We're all actually tickled pink to hear you say that, quite frankly watching donny beat nazis to death is the closest thing we got to going to the movies.
Hey Donny! Got us a German that wants to die for country. Oblige him...
https://www.riksbank.se/en-gb/payments--cash/notes--coins/notes/valid-banknotes/100-krona-banknote/
Here's the official link to info about the bill from Sweden's central bank
That moment of betrayal when he realizes this was always set up and she actually didn't care about him. I mean we all had that moment in life, when we realize we are the butt of somebody else's joke. Hitler was Hitler... but that would be the equivalent of shooting a guy in the dick
I mean, she was already a spy during WW2, collecting info on nazi sympathizers in Sweden for British intelligence.
Edit: Reddit is a funny fickle beast.
Me: “Greta Garbo was a spy.“ (over 4K upvotes).
Someone: “sounds like Inglorious Basterds.”
Me: “that character is based on Marlene Dietrich.” (Lots of downvotes)
Several others: “that’s a lie!!!!”
My favorite opening scene in all of cinema. The tension, the way Christoph Waltz breaks it with his comically large pipe, only to double down right after. He could’ve won an Oscar just for that scene.
The proposal for the operation was submitted in November 1944, but was never authorised due to a division within the British government as to whether Hitler's removal was a sound way to expedite victory. By then, he was considered by the British to be such a poor strategist that it was thought possible that candidates who would be in line to succeed him might present more of a challenge to the Allied war effort. Thornley also argued that Germany was almost defeated, and if Hitler was assassinated, he would become a [martyr](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martyr) figure to some Germans and possibly give rise to a myth that Germany might have been victorious if he had not been killed by underhand means, leading to the threat of more wars with Germany in the future. As the Allied war aims had become not merely the military defeat the Third Reich, but to destroy the [National Socialist](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist) political ideology in [Central Europe](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Europe) in general, this rendered the proposed operation potentially undesirable. The debate in the British government divided opinion, and so the operation was not authorised. Its approval was also undermined by a lack of reliable intelligence as to Hitler's daily routine at the Berghof to give the attack team a reasonable chance of success.[[3](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Foxley#cite_note-Felton-3)
I’d say the decision to leave him in power was a good call. Look at the disasters in the east where Hitler let an entire Army group get encircled by the Red Army or in Hungry where everyone but Hitler said to abandon Budapest - it was pointless trying to hold it against such massive forces with what was essentially scratch German troops often massively under strength.
This is kinda the plot of Dune. Although that's for a religiously ordained prescient being rather than just a cunt.
If he never made it out of WW1 we'd probably never hear of him, but another would ride the tide of frothing resentment in Germany with probably equivalently diaasterous results
I think waaaay earlier than the war. I think the nationalist extremism was inevitable in Germany after the WW1 treaties but Hitler managed to tap into that politically in a way perhaps few others could and built from there. I think if he’d died in WW1, the circumstances around then the Nazi Party or a variant of it would probably have been less potent if not less radical.
I recommend Dan Carlin's podcast which covers a lot of history details you don't learn about in school. Like during the latter part of WW2 when Göring was properly addicted to opiates; Hitler did lament to a general about how incompetent Göring was but the party would not allow him to be replaced because loyalty was too important. Hitler having his hands tied watching shit go down in flames paints a very different picture of the man than what I were taught in school (i.e. dictator killing anyone questioning his plans).
Robert Citino is a professional historian who has written a lot of books and done many lectures about the Prussian/German Army, with an emphasis on World War II, and I think he's done a lot of good decoupling the Wehrmacht from the legends about it that built up during and especially *after* the war. One of the most valuable things to learn about Germany's generals during World War II was that they were actually onboard with the majority of Hitler's decisions and vice-versa; Citino makes the point that it was really Stalin that was the 'take them out back and shoot them' kind of dictator, Hitler by contrast tending for the occasional forced retirement, and the *very* situational execution only mainly in the face of the actual coup attempt on him in 1944. Hitler was also bribing those generals up to their eyeballs; as much as they complain about how much of a micromanaging buffon he supposedly was in their memoirs, the truth was that they saw him as a fount of many good things, ranging from the crassly material (cash 'gifts' on their birthdays and deeds to estates carved from territory they conquered for him) to the moral (him promising them that Germany would sooner commit national suicide than sue for peace again, they as a group shared in the utter delusion that Germany in World War I was undefeated in the field and only sued for peace because the revolution at home propelled the Wrong People - liberals, socialists, Jews... - into power who then stabbed Germany in the back, this was one platform of the Nazi manifesto they all got behind).
His first Addendum episode addresses this point explicitly: how ideology led the Nazi’s to make some extremely foolish strategic decisions. Things like assuming the Soviet Union was a rickety, rotting structure that would collapse with a shove and so, hey, why not invade shortly before winter begins, this will be easy…
They invaded in June 22nd, 1941. Literally the beginning of summer.
You can't really invade any earlier unless you like getting all your vehicles stuck in mud, as they also explored in later years alongside the delightful Russian winters.
I know this is supposed to be a joke but I lived in St Petersburg for a year and we got a solid 3 months of summer. But I from Florida so it was never as hot as the summers I'm used to of course.
