hitler thought quite wrongly that he could nullify Britain after knocking out France, and he was even dumber in declaring war on the US after Pearl Harbor. But his theory was that this would allow him to prosecute the war against Stalin without any resistance from the Allies. He could probably have gotten away with invading Russia without facing anything more than air raids from the West, who in themselves were no fans of Stalin. In fact if Italy hadn't gone threatening North Africa, then that would have been yet less of a compelling reason for the West to get involved.

So what that means is that the enormous war between Hitler and Stalin, which dwarfed in every respect the war waged by the allies, was probably not nearly as avoidable as the war in Western Europe. And probably the only way Stalin could have avoided such a bad war with Germany would be if he had taken the bait in the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, gone and created a huge (and competent) Red Army, and claimed his half of Poland in force. I don't think Germany would have been able to charge all the way to Moscow, Leningrad, and Stalingrad if they faced a huge Red Army in Eastern Europe.

@Aedes,

One of the biggest causes of the second world war was the USA.

@Aedes,

Aedes wrote:

What's odd, though, is that from a military point of view, Hitler and Stalin were probably the two absolute worst military leaders in the history of the planet. Just exemplary cases of abominable leadership. The difference is that Stalin's degree of delusion got better as the war went on, and Hitler's got only worse and worse.

Or more importantly, Hitler's lunacy took hold after he had built the strongest army in the world, effectively ruining any sustainable efficacy. Stalin's lunacy, on the other hand, occurred early and ruined an obsolete Red Army. Stalin had mountains of resources and manpower to recover from his blunders, Hitler had already nearly exhausted his by the time he started making his mistakes. Hitler's mistakes resulted in the death of millions of his finest soldiers, Stalin's mistakes only resulted in a determined populace that produced good soldiers by the millions.

@avatar6v7,

avatar6v7;36041 wrote:

One of the biggest causes of the second world war was the USA.

While I cannot disagree more, I'd hope you would indulge us in a bit more elaboration on this. I'd direct you, as I've mentioned in other threads, to Wars of the World by Niall Fergusson. He makes a phenomenal case of how the first half of the 20th century, including both wars, was essentially one giant civil war within western civilization. Or perhaps one giant suicide attempt in western civilization.

Fundamentally WWII was an extension of WWI. The enormous potential energy that existed in Europe in 1914 was not relieved at all by that war. Once WWI ended, the ultranationalism collapsed into militarism, the violence coalesced into civil wars, the empires collapsed into power vacuums, and the victors (specifically Hitler and Stalin) rose into enormous powers with an impoverished vacuum between them.

The USA did not even ratify the Treaty of Versailles, which is one of the more commonly cited reasons for WWII (perhaps overstated, though). Hitler's ire about Versailles was directed at Britain and France, not the USA. The USA was completely isolationist and had a tiny, pointless military even up to 1940. The only encroachment by the USA in Asia was in the Philippines, but that dates back to the Spanish-American War.

The USA had nothing to do with Hitler's antisemitism. It had nothing to do with his oft stated campaign for lebensraum, or for his war against 'judeobolshevism'.

So I can't really see how a historically supportable argument can be made to blame the USA for WWII. We deserve the blame for lots of things, but certainly not that.

Mr. Fight the Power;36048 wrote:

Or more importantly, Hitler's lunacy took hold after he had built the strongest army in the world, effectively ruining any sustainable efficacy. Stalin's lunacy, on the other hand, occurred early and ruined an obsolete Red Army. Stalin had mountains of resources and manpower to recover from his blunders, Hitler had already nearly exhausted his by the time he started making his mistakes. Hitler's mistakes resulted in the death of millions of his finest soldiers, Stalin's mistakes only resulted in a determined populace that produced good soldiers by the millions.

Yeah, I think that sums up a lot of it. But Hitler was delusional from the start. Operation Barbarossa was the world's most horrible suicide attempt. Hitler's insanity only got more moment-to-moment as time went on.

