Were nazi-germans really superhumans ?

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Hans1906
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Re: Were nazi-germans really superhumans ?

#46

Post by Hans1906 » 08 Mar 2021, 14:14

Comparing totalitarian regimes, whether historical or current, makes no sense.
Every victim was and still is always one victim too many.

For any war crime, no matter in which war, the same applies, of course.

Quote:
"Übermensch (Latin homo superior) is a term from philosophical thought. A superman is an "ideal human being" who has risen above or strives to rise above the ordinary life of a human being who is considered normal and usually negative. By far the best-known superman concept comes from Friedrich Nietzsche."

Source: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Übermensch

It was hammered into my uncle Helmut and his young classmates as students of a former NPEA to lead the world as future master race.
Where this indoctrination has led before 1945, we all read in the history books, in this forum.

NPEA / Nationalpolitische Erziehungsanstalt https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationalp ... ngsanstalt

Documentary "Herrenkinder - Das System der NS-Eliteschulen"



Hans1906
The paradise of the successful lends itself perfectly to a hell for the unsuccessful. (Bertold Brecht on Hollywood)

FiveStars
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Re: Were nazi-germans really superhumans ?

#47

Post by FiveStars » 08 Mar 2021, 14:30

The German standard MMG was again a very modern concept (ie a GPMG) with a thirties design while OVER HALF of the Polish Army's stock of MMGs was the WW1 MG08, the rest being a traditional 20s design and the ENTIRE French army was equipped with WW1 weapons.
I must strongly disagree with that statement. The French were modern in where it counted - the light machinegun. In the 1920s they pursued the modernization and replacement of chauchaut stocks with the FM24, and later, FM24/29 (special war credits were allocated for this purpose). Such an effort was relatively successful, as by 1940 only low-rate and pioneers had the chauchat; while the vast majority of the regular and active army was equipped with a modern weapon. The French also replaced most of the 8mm lebels in their standard rate units with 8mm berthiers as an interim measure and only kept the former for launching rifle grenades and for backwater reserves. For active units, a quarter of a million MAS36 rifles were available in the new 7.5mm cartridge. They were issued to chasseurs portés, dragons portés, corps francs, chasseurs alpins, infanterie de l'air, légionnaires, some cavalry and infantry divisions, and were augmented by a smaller number (45,000) berthier rifles converted to the 1934 standard. So your assertion that "ENTIRE" french army was equipped with WW1 weapons is wrong.

As for the Germans, they indeed did have a modern concept of a GPMG, however, that is no use if they have a MG shortage. Large swathes of the German infantry were still equipped with older types of machineguns (NARA rolls and Lexikon der Wehrmacht are two good sources on this matter). Rifle-wise, the German army in 1939 numbered almost 4 million men (though only 2.7 million rifles in service). Between one and two and a half million k98k rifles were produced and available by then (statistics on this matter are contradictory), while nearly a million G98-derived rifles were available (production resumed in the second half of the 1920s on a limited scale). We can assume that a similar number of weapons were available from occupation (notably Czech weapons chambered in the same 7.92mm catridge), which all in all leaves anywhere between a million to 200,000 older rifles in service). As I previously said, divisional reports on this matter are in most cases, of no use as they do not differentiate between rifles, photographic evidence is really the only medium that can offer an insight, and which suggests that spearhead units like Panzer divisions, motorized regiments and a fair number of infantry units had k98k rifles (And the latter had most of the available submachineguns; an infantry division of this time only had 3 smgs in total, for the armored car unit), other units often featured a mishmash of older rifle types. But as you correctly pointed out, rifles are not as important as artillery, and tactics.

On the subject of divisional artillery I agree with you that by 1939-40 (when the LeFH-18 was in production for 5 years already), the majority of ww1 and weimar era guns were augmented by the newer LeFH-18. For comparison, in 1939, the German Army had almost a thousand LeFH-16s and around 5 thousand LeFH-18s. In the case of heavy artillery pieces, almost 700 SfH-13s were still in service, while about 2,500 were of the SfH-18 variety.

