WW2 question: how was Stalin better than Hitler?

[BUTCH1]

The USSR was a semi-ally of Nazi Germany from Sept 1939 to June 1941. I find it funny that the Brits and French say ww2 was started by Germany. The British and French declared war on Germany, not the other way around.

ok you say, they declared war because Germany invaded Poland. They did this to save Poland. So why not declare war on USSR as well as they invaded Poland in mid September 1939.

ok. so the Nazi were bad because of concentration camps you say? Except the large scale death camps did not start until after the Wannsee conference in 1942 When "the final solution" was agreed upon. But of course forgotten is the soviet Gulag camps and the 6 million Ukrainians starved out by Stalin.


The world would have been a much better place if (as in 1870-1) the Germans defeated the French in 1914. Then the Russians in 1915. With that, there is no Hitler, no Nazi Germany. no Communists. No world war 3 (I consider the cold war as ww3 - a series of proxy wars)

with that..i wonder would the Great Depression still have happened?

Some Jews did manage to escape Germany before "the final solution", they had to forfeit 90% of their assets to the Nazi's to obtain a pass out of the country. Does the fact that Stalin killed millions as well make what the SS did any more tolerable? no, not to me or anyone else with a speck of common sense and decency.

 

[ThatsABigOne]

Yes, the T-34 was better than a Sherman but that's where it ends, the P-51 Mustang was the best fighter aircraft in the war, bar none, close second was the P-38. What you not taking into account is the Germans planned on sweeping through Russia before the onset of winter, when that stalled at Stalingrad the Russians eventually encircled the German 6th army and cut off any supply lines, they didn't even have clothing to deal with a particularly harsh Russian winter, a huge blunder, many froze to death or starved, those that surrendered didn't fare much better. If the Red army tried to advance to France they would have faced the same supply issues among many others as well.

Keep believing that bullshit, chump!

 

[ThinClient]

Haha. Zero? What's that? That wasn't a real plane anyway, was it.

 

[EagleKeeper]

Haha. Zero? What's that? That wasn't a real plane anyway, was it.

It was enough to support the Japanese in their control of the Islands all the way to New Guinea.

It did score kills against US pilots.

Better planes came out afterwards on both sides, but it initially did tbe job designed for.

 

[rommelrommel]

Keep believing that bullshit, chump!

So umm, what was then?

 

[Perknose]

So umm, what was then?

The Mustang was great, but certainly not hands down the best WWll fighter. I'd put it in the same top tier class as the Messerschmitt 109, the Focke-Wulf FW 109, and the Spitfire.

I certainly wouldn't consider the p-38 in this tier, though it did what it did well in the Pacific theater.

If enough had been built and if there had been enough jet fuel for them, then it would be hard to argue that the Messerschmitt 242 wouldn't have reigned supreme, because jet.

 

[rommelrommel]

I'm just curious as to his answer as he seems to think that the P51 was a ridiculous choice.

 

[OCGuy]

"Best" is a marketing term, and should never be used in serious discussion.

It is a weasel word....pure and simple.

 

[BlitzPuppet]

I hate the P51, too finicky of a plane and far too fragile.

The FW190 (Especially the D9) and the BF109 were formidable opponents to the other planes during the time frame.

Germany just lost a lot of good pilots over the course of the war and their focus mainly went towards bomber interceptors rather than fighter vs fighter combat (see the ME-163).

I <3 me some German Aviation.

 

[OCGuy]

I <3 me some German Aviation.

1940s German Tech was so far ahead of everyone else it is scary.

The war could have ended much differently if some of their low production and prototype machines were refined and mass produced.

The Cold War could have ended very different if the German brains didn't decide that life in the U.S. was preferable to the USSR.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend."

 

[JEDIYoda]

The sad truth is that history is written by the victors. If you would all pull your head out of your asses for a sec and read a real history book you'd find out WW2 was fabricated. Pearl harbor was not bombed by the Japanese but was in fact staged by the US government just like 9/11. The US had already developed the atomic bomb and needed a location to drop it on and Europe wasn't exactly a great place with so many allies around. So the looked to a little remote island of Japan and started this whole thing and now they spy on you and watch you change your underwear because they are just protecting you.

Don't do that, some poor, paranoid soul will latch on to this theory and cite you 10 years from now.

That poor paranoid soul will be Anarchist420...lolol

 

[JEDIYoda]

http://www.ushmm.org/outreach/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007712

On January 20, 1942, fifteen high-ranking Nazi party and German government leaders gathered for an important meeting. They met in a wealthy section of Berlin at a villa by a lake known as Wannsee. Reinhard Heydrich, who was SS chief Heinrich Himmler's head deputy, held the meeting for the purpose of discussing the "final solution to the Jewish question in Europe" with key non-SS government leaders, including the secretaries of the Foreign Ministry and Justice, whose cooperation was needed.

KEY DATES
JUNE 22, 1941
KILLINGS ACCOMPANY GERMAN INVASION OF SOVIET UNION
German special duty units, called mobile killing squads (Einsatzgruppen), are assigned to kill Jews during the invasion of the Soviet Union. These squads follow the German army as it advances deep into Soviet territory, and carry out mass-murder operations. At first, the mobile killing squads shoot primarily Jewish men. Soon, wherever the mobile killing squads go they shoot all Jewish men, women, and children, without regard for age or gender. By the spring of 1943, the mobile killing squads will have killed more than a million Jews and tens of thousands of partisans, Roma (Gypsies), and Soviet political commissars.