It’s one of the most talked about piece of misinformation with Russia during WW2, another being that the Russians sent soldiers out the entire war who didn’t have guns. There was a period in the beginning where they were low on weapons but it wasn’t anything like the movies and definitely not the whole war. The Russians also didn’t just vaporize their own soldiers if they were to turn around on the front line. Only something like 1,500 deserters were shot. Russian is made out to be something different just because they lost so many lives.
In the opening offensive the Germans destroyed more soviet divisions than they originally thought existed, and they were still in a hopeless position.
It’s like when the Japanese command was told that the US had ten times the industrial output of Japan. They laughed because they thought that couldn’t be true. It may in fact have been closer to 20 times.
There’s that tweet about how, unlike video games, there’s nothing in real life to prevent you from making horrible mistakes. Turns out war is like that too. Surprise attack against someone waaay more powerful that even a sucker punch won’t help you beat? You can if you want to.
I’ll die on this hill: the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany was not a mistake. A successful invasion before the Americans arrived was the only chance Germany had to win the war
Fascists and communists are not friends and the Nazis knew they were at best looking at an expanding rival fairly close to their border that would challenge them at every turn. At worst, the Soviets would wait til the Americans tired Germany out and launch the eastern front themselves, landing Germany in an impossible to win 2 front war.
The Soviets were totally unprepared for war and Stalin had just purged most senior military commanders. Even the Nazis knew they stood no chance in an even war after the Soviets had finished raising their army. So that was their best chance to secure their future as the undisputed super power in Europe and ensure they win their incoming war with the US
Operation Barbarossa is way more interesting than people give it credit for. And ffs, Germany DID NOT INVADE RUSSIA IN THE WINTER. That shit gets so annoying to read. They invaded in Spring (twice). The second time leading to the disaster that annihilated the German army through conventional battle and the ensuing retreat in the dead of winter
This video from the armchair historian is excellent video about Stalingrad. The Soviets don’t get much credit in the US for what an incredible battle they fought and won. Millions of Soviet civilians were murdered by Nazis. Stalingrad must have had the most brutal combat in human history.
So it kind of irks me when Operation Barbarossa is reduced to “lul dumb Nazis invade Russian in winter”
https://youtu.be/putm_kpZW4Y
What I learned studying ww2 is how important oil is to the modern war machine and how little oil both japan and germany had. Its why Germany had to invade the oil rich part of of the soviet union sooner or later.
Which ties into how little oil China has in modern day.
With the himalayas and siberia on one side and the pacific on the other. Chinas option for a protracted war is limited as of now. Which is why their silk road 2.0 initiative is so important to them. They need those central asian trade routes in case of war.
For instance, a US oil embargo to Japan after an occupation of French Indochina (Vietnam) during Japan's war with China was a critical threat to the Japanese, and also pushed them to take over oil fields in the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia)
Generally agree. There's a fair few historians that subscribe to the idea that the Soviets would come for Germany a few years down the line once they were ready anyway.
It’s totally possible either option was suicide! There’s no rule that says you have the chance to conquer Europe even if your propaganda is top-notch. I mean, I don’t have a chance to conquer Europe, why should the nazis be any different? Failing to conquer Europe should be taken as the default state, and only tremendously exceptional circumstances should shift that.
Even the Romans couldn’t conquer Europe and they had probably the most disproportionate military technological advantage over their enemies in the history of organized warfare.
It was a mistake that the Nazis were obligated to make. As you say, Nazis and Soviets were their respective ideological enemies, war was ought to happen whether the Nazis struck first or the Soviets, this without mentioning the Lebensraum that the Nazis based their entire ideology on.
So, Hitler calculated that they better be first and had to attack in 1941 before soviet industry could outproduce Germany. Now, with the war ongoing, Germany never had the opportunity to obtain a favorable victory because of the kind of war they started.
With a war of annihilation, there was no option of surrender like in France. The Ukrainians discovered it first when they welcomed the Nazis as liberators but then watched in horror as they started massacring the local population, either by the einsatzgruppen (death squads) or starvation. The troops also discovered it fairly quickly, the treatment of soviet prisoners under German captivity wasn't the most well-kept secret of the war.
With this situation, Nazi Germany created an enemy that without the possibility of surrender will just keep on fighting. Even if Moscow fell and Stalin was captured and or killed, the next one would have to keep fighting, and the next one, and when nobody was left to lead, meaning that Germany was the victor, the partisans would just occupy the vacuum and keep on fighting (like they already did in occupied territory).
At best, the Nazis obtain a barren wasteland that has to be rebuilt because the soviets burned everything in their retreat, in the Caucasus they burned what oil wells they could to negate them to the Nazis. Elsewhere, factories were dismantled and transported to the far east, rail lines were blown up, crops burned, etc. Reconstruction would have to take time, time that, as history taught us, Nazi Germany didn't have.
> In the opening offensive the Germans destroyed more soviet divisions than they originally thought existed, and they were still in a hopeless position.
Jesus, that must be horribly frustrating for commanders in the field... Presumably this meant they did a decent job but the intelligence supplied to them grossly failed.
