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Stephen Fry released a statement: "Elon Musk is not a Nazi. Nazis make really good cars."
(lemmy.dbzer0.com)
What's great about this, and Stephen Fry is brilliant, is not that he's absolving Musk, or that he's criticizing Tesla, but that it is an argument likely leading to Elon Musk protesting,
'No, my cars are good enough that I can be a Nazi!'
Hur hur. I'd wish people would stop assigning hyper-competence to Nazis. They never were. Hitler was a drug addict and the trains didn't run on time.
Exactly this. My grandmother lived under the Nazis and she said they were fucking idiots. Exactly the same type of incompetent blowhards. The whole hyper scientific ubermensch BS in the cultural zeitgeist is so frustrating. I blame all the WWII video games and movies that played up the myth to have more interesting villains than the sleazy shit stains that they actually were.
It's hard to convince people that they've been had by a bunch of morons.
The strength of the Germans was that I.) they had a really good industrial base, and ii.) the traditions within the army meant they had extremely well trained soldiers. Both of these predate nazi-rule. For instance, Germans also arguably had the best (equipped) army in WW1.
Early Nazis also galvanized a young working force with actual socialist policies that guaranteed them good jobs and housing (before Hitler's multiple violent party purges, scrapping most of it for a fascist-capitalist junta)
Not entirely. You should read the scathing after action reports from Wehrmacht generals who lead the Polish campaign. Basically, they wanted to postpone all offensive operation for at least 3 years because of the high armor losses and correct the deficiencies. The fucktard, Hitler, sent his best generals to desk jobs and replaced them with yes people to continue the war. This is what Bush did during the build up against Iraq and Afghanistan and exactly what Orange Nero wants to do too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_religion
Two things can be true at the same time. German soldiers were incredibly cruel in non-combat situations, and at the same time highly competent in combat.
And drugs.
My Oma survived WWII and the bastard Nazis. Opa , was a Wehrmacht Landser, survived the Eastern Front, including Stalingrad, and was later KIA at Monte Cassino. He warned Oma, while on leave from the Eastern Front, that we are going to lose war and you better head west when the Russians enter Germany. She was 3-days ahead of them, just missed the Dresden bombings and somehow survived the Battle of Berlin. Now the USA has the same incompetent blowhards running the USA straight into the ground. She warned me it could happen anywhere and she was 100% correct.
I guess Wolfenstein being banned for glorifying Nazis actually had some merit.
German trains still don't run on time. Can't blame that one on the Nazis, that's just a German thing.
Still better than Canadian rail. That shit is regularly late. Significantly late.
I had four long distance ICE journeys in the last two months. Three where thirty minutes late, one was two hours late.
Also had four long distance TGV journeys, of which one was about 20 minutes late, and one was an hour late, though that delay happened in Germany.
Apparently, DB is currently working on the infrastructure, but those renovations haven't been fully funded, and it looks like the conservatives will get in next.
On Via Rail Canada, my train trip was 3h. The delay was 3h. So it literally was double the amount of time.
European train delay is nothing compared to Canadian train delay.
German train delays ≠ European delays. Grmany’s puctuality rate is 70% while Spain, which you could stereotype as being “mediterraneanly” lax is over 91%.
Germany and UKs networks are a sad joke. Most of Europe has very good puncutality
Yeah, OK, my journeys where all around five hours. Double is kinda mad.
DB AG should hire the Japanese who operate the Shinkansen network or scrap the privatization and bring back Deutsche Bundesbahn.
I think the Japanese are going to Britain next. There was something about it on a Marketplace (NPR) episode recently I think.
German told me
That's kinda bullshit. Like, yeah, 30 Minutes delay on an ICE Journey aren't necessarily uncommon, but with distances where the ICE makes sense, they're usually faster than driving, and a traffic jam underway that delays you by about that isn't all that unlikely on those distances either.
With more local transport, it usually runs on time for me, and I use it almost daily. Might vary by region, though.
Sounds like one of those people who prefer standing in a 20 minute traffic jam instead of giving a chance to public transit. If you actually use the german trains from time to time, you will notice how well used they are. They are admittedly often late though.
In Canada, we have Via rail. They line you up like you're at an airport and check your ticket before you board the train, and also check your ticket once you're on the train. They also have enforced weight restrictions on baggage. The trains share tracks with freight, meaning that the train has to stop every once in a while to let a freight train pass. All this to take longer than driving and cost alot as well.
At least you didn't rip up your railways. We barely even have trains here in the US.
That's just ignoring history. There are plenty of good reasons to hate the Nazis without needing to do that.
