Nazi Germany: Difference between revisions
m
clean up
m (update links) |
m (clean up) |
||
Line 4:
{{quote|''"There are those at home who ask what we are fighting for. Let them come here, and see [[Final Solution|what we are fighting against]]."''|'''[[Dwight D. Eisenhower]]'''}}
This explanation is by no means meant to be totally inclusive of everything that defines
During this time, Germany's policies were dominated by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi (National Socialist German Workers' Party (German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)) Party's racist ideology, directed particularly (but not exclusively) toward those of Jewish descent. Though this is by no means the only policy adopted by the Nazi Party, it was so prominent that it has become one of their defining characteristics. The belief in the superiority of what Hitler called the Aryan race would ultimately culminate in The Holocaust -- [[Final Solution|the deliberate, industrialized mass murder of millions of ethnic minorities, dissenters, political malcontents, and social "undesirables" as defined by the Nazi Party]]; a period of horror and monstrosity that would claim the lives of at least eleven million people, six million of which were Jews, and would give rise to the word "genocide."
Nazi Germany also pursued [[Take Over the World|aggressive territorial expansion]]. Hitler believed that Nazi Germany and the Aryan race should be the rightful rulers over not just all the German-speaking peoples, or even the Germanic states, but all of Europe. This pursuit of territory led to the annexation of the Austria and the Sudetenland, the invasion of Poland, and ultimately the start of [[World War II]]
However, this is subject to [[Alternate Character Interpretation]], as some historians - most infamously A.J.P. Taylor - dispute this and assert that Hitler's foreign policy was opportunistic and the incompetence of his enemies was as responsible for German gains and the war as himself, while others even believe that Hitler had a ''Stufenplan'' (step-by-step plan) for total world domination that would have ended in a global showdown, with the United States on one side and the [[Enemy Mine|British Empire, Italy, Japan and Greater Germany on the other]] (although why all these warring states would ever unite together is puzzling). This latter view was most avidly proposed by the now [[Never Live It Down|heavily discredited]] historian Andreas Hilgruber. Since Hilgruber first proposed it in the 1960s, the ''Stufenplan'' belief has largely died down, although Taylor's assertions that the annexations of Austria and Czechoslovakia were as much to do with diplomatic blunders as Nazi foreign policy has yet to catch on.
Line 29:
* Hitler, mass butcher of human beings that he was, was a [[Straight Edge Evil|non-smoker]] who [[Hitler Ate Sugar|loved animals and never went near any of the prison camps and death camps himself. He's often described as a vegetarian and teetotaler, but several people who knew him described him as eating and drinking at least some meat and sometimes alcohol]]. The Nazis, however, didn't give vegetarian organizations exemption from banning, though they did introduce very tough anti-cruelty to animals laws by the standards of the time, with the implications that Jews were naturally cruel to animals<ref>On the grounds that ''shechita,'' or kosher slaughter, forbade stunning the animal to be killed, however, it does involve slitting the throat, which is a rather humane death. The animal must be killed "with respect and compassion" as well.</ref> while "Aryans" loved them.
* While homosexuality and interracial relationships were strictly outlawed, the attitude towards straight sex between "Aryans" was quite relaxed in the Third Reich. Nude bathing was legalized in 1942. This may have been less about liberated morals and more about filling the vast swaths of eastern Europe the Nazis intended to capture and depopulate. The Nazis lauded "Aryan" fertility and their idea of the woman's place leaned heavily towards "barefoot and pregnant."
* Its [[No Delays for the Wicked|trains ran on time]], although history tends to overstate this. Hitler liked fostering competition among his
* It banned Gothic (Blackletter) writing in 1941 when they were declared to be "Jewish letters," in spite of its [[Common Knowledge|pop-cultural association]] with Nazi propaganda (which was arguably true until that point in time).
* The display of Nazi Germany as "most effective/well-organized/hard-working society ever created" that abounds in older fiction [[History Marches On|has been convincingly disproved]]; Hitler created a confusing mass of bureaucracies all hampering each other and spying on each other, which also prevented any one of them from gaining enough power to be a danger to himself. They were, however, amazingly anal-retentive. It has been guessed this helped the International Criminal Court a lot during the Nuremberg Trials. It's probably why the term [[Grammar Nazi]] exists.
