What are some common misconceptions about Nazi Germany/Nazism?

The most glaring for me...?

Nazis being considered Socialists/Communists.

As a Socialist with Communist sympathies and an anti-Leninist streak, the idea that the so-called "National Socialists" were in any way related to the Worker's Movements is insane and insulting. Any Socialist elements that may have been present in the early story of the NSADP (like Strasserism, the SA and the Black Front) were purged by Hitler himself in the Night of the Long Knives, arguably nothing more than tools for Hitler to appeal to the Proletariat and which, once in power, had Outlived Their Usefulness.

Hitler's evil can only be matched by Stalin's betrayal of the Revolution.
 
I was pointing out how you switch the places. It's usually 5 Shermans for every Panther/Tiger.
I think all told it was something like 2 American tanks to every 3 German tanks, though that includes all the other Panzer/Tiger types as well maybe the tank destroyers as well. The same source did also say the Sherman was wildly more effective than the Panther when used defensively, and it was also more effective on the offense as well. Probably had at least a little to do with Sherman gunners being able to acquire their targets and fire twice as fast as a Panther gunner could. They clearly didn't spend a lot of time thinking about the crew when making the Panther.

EDIT: Looked up the source, which is the US Army Ballistic Research Lab's findings, which apparently concluded that the Panther had a 1.1:1 advantage when it was on the defensive, whereas on the offensive the Sherman had an 8.4:1 advantage, and the M4 was overall rated as being 3.6 times as effective as the Panther in combat. Here's the blog I got it from: (http://ftr.wot-news.com/2013/07/28/please-dont-use-the-5-m4s-1-panther-myth/), though I've also seen it cited in other places.
 
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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.
It's hard to say exactly. There were drivers of the development of the ICBM that were independent of the Nazis--the development of precision gyros for inertial navigation and lightweight fusion bombs for the warhead, for instance. There were designs that were independent of the Nazis--Bossart's Atlas is the preeminent example in the United States. But at the same time the V-2 really was the basis of most post-war work, and most of the people that went on to do most of the work in the later '50s and especially the '60s cut their teeth on looking at V-2s. So it's not clear how much not having the Nazi program would have slowed the development of ICBMs.

That aside...if you want impressive, check out the early Japanese space program, in the 1950s and 1960s. All the way to orbit, as practically a university program. Probably the most economical progression to orbital flight in history!

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?
Saying that he wanted to "toss science aside and just blast a rocket at the moon" is a crude and shamefully inaccurate distortion. At the time, rendezvous and docking had never been accomplished, and it was far from clear that it would be as easy and routine as we now perceive it to be, after fifty years of work. It was entirely reasonable to conclude that requiring rendezvous and docking, especially when failure could mean crew death, was too much risk to take from a technical point of view, especially when avoiding it merely required building a bigger rocket. After all, they were already working on the necessary engines, and everything else is just sheet metal (I'm exaggerating, of course, but that's how it's often perceived by engineers). When it became clear that LOR was a very superior mode, von Braun did quickly switch to supporting it.

That's all aside from the fact that all of the modes were supposed to be basically equivalent in science terms, i.e. pretty minimal (it's not like Apollo 11 did very much at all). The whole goal was to land a man on the Moon, not really to do science. In the slightly longer run, both of them would still have been fairly equivalent for J-class-like missions; direct ascent would have had a larger spacecraft and extra crewman, but would have been hampered by needing to support microgravity and low-gravity life, whereas the LM could be more optimized for just lunar surface operations. Of course, the best mode in the long run--i.e., to create a sustainable program--was EOR/LOR, but that was never considered by anyone, as far as I know.
 
That the Glorious Kingdom of Prussia is somehow at fault for these genocidal retards.
*Sigh* the second Reich died to soon a death
 
The myth that they came into power through victory at the ballot box and loads of popular support. Hitler's actual rise depended on a backroom deal with Chancellor von Papen motivated in part by von Papen's hatred of the other options being floated on the heels of getting clobbered in the polls during the race for the Presidency. Even at their height no more than 10% of the population of Germany was actually in the Nazi Party.
 

Yeah, it's hard to beat Japan for economic and administrative efficiency.

Alright, looking at it briefly again you might be right. Von Braun's initial way was just really impractical because of the size of the launching vehicle needed; it would have been far larger than the Saturn rockets. There's a reason they scrapped that idea.
 
Yeah, it's hard to beat Japan for economic and administrative efficiency.

Alright, looking at it briefly again you might be right. Von Braun's initial way was just really impractical because of the size of the launching vehicle needed; it would have been far larger than the Saturn rockets. There's a reason they scrapped that idea.
Well they have to be good at something and history has shown it's certainly not strategic thinking.
 

thorr97

Banned
Gohan,

Nazis being considered Socialists/Communists.

Well, both Italy's Fascism and Germany's National Socialism did spring from Socialist roots.