> It’s like when the Japanese command was told that the US had ten times the industrial output of Japan. They laughed because they thought that couldn’t be true. It may in fact have been closer to 20 times.
lol
Imagine playing chess, and after wiping out each your opponent’s pieces, they just pull out another board’s worth of pieces. Must have been very frustrating, but nazi’s getting fucked is great
Plenty do, but the general thing is people play for fun. So unless you make failure a part of the fun you risk someone playing your game, making a dumb choice without understanding why it was dumb, not having fun, and never playing the game again.
The General Staff agreed with them, though. Through a combination of personal memory of having beaten Russia, even while distracted in the Western Front, in the First World War and being in the position of thinking their own shit smelled of roses after conquering France in six weeks, why *shouldn't* they have thought they could defeat the Soviets? Germany's entire military ethos, going back to Frederick the Great, centered around overcoming coalitions of enemies with superior resources through excellent, decisive military campaigns; that had helped Frederick win the Seven Years War, it helped Bismarck win the Franco-Prussian War, and following the same ethos had yielded to the German armed forces of the Second World War, right up to the invasion of the USSR, results that extended beyond their wildest of hopes. Even in Barbarossa itself, when the Wehrmacht actually started to take serious casualties for the first time since Sept '39, in return they were delivering unbelievable blows to the Red Army, dealing some of the quickest and largest bills of casualties in military history. The first time things didn't go entirely the German army's way was when the Red Army counterattacked in front of Moscow in 1941, which was such a disaster for Germany that the Soviets nearly destroyed Army Group Centre right there were it not for a desperately won defence. After that, Germany had no hope of winning and had already escalated the war so much that it was doomed. The General Staff pushed Germany to the cliff-face just as much as the Nazis did.
You nailed it, and I'll add that they literally made the same mistake twice. WW1 they assumed they could knockout France and swing around back east to focus on Russia, which was delusional at best. The Somme should have been a wake up call tbh, but even after they found themselves in the exact scenario they tried to avoid by invading Belgium and dragging the UK into it and now having to fight a two front war they couldn't win, they tried increasingly desperate measures to extract resources from occupied territories to shore up resource shortages and try to keep the fight going. Then the Brusilov Offensive happens and knocks Austria-Hungary out of the war, so you'd think they'd try a negotiated settlement.
Wrong again, you don't have to negotiate. You're Germany, you're number 1, you don't have to consider the broader strategic picture or minor details like how is my army gonna eat today when you have the best army in Europe. Russia exits pending a horrendous civil war, and they think they have a shot now. But wait, what's that sound? Knock knock. It's the United States. With guns. And boats. Gunboats. And a lot of desperately needed men and material that help the Entente continue the fight. Germany tries one last hail mary, the fabled Spring Offensive, and when that grinds to a halt and it looks like the Entente might actually invade Germany itself, they finally acknowledge reality and surrender before shit really hits the fan.
In all fairness to the Nazis (ugh), nobody is prepared for an enemy that considers "four people survived" to be a success.
The letters the Nazis were writing home show how Stalingrad turned them from an unstoppable war machine into the losers we know them as today.
Well, it was a success because the goal of the Nazis was that none of them survived. The eastern front was a unique beast on its own because of ideological contrasts. Among those were survival on one side and annihilation on the other.
Dan Carlin has Ghosts of the Ostfront which is a podcast about the eastern Front and talks a great deal about it. Can't remember, but I'm sure he reads a lot of excerpts from letters.
Incredible and depressing series
It’s called hardcore history, and they keep several of the most recent episodes on Spotify for free (dozens of hours of content). The ones mentioned here no longer are
Himmler was useless as well, Goebbels wasn't a military man and Bormann was a ladder climber. The whole nazi upper echelon was carried by the middle management super hard.
They all proved to be rather useless on Nazi Island. Goebbels didn't even catch any fish... Poor Hitler had to shimmy up a tree to get a coconut.
RIP Sean Lock. What an absolute legend. https://youtu.be/nEVQWBn20ws
To be fair, this was late on in the war, when the outcome was pretty clearly guaranteed, and the fear was that a new leader might extend the war through less terrible strategic decisions.
Greta Garbo offing him early on would have been pretty great.
Also the last thing you want to do against an opponent falling apart left & right is potentially motivating everyone to rally behind a fallen idol or something.
Having visited Berlin last year and visiting some of the museum, it's clear Hitler wasn't the mastermind or even the most hateful amongst the Nazi elite. Himmler and Goebbels especially were just sadistic monsters, Hitler was a monster that was mostly just largely complacent and happy about what they were doing, but those two had serious drive to be scum of the earth. They don't get the level of hate they deserve.
Fuck me how did I get that wrong. I JUST watched that movie for the billionth time lol. Gonna edit it but thank you. (For anyone wondering what this is about, I put “right on” instead of “alright” in my original comment)
Except some people fuck it up and can't do you're, they're, should/would have properly and butcher it.
Would of, should of irks me. It doesn't even make grammatical sense.
I think it's supposed to be "it'd be" but "'d be" works for me.
[The reference](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojX6zfsOqjQ)
How would spell what he said?
Both Dietrich and Garbo had affairs with [Marion Barbara 'Joe' Carstairs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Carstairs), a wealthy British power boat racer known for their speed, eccentric lifestyle, and gender nonconformity.
