Experience questions

[sogard]

The "so called" Panzer Lehr writes:

"I hate to say it, but Barbarossa and the Germans probably saved Europe from the USSR."

Well, Barbarossa and the Third Reich insured that Germany was to be divided for fifty years and Eastern Europe would be ruled by the Communists. I suppose the Germans of today can be ever so grateful to their Fuhrer for this blessing. Of course, at the end of the war, Adolf Hitler could have cared less about what happened to the German people because they were not worthy of him.

It is amazing that neither Franklin Roosevelt nor Winston Churchill had your strategic abilities and saw this brilliant notion. The only person who would seem to agree with you was Heinrich Himmler who deluded himself at the end of the war that it was still possible for Nazi Germany to make some sort of deal with the Western Allies and continue the war against Soviet Russia.

However, it would seem that you and Himmler have much in common...

[ September 17, 2002, 07:53 AM: Message edited by: sogard ]

[pzgndr]

Once again, I will be charitable

Oh, is that what you're being?

Never mind what the topic is or the context of the ongoing discussion, just jump right in with ad hominem attacks and call everyone else stupid. How charming.

[Canuck_para]

Sogard, you have to stop with the name calling and beligerant attitude or no one will listen ti you. While I feel no great sorrow for Wittman being killed (as he was killing Canadians at the time) and I think Meyer was a war criminal for the deaths of Canadian prisoners under his charge, I think you go overboard in your hatred of the soldiers of the SS. They were still humans. We proved our cause just by not killing them all when they were captured. Idealogically they were repugnant, but so are Muslim fanatics and I don't blame every Muslim for their actions.

[Kuniworth]

What da hell is this for kind of discussion??? Please close this god damn thread for christ sake.

Stop your politician talkin debate please. :eek:

[sogard]

Canuck_para writes:

"Idealogically they were repugnant, but so are Muslim fanatics and I don't blame every Muslim for their actions."

The problem with your analysis Canuck is that the SS were the Nazi fanatics. I do not blame every German for the SS; but, I do see the SS as Nazi fanatics. I don't see this as being particularily controversial. I realize that it may be unsettling for some to recognize this; but, that is the analysis that I have read by the experts in the field. Today's historians have concluded after analysis of captured German documents and records that the German Army knew more about atrocities than was generally recognized in the 1950s and 1960s (when most of the German General's memoirs were published). This is even more true when one speaks of the SS.

We should be thankful that the Germans were such good record keepers regarding their actions and motivations because it can actually answer this unpleasant issue of what did your average SS man know and what was his motivation.

[Hubert Cater]

To answer the original question, there is a typo in the manual, it should read a max level of 4 not 10. As for the rest of this thread.... COOL OFF GUYS!

Hubert

[Handsup]

As a german i can say that almost all members of the SS and Waffen SS were soldiers AND criminals.

The KZ guards and Einsatzgruppen behind the frontline killed millions of innocent people. Jews (~6000000), partisans, civilists.... and so on.

Wittman was perhaps a "good fighter"(he did his "job" well) but he played definitly in the wrong team.

[Desert Dave]

As originally posted by Handsup:

Wittman was perhaps a "good fighter"(he did his "job" well) but he played definitly in the wrong team.

There were ways to make tough, almost impossible choices -- back then,

And there are ways, if it comes to it, to make terrible decisions -- here and now.

Each will do it as an individual. No one writing or reading on this forum was there. Everything is second hand.

But, we are HERE now. Make your own individual choices, but it does very little good to tell and tell and tell anyone else -- how to make theirs.

[BlueMax 1939]

wow, guys didnt mean for my post to have this kind of response...as for the charges that i am ignorant about WWII and the waffen SS role in it, that is not true...i am a big WWII and WWI history buff and have hundreds of books on the subject...the reason i tagged Michael Wittmann was merely because in researching the waffen SS i found him to be an amazing soldier...nothing more and nothing less...the facts are Wittmann became the leading tank ace of all time...but this is beside the point; to say that he is an evil man is ridiculous...an example was used that everyone on all levels was Nazified is wrong as well...if i believe correctly the 'best' general the germans had (Erwin Rommel) was secretly 'dispatched by the gestapo for his views...not everyone was a hitler just waiting to massacre innocent children...also, considering the east front; both sides, including the russians fought an extremely barbaric war...in the end though i didnt mean for this to start an argument...people shouldnt take offence to my tag...its not meant to be offensive

[Scorpion_sk]

Guys, I don´t believe how common these egotistic over-patriotic know-it-all trolls seem to be.

Regardless, perhaps we really should call this case closed.

Ï think the troll in this thread has already said enough for everyone to make an opinion on him and his views, now and in the future.

As for my take, here I agree on one of the basic american principles : Everyone is innocent until proven guilty, REGARDLESS of whether he knew what was going on, and even regardless of whether one bought into the nazi propaganda by some degree.

You simply cannot judge an individual based on his nationality. True, Wittman was a member of the SS - but probably so because of his elite status, and the fact that the equipment and personnel (ie. crews) were very good in there.

Wittmann deserves respect regardless of his nationality or organization.

What´d you do if you were a german soldier during WW2?

Decide that "your cause if not just because of the atrocities" and report for court martial followed by an execution?

Most of those that knew about the atrocities did not support them, but rather, fought for their homeland.