I do think that a case can be made for Stalin becoming a better leader (of his war effort) as the war went on. He ended up with an outstanding war industry, with outstanding generals in Zhukov and Chuikov whom he respected and listened to. Stalin micromanaged in a strategic way, unlike Hitler who had no strategy to speak of and micromanaged in a tactical way.

@Aedes,

Aedes wrote:

While I cannot disagree more, I'd hope you would indulge us in a bit more elaboration on this. I'd direct you, as I've mentioned in other threads, to Wars of the World by Niall Fergusson. He makes a phenomenal case of how the first half of the 20th century, including both wars, was essentially one giant civil war within western civilization. Or perhaps one giant suicide attempt in western civilization.

Fundamentally WWII was an extension of WWI. The enormous potential energy that existed in Europe in 1914 was not relieved at all by that war. Once WWI ended, the ultranationalism collapsed into militarism, the violence coalesced into civil wars, the empires collapsed into power vacuums, and the victors (specifically Hitler and Stalin) rose into enormous powers with an impoverished vacuum between them.

The USA did not even ratify the Treaty of Versailles, which is one of the more commonly cited reasons for WWII (perhaps overstated, though). Hitler's ire about Versailles was directed at Britain and France, not the USA. The USA was completely isolationist and had a tiny, pointless military even up to 1940. The only encroachment by the USA in Asia was in the Philippines, but that dates back to the Spanish-American War.

The USA had nothing to do with Hitler's antisemitism. It had nothing to do with his oft stated campaign for lebensraum, or for his war against 'judeobolshevism'.

So I can't really see how a historically supportable argument can be made to blame the USA for WWII. We deserve the blame for lots of things, but certainly not that.

You cannot see it because you have never read a history book, obviously. For a start it was americas failure to ratify the treaty of versaille that was one of the major reasons it holds a large share of the responsibility. Had the US signed the treaty and joined the league of nations, your own presidents brain child, the league might have been an orginisation with real power and helped avert the various criseses of the thirties.
It was because of the laissez faire running of the government in the twenties, and an utter failure by the buissness world in the US, that the wall street crash occured. The wall street crash sent economies around the world toppling, and worse yet the US called in many major loans from Germany, thus hitting it's economy particularily hard. It was only amidst deep financial recession that Hitler was able to get elected, had the economy held up, then the moderates would almolst certainly have remained in power.

@avatar6v7,

avatar6v7 wrote:

You cannot see it because you have never read a history book, obviously.

There are ways of talking to people on this internet forum without being pedantic or demeaning. Please give it a shot.

If the aggregate of my posts in this topic suggest to you that I haven't read a history book, and this includes the two history books that I've specifically mentioned in this thread, then I'd be eager to take recommendations from you for further reading to supplement my understanding. Since my family was deeply affected by WWII, I've read voraciously about it for many many years. But I haven't read everything.

Quote:

For a start it was americas failure to ratify the treaty of versaille that was one of the major reasons it holds a large share of the responsibility.

That is ironic, seeing as the war guilt clause in the Treaty of Versailles was largely responsible for the Nazis' eagerness to blame other groups for their loss in WWI, including Jews and Bolsheviks. In other words, the Treaty of Versailles did a great deal to facilitate militarism in Germany. And this was due in part to the fact that it was 1)economically destroying Germany and 2) documenting Germany's guilt.

So the US decided not to participate in that highly flawed document that was one of the major facilitators of the Nazis' rise to power. If the Americans had signed the treaty, there is a good chance that they would have been sucked into the war 2 years earlier.

Furthermore, the Treaty of Versailles kept Germany an economic cripple, which led to a state of virtual civil war in Germany during the 20s. During the 20s the US loaned more money to Germany for rebuilding than any other nation.

Quote:

Had the US signed the treaty and joined the league of nations, your own presidents brain child, the league might have been an orginisation with real power and helped avert the various criseses of the thirties.

Really -- just like the UN is accomplishing right now? Just like the UN's roaring successes in about 20 African conflicts, in Kashmir, in Georgia, in Chechnya, in Bosnia, in Kosovo...

