What are some common misconceptions about Nazi Germany/Nazism?

What are some common historical misconceptions that people have about Nazi Germany, Hitler and his inner circle, and Nazism as a whole?
 

CaliGuy

Banned
What are some common historical misconceptions that people have about Nazi Germany, Hitler and his inner circle, and Nazism as a whole?
Perhaps a small misconception, but there might be a misconception that the Nazis were against all forms of homosexuality; in reality, the Nazis only appear to have been extremely hostile to male homosexuality--while lesbianism remained legal under/throughout their rule.
 

CaliGuy

Banned
Perhaps a small misconception, but there might be a misconception that the Nazis were against all forms of homosexuality; in reality, the Nazis only appear to have been extremely hostile to male homosexuality--while lesbianism remained legal under/throughout their rule.
Also, one more point--the Nazis only appear to have become consistently anti-gay after the Night of the Long Knives; before that, their attitude towards homosexuality--at least in regards to their own members--was relatively ambivalent--indeed, to the point that the open homosexuality of Ernst Rohm and some other SA members was tolerated (including by Adolf Hitler himself).
 
That their government was efficient and they made the economy strong. In reality corruption, kickbacks, and general ineptitude weakened them immensely. Germany was on the razor edge of a massive financial collapse in '39.
 
Perhaps a small misconception, but there might be a misconception that the Nazis were against all forms of homosexuality; in reality, the Nazis only appear to have been extremely hostile to male homosexuality--while lesbianism remained legal under/throughout their rule.

Well, while we're on the subject, they were also supportive of male homosexuality, provided that it took place among untermensch whose numbers they wanted to reduce anyway. Their 'morality' must be understood in the context of their natalism--reproduction of the Master Race is good, everyone else, bad.

Also, there is a common misconception that Mengele and co. actually made useful medical advances in the camps. They did not, unless you count 'hypothermic death rate of prisoners warned up by hot baths vs. by prostitutes' or 'effects of injecting ink into prisoners' eyes' as useful.
 
The biggest is the perception that the Nazi government was somehow efficient because it was a dictatorship. In truth, it was a cesspool of rivalries and backbiting that made it difficult at times to get things done. Moreover, fear of being held accountable for bad decisions often led to no decision at all being made, which meant a lot of things were cobbled together on an ad hoc basis with no clear policy at all.
 
That the Wehrmacht weren't abunch monstrous bastards.

That the stupid Wunderwaffen actually had some chance of working.

That the genocide was some kind of bug in the ideology of Nazism rather than the purpose.

That it wasn't the most evil regime to blight the Earth.

And that all of this was somehow separate from Nazism or Hitler.
 
Well, while we're on the subject, they were also supportive of male homosexuality, provided that it took place among untermensch whose numbers they wanted to reduce anyway. Their 'morality' must be understood in the context of their natalism--reproduction of the Master Race is good, everyone else, bad.

Also, there is a common misconception that Mengele and co. actually made useful medical advances in the camps. They did not, unless you count 'hypothermic death rate of prisoners warned up by hot baths vs. by prostitutes' or 'effects of injecting ink into prisoners' eyes' as useful.

I could be wrong, but I think they developed one useful thing from all that, rapid active rewarming. Everything else was junk. Obviously the methods were evil and cannot be condoned either way.
 
Now that is a new one. Any sources for that so I might indulge myself at understanding Nazi logic?

Ihor Kamenetsky's 'German Lebensraum Policy in Eastern Europe During WWII,' quoting a decree in November, 1939, regarding Poland, simply saying that homosexuality 'is always to be declared legal.' Kamenetsky also refers, in his 1961 work 'Secret Nazi Plans for Eastern Europe,' to a German policy of promoting pornography and burlesque shows in Poland, which attracted Home Army 'punishment squads.'

EDIT: again, these must be understood in the context of natalism. The relevant decrees and policies also describe the establishment of 'thriving trades in contraceptives' and promoting abortions among Polish and Ukrainian women.
 
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I would recommend r/shitwehraboossay. Funny and they talk about quite a few misconceptions about Nazi Germany.

People have this weird fetish for the Wehrmacht.

The trope about invincible kruppstahl and five Shermans for every one panther/tiger, for example, is definitely false.

Anything you hear about the Bismarck or anything in the German surface fleet being worth its salt also.

The other one that really needs to die is all the woo around the German rocket program ("Nazi scientists sent us to the moon!"). The Reich's V-Weapons program was an utter train wreck and it was based at least as much on American research from Robert Goddard as anything NASA did was on Werner Von Braun and Co.'s work. Probably even more so; Von Braun openly praised Goddard and said that his published work on liquid-fueled rocketry before the war saved the Reich years and years of development.
 
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That one might be correct :evilsmile:

*hyperventilates*

Nah but Belton Cooper's book "Death Traps" is nonsense. The Shermans were as safe as any other tank and the range at which they couldn't penetrate German tank armor was way beyond what nearly all tank battles actually occurred at.

