Hitler: figurehead?

Ever heard of the anschluss?

... or the Hossbach Memorandum? (But already in 1934 Hitler atually wanted an "Anschluss" of Austria, which was prevented by Mussolini.)

Obviously, the truth is that he was clever about some things
and very stupid about others, most noteably declaring war on America.
(I have a hunch that he had occasion to question his choice about that.)
"A zebra has more than 1 stripe." (OmSigDAVID)

I suspect that Roosevelt woud have had a lot of trouble
in convincing Congress to declare war against him
(especially if he had been artful enuf to denounce
the Japs' sneak attack & to hypocritically offer condolences).





David

There's a good point about which i hadn't thought before. With an actual, self-declared enemy in the Pacific, what would Roosevelt have been able to do had that fool Hitler not declared war on the United States?

Figurehead for WHOM ??

i dont really know. this is what a friend told me, that when he was in prison, his cellmate had a tutor, who (this is my friend speaking, remember...) implanted a bunch of ideas in his head.

We might add the tenacity of his arbitrary n semi-rational attack on Stalingrad (after splitting his army).
Its stating the obvious to say that was one of the turningpoints of WWII.


I understand that sniper assassination plans
were cancelled because it was decided that the IDEAL place for Hitler was exactly where he was.

Arguably,
Hitler was our secret agent in the 3rd Reich,
but we did not tell him.





David

as a commander for the military, he sucked...

As far as secret agents go, the Abwehr was appallingly inept. The English rounded up all (or almost all--if any were left, they kept their heads down) German agents and "turned" them so that they were feeding information to Germany that the IGS (Imperial General Staff) wanted them to have.

It was easy to get Hitler to believe what he wanted to believe in the first place. One such example was Patton riding around England in a jeep, along with dozens of other jeeps, mimicing the radio traffic of an army in encampments. The Germans considered Patton to be the most dangerous American officer, and they wanted to believe that the Allies would be stupid enough to land in the Pas de Calais--Hitler in particular. So, while the Allies were chewing up the German 7th Army in Normandy, 15th Army stayed in place in the Pas de Calais, waiting for the invasion which would never come. In fact, 15th Army stayed in place until they were nearly cut off by Montgomery's army.

There are few things easier to do than to convince people, even intelligent people (which i pesonally don't believe includes Jodl and Hitler) that what they want to believe is true.

Yes; re-inforcement of Panzer counter-attacks
were delayed for that reason too.





David

The ministrations of Hitler's personal physician for his tertiary stage syphilis,
Dr. Theodor Morell, have been credited for investing the leader with over-confidence.

Interestingly, a memo from him was found in Himmler's files,
indicating that Hitler had very little time left on this Earth.

He suffered from visible tremors.

Yes, that is my point. That by incorporating Austria into the Third Reich, upon losing the war, Austria would be made an autonomous nation, never to be under the hegemony of Germany for the rest of time. Sort of like when IG Farben was broken up into many corporate entities, after the war, with each corporate entity to be autonomous for the remainder of it's time existing as a corporation.

About the only polite way to respond to nonsense such as that is to say that it's a stretch. Of course, the accurate response would be bullshit.

And, my "supposition" would be extremely offensive to Germany today, since it would imply it as a nation most gullible. The official version of history is much more palatable to all involved, the winners and losers in a war. That identity is much more acceptable for one's self-esteem, rather than contemplate that one's ancestors were gullible fools, following a leader that wanted to lose all along.

Your supposition wouldn't offend anyone, they'd fall out laughing.

haha. theres a wwii online tank game ad at the bottom of my page.

I've only just found this thread, and I'm still catching up. You have to credit Foofie though, I never realised WW2 was an Austro-Hungarian plot to destroy German influence. When you hear a 9/11 conspiracy theory with less credibility than that let me know.

By the way I think you're wrong about 'les cons' meaning turds. It's too much like our word, change the vowel sound and add t.

are you sure thats not ww1?

i thought that german influence was broken after ww1, and hitler was trying to build it up again...

I'm not the one saying that. I said it had less credibility than the wackiest 9/11 theory.

Anyway two things. First Hitler was completely delusional, regardless of how intelligent he was. He survived loads of assassination attempts, and each time took it as proof of his destiny. He was paranoid and surrounded himself with yes men. His biggest mistake militarily, was believing wahat Goering said about the strength and capability of the luftwaffe. Any debate about Hitler's intelligence needs be tempered with the fact he was insane.

Setanta said the Abwehr was incredibly incompetant. The Abwehr was headed by Wilhelm Canaris, a staunch anti-nazi who was found out and murdered by the nazis just before the end of the war. I think their competance or lack of it had a lot to do with him.