The failure of the League of Nations had nothing to do with the Americans' lack of commitment to it. It had to do with the fact that Europe after WWI was just as self-interested and stupid as it had been before WWI. The LoN was doomed to be innefectual.

Besides, what could they have done in Germany? I mean Germany went out and signed treaties with the intention of breaking them. The problem was that no one had the guts to enforce any kind of resolution. Certainly neither Chamberlain nor Stalin had any kind of moxy to stand up to Hitler. At least France made the Maginot line, though in practical terms it proved worthless.

Quote:

The wall street crash sent economies around the world toppling, and worse yet the US called in many major loans from Germany, thus hitting it's economy particularily hard.

Yes, it is true that Germany suffered from the lack of loans -- which the US could no longer afford thanks to its own experience in the depression. But the depression came about as a systemic problem both in the US economy and the global economy, and the protectionism by Europe was a major contributor.

Furthermore, it is likely that WWII would have happened anyway even if there hadn't been a great depression. As I mentioned in my previous post, the challenges that created WWI were only rendered worse at the end of that war, and extremism in Germany already was well entrenched before the depression.

Quote:

It was only amidst deep financial recession that Hitler was able to get elected

Hitler was never elected. :sarcastic:

@Aedes,

Aedes wrote:

There are ways of talking to people on this internet forum without being pedantic or demeaning. Please give it a shot.

If the aggregate of my posts in this topic suggest to you that I haven't read a history book, and this includes the two history books that I've specifically mentioned in this thread, then I'd be eager to take recommendations from you for further reading to supplement my understanding. Since my family was deeply affected by WWII, I've read voraciously about it for many many years. But I haven't read everything.

You see I buy this right up until the point that you say this:

Aedes wrote:

Hitler was never elected. :sarcastic:

Kind of shot yourself in the foot there. Go check your facts again.

Aedes wrote:

That is ironic, seeing as the war guilt clause in the Treaty of Versailles was largely responsible for the Nazis' eagerness to blame other groups for their loss in WWI, including Jews and Bolsheviks. In other words, the Treaty of Versailles did a great deal to facilitate militarism in Germany. And part of the reason it was NOT economically destroying Germany and 2) documenting Germany's guilt.

So the US decided not to participate in that highly flawed document that was one of the major facilitators of the Nazis' rise to power. If the Americans had signed the treaty, there is a good chance that they would have been sucked into the war 2 years earlier.

Furthermore, the Treaty of Versailles kept Germany an economic cripple, which led to a state of virtual civil war in Germany during the 20s. During the 20s the US loaned more money to Germany for rebuilding than any other nation.

You are seperating this out artificially from my point about the league. Also you should see what I have to say about the loans.

Aedes wrote:

Really -- just like the UN is accomplishing right now? Just like the UN's roaring successes in about 20 African conflicts, in Kashmir, in Georgia, in Chechnya, in Bosnia, in Kosovo...

The failure of the League of Nations had nothing to do with the Americans' lack of commitment to it. It had to do with the fact that Europe after WWI was just as self-interested and stupid as it had been before WWI. The LoN was doomed to be innefectual.

Besides, what could they have done in Germany? I mean Germany went out and signed treaties with the intention of breaking them. The problem was that no one had the guts to enforce any kind of resolution. Certainly neither Chamberlain nor Stalin had any kind of moxy to stand up to Hitler. At least France made the Maginot line, though in practical terms it proved worthless.

They had no guts partly because the US refused to back them. Also it was woodrow wilsons idea in the first place.

Aedes wrote:

Yes, it is true that Germany suffered from the lack of loans -- which the US could no longer afford thanks to its own experience in the depression. But the depression came about as a systemic problem both in the US economy and the global economy, and the protectionism by Europe was a major contributor.

European protectionism, EUROPEAN protectionism!!! Have you no clue!?! It was US tarrifs on European goods that helped cause the Great Depression. Europe couldn't afford to ship goods to america, and in return couldn't afford american goods.