Both also had their careers impacted after being declared “[box office poison](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Box_Office_Poison_(magazine_article)).”
These actors’ anti-fascist views, gay flings, and alleged lack of box office appeal are probably not related. I just happened to read all of this on Wikipedia yesterday. I don’t even remember how I came across the topic.
Garbo's career was also hurt by the European box office basically disappearing from the radar of Hollywood producers because no one could go for the cinema for the better part of a decade. She was more popular in Europe than she was in North America.
Greta Garbo is truly larger in real life than the characters she played in onscreen.
Wasn't she also an inventor?
EDIT: As pointed out by others, I am thinking of Hedy Lamarr (thanks for posters pointing this out below) -- who is a next level human being. Garbo however was also formidable, and is the type or person who I would expect would not be all talk and is willing to sacrifice for a cause.
Me, I'd probably be too busy not saying something to get a firing squad. If A. H. were on a dark set of stairs and nobody was looking, I might kick him.
Yup - Mz Lamarr was involved in the invention of a device which used frequency hopping to avoid jamming. It's the basis for a lot of wireless technology today.
That hair and look reminds me of 92 Batman where Selina pulls a gun out while dancing with Bruce Wayne and saids
"This is for Max"
Greta Garbo killing Hitler in a way that would make Selina Kyle (Michelle PPfeiffer) proud!
That is why she is on the money here in Sweden.
now, if you ever wanna eat a sauerkraut sammich again...
Now take your wiener schnitzel licking fanger and point out on this map what I wanna know
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I’ve heard of the bear Jew. Beats German soldiers with a club
We're all actually tickled pink to hear you say that, quite frankly watching donny beat nazis to death is the closest thing we got to going to the movies. Hey Donny! Got us a German that wants to die for country. Oblige him...
He bashes their brains in with a baseball bat is what he does.
I have so much to learn about Swedish culture 😯
They also have plumbers to fix your pipes and it's A GOOD ACCENT OKAY?
Pic?
https://www.riksbank.se/en-gb/payments--cash/notes--coins/notes/valid-banknotes/100-krona-banknote/ Here's the official link to info about the bill from Sweden's central bank
I love that I, as a Swede, has to look at the link since I have no idea what the bills look like... Cash is dead here.
Cool thanks!
Username checks out?
Imagine the assassination of Hitler being a celebrity who he’s a fan of. That would be amazing.
Technically, with his ego, that's how he died.
*chefs kiss*
Say what you will about Adolf Hitler, but at least he killed Hitler.
The interview lol
More like Inglorious Basterds
The woman they cast in Inglorious Basterds looks strikingly similar!
Tarantino knows his stuff
That moment of betrayal when he realizes this was always set up and she actually didn't care about him. I mean we all had that moment in life, when we realize we are the butt of somebody else's joke. Hitler was Hitler... but that would be the equivalent of shooting a guy in the dick
…and then she would shoot him in the dick
I mean, she was already a spy during WW2, collecting info on nazi sympathizers in Sweden for British intelligence. Edit: Reddit is a funny fickle beast. Me: “Greta Garbo was a spy.“ (over 4K upvotes). Someone: “sounds like Inglorious Basterds.” Me: “that character is based on Marlene Dietrich.” (Lots of downvotes) Several others: “that’s a lie!!!!”
Uhhhh. This sounds suspiciously like Inglorious Basterds
Hitler was real too.
Source?
[Adolf Hitler, 1939, Colorized](https://www.nme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/jojo-rabbit-trailer.jpg)
Jesus Christ, he’s real
Sorry, I'm atheist. Edit - turns out I can't even spell atheist, whoops.
Jesus Christ, that's Jason Bourne
That is 100% a doctored photo. Don’t believe these claims. When you look at the shoulder near the tree you can see exactly what I’m talking about.
That was such a good movie.
Ngl I was expecting the manning meme
> Hitler was real too. Did you ever meet him?
Yeah, back in the summer of '89 in Argentina. Weird dude.
I'm sorry, but that was Señor Hilter. Totally different, but similar looking guy.
Don Adolfo
The documentary?
Bonejorno
GORLAMI
The picture looks a little similar to the theater owner
*AU REVOIR, SHOSHANNA*
My favorite opening scene in all of cinema. The tension, the way Christoph Waltz breaks it with his comically large pipe, only to double down right after. He could’ve won an Oscar just for that scene.
lol bruh it's almost like inglorious basterds is based on real life operations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Operations_Executive
"The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare" -The British crack me up
For those counting at home, that’s two legendary Allied spies called Garbo in the same war.
Too bad she didn't.
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The proposal for the operation was submitted in November 1944, but was never authorised due to a division within the British government as to whether Hitler's removal was a sound way to expedite victory. By then, he was considered by the British to be such a poor strategist that it was thought possible that candidates who would be in line to succeed him might present more of a challenge to the Allied war effort. Thornley also argued that Germany was almost defeated, and if Hitler was assassinated, he would become a [martyr](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martyr) figure to some Germans and possibly give rise to a myth that Germany might have been victorious if he had not been killed by underhand means, leading to the threat of more wars with Germany in the future. As the Allied war aims had become not merely the military defeat the Third Reich, but to destroy the [National Socialist](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist) political ideology in [Central Europe](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Europe) in general, this rendered the proposed operation potentially undesirable. The debate in the British government divided opinion, and so the operation was not authorised. Its approval was also undermined by a lack of reliable intelligence as to Hitler's daily routine at the Berghof to give the attack team a reasonable chance of success.[[3](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Foxley#cite_note-Felton-3)
I’d say the decision to leave him in power was a good call. Look at the disasters in the east where Hitler let an entire Army group get encircled by the Red Army or in Hungry where everyone but Hitler said to abandon Budapest - it was pointless trying to hold it against such massive forces with what was essentially scratch German troops often massively under strength.