And then you consider the German tanks' superior Aryan ubermensch exploding transmission technology and the tendency of their armor to shatter and spall even when rounds didn't penetrate...
 
*hyperventilates*

Nah but Belton Cooper's book "Death Traps" is nonsense. The Shermans were as safe as any other tank and the range at which they couldn't penetrate German tank armor was way beyond what nearly all tank battles actually occurred at.

And then you consider the German tanks' superior Aryan ubermensch exploding transmission technology and the tendency of their armor to shatter and spall even when rounds didn't penetrate...

They were trying to build a MBT with technology that clearly wasn't up to the task. More Tigers were lost to breakdown than to Allied action.
 
That their government was efficient and they made the economy strong. In reality corruption, kickbacks, and general ineptitude weakened them immensely. Germany was on the razor edge of a massive financial collapse in '39.
That one is easy to explain - the average German was better off economically in 1938 than 1933, thanks to the tank bubble and the Arisierungen, which were basically the pre-war beginnings of the looting economy. Nothing about this was sustainable in any way, but the average German blamed the later shortfalls solely on the war itself, as getting your house bombed and your son brought back in a coffin does make more impression on people than something about foreign currency reserves...
 

CaliGuy

Banned
That one is easy to explain - the average German was better off economically in 1938 than 1933, thanks to the tank bubble and the Arisierungen, which were basically the pre-war beginnings of the looting economy. Nothing about this was sustainable in any way, but the average German blamed the later shortfalls solely on the war itself, as getting your house bombed and your son brought back in a coffin does make more impression on people than something about foreign currency reserves...
The tank bubble as a result of the German military building a lot of new tanks?
 
The other one that really needs to die is all the woo around the German rocket program ("Nazi scientists sent us to the moon!"). The Reich's V-Weapons program was an utter train wreck and it was based at least as much on American research from Jonathan Goddard as anything NASA did was on Werner Von Braun and Co.'s work. Probably even more so; Von Braun openly praised Goddard and said that his published work on liquid-fueled rocketry before the war saved the Reich years and years of development.
You mean...Robert Goddard? I'm not aware of any "Johnathan" Goddard in rocketry.

Most historians of space that I'm aware of agree that the German rocketry program was very important for the Soviet and American rocket programs post-war. Both sides got a large amount of material that they directly copied and then went on to improve, many engineers in both countries greatly benefited from studying V-2s, and the Americans even had a lot of the Nazis in top positions, all over the place. Sure, Goddard had developed a lot of the theory, and a considerable amount of the practicalities, but he just never had enough cash to develop really big rockets. The Germans, obviously, didn't have this problem, which let them actually build full-scale ballistic missiles and discover a lot of the problems in full-scale ballistic missiles.

I'll be the first to say that the German program is overrated--sometimes people act like no one would ever have built an ICBM or launched anything into space without it--but it was important to the development of spaceflight in both the Soviet Union and United States, and that's no misconception.
 
That one might be correct :evilsmile:

You mean...Robert Goddard? I'm not aware of any "Johnathan" Goddard in rocketry.

Most historians of space that I'm aware of agree that the German rocketry program was very important for the Soviet and American rocket programs post-war. Both sides got a large amount of material that they directly copied and then went on to improve, many engineers in both countries greatly benefited from studying V-2s, and the Americans even had a lot of the Nazis in top positions, all over the place. Sure, Goddard had developed a lot of the theory, and a considerable amount of the practicalities, but he just never had enough cash to develop really big rockets. The Germans, obviously, didn't have this problem, which let them actually build full-scale ballistic missiles and discover a lot of the problems in full-scale ballistic missiles.

I'll be the first to say that the German program is overrated--sometimes people act like no one would ever have built an ICBM or launched anything into space without it--but it was important to the development of spaceflight in both the Soviet Union and United States, and that's no misconception.

Well, crud. Two easy mistakes; that's what sleep deprivation does to you :closedtongue:

Edited to correct the mistakes.

Yeah, the Nazis did find out some valuable stuff about rocketry just because of the amount of money they poured into it but it's greatly exaggerated. Considering that they spent one a half Manhattan Projects on their rocket programs they should have gotten a lot more out of them than they actually did. Goddard taking rocket science as far as he did on a university research budget that was tiny by comparison is a lot more impressive. If we hadn't had any of the Nazis' research I think the USSR and American space programs would have been delayed by maybe two years but not much more.

Von Braun's later role with NASA is also frequently grossly overstated. Initially he wanted to pretty much just toss science aside and blast a rocket at the moon to see what would happen (the "direct ascent" method); lunar orbit rendezvous thankfully won out. He did, to his credit, eventually come around to the LOR way of thinking but still...The primary choice should be the one that needs a bigger rocket than the Saturn? Really?
 
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