Line 41:
==== Important figures of
== Nazi Government ==
* ''[[The Great Dictator|Adolf Hitler]]'': Der Führer. [[Adolf Hitler|Has his own page.]]
* ''[[The Brute|Ernst]] [[Hard Gay|Röhm]]'': Leader of the SA (Sturmabteilung), known as the Brownshirts and a key assistant in Hitler's takeover. He was big and [[Fat Bastard|fat]], a tough ex-military man who [[Depraved Homosexual|liked young boys]]. To remove a potential rival (or because he was plotting against him, as has been claimed), Hitler personally arrested him and had him executed in the Night of the Long Knives, along with much of the SA leadership.
* ''[[Fat Bastard|Hermann]] [[Upper Class Twit|Göring]]'' (usually rendered "Goering" in English): The Reich Marshal, second-in-command to Hitler, and a former [[World War One]] [[Ace Pilot]] - he personally headed the [[World War Two]] ''Luftwaffe'' (German air force). He was something of a [[The Fighting Narcissist|fighting narcissist]] in his youth, and at the time he was considered handsome and was successful with the ladies. In later years, Göring was known for growing morbidly overweight and debauched; he owned several palaces where he lived like a Roman Emperor, was addicted to alcohol and heroin, and had many younger mistresses alongside his wives. In addition to piling on the pounds, Göring piled on title after title: along with Reichsmarschall and C-in-C of the ''Luftwaffe'', he was President of the Reichstag, President of the Prussian Council, director of the Four-Year-Plan (largely putting him in control of the economy until Speer took over in 1942), Reich Master of the Forest and Hunt, and countless other offices. He had a sadistic sense of humor (usually directed at Jews) and was the original founder of the [[Secret Police|Gestapo]]. Because of the complete failure of the Luftwaffe pilots in the Battle of Britain, he was gradually [[Kicked Upstairs]] for his incompetence after 1940. His political career ended with a bang when Hitler stripped him of his power at the end of the war after sending a telegram asking to take command of the Reich. Arrested by the Allies after the German surrender, he was sentenced to death at Nuremberg, but took a [[Cyanide Pill]] (which he [[Ass Shove|stored in his anus]]) the night before his execution. He was diagnosed as [[The Sociopath|a sociopath]] during the Nuremberg Trials, in contrast to most other Nazis who were mentally sound. Rumor has it that Sweden was spared from occupation (when neighboring states came under German military occupation) because his late wife was a Swede.<ref>
** During his youth, Göring's mother said that he would "grow up to be a great man or a great criminal".
** Göring's half-brother Albert (who was also likely half-Jewish) [[Cain and Abel|opposed Nazi ideals and was in the German Resistance]]. He was also the [[wikipedia:Albert Goring|very definition]] of [[Crazy Awesome]] for the ways he helped Jews and dissidents, banking on his family connections. Goering was furious over it, but protected him nonetheless.
** Göring claimed just before the war that the Ruhr Metropolitan Area (Germany's industrial center) would not be hit by a single bomb; if it did, he would change his name to Meier (saying you want "to be called Meier" is a German idiom to express that something is impossible) and also that he would eat his hat. After the United States entered the war, however, the Allies started attacking German cities with thousands of bombers that the ''Luftwaffe'' became increasingly unable to counter-attack. Göring made frequent tours of the devastated cities, where cynical civilians would call out "Hello, Mr. Meier! How's your hat?"
** Göring, being the head of the Luftwaffe that was the most visible manifestation of the Nazis to the British population due to the Blitz, was the major target of British propaganda and satire during the war. This concentrated mockery was so effective that Göring often remains thought of as a slapdash, incompetent [[Fat Bastard]] who couldn't tie his own shoelaces even
* ''[[Sarcastic Devotee|Josef]] [[Affably Evil|Goeb]][[Wicked Cultured|bels]]'': Minister of Media and Public Enlightenment, he basically invented modern propaganda. The original spin-doctor, Goebbels was fanatically devoted to Hitler and was ultimately appointed his successor as head of government. He was obsessed with the "Aryan race" and envied them, since he was a short black-haired man who was unable to fight on the front lines as a youth because of his limp. He compensated for this with his charisma, and after the Nazis lost in the Soviet Union, he whipped up their supporters at home into a frenzy, ensuring that they continued fighting against overwhelming odds. Goebbels was known for his slick and charming personality (he dated several film stars), and for being among the few intellectuals in the Nazi Party (Alfred Rosenberg (see below) was another). He was also a [[Family Values Villain|devoted family man and model father]].