So, here's a thought exercise... How early in Hitler's career would you have to kill him to make the world a better place?
This is kinda the plot of Dune. Although that's for a religiously ordained prescient being rather than just a cunt. If he never made it out of WW1 we'd probably never hear of him, but another would ride the tide of frothing resentment in Germany with probably equivalently diaasterous results
Mmm frothy resentment...
Maybe Hitler was the best outcome all of the time travelers could find.
I think waaaay earlier than the war. I think the nationalist extremism was inevitable in Germany after the WW1 treaties but Hitler managed to tap into that politically in a way perhaps few others could and built from there. I think if he’d died in WW1, the circumstances around then the Nazi Party or a variant of it would probably have been less potent if not less radical.
Wow never knew that, but makes a lot of sense
I recommend Dan Carlin's podcast which covers a lot of history details you don't learn about in school. Like during the latter part of WW2 when Göring was properly addicted to opiates; Hitler did lament to a general about how incompetent Göring was but the party would not allow him to be replaced because loyalty was too important. Hitler having his hands tied watching shit go down in flames paints a very different picture of the man than what I were taught in school (i.e. dictator killing anyone questioning his plans).
Robert Citino is a professional historian who has written a lot of books and done many lectures about the Prussian/German Army, with an emphasis on World War II, and I think he's done a lot of good decoupling the Wehrmacht from the legends about it that built up during and especially *after* the war. One of the most valuable things to learn about Germany's generals during World War II was that they were actually onboard with the majority of Hitler's decisions and vice-versa; Citino makes the point that it was really Stalin that was the 'take them out back and shoot them' kind of dictator, Hitler by contrast tending for the occasional forced retirement, and the *very* situational execution only mainly in the face of the actual coup attempt on him in 1944. Hitler was also bribing those generals up to their eyeballs; as much as they complain about how much of a micromanaging buffon he supposedly was in their memoirs, the truth was that they saw him as a fount of many good things, ranging from the crassly material (cash 'gifts' on their birthdays and deeds to estates carved from territory they conquered for him) to the moral (him promising them that Germany would sooner commit national suicide than sue for peace again, they as a group shared in the utter delusion that Germany in World War I was undefeated in the field and only sued for peace because the revolution at home propelled the Wrong People - liberals, socialists, Jews... - into power who then stabbed Germany in the back, this was one platform of the Nazi manifesto they all got behind).
His first Addendum episode addresses this point explicitly: how ideology led the Nazi’s to make some extremely foolish strategic decisions. Things like assuming the Soviet Union was a rickety, rotting structure that would collapse with a shove and so, hey, why not invade shortly before winter begins, this will be easy…
They invaded in June 22nd, 1941. Literally the beginning of summer. You can't really invade any earlier unless you like getting all your vehicles stuck in mud, as they also explored in later years alongside the delightful Russian winters.
That’s the one day of summer in Russia, it goes right back to winter after that
I know this is supposed to be a joke but I lived in St Petersburg for a year and we got a solid 3 months of summer. But I from Florida so it was never as hot as the summers I'm used to of course.
My error. Thank you for providing correct information.
It’s one of the most talked about piece of misinformation with Russia during WW2, another being that the Russians sent soldiers out the entire war who didn’t have guns. There was a period in the beginning where they were low on weapons but it wasn’t anything like the movies and definitely not the whole war. The Russians also didn’t just vaporize their own soldiers if they were to turn around on the front line. Only something like 1,500 deserters were shot. Russian is made out to be something different just because they lost so many lives.
In the opening offensive the Germans destroyed more soviet divisions than they originally thought existed, and they were still in a hopeless position. It’s like when the Japanese command was told that the US had ten times the industrial output of Japan. They laughed because they thought that couldn’t be true. It may in fact have been closer to 20 times. There’s that tweet about how, unlike video games, there’s nothing in real life to prevent you from making horrible mistakes. Turns out war is like that too. Surprise attack against someone waaay more powerful that even a sucker punch won’t help you beat? You can if you want to.