Aedes wrote:

Furthermore, it is likely that WWII would have happened anyway even if there hadn't been a great depression. As I mentioned in my previous post, the challenges that created WWI were only rendered worse at the end of that war, and extremism in Germany already was well entrenched before the depression.

I am not saying that it was all Americas fault, but without American mistakes Hitler could not have been elected.

Aedes wrote:

Hitler was never elected. :sarcastic:

I just wanted to quote this again. Just look at it a second. Search your memory. Attempt to recall your history lessons. Oh dear.

@avatar6v7,

avatar6v7 wrote:

Kind of shot yourself in the foot there. Go check your facts again.

German election, 1933 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hitler was never elected. Check your own facts. He was appointed to create a power sharing government after the Nazi party won a plurality in the Reichstag. He wasn't even a candidate.

I'm in the hospital today and I don't have time to respond point by point. Before I spend any more time engaging in this conversation, I urge you to rethink the aggressive, patronizing, ad hominem attack posture you've taken in this thread, and take a moment to read the forum rules. Thank you.

@Aedes,

Aedes wrote:

German election, 1933 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hitler was never elected. Check your own facts. He was appointed to create a power sharing government after the Nazi party won a plurality in the Reichstag. He wasn't even a candidate.

I'm in the hospital today and I don't have time to respond point by point. Before I spend any more time engaging in this conversation, I urge you to rethink the aggressive, patronizing, ad hominem attack posture you've taken in this thread, and take a moment to read the forum rules. Thank you.

Sorry I suppose I did rather jump at you on that one. I am perfectly aware that Hitler joined with another party in the reichstag, however it was the nationalist party, and only 12 seats. Millions of people voted for hitler, and he was elected, that he had to do a deal to get that little bit more represenation to put him in the majority is a technicality, especially when you consider the nationilists were another extreme right wing party.

@Poseidon,

Ok guys, lets not start ANOTHER war! :poke-eye:

You have all highlighted many interesting points. But I have to reject the fatalistic idea that war is inevitable. So as King of the West, if you had been crowned in 1925, you could have focussed your energies on cleaning up wall street before the crash. You would have to crack down heavily on protectionism and economic crimes like embezzlement.

Germany invaded Africa for one solid reason as far as I know. It wanted take Egypt and then the middle-east, because of that old devil's juice : oil. He hoped to link up his Eastern European army with his Africa corps in the process. If he had achieved that, he reckoned he could drive the muslim hoards before him and be unstoppable.

Key battles like El Alamein stopped those ideas. But this is a bit of a digression.

...

As King of the West, one could consolidate power by marriage to an Islamic princess. Other than the conference of Teheran, Islam was sitting on the side watching, no doubt wondering 'what on Earth are these crazy infidels up to now?'

I cannot accept that Hitler was completely crazy, he was certainly not completely sane, but he had a plan, and he led a massive movement. I agree that killing him would solve nothing.

But the primary cause of wars is warriors. Germany wanted lebensraum because it had a hoards of young virile men with little or no social skills and little or no opportunities. Read Kafka.

If, as King of a united Christian/Islamic empire of God, energy and money had been channelled into opportunities such as commercial passenger flight, much of the testosterone would have had somewhere to fly to.

Another sneakier plan would be to plant gold deposits in Antarctica, and start a gold rush. You would be able to tap off the testosterone and thin out the numbers in Europe and Japan. The weather down there would be a less destructive way of 'culling' the masses. And the survivors would have established useful skills and become more mature as a result. One could even plant 'alien artifacts' to motivate the buggers to get down there and learn a thing or two about survival.

My point is that without hoards of virile ignorant young men, no war is going to get very far. Germans love gold!

When you see the amount of human potential that the war generated, it just seems that a good non-violent plan for the nations to compete against one another with, would have sapped the human male energy required to fight a war. And if you can teach maturity to the delinquint youth, then all the better.

Our world is in a very similar situation.

I think that the political excuses for fighting are an afterthought to the psycho-social conditions that are the fuel of the conflict. Without scores of semi-skilled sociopaths, and nothing to keep them busy, the sparks that ignite the conflict would be of little effect.

