Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
The German and Italian facists were obsessed with Nietzsche. To the point Hitler and Co. kissed up to his family including giving them a wreathe for his grave. Which is ironic as Nietzsche was against Anti-Semitism, pan-Germanism, and reportedly even facism to varying degrees.
Like many things they ruined at a glance the Nazis appropriated Nitzsche when the ideas were to varying degrees not truly compatible.
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Causing freakouts over sourcing since 2018
The law in the night
The main issue with Nietzsche and Fascism is how it is very well tied to his work Thus Spake Zarathustra and the idea of the Ubermensch.
The Nazis applied the whole concept into their ideal of the Aryan race, forgetting that the Ubermensch isn't something born, it is a self-made person or group focused on creating their values independent of outside influences and improve themselves to achieve a higher standard of being.
The Nazis, considered that only the Aryan peoples could become Ubermensch or are Ubermensch by default and the rest of the Untermensch would be only holding them back and thus needed to be exterminated.
Fascists believe themselves to be the Ubermensch because the only worthy to rule and those willing to rule as a way to justify their rule.
Sadly Nietzsche works are very easy to twist by nationalists and fascists in order to justify their own sense of superiority.
Inter arma enim silent leges
Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
This
Their "Aryan" terminology (and other strange thoughts) may have come from H.P. Blavatsky (founder of theosophy). She believed that all mankind was descended of the superhuman "Aryans" that had mixed with other "root races", diluting the powers till only normal humans remained. This left different peoples with different aptitudes for spiritual power.
Pangermanic groups loved it (among them the Thule Society).
edited 8th Apr '17 12:04:25 PM by TerminusEst
Si Vis Pacem, Para Perkele
Causing freakouts over sourcing since 2018
Speaking of Nazis:
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It is pretty interesting how much the layman's perception of Nazi Germany is informed by Nazi propaganda; gotta give Goebbels credit for that one. See also the "harsh" Treaty of Versailles, the supposed economic miracle, the 'unnecessary' bombing of Dresden, German super tanks (e.g. Panther) being great rather than flaming overweight dumpster fires, etc. Written by the Winners my ass.
"It is very easy to be kind; the difficulty lies in being just."
Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
I hate to tell you but Dresden's bombing was almost completely unnecessary especially given it's actual contribution to the war was far from being any key part of the German war machine, by the time it was bombed the German war industry had effectively begun its serious collapse, so it wasn't actually contributing in any meaningful way just consuming limited resources. It's actual military value was notably overstated at the time. Its role in transportation or supplying meaningful manpower was also laughably ineffective or a real threat to the allies by any real measure again that whole collapse of the German war industry thing and lack of any military assets that would be a credible source of German forces.
Numerous military historians have shot the shoddy justifications used to bomb the city full of holes. The city center which received significant tonnage of bombs dropped on Dresden and just so happened to be where most of the cities civilians were sheltering including numerous refugees. Over 6,676 tons of bombs for the city center and city in general. The supposed key military industrial area received a mere 28 tons of munitions. The US and British bomber raids averaged a couple hundred tons of bombs for key industrial targets in other cities. They left the industrial area largely intact and still very functional. In other locations the US and UK would do multiple raids on even a single factory district to do as much damage as possible.
Even more telling is the all very obvious military facilities that were not even in the city but still close by were not bombed at all. That includes the barracks reported as one of the legit military targets claimed as justification for the bombing raid. Hutted camps were known refugee camps, the vast majority of its key transport infrastructure was untouched including its main rail bridge which bore heavy military traffic at its most active point in the early war. Oh and the Autobahn bridge and major rail stations were not attacked as well.
So lets go over the facts shall we? The major economic and military targets received little or no bombing at all other then the usual stray bomb misses infamous in bomber raids of the time, all major transport of military usefuleness remained intact and unbombed by serious raids, and several of the "justifiable targets" were not even in the city and remained completely unscathed.
Funny every other city the US and UK bombed that had military value those very things would have been the first to be bombed and quite very heavily bombed in fact. Yet somehow in Dresden they were almost completely ignored or received at best a token effort.
Yeah sorry the bombing of Dreseden is by no stretch of the credible mind justifiable given the weight of the facts and the history of other bombing raids against similar targets in Germany. It was simply a revenge terror bombing raid and nothing else.
edited 8th Apr '17 2:01:05 PM by TuefelHundenIV
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Tell Me, Have You Seen the Yellow Sign?
Heard one theory that Dresden was meant less for the war and more for the eyes of the Red Army
Look with century eyes... With our backs to the arch And the wreck of our kind We will stare straight ahead For the rest of our lives
Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
Wouldn't be the first time the US and the UK did it either. There was a lot of muscle flexing towards end of the war towards the USSR. The Cold War started before WWII even ended.
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Causing freakouts over sourcing since 2018
Well, 70 Dresden Jews did manage to escape the Gestapo in the chaos of the bombing
. And 70% of Dresden's industrial capacity was trashed.
Wielun and Frampol say hi. The latter was 90% flattened, with 50% of the population killed.