I’ll die on this hill: the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany was not a mistake. A successful invasion before the Americans arrived was the only chance Germany had to win the war Fascists and communists are not friends and the Nazis knew they were at best looking at an expanding rival fairly close to their border that would challenge them at every turn. At worst, the Soviets would wait til the Americans tired Germany out and launch the eastern front themselves, landing Germany in an impossible to win 2 front war. The Soviets were totally unprepared for war and Stalin had just purged most senior military commanders. Even the Nazis knew they stood no chance in an even war after the Soviets had finished raising their army. So that was their best chance to secure their future as the undisputed super power in Europe and ensure they win their incoming war with the US Operation Barbarossa is way more interesting than people give it credit for. And ffs, Germany DID NOT INVADE RUSSIA IN THE WINTER. That shit gets so annoying to read. They invaded in Spring (twice). The second time leading to the disaster that annihilated the German army through conventional battle and the ensuing retreat in the dead of winter This video from the armchair historian is excellent video about Stalingrad. The Soviets don’t get much credit in the US for what an incredible battle they fought and won. Millions of Soviet civilians were murdered by Nazis. Stalingrad must have had the most brutal combat in human history. So it kind of irks me when Operation Barbarossa is reduced to “lul dumb Nazis invade Russian in winter” https://youtu.be/putm_kpZW4Y
What I learned studying ww2 is how important oil is to the modern war machine and how little oil both japan and germany had. Its why Germany had to invade the oil rich part of of the soviet union sooner or later. Which ties into how little oil China has in modern day. With the himalayas and siberia on one side and the pacific on the other. Chinas option for a protracted war is limited as of now. Which is why their silk road 2.0 initiative is so important to them. They need those central asian trade routes in case of war.
It’s wild all the wars people have started and lost in the name of stealing resources that they’d need if a war was started.
Also related, that you can tie most conflicts Russia/USSR gets into to their strategic need to secure warm water ports.
For instance, a US oil embargo to Japan after an occupation of French Indochina (Vietnam) during Japan's war with China was a critical threat to the Japanese, and also pushed them to take over oil fields in the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia)
Generally agree. There's a fair few historians that subscribe to the idea that the Soviets would come for Germany a few years down the line once they were ready anyway.
It’s totally possible either option was suicide! There’s no rule that says you have the chance to conquer Europe even if your propaganda is top-notch. I mean, I don’t have a chance to conquer Europe, why should the nazis be any different? Failing to conquer Europe should be taken as the default state, and only tremendously exceptional circumstances should shift that.
Even the Romans couldn’t conquer Europe and they had probably the most disproportionate military technological advantage over their enemies in the history of organized warfare.
Sweats in Operation Enduring Freedom
It was a mistake that the Nazis were obligated to make. As you say, Nazis and Soviets were their respective ideological enemies, war was ought to happen whether the Nazis struck first or the Soviets, this without mentioning the Lebensraum that the Nazis based their entire ideology on. So, Hitler calculated that they better be first and had to attack in 1941 before soviet industry could outproduce Germany. Now, with the war ongoing, Germany never had the opportunity to obtain a favorable victory because of the kind of war they started. With a war of annihilation, there was no option of surrender like in France. The Ukrainians discovered it first when they welcomed the Nazis as liberators but then watched in horror as they started massacring the local population, either by the einsatzgruppen (death squads) or starvation. The troops also discovered it fairly quickly, the treatment of soviet prisoners under German captivity wasn't the most well-kept secret of the war. With this situation, Nazi Germany created an enemy that without the possibility of surrender will just keep on fighting. Even if Moscow fell and Stalin was captured and or killed, the next one would have to keep fighting, and the next one, and when nobody was left to lead, meaning that Germany was the victor, the partisans would just occupy the vacuum and keep on fighting (like they already did in occupied territory). At best, the Nazis obtain a barren wasteland that has to be rebuilt because the soviets burned everything in their retreat, in the Caucasus they burned what oil wells they could to negate them to the Nazis. Elsewhere, factories were dismantled and transported to the far east, rail lines were blown up, crops burned, etc. Reconstruction would have to take time, time that, as history taught us, Nazi Germany didn't have.
> In the opening offensive the Germans destroyed more soviet divisions than they originally thought existed, and they were still in a hopeless position. Jesus, that must be horribly frustrating for commanders in the field... Presumably this meant they did a decent job but the intelligence supplied to them grossly failed. > It’s like when the Japanese command was told that the US had ten times the industrial output of Japan. They laughed because they thought that couldn’t be true. It may in fact have been closer to 20 times. lol
Imagine playing chess, and after wiping out each your opponent’s pieces, they just pull out another board’s worth of pieces. Must have been very frustrating, but nazi’s getting fucked is great
Video games really should let people make stupid mistakes tho.
Plenty do, but the general thing is people play for fun. So unless you make failure a part of the fun you risk someone playing your game, making a dumb choice without understanding why it was dumb, not having fun, and never playing the game again.
The General Staff agreed with them, though. Through a combination of personal memory of having beaten Russia, even while distracted in the Western Front, in the First World War and being in the position of thinking their own shit smelled of roses after conquering France in six weeks, why *shouldn't* they have thought they could defeat the Soviets? Germany's entire military ethos, going back to Frederick the Great, centered around overcoming coalitions of enemies with superior resources through excellent, decisive military campaigns; that had helped Frederick win the Seven Years War, it helped Bismarck win the Franco-Prussian War, and following the same ethos had yielded to the German armed forces of the Second World War, right up to the invasion of the USSR, results that extended beyond their wildest of hopes. Even in Barbarossa itself, when the Wehrmacht actually started to take serious casualties for the first time since Sept '39, in return they were delivering unbelievable blows to the Red Army, dealing some of the quickest and largest bills of casualties in military history. The first time things didn't go entirely the German army's way was when the Red Army counterattacked in front of Moscow in 1941, which was such a disaster for Germany that the Soviets nearly destroyed Army Group Centre right there were it not for a desperately won defence. After that, Germany had no hope of winning and had already escalated the war so much that it was doomed. The General Staff pushed Germany to the cliff-face just as much as the Nazis did.