:surrender:

@Poseidon,

Poseidon;36145 wrote:

Germany invaded Africa for one solid reason as far as I know. It wanted take Egypt and then the middle-east, because of that old devil's juice : oil.

Well, they also entered North Africa to rescue Mussolini from his own misadventures there. The Soviet capture of Hitler's refineries in 1945 did Hitler more economic damage than all Allied strategical bombing combined throughout the entire war. Of course that didn't stop Hitler from deciding to delay his capture of the Caucasian oil fields by spending the winter in Stalingrad...

Quote:

If he had achieved that, he reckoned he could drive the muslim hoards before him and be unstoppable.

Interesting parenthetical here, but Himmler once envisioned both slavs and Muslims as being part of the greater German race. I have a feeling, though, that he was referring mainly to European Muslims.

Quote:

I cannot accept that Hitler was completely crazy

Obdurate and delusional is more accurate. Smile

Quote:

But the primary cause of wars is warriors.

Yes, this is exactly correct. I think I've even said something similar here in different threads.

How often is the story of war one of disaffected, angry young men and the leaders who can get them to follow? Well, that's the story of nearly ALL wars.

Avatar -- thank you for your post. And you were correct about the protectionism, it was the US tariffs that were so devastating. I haven't read much about the Great Depression until recently, I've read a lot more of the political and military history.

As for blame, I think you've mentioned a number of contributing situations, but I really regard them as second or third tier in importance for WWII. The people who made active, belligerent decisions were most responsible. The only foreign leader who ever had a chance of stopping Germany before the war was Stalin, and he didn't 'get it' until it was way too late. Most other things that the US contributed to are sort of circumstantial, i.e. they potentiated the war but are far too removed to be blamed for causing it.

@Aedes,

Aedes wrote:

Well, they also entered North Africa to rescue Mussolini from his own misadventures there. The Soviet capture of Hitler's refineries in 1945 did Hitler more economic damage than all Allied strategical bombing combined throughout the entire war. Of course that didn't stop Hitler from deciding to delay his capture of the Caucasian oil fields by spending the winter in Stalingrad...

Land control of the Suez Canal was another major reason.

Quote:

Obdurate and delusional is more accurate.

Power and recognition crazy and delusional as a result.

His reaction upon seeing the tomb of Napoleon, saying that he must have a bigger one in Berlin, shows this.

Yes, this is exactly correct. I think I've even said something similar here in different threads.

@Mr Fight the Power,

Mr. Fight the Power wrote:

His reaction upon seeing the tomb of Napoleon, saying that he must have a bigger one in Berlin, shows this.

Yeah, Napoleon's tomb is hardly humble unless you're looking at the Cheops Pyramid for comparison. It's ironic since Hitler's skull and his jaw are being kept separately in two secret locations in Russia, and the remainder of his ashes was dumped into a river.

@Aedes,

Aedes wrote:

Yeah, Napoleon's tomb is hardly humble unless you're looking at the Cheops Pyramid for comparison. It's ironic since Hitler's skull and his jaw are being kept separately in two secret locations in Russia, and the remainder of his ashes was dumped into a river.

If only we could know that he still existed in some form to be aware of his legacy.

@Poseidon,

I am a legacy of his, in a different sense.

@Aedes,

Aedes wrote:

I am a legacy of his, in a different sense.

And how is that?

@Poseidon,

I think that a 'leader' like Hitler or Mugabe, are not really the dictators they pretend to be. They are foolish arrogant cowards who are controlled by the mobs. They 'order' invasions like Poland, France, the Netherlands (or Matabeleland & MDC) because their mobs are doing it anyway. And they are too cowardly to stop it. That they are in those positions in the first instance, is because they foolishly take up the role of 'leader' for the mobs (or 'bodyguards').

Of course it made no sense for Hitler to invade Westwards. America, an English-speaking country was never going to allow Britain to be invaded. Did Hitler honestly think that because of him Canada and America would go to war? Hardly.