SEPTEMBER 3, 1941
EXPERIMENTAL GASSINGS BEGIN AT AUSCHWITZ
Experimental gassings are carried out at the gas chamber in Auschwitz I, the main camp at Auschwitz in southern Poland. 600 Soviet prisoners of war and 250 ill or weak prisoners are forced into an experimental gas chamber. The Germans test the killing potential of Zyklon B gas. Zyklon B was the commercial name for crystalline hydrogen cyanide gas, normally used as an insecticide. The "success" of these experiments leads to the adoption of Zyklon B as the killing agent for the Auschwitz-Birkenau killing center. Mass killings begin there in January 1942.

DECEMBER 8, 1941
CHELMNO KILLING CENTER BEGINS OPERATION
Chelmno is located about 30 miles northwest of Lodz. It is the first Nazi camp to use poison gas for mass killings. Victims deported to the camp are forced into gas vans. A tube directs the van's exhaust into the hermetically sealed compartment, which holds between 50 and 70 people. Once the carbon monoxide kills all those locked inside, the van is driven to mass graves and emptied. Three gas vans operate at Chelmno, and at least 152,000 people will be killed there by mid-July 1944.

The "final solution" was the Nazis' code name for the deliberate, carefully planned destruction, or genocide, of all European Jews. The Nazis used the vague term "final solution" to hide their policy of mass murder from the rest of the world. In fact, the men at Wannsee talked about methods of killing, about liquidation, about "extermination."

The Wannsee Conference, as it became known to history, did not mark the beginning of the "Final Solution." The mobile killing squads were already slaughtering Jews in the occupied Soviet Union. Rather, the Wannsee Conference was the place where the "final solution" was formally revealed to non-Nazi leaders who would help arrange for Jews to be transported from all over German-occupied Europe to SS-operated "extermination" camps in Poland. Not one of the men present at Wannsee objected to the announced policy. Never before had a modern state committed itself to the murder of an entire people.

 

[Pacfanweb]

So umm, what was then?

F4U Corsair was every bit the equal of the Mustang, and was tougher to boot.

 

[Pacfanweb]

The Japanese were every bit as brutal and the Nazis and the Russians. Their atrocities don't get as much publicity because Asia was mostly where they took place, and that area just wasn't as developed and modern back then. Plus, let's face it, Americans and the other Allies simply identified with the Europeans better, because that's where most of us were from.

But the Japanese were just absolutely horrible,....they've never fully taken responsibility or shown remorse for what they did, which is why the rest of Asia pretty much hates them to this day.

 

[PowerEngineer]

I hate the P51, too finicky of a plane and far too fragile.

The FW190 (Especially the D9) and the BF109 were formidable opponents to the other planes during the time frame.

Germany just lost a lot of good pilots over the course of the war and their focus mainly went towards bomber interceptors rather than fighter vs fighter combat (see the ME-163).

I <3 me some German Aviation.

It's certainly true that radial engine fighters tended to be sturdier that those using liquid-cooled engines. You weren't flying very far with a bullet-riddled cooling system. At least in that regard, the Dora shared that same Mustang fragility because its long nose enclosed a liquid-cooled engine (in place of the original radial engine).

I do agree, however, that the Dora and other late-war models of German aircraft were roughly on par with the best Allied counterparts. (The P-38 not being one of them.)

I also <3 me some German planes. I almost went into shock when I unexpectedly ran into this Dora in Seattle:

This is where some of your Microsoft money went to:

http://www.flyingheritage.com/default.aspx
​

It must be nice to be Paul Allen! :awe:

 

[K1052]

The Cold War could have ended very different if the German brains didn't decide that life in the U.S. was preferable to the USSR.

The US systematically looted the German brain trust (starting with ones that would have been trapped in the Soviet Zone) very shortly after the German surrender. Between going with the Americans or waiting for the Soviets to come calling it really wasn't much of a choice.

 

[JTsyo]

Stalin was a madman who killed about 20 million of his own people.
Hitler was a madman who killed millions of people from all over Europe and North America.

Stalin gets more of a free pass, in the name of "national sovereignty"....

Right, cause how many Americans did Lincoln kill.

 

[Excelsior]

The Mustang was great, but certainly not hands down the best WWll fighter. I'd put it in the same top tier class as the Messerschmitt 109, the Focke-Wulf FW 109, and the Spitfire.

I certainly wouldn't consider the p-38 in this tier, though it did what it did well in the Pacific theater.

If enough had been built and if there had been enough jet fuel for them, then it would be hard to argue that the Messerschmitt 242 wouldn't have reigned supreme, because jet.

This quote is telling: Kurt Bühligen, the third-highest scoring German fighter pilot of the Second World War on the Western Front (with 112 confirmed victories, three against Mustangs),[41] later stated, "We would out-turn the P-51 and the other American fighters, with the [Bf] '109' or the [FW] '190'. Their turn rate was about the same. The P-51 was faster than us but our munitions and cannon were better."

Chief Naval Test Pilot and C.O. Captured Enemy Aircraft Flight Capt. Eric Brown, CBE, DSC, AFC, RN, tested the Mustang at RAE Farnborough in March 1944, and noted, "The Mustang was a good fighter and the best escort due to its incredible range, make no mistake about it. It was also the best American dogfighter. But the laminar flow wing fitted to the Mustang could be a little tricky. It could not by no means out-turn a Spitfire [sic]. No way. It had a good rate-of-roll, better than the Spitfire, so I would say the plusses to the Spitfire and the Mustang just about equate. If I were in a dogfight, I'd prefer to be flying the Spitfire. The problem was I wouldn't like to be in a dogfight near Berlin, because I could never get home to Britain in a Spitfire!"[40]