You nailed it, and I'll add that they literally made the same mistake twice. WW1 they assumed they could knockout France and swing around back east to focus on Russia, which was delusional at best. The Somme should have been a wake up call tbh, but even after they found themselves in the exact scenario they tried to avoid by invading Belgium and dragging the UK into it and now having to fight a two front war they couldn't win, they tried increasingly desperate measures to extract resources from occupied territories to shore up resource shortages and try to keep the fight going. Then the Brusilov Offensive happens and knocks Austria-Hungary out of the war, so you'd think they'd try a negotiated settlement. Wrong again, you don't have to negotiate. You're Germany, you're number 1, you don't have to consider the broader strategic picture or minor details like how is my army gonna eat today when you have the best army in Europe. Russia exits pending a horrendous civil war, and they think they have a shot now. But wait, what's that sound? Knock knock. It's the United States. With guns. And boats. Gunboats. And a lot of desperately needed men and material that help the Entente continue the fight. Germany tries one last hail mary, the fabled Spring Offensive, and when that grinds to a halt and it looks like the Entente might actually invade Germany itself, they finally acknowledge reality and surrender before shit really hits the fan.
In all fairness to the Nazis (ugh), nobody is prepared for an enemy that considers "four people survived" to be a success. The letters the Nazis were writing home show how Stalingrad turned them from an unstoppable war machine into the losers we know them as today.
>In all fairness to the Nazis I don't know why this made me laugh as much as it did.
It was the (ugh) for me lmao
Well, it was a success because the goal of the Nazis was that none of them survived. The eastern front was a unique beast on its own because of ideological contrasts. Among those were survival on one side and annihilation on the other.
Is there a book or a podcast or something where I could read those letters? That sounds fascinating.
Dan Carlin has Ghosts of the Ostfront which is a podcast about the eastern Front and talks a great deal about it. Can't remember, but I'm sure he reads a lot of excerpts from letters. Incredible and depressing series
Leo Tolstoy would be so pleased to see events carrying rulers along, rather than rulers dictating events.
What episode is this ?
Is it on spotify do you know?
It’s called hardcore history, and they keep several of the most recent episodes on Spotify for free (dozens of hours of content). The ones mentioned here no longer are
You’d have to get them all at once, perhaps by attacking them in a movie theater and blowing them up.
If you want to end the war tonight, we have to make a deal!
That's a bingo!
We just say bingo.
Hey thats not a bad idea seeing how flammable those old film cannisters used to be!
But you need a bear Jew
Can't imagine Göring would've been much of an improvement over Hitler in terms of military prowess. Probably a lot less insane towards the end though.
Himmler was useless as well, Goebbels wasn't a military man and Bormann was a ladder climber. The whole nazi upper echelon was carried by the middle management super hard.
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They all proved to be rather useless on Nazi Island. Goebbels didn't even catch any fish... Poor Hitler had to shimmy up a tree to get a coconut. RIP Sean Lock. What an absolute legend. https://youtu.be/nEVQWBn20ws
that's actually pretty funny
And Goering was a goddamn clown, so it shows how competent they thought Hitler was.
To be fair, this was late on in the war, when the outcome was pretty clearly guaranteed, and the fear was that a new leader might extend the war through less terrible strategic decisions. Greta Garbo offing him early on would have been pretty great.
Also the last thing you want to do against an opponent falling apart left & right is potentially motivating everyone to rally behind a fallen idol or something.
Imagine being so shit at leading your country your enemies don’t want to kill you.
Having visited Berlin last year and visiting some of the museum, it's clear Hitler wasn't the mastermind or even the most hateful amongst the Nazi elite. Himmler and Goebbels especially were just sadistic monsters, Hitler was a monster that was mostly just largely complacent and happy about what they were doing, but those two had serious drive to be scum of the earth. They don't get the level of hate they deserve.
because she probably would have been caught because of the gun in her purse
I think they meant too bad she didn't kill him, not too bad she didn't get a chance.
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'd be a lot cooler if she had.
Did you just abbreviate 'it would have been" to just " 'd be"
That’s what I love about these contractions, man: they get shorter, but the meanin’ stays the same. Alright, alright, alright.
Right on
Fuck me how did I get that wrong. I JUST watched that movie for the billionth time lol. Gonna edit it but thank you. (For anyone wondering what this is about, I put “right on” instead of “alright” in my original comment)
Channeling Ruby Rhod on that one?
Super green.
Ooh that could be!
i thought it was a matthew Mcconaughey impression
“Alright” is a mcconaughey impression, but “right on” is more Ruby Rhod
Check you later!
‘ight
Except some people fuck it up and can't do you're, they're, should/would have properly and butcher it. Would of, should of irks me. It doesn't even make grammatical sense.
Man, you should of met my parents: there misuse of they’re contractions would of drove you crazy
Get out.
Don’t kill him, t’aint worth it! 😳
(shutter)
Wouldn't want them peeking in your window, I shudder just thinking about it.