So while whether the amount of effort expended on Dresden was worth it is debatable, I'm not exactly sympathetic. The line was "reap the whirlwind", after all.
edited 8th Apr '17 2:40:44 PM by Krieger22
I have disagreed with her a lot, but comparing her to republicans and propagandists of dictatorships is really low. - An idiot
Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
Krieger: No the industrial area was left largely intact. I hate to tell you 28 tons of bombs in a single raid didn't even come close to destroying 70% of its industrial capability. The vast majority of the bombing was the city center with one raid dedicated to spreading that damage around the center a bit more. Over 70% of the cities center was destroyed but that wasn't where its industrial, military, or transport capacity was located.
At best the US and UK raids did was 23% of the cities industrial buildings, not it's total capacity just some of the buildings were damaged or destroyed. Going by numerous examples of other raids that was not sufficient by any measure to halt any industrial advantage the city had.
The allies literally targeted the more historic and cultural part of the city. Details on the raid are laid out by Alexander McKee, still a generally respected military historian, in his book on the raid "Dresden 1945: the Devil`s Tinderbox". He pointed out that British targeting maps of Dresden almost completely ignored the sum total of the cities military value in terms of targets. If anything the destruction of the rail yards alone would have been a significant blow to both industry and transport in military terms.
edited 8th Apr '17 3:16:18 PM by TuefelHundenIV
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Shameful Display
Or Russian hordes. Also just about everyone believes that the German soldiers were better than all the others, to the point where they might as well have actually been Aryan supermen.
Tell Me, Have You Seen the Yellow Sign?
Occasionally, the first part of WWII gives one strong Reality Is Unrealistic vibes. A GM running the scenario would have been run out of town.
France made one bad roll note and that was a wrap.
The USSR coincidentally decapitated its own army just before war broke out. The Czechs decided not to press the issue of giving up their fortified border. The IJA decided to strike out on its own, and the Chinese Premier gets kidnapped for a policy change. I didn't make any of that up...
I much like the Marxist paper Fightback's analysis of Vimy Ridge and its role in Canadian nationalism much more than No Glory. Rather than simply re-tread the old "lions led by donkeys" view, they do acknowledge its merits, but they put the battle in the larger context of the war, and discussed the origins of the Vimy myth years after the fact and how it obscured other parts of the conflict.
(That being said, I'm still hoping for a Vimy map in Battlefield 1)
edited 8th Apr '17 5:33:42 PM by SantosLHalper
Searching
The defenses on the German border lacked sufficient depth, being 5 kilometers at their deepest, and only 0.1 kilometers at their narrowest. All of Czechoslovakia's notable industry was in the border regions. Worse, in 1938 the fortified border was not complete, and heavy artillery in particular was lacking. The line was manned largely by immobile fortress divisions, and lacked the necessary ability for local and large scale counter attacks which later campaigns showed were the key to holding any defended line. For example, two years later while conducting an assault river crossing from hasty positions, the Germans punched through over 10 km of French fortifications in a single day. In 1938 the Germans would have penetrated the Czech line in numerous locations in short order.
The Czechs knew this, and their original war-plans assumed they would only face a quarter or so of the overall German strength, with France diverting the bulk of the German army west. Unfortunately for the Czechs, Hitler intended to throw nearly everything at Czechoslovakia and trust in French inaction based on his own analysis of the French political and military situation. As with Poland, this would have been a successful gamble.
edited 8th Apr '17 5:45:52 PM by MonsieurThenardier
"It is very easy to be kind; the difficulty lies in being just."
More a combination of political infighting, doctrinal datedness, manpower issues stemming from the First World War (most of the French Army manning the Maginot Line was 40+ years old), and the Germans getting lucky with their Ardennes offensive.
Tell Me, Have You Seen the Yellow Sign?
Fascinating! (Even if that makes it less of black comedy Idiot Plot).
Never seen the army purge broken down like that. (Even Glantz just does a basic "and some were punished for ordinary crimes..") I guess it was the expansion then, but I can't fit that into something witty...
Question on the others: France's army wasn't designed for offense apparently, but I suspect it could have made a decent showing had it not thrown everything into Belgium (if they were truly repeating WWI eventually the allies might have dusted off Plan 1919), and was Germany's army anywhere near in shape to do anything against real opposition about the time of the Munich Crisis?
edited 8th Apr '17 6:02:10 PM by CenturyEye
Look with century eyes... With our backs to the arch And the wreck of our kind We will stare straight ahead For the rest of our lives
Searching
Not sure about the rest, but on the Munich Crisis- yes. They were in fact in a much better shape than they were in 1940, relative to the opposition. The French military was in an abject state in 1938; compared to the five well-organized armored divisions Germany possessed in October of 1938, France had. . . none, except for two under-strength brigades of light tanks without most of their heavier equipment. France's best tank and mainstay of the BOF, the S-35, had only a few dozen units completed at the time; Guderian assessed French armored formations as only having firepower fit for reconnaissance units. [Horne, "To Lose a Battle, p.118] A big contrast to the BOF where the French actually outgunned the Germans. Britain's strength was completely negligible in 1938, as it was estimated they could only deploy two divisions to France in the event of a war (they deployed 13 in the 1940 BOF).
