Challenge:Weimar Republic invades Poland

I'm not very knowledgeable about the paramilitaries but you sound like you know what you're talking about, however to call the interbellum regimes "expansionist" pushes the definition (Austria and Danzig wanted Germany to expand), militarist is very dubious (they wanted military parity in definace of Versailles, which is rather understandable what with Poland threatening to invade defenceless Germany and France actually doing so), and "Hitlerian" is basically flamebait (are we talking about Slavophobi? Imperialism? War for war's sake? A desire to dominate Europe with an iron fist? What the fuck?)


Many of the parties in Pre Hitler Germany shared the same views of Expansion eastward, along with an anti jewish anti communist sentiment plus the desire to correct the mistakes of the ToV through force if needed. Further from 1928 they had adopted a three phase 15 year military expansion programme that sought to rebuild the German war economy and resource base along with the Reichwehr from the enfeebled empoverished defensive force to a offensive mechanized force that could wage preemptive war with both France and Poland if the risks could be calculated. Included in these development was a reasonable chance of winning the inevitable wider European total war. If it was needed they would break the ToV in doing so.

I don't think I characterised them as hitlerian, thats going too far. I appoligise for that mistaken impression.
 
Many of the parties in Pre Hitler Germany shared the same views of Expansion eastward,

Like? Redress with Poland was a fairly popular theme which Stresemann's liberals got behind, but even the DNVP had, as far as I'm aware, no notion of colonialism in Poland, let alone Russia.

along with an anti jewish anti communist

The DNVP, maybe. They held power, right? Right?

sentiment plus the desire to correct the mistakes of the ToV through force if needed.

Obviously. Why else would they sign Locarno? Sneaky bastards.

Further from 1928 they had adopted a three phase 15 year military expansion programme that sought to rebuild the German war economy

I don't think you're very clear about what a war economy is. It's an unsustainable model whereby all national economic activity is harnessed to warmaking in the desperate hope that the war can be won while it holds out. Germany certainly did not start to build one in 1928. I think the Nazis were the only regime to build one in peacetime.

and resource base along with the Reichwehr from the enfeebled empoverished defensive force to a offensive mechanized force that could wage preemptive war with both France and Poland if the risks could be calculated.

Okay, I don't have any actual figures for German re-armament, but I believe that before the Nazis Guderian was scuttling around under a cardboard tank dreaming of better things. Certainly it was the Nazis who gave Germany a powerful offensive airforce.

Included in these development was a reasonable chance of winning the inevitable wider European total war.

Now, I have issues with Mr.Taylor, but "Nothing is inevitable until it happens" is a catchphrase I endorse (which is to say, am happy to steal).

Nothing is inevitable until it happens.

If it was needed they would break the ToV in doing so.

Uhm... yeah. They'd been doing that for a while, actually.

I don't think I characterised them as hitlerian, thats going too far. I appoligise for that mistaken impression.

You characterised them as a militaristic expansionist regime when they weren't. When we're talking about interbellum Germany, that has certain connotations.
 
Last edited:

Susano

Banned
"Many parties" - WHICH parties? Weimar Germany gave up officially on Alsace-Lorraine and signed Locarno, for gods sake! Yes, it never officially gave up on the eastern border, but that is a limited aim and not any aim for the "subjugation of Poland" - and for that matter, even the 1914 was considered an unrealistcialyl far reaching aim by many parties.
 
Well you guys are going to have to get ahold of some translated German histories of the reamament phase. try.....

"The German military in the age of total war"
http://openlibrary.org/b/OL21363173M/German-military-in-the-age-of-total-war

"Germany and the Second World War Vol-1"
http://www.perspectivia.net/content...ro/bsb00016354/francia-019_3-1992-00289-00290


"The Wehrmacht and German Rearmament" Deist

http://openlibrary.org/b/OL9505210M/The-Wehrmacht-and-German-Rearmament-(St-Antony's-Series)http://openlibrary.org/b/OL22431398M/Wehrmacht-and-German-rearmament


Alot of this is covered by a number of German authors in these texts, but these are not easy to comeby.

The War Economy is reference to the steps that have to be taken years before any war. It takes about 4-6 years to make this transformation in peace time. The UK and USSR were doing this from 1934-35 until war broke out. The multi phase programe was begun in 1928 and the movement to total war economy would not happen until the third period near the end of the 1930s. With the Hitler Regimes demands for ever increasing armaments, the then Defense minister Von Blomberg in 1934 requested a shift in production towards multi year fixed price contracts to force the military companies to find the incentive to produce more with less and for less.

The reference to the 'reasonable chance of wining the wider European war' is actualy from Defense minister Groener in 1928-30 period. He was the one who kick started the reamament drive and the reference is in the above mentioned texts.
 
Well you guys are going to have to get ahold of some translated German histories of the reamament phase. try.....

"The German military in the age of total war"
http://openlibrary.org/b/OL21363173M/German-military-in-the-age-of-total-war

"Germany and the Second World War Vol-1"
http://www.perspectivia.net/content...ro/bsb00016354/francia-019_3-1992-00289-00290


"The Wehrmacht and German Rearmament" Deist

http://openlibrary.org/b/OL9505210M/The-Wehrmacht-and-German-Rearmament-%28St-Antony%27s-Series%29


Alot of this is covered by a number of German authors in these texts, but these are not easy to comeby.

The War Economy is reference to the steps that have to be taken years before any war. It takes about 4-6 years to make this transformation in peace time. The UK and USSR were doing this from 1934-35 until war broke out. The multi phase programe was begun in 1928 and the movement to total war economy would not happen until the third period near the end of the 1930s. With the Hitler Regimes demands for ever increasing armaments, the then Defense minister Von Blomberg in 1934 requested a shift in production towards multi year fixed price contracts to force the military companies to find the incentive to produce more with less and for less.

The reference to the 'reasonable chance of wining the wider European war' is actualy from Defense minister Groener in 1928-30 period. He was the one who kick started the reamament drive and the reference is in the above mentioned texts.

You're throwing numbers at me without answering any of my other points. Please do so.

Anyway, to build a war economy, by the definition I used, is one thing, and definately signals a desire or expectation for war (thus why the war-mad Nazis built one), whereas putting an economy in a position to fight a war is a completely differant thing.

If Britain build a true "war economy" in the mid 30s, that would have meant we were expecting a war. Then why appease? What we were doing by "re-arming" was putting ourselves back in fighting shape, which we had been out of (ten-year rule and all that). I see no reason why we must read sinister intentions into the Germans doing the same, given the comically minute size of their armed forces and the unstable and belligerent neighbour she had in Poland, and starting earlier, given her much weaker starting position. Taken in context with the thorough nonsense you've been saying about German desire for Lebensraum and whatnot this seems to be an agenda being pushed.

Did Herr Groener use the word "inevitable"? You seem reticent about that.
 
Well you guys are going to have to get ahold of some translated German histories of the reamament phase. try.....

I haven't seen anything in English that blames the Weimar Republic for rearming for a wider European war; rearming to the point where they could beat Poland? Sure.
 
Top