So in essence I agree with your conclusion, even if I believe the matter is more nuanced (I view the development of strategy as not an entirely new version, but rather as the latest refinement of the "war of movement" or bewegungskrieg that had been at the centerpiece of German military thinking since Fredrick the Great).

-Warmest Regards
Maks
Last edited by FiveStars on 08 Mar 2021, 18:55, edited 1 time in total.


George L Gregory
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Re: Were nazi-germans really superhumans ?

#48

Post by George L Gregory » 08 Mar 2021, 18:38

Nazis and Nazi propaganda certainly told Germans that they were a master race.

Commander of the Selbstschutz Ludolf von Alvensleben told his men on 16 October 1939:
You are now the master race here. Nothing was yet built up through softness and weakness... That’s why I expect, just as our Führer Adolf Hitler expects from you, that you are disciplined, but stand together hard as Krupp steel. Don’t be soft, be merciless, and clear out everything that is not German and could hinder us in the work of construction.
Erich Koch the Reichskommissar in Reichskommissariat Ukraine said:
We are a master race, which must remember that the lowliest German worker is racially and biologically a thousand times more valuable than the population here.
Joseph Goebbels in 1936 said:
Today arises in young and old, high and low, poor and rich, the will that the German nation must again be a world people. All of us are convinced of it: we must participate in the ruling of the world. We must become a master race, and therefore we must educate our people to be a master race. This must begin with the smallest child, who must be educated in this master-ethic.
So it wasn't just Germans who belonged to a certain organisation e.g. the SS, who were told that they were superhumans, ordinary Germans including the "lowliest German worker" was regarded as a superhuman compared to the racially inferior Jews, Slavs, Blacks, etc.

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Re: Were nazi-germans really superhumans ?

#49

Post by Hans1906 » 08 Mar 2021, 19:40

George,

your answers copied here are tiring, copied from somewhere, the old familiar theme.

You have no personal reference to the time, as well.
But it is useless to discuss it further, you as a person not born in Germany will not understand it, never.

* Sometimes his former upbringing broke out of the man, very rarely, but in these very rare moments, only then his former upbringing broke a track, the indoctrination at that time had worked, these years in the NPEA have shaped the young man, no question.

The children and young people were abused, the legacy of all this must not be denied today.


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The paradise of the successful lends itself perfectly to a hell for the unsuccessful. (Bertold Brecht on Hollywood)

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Re: Were nazi-germans really superhumans ?

#50

Post by gebhk » 08 Mar 2021, 20:10

The German standard MMG was again a very modern concept (ie a GPMG) with a thirties design while OVER HALF of the Polish Army's stock of MMGs was the WW1 MG08, the rest being a traditional 20s design and the ENTIRE French army was equipped with WW1 weapons.
So your assertion that "ENTIRE" french army was equipped with WW1 weapons is wrong.
It is only my assertion that the entire French army was equipped with WW1 MMGs, but I can see where the confusion arises. I thought it would be clear from the structure of the paragraph, but evidently not. In any case you don't seem to contradict this assertion so correct if I am wrong, but the only major army to enter the War with an MMG that did not stem out of WW1 or earlier was the German one?

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Re: Were nazi-germans really superhumans ?

#51

Post by George L Gregory » 08 Mar 2021, 20:12

Hans1906 wrote:
08 Mar 2021, 19:40
George,

your answers copied here are tiring, copied from somewhere, the old familiar theme.

You have no personal reference to the time, as well.
But it is useless to discuss it further, you as a person not born in Germany will not understand it, never.

* Sometimes his former upbringing broke out of the man, very rarely, but in these very rare moments, only then his former upbringing broke a track, the indoctrination at that time had worked, these years in the NPEA have shaped the young man, no question.

The children and young people were abused, the legacy of all this must not be denied today.