** Of all the speeches he gave during his career, Goebbels' most famous one was the Sportpalast Speech. It was given on February 18, 1943, three weeks after the defeat in Stalingrad. This speech was the first acknowledgement by the Nazi leadership that Germany was facing serious problems on all fronts. Perhaps the most infamous bit about his speech was that the audience was carefully selected according to loyalty to Nazi ideology, giving it even greater impact.
* [[Evil Chancellor|Heinrich Himmler]]: Reichsführer of the SS and second-in-command to Hitler, he controlled the concentration camps, Gestapo, and the [[State Sec|SS (Schutzstaffel)]]. Hitler considered him his most loyal and competent henchman, and Himmler's decision to negotiate (unsuccessfully) with the Allies was one of the things that drove Hitler to consider suicide. One of the younger Nazis, he started out as a [[From Nobody to Nightmare|nerdy chicken breeder]] who carried the swastika flag during rallies. He has always been somewhat of a paradox for both historians and psychologists; despite damning millions to the gas chambers, and planning the further butchery and enslavement of tens if not hundreds of millions, Himmler hated the sight of blood - he repeatedly forced himself to watch recordings of the massacres he had ordered, and fainted in horror. However, despite this personal disgust for the realities of what he was ordering, he remained the key player of many of Nazi Germany's most evil crimes, in particular the Holocaust, painting the mass murders as "heroic" and "necessary" actions that would prove the heroism of the SS. Creepily enough, Himmler looked more like an amiable nerd than the head of the most terrifying armed forces in history. Captured in 1945, he killed himself before he could be questioned (an event witnessed firsthand by famed British cartoonist Carl Giles and Dutch comedian Rijk de Gooijer).
** Also despite being one of the primary ideological driving forces of the Third Reich's crimes, whose belief in the paramount divinity of "Germanic" blood led him to justify the genocide and enslavement of tens of millions of innocents (as well as the planned total enslavement and eventual genocide of the entire population of Poland, Russia and pretty much all of Eastern Europe) in an effort to "protect" this blood, he was one of the first individuals to throw these ideals out the window the moment it suited him. For example, when the war started to go downhill for Germany, he justified and even applauded the enlistment of Slavs, Muslims and even Indians in the SS, despite all three being very much part of the "untermensch" to the Nazis, his view of loyalty to the Fuhrer being an ultimate virtue was abandoned when it became clear Hitler would not give in, thus Himmler abandoned ship and tried to negotiate for peace and his own protection with the British, and finally in what must be the most sickening display of cowardice he tried to better his position during these "negotiations" by cheerfully telling a representative of the World Jewish Congress that after everything he had done, he wanted to "bury the hatchet" with the Jews by trading the lives of thousands of concentration camp inmates for guarantees he would be spared. In short, the death, misery, and suffering he had knowingly inflicted had all been for a delusional ideology which he never really cared about anyway.
* ''[[Peer Pressure Makes You Evil|Albert]] [[Punch Clock Villain|Speer]]'': Hitler's only real friend, at least according to Speer himself, and the [[Anti-Villain]] of Nazi Germany. Supposedly, he was drawn to the Nazi regime because of his friendship with Hitler, and not because he was a fanatical racist like the others. He was also known as "the Nazi who apologized", and many saw him as [[Only Sane Employee|the only sane man in the Nazi inner circle]] - In fact, according to some surviving documents, he was the only member of Hitler's government that was going to keep his Minister position had Operation Valkyrie succeeded in overthrowing Hitler. The fact that his name was followed by a question mark and a note saying that he would only be approached after Hitler's death was what saved his life. ''Incredibly'' efficient at what he did (and some, including Speer's own sons, say there was [[Ho Yay]] between him and Hitler), Speer rose in power during World War II and became first the chief architect - his grand plans for the future monuments of Germany appealed greatly to Hitler - and later Minister of Armaments, where he used his managing skills to increase production (he ''tripled'' ammunition production without building any new factories, while dealing with almost daily Allied bombings) and prolong the war. In the end, he refused to carry out Hitler's order to burn the German countryside so nothing would be left for the
** All that's left of Speer's work today are some lampposts, a few concrete cylinders (built to test if the marshy terrain of Berlin can support the weight of Hitler's proposed ''Volkshalle''
** Speer was a bit more liberal than the rest of the Nazi leadership. In 1943, after taking over as Armaments Minister, he proposed that Germany could ease its home manpower shortages by employing women in factories, something the Allies (especially the Americans) had already done. The Nazis refused, believing the role of "Kinder, Küche, Kirche" (children, kitchen, church).