France's real armored divisions did not come into existence until January of 1940, and that was far from their only improvement. Per Jackson's "The Fall of France": in 1938 France produced 400 tanks, in 1939 they produced 1,000 (more than all the tanks produced in the years 1934-1937 combined), and in 1940 production was set to double again, with 850 tanks produced in the first six months before the battle ended production. By contrast the Germans only acquired 244 Pz 35 light tanks from Czech stocks, and had captured or built a further 237 Pz 38. France also had six armored divisions now, and while they were still organizationally deficient compared to their German counterparts, they were miles above the small tank units that were being parceled as far as usefulness went.
The same went for aircraft. The amount of modern planes in service with the FAF in 1938 was tiny; the Moraine MS.406's yearly production was a paltry 64 units. At the same time the Germans had over 500 Messerschmitts, 60 early model Bf.110s, and 300 or so older fighters, while France had just a few dozen Moranes and 300 obsolete Dewoitine D.500 and D.501 fighters. With open cockpits and fixed landing gear. The RAF meanwhile had one operational Hurricane squadron. Then 1939 hit and the British alone were outstripping German aircraft production, with the French production and purchases from the USA furthering that gap.
Basically, in every area of military production from 1939 on the Allies were outproducing Nazi Germany. It was in their interest to wait as long as possible for a war to happen. If they couldn't win in 1940, they were not going to win in 1938. And I haven't even gotten into the massive improvements in training of the French Army between 1938 and 1940. People like to pretend that the Czechs would make up the difference (they had close to 800,000 men), but as noted, Hitler recognized that the French Army was literally incapable of a proper offensive into Germany (even after a year of improvement) and intended to simply maul Czechoslovakia with everything he had. The result would have been the same as when the French depended on that other central European ally of their's to hold their own front, and when said ally expected France to come to their rescue. They would be out of the fight in a matter of weeks.
edited 10th Apr '17 8:38:19 PM by MonsieurThenardier
"It is very easy to be kind; the difficulty lies in being just."
Which was the strongest kingdom/empire in Africa after the end of Ancient Egypt?
I smell magic in the air. Or maybe barbecue.
Tell Me, Have You Seen the Yellow Sign?
There were alot of times when Ancient Egypt fell, but for powerful polities there's:
- Carthage (after the Achaemenids conquered Egypt)
- Aksum (a long-runner)
- Kanem (after the Arabs conquered Egypt)
- Meroe (After the Romans conquered Egypt)
Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
Speaking of Egypt they apparently found parts of another Pyramid.
Earlier this week the interior structure of pyramid was uncovered at the Dahshur Necropolis, home to some of Egypt’s earliest pyramids. Ignore the peanut gallery in the comments.
The Egypt Independent reports that the remains were uncovered at the Dahshur Necropolis, an area about 25 miles south of Cairo on the west bank of the Nile. That area is home to what is considered to be some of the earliest pyramids including Sneferu's Bent Pyramid and Red Pyramid.
While the pyramid-shaped upper section is gone, the substructure still remains. “The uncovered remains of the pyramid represents a part of its inner structure, which is composed of a corridor leading to the inner side of the pyramid and a hall, which leads to a southern ramp and a room to the western end,” Adel Okasha, the director general of the Dahshur Necropolis says in a statement, reports Owen Jarus at Live Science.
A subway project in Rome uncovered an ancient farm site.
Rome city officials this week unveiled the Metro C archaeological exhibit, which features amphora, marble panels, coins and even peach pits dating back to the Roman era.
The permanent exhibit will be on view as passengers descend into the three-story San Giovanni subway station, which is expected to open in 2018.
"For those who will use this metro — this station in particular — it's a full immersion into the history of Rome and of this site," said archaeologist Rossella Rea, who is in charge of the dig for the Italian government.
Archaeologists said their surveys, which reached an unusually deep 20 meters (yards), indicated the site was once a huge farm. Peach pits, seashells and other organic remains have been found intact and are featured in the exhibit.
edited 11th Apr '17 5:07:58 PM by TuefelHundenIV
Who watches the watchmen?
use political terms to describe, not insult
Crossposting this New York Times article from the US politics thread, because it's also relevant here:
I Thought I Understood the American Right. Trump Proved Me Wrong.
In summary, this article is about how historians had a blindspot on Trump because they believed the conservative movement was fueled by the Buckley style intellectuals and the economics, but in truth it always was about the racist fucks. Or to put it another way: "It was never the economy, stupid!"
edited 11th Apr '17 5:04:08 PM by IFwanderer
1 2 We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. -KV
Disasturbator
Don't post the whole article here please,that's a violation of their copyright and can get us deep trouble
New theme music also a box
His sister who outlived him was a supporter of the National Socialists, and received financial support from the government in exchange for bestowing her brother's prestige on the regime. They encouraged this because at the time Nietzsche was well respected in western Europe, and not just in Germany.
"It is very easy to be kind; the difficulty lies in being just."