Hans1906
You don't know where I was born. You don't know my background. You don't know if I have any personal references.

You know nothing about me.

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Re: Were nazi-germans really superhumans ?

#52

Post by Hans1906 » 08 Mar 2021, 20:54

I don't care about your answers by now, you move here to cause discord.
You do not care about answers, you have already prepared them in every topic.

Quote:
"You know nothing about me."
You contribute nothing, nothing at all, cause discord in many topics, like the evil imp that is always breathing down your neck.
Pathetic for me, but you obviously like this role, who gets involved in it, you can't help it.

I'm sorry to have wasted some time replying to you.
The paradise of the successful lends itself perfectly to a hell for the unsuccessful. (Bertold Brecht on Hollywood)

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Re: Were nazi-germans really superhumans ?

#53

Post by FiveStars » 08 Mar 2021, 21:28

gebhk wrote:
08 Mar 2021, 20:10
The German standard MMG was again a very modern concept (ie a GPMG) with a thirties design while OVER HALF of the Polish Army's stock of MMGs was the WW1 MG08, the rest being a traditional 20s design and the ENTIRE French army was equipped with WW1 weapons.
So your assertion that "ENTIRE" french army was equipped with WW1 weapons is wrong.
It is only my assertion that the entire French army was equipped with WW1 MMGs, but I can see where the confusion arises. I thought it would be clear from the structure of the paragraph, but evidently not. In any case you don't seem to contradict this assertion so correct if I am wrong, but the only major army to enter the War with an MMG that did not stem out of WW1 or earlier was the German one?
That is quite a grey area for one could argue that the MG34 is a development of the MG13 (Which in itself was developed to replace the MG-08/15, like the FM-24/29 was developed to replace the Chauchat). So I'd say that it wasn't rather about the gun, but more about the tactics and the adaptability of the gun (The Germans also mounted (older) types on lafettes).

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Re: Were nazi-germans really superhumans ?

#54

Post by George L Gregory » 08 Mar 2021, 23:08

One thing that should be taken into consideration is that many Germans thought that they were racially superior to other people. It doesn't necessarily matter if they were or not, the point is that Nazi propaganda told the German people (especially those Germans who were considered Nordic) that they were better than other people.

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Re: Were nazi-germans really superhumans ?

#55

Post by Hans1906 » 08 Mar 2021, 23:35

It is almost unbelievable, which nonsense about the so called "Nazis" is spread here, half knowledge and somewhere read nonsense is spread here, without any reference to the events of that time.

It is not my job to teach history, certainly not, my personal time is too short for that.

The omniscient arrogance of people who don't even have the slightest clue about that time, not to mention family involvement in the regime of that time, that is typical.
Chatterboxes and know-it-alls without any basis let off steam about a German history, about the National Socialists, the so very evil Nazis, nobody really takes that seriously here in Germany, but the topic is not new.

It is a deep dig, in every family, in every neighborhood, no one was a National Socialist, and no one read the pamphlet "Mein Kampf".
(Of course not...)
People already knew everything, the annihilation of the Jewish race came just in time, for Führer, people, and fatherland.

What do I think about it today, the "others" were guilty, the fathers, the grandfathers, the great-grandfathers, exactly these people have stuffed the one thousand year long empire into our mouths, to finally shake off all the dirt from themselves.

With this guilt on my neck, I would have acted exactly the same way, and our generations are still bathing all this out, very certainly more than 1000 years from now....
History has been fulfilled, forever and ever.

Heinrich Heine / "Nachtgedanken“ (1843)



Hans1906
The paradise of the successful lends itself perfectly to a hell for the unsuccessful. (Bertold Brecht on Hollywood)

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Re: Were nazi-germans really superhumans ?

#56

Post by Topspeed » 09 Mar 2021, 08:24

Hans1906 wrote:
08 Mar 2021, 23:35
It is almost unbelievable, which nonsense about the so called "Nazis" is spread here, half knowledge and somewhere read nonsense is spread here, without any reference to the events of that time.

