The CM Community and Nazi Admiration

[General Lee]

Is all this over the ht with the nazi flag on it? If so then im sorry but....wow. It was used to prevent friendly fire from aircraft. Regardless, please continue.(munching on popcorn)

[Zarquon]

As a German, I'm perhaps more easily offended by the display of Nazi insignia than people from other countries. Just like Reinald.

For all readers from the US : just imagine seeing someone burning a US flag. Even if your common sense wins over your sense of patriotism, preventing you from going through the roof, you will probably still feel offended. More or less. For me, maybe with Reinald, too, it's the same with swastikas, S-runes (remember the old SSI, Inc. logo?) and nazi propaganda posters, with or without the symbol. Just the other way round. It's offending. We don't like it.

Then, I think we're all influenced by what we were fed since the day we were born. US citizens with US patriotism, Germans with anti-nazi, eh, anti-patriotism. Both are justified, up to a certain point. Beyond that point, they become ideology.

The display of a (intentionally blurred) swastika on Eichenbaum's site could be considered bad taste in Germany. Only that Eichenbaum isn't German, and shouldn't be treated like one.

I know from my own games and from the experience of a friend with a collection of 200+ games, many of them US-produced wargames, ahem, cosims, that US game companies up to the 1990s mostly didn't bother to remove swastikas from their games. Surprise, surprise, German custom officials sometimes confiscated the games at the airport. It's the law. My friend once received an issue of AH's General with half the pages missing - the owner of the hobby store where he had ordered it had to manually cut out all ads and illustrations displaying nazi symbols or he would have risked his business license. No joke.

Now, I don't think all these US wargame companies were run by closet nazis. They were just ignorant of other people's customs.

And correct me if I'm wrong but I think this image was on the very first page of the Eichenbaum site when I visited it first to download the scenario, about three weeks ago:

Right above "This site has nothing to do with any political issues."

BTW, Reinald, if you're looking for a clear-cut case, visit

www.achtungpanzer.com

The site is sometimes quoted here in the forum as a source for technical data and as such, it seems unpolitical.

Then have a look at

www.pzg.biz

which is an official Achtung Panzer! "Site Sponsor and Supporter", complete with first-page banner. The PZG site leaves nothing to imagination.

Reinald, I think what you're crusading against is a very real fact - sometimes, those who claim to have no hidden political agenda or connections to right-wing loonies ... in fact do.

But in dubio pro reo. Just ask the lawyers, why. And watch your language, else people mistake you for a large, furry creature that lives in caves.

[GJK]

I have both an Iron Cross and the Soviet Red Star on my site....I guess I'm just confused. :confused:

[Bastables]

Originally posted by GJK:

I have both an Iron Cross and the Soviet Red Star on my site....I guess I'm just confused. :confused:

No you're just double the evil, monster.

[General Lee]

in fact was'nt there a problem with the CMBB release and its manual in germany?

[Major Jerkov]

If you guys are on a crusade to rid the world of swastikas(any nazi symbol), go to the neonazi sites. Not the sites that are about wargames. Naturally, being historical will bring the 'symbols' to light, but actually believing them is another story.

Their maybe a few people who believe the rheoteric behind the images, but they are presumably very few, at least here. Go crusade elsewhere.

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by General Lee:

Is all this over the ht with the nazi flag on it? If so then im sorry but....wow. It was used to prevent friendly fire from aircraft. Regardless, please continue.(munching on popcorn)

No, it was to infect the minds of the pilots to make them Nazis.

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by General Lee:

in fact was'nt there a problem with the CMBB release and its manual in germany?

Oh no, not here. Please read one of the gazillion CDV threads. But needless to say, import of CMBO before that went just fine (with "Waffen-SS").

Zarquon, I never heard of games confiscated at the airport, bespite the fact that they are not strictly allowed. Please name examples.

Of course businesses based in Germany (distributors and shops alike) are careful, but mailorder was never a problem.

[ August 17, 2003, 11:39 PM: Message edited by: redwolf ]

[Lee]

This is so stupid. Just because someone has an interest in WWII German equipment and

wants historically correct flags and markings on vehicles in Combat Mission does not

in any way make them a Nazi or Nazi supporter.

Are CM players that like to play as the Russians and are interested in Russian military

vehicles communists?

And who brought up homos in this thread? What does that have to do with

the subject of this thread? Didn't we agree *many* months ago to not ever bring up

such weird stuff that has no place on this message board?

Let's just stick to the cool subjects of Combat Mission and WWII.

[A.E.B]

To quote Nietzsche

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look long into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.

I am definitely a person who opposes all totalitarian ideologies - whether from the left, center or right of politics - because all such ideologies require enemies (racial, class, political), who are objectified as targets to be hated and destroyed.

I am certainly not blind to the crimes against humanity committed by both the Nazis and the Communists. I also believe that many more individuals took part in these crimes beyond the normal suspects of the SS and the NKVD.

The terrible logic of both the Nazi and the Communist systems where personified for me by the father of one of my parents friends. He was a Hungarian Jew who was sent to the death camps in 1944 when the Germans took full control of Hungry. He survived and returned to Hungary. In 1956 he worked for a newspaper that supported the uprising, and as a result spent 8.5 years in a Soviet labour camp.

I also despise those who try to rehabilitate Nazism or who cling to Marxism/Communism in the believe that if these systems are given another go they'll get it right this time. I was sad when David Irving was banned from visiting Australia, not because I wanted to hear what he would say, but because I knew some of the people who were going to publicly expose the evil propaganda disguised as history his books contained.