* ''[[Cloudcuckoolander|Rudolf Hess]]'': The first Deputy Führer and one of the original Nazis. Even though he was originally meant to be Hitler's successor, he gradually faded away as more ambitious men like Goering and Himmler took his place. Hess was an oddball of a Nazi who was obsessed with [[Pet the Dog|astronomy, astrology, organic gardening and animal welfare]]. He had the strange idea of flying a fighter plane ''on his own'' to the UK to try and negotiate peace with the British in 1941. The British weren't interested in this at all and kept him in solitary confinement for the rest of the war. The other Nazis claimed he had gone completely off his rocker (which was true)<ref>
* ''[[Evil Chancellor|Martin]] [[The Man Behind the Man|Bormann]]'': Private secretary of Hitler and unofficially one of the most powerful men in the Third Reich. He controlled all access to Hitler and oversaw all information that came to and from the ''Führerbunker'', giving him enormous power. He was widely feared and hated amongst other leading Nazis, since Hitler had generally given him the role of [[Drill Sergeant Nasty|keeping their ambitions and power-grabbing in check]]. Strangely, even the SS leaders were scared of the bullying Bormann; he once had a good rant at Himmler down the phone for accidentally hinting that the Jews were not merely being "transported". As the war reached its end, Bormann had near-total control over Hitler, but fled after his boss's suicide and disappeared. He was sentenced to death ''in absentia'' at the Nuremberg Trials. It was rumored for many years that [[He's Just Hiding|he had successfully escaped to South America]], but in 1998 a skull found in Berlin was confirmed as his.
* ''[[Ass in Ambassador|Joachim von Ribbentrop]]'': The Foreign Minister. He acted as an ambassador to London before the war, intending to steer them towards opposing the [[Soviet Union]] rather than scrutinizing German territorial disputes. Lots of Brits were outraged when he gave the Nazi salute to George VI. Because Ribbentrop was ambassador to Britain, the news media of the time tended to portray him as one of the major faces of Nazi Germany (as opposed to one of the generals in Germany no one had ever heard of, who were actively building up the Nazi state). In reality, Ribbentrop was little more than a mouthpiece for Hitler, and incredibly unskilled as a diplomat. Every notable person who ever worked with Ribbentrop - from the Allies, the Nazi command staff, even his own subordinates - each gave the same description of Ribbentrop with alarming consistency: pompous, conceited, erratic, and surprisingly dumb.
Line 84:
* ''[[Stone Wall|Walter Model]]'': A hard-driving panzer commander in the early days of the Eastern Front, Model was promoted to general and later field marshal for his skill in stopping Soviet (and to a lesser extent, Western Allied) attacks. He became known as the Wehrmacht's best defensive tactician, earning the nickname "Hitler's Fireman" for being the Fuhrer's go-to general for dealing with desperate situations. He was also known for being crude, blunt, and to the point, bypassing the military's bureaucracy constantly and publicly insulting officers who didn't meet his standards. This behavior made him well-liked by his troops and despised by his staff, earning him his other nickname "Frontline Pig." Unlike many other Wehrmacht generals, he became known for having ties with Nazism and Hitler. Many who knew him insisted he was a zealous Nazi. Historians still aren't sure whether or not this was the case. What is known is that he had a close personal relationship with Hitler, though this relationship became strained at times (he once asked him [[Armor-Piercing Question|"Mein Führer, who commands Ninth Army, you or I?"]]). He was considered by Hitler to be his best field marshal, and the only one he ever fully trusted. As such, Hitler didn't countermand his tactical decisions as he did with other generals. Model, in turn, never objected to or interfered with massacres, deportations, and other atrocities committed by the SS in areas under his command. Faced with total defeat, and indicted by the Soviets for war crimes, he committed suicide on April 21, 1945.