It is not my job to teach history, certainly not, my personal time is too short for that.

The omniscient arrogance of people who don't even have the slightest clue about that time, not to mention family involvement in the regime of that time, that is typical.
Chatterboxes and know-it-alls without any basis let off steam about a German history, about the National Socialists, the so very evil Nazis, nobody really takes that seriously here in Germany, but the topic is not new.

It is a deep dig, in every family, in every neighborhood, no one was a National Socialist, and no one read the pamphlet "Mein Kampf".
(Of course not...)
People already knew everything, the annihilation of the Jewish race came just in time, for Führer, people, and fatherland.

What do I think about it today, the "others" were guilty, the fathers, the grandfathers, the great-grandfathers, exactly these people have stuffed the one thousand year long empire into our mouths, to finally shake off all the dirt from themselves.

With this guilt on my neck, I would have acted exactly the same way, and our generations are still bathing all this out, very certainly more than 1000 years from now....
History has been fulfilled, forever and ever.

Heinrich Heine / "Nachtgedanken“ (1843)



Hans1906
I hear you Hans1906...all those triuphant parades.....überschöne colossal architecture by Speer and Hitler and Göbbels convincing speeches over the radio about bright future. Most of all Himmler and others organizations with extreme german disipline and fervour certainly made all looks like this is the real thing.

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Re: Were nazi-germans really superhumans ?

#57

Post by gebhk » 09 Mar 2021, 21:05

That is quite a grey area for one could argue that the MG34 is a development of the MG13 (Which in itself was developed to replace the MG-08/15, like the FM-24/29 was developed to replace the Chauchat). So I'd say that it wasn't rather about the gun, but more about the tactics and the adaptability of the gun (The Germans also mounted (older) types on lafettes).
With respect, I don't think it is grey at all. Even if it were relevant, the MG13 was a significantly newer design than any of the above. However it is not really relevant because we are talking about replacing the MMG not the SAW. This is important because what the Germans came up with was a significant departure from what had heretofore been the norm - a heavy defensive weapon. By developing something a lot more portable - and which at a pinch could be taken off its base and used as a SAW - it could be and was incorporated into the arsenal of the infantry rifle company, something impracticable with the traditional designs (unless you had a Rambo in every team!). .

The Polish army neatly illustrates the problems of already having significant stocks of older weapons. Having large stocks of traditional MMGs and the infrastructure to use, manage and maintain them, there was no question of chucking all this out and starting over. When the inevitable conclusion was reached that the infantry rifle company needed to increase its automatic firepower, there was no immediate solution because a new weapon had to be designed from scratch - and of course this would be a different weapon than that of the MG companies, complicating logistics in a way the German solution did not. In the end there was insufficient time to produce one.

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Re: Were nazi-germans really superhumans ?

#58

Post by George L Gregory » 10 Mar 2021, 00:03

German soldiers were arguably the best soldiers of WW2 and even more arguably the best war machine since centuries before them.

No country could have defeated Germany on a one to one basis at the beginning of the war. It took a huge effort from all of the Allied countries and a few years to defeat them.

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Re: Were nazi-germans really superhumans ?

#59

Post by Ecam » 10 Mar 2021, 06:37

George L Gregory wrote:
10 Mar 2021, 00:03
German soldiers were arguably the best soldiers of WW2 and even more arguably the best war machine since centuries before them.

No country could have defeated Germany on a one to one basis at the beginning of the war. It took a huge effort from all of the Allied countries and a few years to defeat them.
As long as they had their supply of Pervitin handy.

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Re: Were nazi-germans really superhumans ?

#60

Post by ljadw » 10 Mar 2021, 09:16

George L Gregory wrote:
10 Mar 2021, 00:03

No country could have defeated Germany on a one to one basis at the beginning of the war. It took a huge effort from all of the Allied countries and a few years to defeat them.
This is totally wrong .

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