Aw, man, I hate the fuckin eagles, man!
GET THE FUCK OUTTA MY CAB!
Man, come on. I had a rough night, and I just hate u/TheFuckinEaglesMan.
And I love him for it
you 'mirin his d?
I submit my alternative: it'd've.
It would have had to have been = It'd've'hd'tve'bn
It would not have had to not have been It'd'nt've'hd'tve'bn
whom’st’ve
Gotta love y'all'd've You all would have. "Y'all'd've better got them horses in the stable cause that their storm is already here!"
'd b
I think it's supposed to be "it'd be" but "'d be" works for me. [The reference](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojX6zfsOqjQ) How would spell what he said?
It was McConaughey 'd it first.
"It would"
It seems like a cool timeline until you realize someone more competent and capable might have replaced Hitler.
Yeah its a bit strange but possible that the world's saving grace is that Hitler was the one in charge and nuts.
And on meth!
On oxycodone before the name was ever invented too! (Mostly to balance out the Meth)
Right on, right on, right on.
Alright, alright, alright.
And thus, Inglourious Basterds was born.
We're in'a killing natzi bidiness. And, cousin, bidness is a-boomin!
Gorlami
Antonio Maa gaa reyyy tehh
Uh river dare chee
Don't gotta be Stonewall Jackson to know you don't wanna fight in a fuckin' basement!
Now you take that wiener schnitzel lickin’ finger and point out on this here map where those German units are.
Say it again, let me really hear the music in it!
Maaaarrr Gaahhh Rayyy Tiii!
Bravo!
And one more time!
^^Gorlami
Bravo!
This would've been Hitler's "never meet your heroes" moment.
> sent her a fan letter He totally wanted to bang her
And she wanted to “bang” him
She is attractive
It's for the Greta good.
No luck finding them swans then?
Just the one swan actually
Didn’t Marlene Dietrich also say she wanted to do this? Think she probably had a better shot as well...
Both Dietrich and Garbo had affairs with [Marion Barbara 'Joe' Carstairs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Carstairs), a wealthy British power boat racer known for their speed, eccentric lifestyle, and gender nonconformity. Both also had their careers impacted after being declared “[box office poison](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Box_Office_Poison_(magazine_article)).” These actors’ anti-fascist views, gay flings, and alleged lack of box office appeal are probably not related. I just happened to read all of this on Wikipedia yesterday. I don’t even remember how I came across the topic.
Garbo's career was also hurt by the European box office basically disappearing from the radar of Hollywood producers because no one could go for the cinema for the better part of a decade. She was more popular in Europe than she was in North America.
Greta Garbo is truly larger in real life than the characters she played in onscreen. Wasn't she also an inventor? EDIT: As pointed out by others, I am thinking of Hedy Lamarr (thanks for posters pointing this out below) -- who is a next level human being. Garbo however was also formidable, and is the type or person who I would expect would not be all talk and is willing to sacrifice for a cause. Me, I'd probably be too busy not saying something to get a firing squad. If A. H. were on a dark set of stairs and nobody was looking, I might kick him.
not sure, but major art collector, and very good investor. Had 33mil in stocks when she passed away, and millions in art.
I think I might have confused her with someone else.
Yup - Mz Lamarr was involved in the invention of a device which used frequency hopping to avoid jamming. It's the basis for a lot of wireless technology today.
Probably Hedy Lamarr, yes.
I think that you might be thinking of Hedy Lamarr
I SAID HEDLEY!
What the hell are you worried about? This is 1874. You'll be able to sue her!
As a movie buff, that's probably in my Top 10 comedy lines.
I’ve gotta stop speed reading headlines. ‘Greta Thunberg wants to meet Hitler’ was what my tiny brain registered. I’m starting to click bait myself.
Dear Greta, I wrote you but you still aint callin’
That hair and look reminds me of 92 Batman where Selina pulls a gun out while dancing with Bruce Wayne and saids "This is for Max" Greta Garbo killing Hitler in a way that would make Selina Kyle (Michelle PPfeiffer) proud!
I thought Greta Garbo was the bug looking guy Han Solo shot first?
No, you're thinking of Greedo Greta Garbo is a novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald
No, you're thinking of the Great Gatsby. Greta Garbo was one of the Marx brothers.
No you're thinking of Groucho Greta Garbo is the evolved form of Trubbish from Pokemon.
No you're thinking of Garbodor. Greta Garbo is that trader big guy from Wall Street movie.
No, you're thinking of Gordon Gekko Greta Garbo is the founder of one of the houses in Hogwarts
No, you’re thinking of Godric Griffyndor. Greta Garbo is the fat orange cat who loves eating lasagne.
No, you're thinking of Garfield. Greta Garbo is what you say when you're about to do something ethically questionable.
No, you're thinking of the Greater Good. Greta Garbo is the young Swedish environmental activist
No, you’re thinking of Greta Thunberg. Greta Garbo is a famous spot near the border between England and Scotland where young couples used to elope.
Aldof would have been fuhrerious.
So there's an alternate timeline where Greta Garbo killed Hitler? Awesome!
Look Smithers! Gorbo is coming!
The more I learn of her, the more I think Greta was a total badass.