The Battle of Britain Was The First Defeat For The German Luftwaffe.

[ATAG_Dutch]

Originally Posted by cheesehawk

Germany, while strongly militaristic and a bit naive in terms of politics, was not the blatant land-grabbing crazies Churchill made them out to be.

Erm, sorry but......what?

Ok, they had a point with the Rhineland, the Sudetenlanland and the Danzig corridor.

Czeckoslovakia, Poland, Denmark, Norway, Holland, Belgium, France, 'Oops looks like Britain doesn't want to play!', rest of Poland, Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, Greece, North Africa, some more I forget and Russia.

They may not have been 'crazies' but landgrabbing they most certainly were.

Oh sorry, it was referred to as 'Lebensraum'. Sorry, forgot.

[NedLynch]

Cheesehawk, I do believe I remember from history class in school that the ballot for the annexation of Austria read something like this:

Are you for the annexation of Austria and our Fuehrer A.H.?

They connected support for Mr. Hilter (love Monty Python) and the annexation and I do not think those votes were cast with any measure of secrecy either, so of course the Nazis got the votes and could officially call the result the will of the german people, since nobody dared to vote "no".

Now Germans generally are good, hardworking, straightforward people who have a great sense for right and wrong. This coming to power of a bunch of genocidal maniacs can happen anywhere in the world given the right set of cicumstances.
The Nazis were the scum of the earth, but they were not stupid, ruthless and just plain evil, but not stupid. They managed to exploit the situation in Germany to it's fullest and I suspect with financial backing of....well, who would have backed those bastards? Somebody did for sure.

To fully explain how they came to power would need another extremely lenghty thread.

Originally Posted by cheesehawk

Each of those examples was after Britain and France had already declared war on them, and were in turn ways to secure needed supplies/routes to attack (except Greece, which I believe was in response to failed Italian campaign). Germany would most likely have still invaded Denmark, but Norway was a pre-emptive occupation of which England was planning the same thing. Of course, we know why Belgium and Holland were attacked, for routes to knock France out of the war. France was already a hostile power, having first declared war on Germany. Poland was a German territory pre-WWI (with large portions being Prussian, the historic lands of the Junkers, and ancestors of the German military complex). The others were first taken by Russia, Britain's ally.

This thread, as interesting as it is, should be in Pilot's Lounge please!

I do have to disagree on this. Hitler and his Nazi Scum Bag Party definitely had "Lebensraum" in the East on their agenda from the beginning and their main thought was about Poland and likely already Russia (but here there might be also this rivalty between two large despotistic ideologies here). The other conquests however came more from circumstances. The France campaign and the campaign against Britain was to put these two allies of Poland (and later of Russia) out off the war before turning on Russia. This of course is no excuse.

I for my part am happy that these scumbags are gone and even the short 12 years they ruled have been too long.

Another word on "being proud of one's ancestors": In full logic these also need to be ashamed of some deeds of the ancestors or they should be called cherry-pickers. But my guess is these same people who are proud of their ancestors (long dead and therefore unable to appreciate it) just are illogical and irational while some simply can not admit it and get at least close and often beyond insulting people while trying to find a rational reason for their "being proud to be xy" (as if this was an achievement while their birthplace was just pure aleatory event).

[bongodriver]

Another word on "being proud of one's ancestors": In full logic these also need to be ashamed of some deeds of the ancestors or they should be called cherry-pickers. But my guess is these same people who are proud of their ancestors (long dead and therefore unable to appreciate it) just are illogical and irational while some simply can not admit it and get at least close and often beyond insulting people while trying to find a rational reason for their "being proud to be xy" (as if this was an achievement while their birthplace was just pure aleatory event).

Were discussing WWII here, the cherry picking is being done by weirdos who quote the dictionary a lot, so just to be clear, I'm proud of the deeds of my ancestors because some of them were my family, is that enough of a connection for you?