He must have realised his quest was futile. But, as an atheist, he was just living in the moment, believing death was inevitable anyway, with no repercussions; and he may as well just 'get his kicks before the sh1thouse goes up in flames'. Germany was facing hyperinflation before ww1 from what I remember hearing.

But his 'Arean' warriors wanted to loot the brothels of Holland and France. He did have a vague plan, but it was never going to work. South Africa, Australia, Canada, and America still had masses of available troups, and functional economies to sustain the war effort.

Its like the forces of human nature, contrive to put many ignorant people in a given nation (its actually quite easy to learn a foreign language when you are immersed in it - and have no other choice), and then just cull them. The 'birds of a feather flock together' idiom is an underestimated force of human nature.

This is why its nearly always wrong to see war as just an 'us versus them' situation. There may have been rogues and good guys on both sides, but mostly it really does evolve into a war between good and evil - at least when it gets to the point of full scale war. But having rebelled in non-pacifist terms against the Apartheid monster myself, I can say that it definately takes a certain level of ignorance to be an antagonist in a war of aggression. Even when good and evil is balanced on both sides.

But there is a very very fine line between defence and offence. Its a delicate tightrope act to know when to fight, when to threaten, and when to retreat. War is whirlpool that can suck people in who do not have forsight, and cannot see the whirlpool heading their way.

This is my story:
African Child Soldier : Brother of Heathen

This is my late Grampa's story
Sleepy Hollow - LS Ongley - Biography
He was bailed out of Iti and Kraut pow camps by the Americans in wwII

America really needs to get out of the middle-east quickly. It needs to place itself on the moral high ground again. Handing the reigns of power over to Iran is the only viable option I can see.

I honestly feel America is headed for the same fate as Germany. But I also have hope that with the wonders of modern communication like the internet, the disaster can be averted. I do not want to seem merely a pessimist. I owe my existence to America, as Grampa's story will show.

But America is following in Germany's footsteps : Eugenics is a fatal error in philosophy. It is incorrect in its assumptions that personality is genetic based. It cannot be too loudly expressed that such an error will destroy America. Christianity may have its faults, its metaphors may be misunderstood. But homosexuality has long been classed as a psychological disorder for very solid reasons. If a person cannot tell the difference between a man and a woman, (like many 3 year olds can) then how can they be expected to tell the difference between right and wrong?

The 'gay rights issue' (an oxymoron if ever their was one) is sending out the message to the Islamic world, and the Christian world, that something is profoundly wrong at the heart of America. Homosexuality has always been an early warning signal of social decay. The countless millenia of religious history have recorded this so often that for people who regularly read the religious texts (critically, not dogmatically), it just befuddles the mind that so many young people seem to think that it is not a problem. The psychological wounds these people sadly bare, cannot be allowed to fester and spread. They need help, they need treatment; they must NEVER be told that they were made like that and that it is ok, and that it cannot be helped.

The legal system itself is corrupt all over the world, or it would never had allowed this in the first instance. If honest young people cannot trust the law, then they give up trying to trust it, and they get ready to fight it.

Sorry for the too long post!

@Mr Fight the Power,

Mr. Fight the Power;36258 wrote:

And how is that?

Because all four of my grandparents survived the death camps. Three were in Auschwitz, one survived a death march, all were in horrendous ghettos, and the virtual entirety of their families (including 6 of my great grandparents) were killed. All four great grandmothers died in the gas chambers. My great grandfather, a rabbi, starved to death in the Lodz ghetto so that my grandmother and her siblings could have his rations.

The circumstances that allowed my grandparents to meet (they met one another after the war), to have my parents, to emigrate to this country, and eventually to have me and my generation, were entirely a product of their passage through Hitler's cauldron. And in a very literal sense, the world Hitler created was the nexus that separates me and my family now from an entirely different world before.

In so many respects -- from my (and my family's) mere existence, all the way to the decisions we make and views we hold -- my family in 2008 is still very much a direct descendent of what happened. And if legacy isn't the right word, maybe 'anti-legacy' is more like it.

Philosophy Forum

Thought Experiment : 1935

Quick Links

My Account

able2know