GohanLSSJ2 said:
As a Socialist with Communist sympathies and an anti-Leninist streak, the idea that the so-called "National Socialists" were in any way related to the Worker's Movements is insane and insulting. Any Socialist elements that may have been present in the early story of the NSADP (like Strasserism, the SA and the Black Front) were purged by Hitler himself in the Night of the Long Knives, arguably nothing more than tools for Hitler to appeal to the Proletariat and which, once in power, had Outlived Their Usefulness.

Hitler's evil can only be matched by Stalin's betrayal of the Revolution.

That seems a lot more of a "No true Scotsman..." rationale than anything else. The party platform of the NSDAP was about as hardcore Socialist as it could be. Same same with the Fascists. And it wasn't just in theory but in practice as well. The Nazis very much implemented Socialist ideology and economic principles throughout their regime. The state controlled the economy and controlled private enterprise for the benefit of the Volk.

The only real difference between Communism and Fascism / National Socialism was that there's no profit - figuratively or literally - in Communism. There is in Fascism. Other than that, Nazism was a left-wing ideology just like Communism and both were extreme variants on their Socialist root.
 
Gohan,



Well, both Italy's Fascism and Germany's National Socialism did spring from Socialist roots.



That seems a lot more of a "No true Scotsman..." rationale than anything else. The party platform of the NSDAP was about as hardcore Socialist as it could be. Same same with the Fascists. And it wasn't just in theory but in practice as well. The Nazis very much implemented Socialist ideology and economic principles throughout their regime. The state controlled the economy and controlled private enterprise for the benefit of the Volk.

The only real difference between Communism and Fascism / National Socialism was that there's no profit - figuratively or literally - in Communism. There is in Fascism. Other than that, Nazism was a left-wing ideology just like Communism and both were extreme variants on their Socialist root.
I doubt that is true. Nazis, while certainly command-economist, were socially conservative to the core, and were also fond/apathetic towards social inequality. "Purge the jews because they have jewish blood" doesn't sound like something Marx would say.
 
I doubt that is true. Nazis, while certainly command-economist, were socially conservative to the core, and were also fond/apathetic towards social inequality. "Purge the jews because they have jewish blood" doesn't sound like something Marx would say.
Also, the Nazis relied a lot on private corporations (there's a reason people like Fritz Thyssen supported the Nazis early on), and businesses that weren't nationalized got plenty of kick-backs and benefits. That's not really Communist.
 
Not to mention that the Nazis were vehemently anti-communist (a lot of their propaganda had to do with the evil Bolshevik Jew being simultaneously responsible for both capitalism and communism) and anti-trade union. There were more socialistic strands of Nazism (most notably the Strasserites), but they were mostly purged in the Night of Long Knives.

The only thing they had in common was command economics. Like others have said, they were for corporations and private property, and against socialism's main ideal of class equality.
 
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.

Major points for this answer.
It's often stated in some of the dumbest historical documentaries that Hitler and the Nazi created some uber-economic utopia of full employment, illustrated best by Triumph of the Will-esqe propoganda.

and you say, upon a deeper look it was more half-assed policies and short sighted financial buffoonery run amok.

Moreover, it's funny think that maybe all the quick annexation demands of '38 - '39 started with Hitler, drenched in nervous sweat, reading a year-end financial report showing negative numbers in all sectors.
 
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Major points for this answer.
It's often stated in some of the dumbest historical documentaries that Hitler and the Nazi created some uber-economic utopia of full employment, illustrated best by Triumph of the Will-esqe propoganda.

and you say, upon a deeper look it was more half-assed policies and short sighted financial buffoonery run amok.

Moreover, it's funny think that maybe all the quick annexation demands of '38 - '39 started with Hitler, drenched in neverous sweat, reading a year-end financial report showing negative numbers in all sectors.

If the Nazis had wanted to they could probably have built that sort of sustainable economic growth and had large success in bringing back the rate of employment. But they were nuts, so they didn't.

TBH People forget that half the places the Nazis went they were greeted as liberators. AKA basically all the non-Russian parts of the Soviet Union, with also the Russian parts of the Soviet Union as Russian historians would be "shocked" to hear. (Well, obviously more divided but collaborationism certainly wasn't something rare in the S.U). Not only were the Soviets awful but the Poles weren't angels either, treating their minorities almost as bad in some cases as the Russians and Germans.

An actual misconception is that the Nazis conquered all of Europe by themselves. At many points during the war, if not most of it the Germans had more countries on their side than the allies.

Germany, Italy, Croatia, Rumania, Hungary, Slovakia, Finland*, and Bulgaria. Plus Japan, Manchukuo, and Siam. This is hardly Germany and Japan, even though they are always mentioned as though they were the only two powers the allies were at war with. I suspect this is done on purpose. To deflect blame to Germany, like in Versailles, rather than to admit that this war like others before it, and that no side was particularly good.
 
An actual misconception is that the Nazis conquered all of Europe by themselves. At many points during the war, if not most of it the Germans had more countries on their side than the allies.

