Pragmatic Villainy: Difference between revisions
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*** The really odd thing in all this is that it may well have been the choice of Madagascar that did it, rather than the much-closer Palestine. The militant Zionist group [[wikipedia:Lehi (group)|Lehi]], known to the British authorities in Mandate Palestine as the "Stern Gang," are reported to have sent a message to the Germans to the effect of "Ship all the Jews to the Middle East, and we'll be more than happy to carve out a little fascist empire here and not bother you guys ever again. Also, we'll help you beat Britain and the Commies." The Nazis, of course, rejected this out of hand, not least because Lehi was at that point a splinter group of a splinter group ([[We ARE Struggling Together!|Lehi broke off of the main Revisionist formation, the Irgun/Etzel, which broke off from the main Zionist formation, the Haganah]]), and further not all Lehi members were behind the proposal (meaning that the folks who sent the message were a splinter group of a splinter group of a splinter group).
*** Everyone in the know could see where it goes. To summarize the pre-war meetings of Bazhanov (Stalin's runaway secretary) with Germans: "You do understand that your only chance is to quickly form some sort of a Russian anti-Bolshevik government, then leave it to the locals and return to your wrestling with Brits without distractions, right? -Yeah, of course, we already have proposed this several times, but the Fuhrer is frothing and saying he wants to play a great conquistador. -I cannot express verbally how screwed everyone is, then."
**Germans at least usually got tactics right. They were weak on strategy and [[Magnificent Bastard|Bismark]] could have told them about,"Don't get in a war you can't get out of and don't antagonize the whole world." But they did know more or less how to win a campaign and so were pragmatic to that extent. Japan was a bit mixed. The Japanese Navy until it was ground down had some of the best tactics available but the army was experienced mainly against ill-trained troops, and they had some foolish practices such as rather over eager suicides.
* Georgy Zhukov, while defending Leningrad in 1941, issued an order that if any man surrenders to the enemy, his family will be shot. Malenkov (a senior Politburo member who was in Leningrad at the time) cancelled the order immediately. After all, scaring your own army away from the battlelines is kind of counterproductive.
* [[Josef Stalin]] disbanded his infamous "blocking detachments" - these were formed in 1942 and were deployed behind front lines with the sole purpose of shooting "cowards" and fleeing Soviet troops - after only three months. Of course, [[We Have Reserves|this wasn't because he cared for the lives of his soldiers]], but because they had a detrimental effect on morale and wasted manpower by diverting troops to the rear.
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