It´s an altogether different thing to be a fanatic and a true war criminal, though.

You could say that I´m biased because I live in the one country Germany helped to save (from communism and the fate of the Baltic Countries).

[sogard]

This is my last post on the subject of who and what the SS was; however, I will respond to this garbage:

"Guys, I don´t believe how common these egotistic over-patriotic know-it-all trolls seem to be."

You can call me a troll; but, I have been a serious historical gamer since 1969. I have a large and extensive military history game collection. I have a very large and extensive military history library. I find nothing wrong in using games to explore historical options and simply for enjoyment. However, I am always aware of how my hobby may be perceived by others. I have seen the "Das Reich Tour" T-shirts at gaming conventions and the use of Nazi symbology at gaming conventions by people who clearly either want to rewrite history or clean up the Nazi past. I understand why the laws in the Federal Republic of Germany do not permit the general use of Nazi symbology (unlike in the United States where the 1st Amendment protects such speech).

And we get another cheap shot:

"Regardless, perhaps we really should call this case closed.

Ï think the troll in this thread has already said enough for everyone to make an opinion on him and his views, now and in the future."

Your views are an embarrassment to our hobby. It is one of the reasons that military and historical games are on the decline. Most folks are repelled by the nice Nazi messages and the use of the SS Black and White graphics with all the neat Nazi icons.

Along with further nonsense:

"As for my take, here I agree on one of the basic american principles : Everyone is innocent until proven guilty, REGARDLESS of whether he knew what was going on, and even regardless of whether one bought into the nazi propaganda by some degree."

And, you have it wrong. What the SS was has been proven, over and over again. Your view is simply not supported by the facts.

"You simply cannot judge an individual based on his nationality. True, Wittman was a member of the SS - but probably so because of his elite status, and the fact that the equipment and personnel (ie. crews) were very good in there."

And, this is a slurr against all Germans. Wittman was despicable not because he was German; but, because he was a member of the SS. He may have been a decent tactical officer even in spite of this.

"Wittmann deserves respect regardless of his nationality or organization."

And, that is nonsense.

"What´d you do if you were a german soldier during WW2?"

Well, you could do what Willy Brandt (future Chancellor of the Federal Republic) did and flee to Sweden. Or, you could do what Konrad Adenauer, the 1st post war German leader did and end up in a concentration camp. Or you could do what Stauffenberg tried to do, which was to kill Hitler. All these actions were honorable and are worthy of note and consideration.

"Decide that "your cause if not just because of the atrocities" and report for court martial followed by an execution?

Most of those that knew about the atrocities did not support them, but rather, fought for their homeland."

"It´s an altogether different thing to be a fanatic and a true war criminal, though."

And I will let the words of two great American historians (Williamson and Murray) end my participation in this discussion:

"To the end, the Germans fought with fanaticism. Their crimes in Poland and the Soviet Union, as well as those the Soviets unleashed against German civilians in reply, provide a partial explanation for the tenacity of the defense in the east. But the Germans were hardly less tenacious in the west. A fuller explanation lies in the ideological commitment throughout the Wehrmacht. That commitment, that belief in Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich, remained strong to the final days of the war."

Page 483, A WAR TO BE WON: FIGHTING THE SECOND WORLD WAR, Williamson Murray and Allan R. Millett: Harvard University Press, 2000.

[ September 17, 2002, 02:36 PM: Message edited by: sogard ]

[BobWarlock]

First: please, people on both sides, leave off the name calling; at least as regards each other.

Second: I'm actually glad that this subject came up the way it did, because I know a lot of the world thinks of wargamers as closet fascists and I'm relieved that someone called a fellow member on what I'll call excessive reverence for the warrior spirit of the SS. Although I think the reaction was excessive given the original instigation, it was in the right direction.

Third: If someone really wants to discuss the experience system (which certainly merits it), I'd suggest starting a new thread on the topic as this one is irretrievably contaminated.

Finally, my contribution to the SS discussion:

It is true that if any of us were in Germany in 1939 we'd have been in a bad position to make fine moral judgments, and even more so by 1944 since Hitler had used the effective tactic of making as many people as possible complicit in his crimes (so that the more people new about what was going on the more reason they had to fight to prevent revenge from being taken on them and their families).

However, being an officer in the SS meant more than fighting to prevent your homeland from being destroyed. The SS was a threat to the liberty of Germans and the lives of everyone else. Members of the German army, both anti-Hitler conspiratators like Rommel and less political ones considered the SS to be a very dangerous mix of army and politics that was hazardous to both.

If the assasination of Hitler had gone off, the SS was to be immediately disarmed and disbanded. Why? Weren't the assassins (mostly Prussians whose lineage went back to Frederick the Great) interested in defending their country?

To my knowledge (and here I could be wrong) no one was forced to join the SS, they volunteered. Now many might not have known what they were getting into, but if I had been alive in 1944 and had the power, I would have killed every last one of them. In 1945, I would have had to take a broader view of things. But on the question "Is it good that he died?", I'd have to say yes. Had he lived, he would have done his best to kill other people whose efforts made the world a better place. And going by his record, he would have killed a lot of them.

[Hubert Cater]

Originally posted by BobWarlock:

If someone really wants to discuss the experience system (which certainly merits it), I'd suggest starting a new thread on the topic as this one is irretrievably contaminated.

Well said and with that I am going to lock this one up.

Hubert