Germany, Italy, Croatia, Rumania, Hungary, Slovakia, Finland*, and Bulgaria. Plus Japan, Manchukuo, and Siam. This is hardly Germany and Japan, even though they are always mentioned as though they were the only two powers the allies were at war with. I suspect this is done on purpose. To deflect blame to Germany, like in Versailles, rather than to admit that this war like others before it, and that no side was particularly good.

These are true statements but please dont mitigate the astronomical command-and-control the Germans had when working with their allies (minus Japan)

It was the German who lead the way in partisan reprisals - extermination camps - etc.
Did their co-belligerents do the same? yes
Did the Germans literally write the playbook for it? absolutely.
 
Major points for this answer.
It's often stated in some of the dumbest historical documentaries that Hitler and the Nazi created some uber-economic utopia of full employment, illustrated best by Triumph of the Will-esqe propoganda.

and you say, upon a deeper look it was more half-assed policies and short sighted financial buffoonery run amok.

Moreover, it's funny think that maybe all the quick annexation demands of '38 - '39 started with Hitler, drenched in neverous sweat, reading a year-end financial report showing negative numbers in all sectors.

I'm not sure if you know exactly how right you are. That was exactly why Hitler started grabbing stuff as fast as he could. The stuff they looted from Austria and Czechoslovakia, especially their gold reserves, kept the whole charade going until Hitler could properly go to war.
 
If the Nazis had wanted to they could probably have built that sort of sustainable economic growth and had large success in bringing back the rate of employment. But they were nuts, so they didn't.

TBH People forget that half the places the Nazis went they were greeted as liberators. AKA basically all the non-Russian parts of the Soviet Union, with also the Russian parts of the Soviet Union as Russian historians would be "shocked" to hear. (Well, obviously more divided but collaborationism certainly wasn't something rare in the S.U). Not only were the Soviets awful but the Poles weren't angels either, treating their minorities almost as bad in some cases as the Russians and Germans.

An actual misconception is that the Nazis conquered all of Europe by themselves. At many points during the war, if not most of it the Germans had more countries on their side than the allies.

Germany, Italy, Croatia, Rumania, Hungary, Slovakia, Finland*, and Bulgaria. Plus Japan, Manchukuo, and Siam. This is hardly Germany and Japan, even though they are always mentioned as though they were the only two powers the allies were at war with. I suspect this is done on purpose. To deflect blame to Germany, like in Versailles, rather than to admit that this war like others before it, and that no side was particularly good.
Some of those allies did some pretty shady stuff too and few seem to call them on it, looking at you Croatia and Albania.
 




Yeah, one of the major misconceptions people have is that "National Socialism" is divisible. You can't take the second part and say the Nazis were socialists. There were tremendous qualitative differences between the two ideologies.

Socialists want to abolish privately owned property and capital along with social classes and run the means of production by democratic control. Race doesn't really feature anywhere in it (it's an economic ideology), it's egalitarian, and it leads pretty directly to cosmopolitanism.

Nazism is completely built on race rather than class. Everything else in it is peripheral. It completely rejects cosmopolitan ideals, Marxist social struggle concepts, and egalitarianism. Instead it calls for citizens to subordinate their economic goals and desires to the needs of the state in the creation of a corporatist economy that serves national goals and the creation of a homogenous society of populated by pure members of the Aryan race that would be in perpetual conflict with and domination of lesser races to keep the master race from getting soft.

Those two are clearly different. Hitler was never serious about any sort of socialism, he just tacked it on to make it more attractive to the German working class.
 
Some of those allies did some pretty shady stuff too and few seem to call them on it, looking at you Croatia and Albania.
That is the problem of Nazis becoming memetic evil. Yes they did a lot but the Soviet Union and Japan are at worst(or at best depending on the point of view) on the same level and others in the war did some pretty horrible stuff that goes ignored.
 
That is the problem of Nazis becoming memetic evil. Yes they did a lot but the Soviet Union and Japan are at worst(or at best depending on the point of view) on the same level and others in the war did some pretty horrible stuff that goes ignored.
I absolutely agree.
In terms of pure numbers Stalingrad puts hitler to shame really.
 
Yeah, one of the major misconceptions people have is that "National Socialism" is divisible. You can't take the second part and say the Nazis were socialists. There were tremendous qualitative differences between the two ideologies.

Socialists want to abolish privately owned property and capital along with social classes and run the means of production by democratic control. Race doesn't really feature anywhere in it (it's an economic ideology), it's egalitarian, and it leads pretty directly to cosmopolitanism.

Nazism is completely built on race. It completely rejects cosmopolitan ideals, Marxist social struggle concepts, and egalitarianism. Instead it calls for citizens to subordinate their economic goals and desires to the needs of the state in the creation of a corporatist economy that serves national goals and the creation of a homogenous society of populated by pure members of the Aryan race that would be in perpetual conflict with and domination of lesser races to keep the master race from getting soft.

Those two are clearly different. Hitler was never serious about any sort of socialism, he just tacked it on to make it more attractive to the German working class.

Closer to a dystopian-capitalism than anything else really

Ex: See Rollerball

RollerballPoster.jpg
 
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