Such people need to be exposed. And people need to know exactly how sick and murderous extremist political ideologies really are. Only by doing so can we be assured that they can never rise to enslave mankind again.

But in opposing Nazism and Communism, the danger is that you become what you are fighting. This is the trap that the Political Correctness movement has fallen into - they are intoleratant of intolerance.

Once you yourself become intolerant, you wind up becoming what you are fighting. Hence the homophobic comments and the attempts to force others to comply with your viewpoint on what is ACCEPTABLE! made by reinald@berlin.com.

At home I have items that display Nazi, Communist, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Bhudist, and even Roman and Mongol symbols. I am not a believer or admirer of any of these systems of believe or governments. There are, however, items of great interest contained in all of the above. The methods of warfare practiced by both Germany and the USSR during WWII are worthy of study. What I am is deeply interested in history. It is the study of history, in all its aspects, that makes me immune to the ideologies of exclusion and hate.

Displaying a swastika doesn't make you a Nazi, even on the internet. Displaying a swastika and then backing it up with hateful language and praise for mass murderers does.

The strange thing is that in this case - if someone showed me the posts out of context - I would have picked - based on the attitudes displayed - reinald@berlin.com as being the Nazi, not eichenbaum.

Let's all grow up: symbols only have to power that we give them. The Nazis put the Iron Cross and Swastika on their equipment, but the Nazis were crushed by better men.

Remember that next time you play CMBB: the two great evils of Nazism and Communism were both eventually overcome, regardless of who had the nicer mods! And CM is just a game - it is the player who provides the motivation for playing it.

Regards

A.E.B

[Jack Carr]

Awwww Go On! You gotta be kidding me! I checked this guys site out and it's about Combat Mission.

As far as the recognition flag on the halftrack, the only thing that I can say about that is, the flag is way too clean. C'mon AndrewTF you gotta muddy the flag a bit.

Now if Eichenbaums' site had a picture of Auschwitz or said something like "Six Million Wasn't Enough" I'd say maybe you've got a point but all I saw was some CM info.

Now listen fellas, I'm having a Combat Mission party at my place followed by some cross burnings and we'll smash some Synagogue windows...whaddaya say! OH SH*T! I'VE BLOWN MY COVER!

Dude...I sincerely doubt you'll find any dangerous neo-nazi sympathizers on this forum.

I did get in an arguement once with Sgt Goody and Michael Dorosh once about the MP-44 being war prolonging on this forum. Both of them seemed to me to be big on Canada which means....hhmmmm....THERE NAZIS!

KILL THEM!!!

Just kidding guys I'm a huge Ottawa Senators fan.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by A.E.B:

The Nazis put the Iron Cross and Swastika on their equipment, but the Nazis were crushed by better men.

Your entire post is beautifully stated; the highlighted part above kind of detracts, in my opinion, from what was said. There is still a distinction to be drawn, no matter how blurry, between a German and a Nazi. I am a reluctant admirer of the American General Patton,for example, but in many ways he was no "better" than some of his German opponents. He slapped two men suffering from a legitimate illness in Sicily, lamented that not enough of his junior officers were being killed, and anecdotal evidence has him inciting the killing of prisoners before the invasion of Sicily. Whether or not the latter is true, his speeches (and not the one by George C. Scott, which was actually tamer than George's real life speeches) certainly incited a certain...rabidness?... to be expected in modern war.

I think it's clear the "good guys" won WW II, but I am loathe to paint all Germans with the same brush. Certainly Andreas, whose grandfather was in an artillery observation battalion on the Leningrad front, would be too.

[dalem]

Applause, applause.

I think this may be the dumbest thread ever, in the history of threads.

-dale

[Madmatt]

Indeed, this thread has now offered all points of view to be expressed and really has no more point. Since it is now taking up far too much time and effort I am going to close it.

Reinald, you have said your peace as have I and others. You have been warned to change your recent behavior, it is your call to abide by the demands of the forum admin or to ignore them. I won't warn you again.

SixthArmy, call me an ass if you want, but I would have you walk a mile in my shoes and see what it is like in person to admin a forum of this diversity and scale before you again award us with your dimestore analysis of my personality and conduct on this matter. Normally I would have booted you and reinhard both by now but I genuinely feel that this whole issue is one of a simple misunderstanding and a little too much fervent attitude so I am going to let it all slide, for now. You push again though and you will be out, not that it looks like you would care either way.

Let me say this though loud and clear. The Battlefront.com forums will NEVER be a safe haven for those with a Nazi-centric attitude or agenda. This is a PRIVATE forum and one which we run as best as we can in the manner that we choose.

ANYONE that preaches hatred, intolerance, servitude, genocide, racism, bigotry, fanaticism or engages in abusive, slanderous or libel attacks on other forum members will be dealt with in a manner deemed neccesary and acceptable by the duly appointed Admins. These forums exist to promote our GAMES and PRODUCTS, and we will do whatever is needed to maintain that. If banning certain individuals from continuing to post here is required, that is what will be done.

You don't have to like our policy, but you all agreed to it when you signed up, so abide by rules or let yourselves out and save me the time to do it myself.

All I ask, all that I have EVER asked of the membership is to just treat other members with a little bit of respect, tolerance, and maturity. If that is beyond your capabilites, you know where the door is.

Thank you and have a good week.

Madmatt

p.s. reinald, in yet another violation of forum policy you have two different accounts. I am deleting the account with the lesser amount of posts as per policy.

[ August 18, 2003, 12:57 AM: Message edited by: Madmatt ]