* ''[[Colonel Badass|Colonel]]-[[Blue Blood|Count]] [[Eyepatch of Power|Claus]] [[Rebel Leader|von Stauffenberg]]'': Leader of the July 20 Plot. A member of the aristocracy and a devout Catholic, he was initially enthusiastic about the Nazi regime, especially when Germany defeated France in under six weeks. However, his love for Germany started to override his support of Hitler once he started to become aware of the atrocities being committed on the Eastern Front. For speaking against Hitler, he was transferred to Tunisia (just a few months before the North Africa campaign ended) and was wounded in an air strike, after which he was brought back to Germany. In the following year, he made connections with Colonel Henning von Treschow and other officers who sought to remove Hitler from power. Unlike the others, Stauffenberg knew it wasn't so much as removing Hitler from power that was the problem, but removing the entirety of the Nazi regime. He proposed using Operation Valkyrie, which was intended to maintain order in the event of a decapitation of government or a slave uprising (they carefully reworded it so that they could allow for the arrest of Nazi officials when implemented, a change which Hitler did not read). On July 20, 1944, Stauffenberg arrived in Hitler's ''Wolfschanze'' headquarters with a bomb in his briefcase. However, bad luck and bad timing doomed the operation and at the end of the day, Stauffenberg and many of the plotters were summarily executed. Today, they are proudly remembered as heroes in Germany for their brave effort to save Germany from total destruction.
* ''[[Heel Face Turn|Friedrich Paulus]]'': Commander of the Sixth Army during the Battle of Stalingrad. A veteran of World War I (and served in the same infantry regiment as Erwin Rommel), he was particularly hampered during Case Blue by Hitler's orders which changed the targets and direction of attack, severely costing him momentum. After the Soviets launched a counterattack and cut off the Sixth Army, he requested permission to break out, which would save the men under his command. However, Hitler refused and opted for a plan proposed by Göring to supply the Sixth Army by air while Field Marshal Manstein prepared a relief force. While Manstein was competent and could have potentially relieved the Sixth Army, the Luftwaffe was completely unable to supply them from the air, providing only a fraction of the materials needed (and even then, they were mostly useless supplies like vodka and summer uniforms). In January, the Soviets approached him twice with relatively good terms of surrender: medical care for the men, allowing them to keep their personal affects, and normal food rations. Paulus found himself severely handicapped by Hitler's order to hold to the last man. This was cemented on January
== The SS ==
* ''[[The Sociopath|Reinhard Heydrich]]'': Deputy Reichsführer of the SS and Governor of Bohemia, he gave the order for the Final Solution and masterminded the Holocaust. He was also known as "The Hangman". Since his childhood, he was said to excel at anything he put his mind
** Hitler openly called the dying Heydrich a moron for [[Idiot Ball|driving around without any protection whatsoever]]. The assassination of Heydrich took place in Prague, whose civilian population was punished. A letter, supposedly from one of the assassins was found in Lidice, which was later proven to be sent by a mere factory worker. But K.H. Frank, Heydrich's successor, [[Avenging the Villain|wanted brutal revenge on the Czech people]] and ordered the destruction of Lidice, and the village was burned down. The men were shot immediately; the women were shipped off to a concentration camp to slave in the brothels; the children were sent to the gas ovens of Chelmno.
* ''[[Mad Scientist|Dr. Josef Mengele]]'': "The Angel of Death". Dr. Mengele was infamous for the human medical experimentation he carried out in Auschwitz. He was a [[Stepford Smiler|handsome and polite young man who always smiled and dressed nicely]], and performed [[Nightmare Fuel|unspeakably horrifying]] medical experiments on the prisoners whom he didn't send to the gas chambers. He preferred to use children under five, and his specialties were injecting blue dyes into their eyes, dissecting their organs, sewing their limbs together, and making sex change operations. With no anesthesia or painkillers. There are two common misconceptions about Mengele: the first is that he was chief medical officer at Auschwitz and the mastermind of the Nazi medical experiments, and the second is that he was an actual "scientist" in any sense of the word. The grim irony is that despite all of the suffering Mengele caused (he personally killed ''at least'' 1,500 people...not through bombing or gas chambers but ''individually'' vivisecting ''most'' of them with his ''own hands''), and despite how infamous his experiments would become in the world at large after the war...even other Nazi scientists later stated that Mengele's "experiments" had no scientific value ''of any kind whatsoever''. There was no rational methodology being used on any level; he didn't even have control groups (''junior high'' science classes were better organized).
| |||