In the similar way, it's not necessary to dismiss Soviet Union's early modernization successes in order to blame them for their crimes against humanity.
Dismiss what? Fascism is catabolic. They can't build anything. They can only loot until they run out of victims.
The projections of hyper competence and secret knowledge are part of their branding.
Stop being a fascist apologist.
Honestly, this shit needs to stop. Acknowledging that some fascists have been good at something at some point does not detract in any way from being anti-fascist.
If you claim that fascist are dumb, stupid and can achieve nothing, what do you think the masses will think about your message when the fascists turn out to be competent? They will wonder what other things you are wrong about.
So I say to you: stop being a fascist enabler.
I seem to have struck a nerve. I wonder why this bothers you so much?
Fascists are great at: bullshitting, terrorizing and thieving. Fascism is catabolic. It is organized crime with the aesthetic of a political movement.
Obviously that's not the image they present to population of the regions they take. But you knew what I was claiming they are incompetent at.
Well first of all, xkcd.com/386. And also: because I don't like fascism or promoting the spread of fascism.
There's a saying that reading history may help prevent repeating the mistakes of history. You should try some of that.
To reiterate: the reason to be anti-fascist has absolutely nothing to do with how good they are at doing things and I don't see any good reasons to hide this fact.
This is why the left can't have nice things.
Like this isn't the point here. You don't need to be pointing out this stuff. Just dog pile
Minor clarifications aren't the end of the world. The left is fine. Stop being sensitive
A small country took on the ENTIRE FUCKING WORLD (TWICE) and very nearly won. The second time with a lunatic at the helm.
What does it take to impress you? To what would you assign their disturbing success?
Small country? They were a highly industrialized, highly educated and still quite materially wealthy colonial power going into the wars. They didn't need to be competent. Enough people went along with them and there was plenty of residual wealth to burn on the war machine.
You don't need to be an architect to burn down a building.
Germany didn't really have much wealth after WW1 due to the restrictions placed on them from the western powers.
Most of the reason the Nazi party was popular early on was them championing a number of socialist policies designed to bring the country out an economic morass.
This is a really good book on the subject (and part of a really good trilogy of books about understanding Nazi Germany): https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/319473.The_Coming_of_the_Third_Reich
I get what you're trying to get at. But I'm talking the developed material wealth of a region. Actual physical infrastructure like rails, mines, factories, universities and everyone with the required education and training to run all of it.
If the victors of the first war received the dividends of that real infrastructure- that matters right up until the moment that they don't anymore.
You do realize Germany lost 48% of it's industrial territory in the treaty of Versailles, right?
Incredible. Literally everything you just said was wrong.
Germany wasn't "a small country". They were an industrialised, highly productive and heavily armed global power. They were slightly battered by post ww1 humiliation regulations pressed on them by the winners (because they ALSO lost that one!). But the instant they told the Allies to eat shit and started using what they had, any claim to "smallness" went out the window.
And they didn't "almost win". They got their asses kicked.
Every single thing the Nazis wanted to achieve, they failed hard. They wanted to prove the genetic superiority of the German people in the Olympics, instead they were soundly beat. They wanted to expand their territory, they got as far as fucking Poland and France and then stalled for years until a double whammy of Americans and Russians basically curb-stomped them, with the last few years of the Reich consisting of lots of propaganda coping hard about how their soon to come wonder weapons would turn the tide, which never happened because said wonder weapons were stupid ideas that only succeeded at getting more Nazis killed when they failed in testing. They wanted to stop the spread of communism, instead half their country became Soviet domain.
And then their "strongman" leader blasted his own brains out rather than face the fact that he was a loser in every way one can be a loser.
Um it did not take the entire world, for a lot of their early success most of the fighting was against countries that were unprepared and devastated after ww1.
What the actual fuck are you talking about?
Nazis took on world in one war, and lost.
"WE ARE THE GREATEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD! THE PUREST OF THE PURE! STRONGEST OF THE STRONG!"
[Fights one (1) war]
"Guess we'll shoot ourselves in a bunker and lose in a big lopsided defeat."
At no point did they "nearly win" against the world. In World War 1 they made desperate attempts to break out of trench warfare because the blockade was obliterating their wartime economy. In World War 2 they were cooked the second they invaded the USSR and the USA landed in the UK. Those were unwinnable areas for them. Even if they eventually managed to wear down the British, the Americans were right behind them manufacturing 100 tanks a day and 15 Aircraft Carriers in 1943 alone. Which means all of those tanks are getting to the European theater.
And once the USSR got it's production under way the Germans were on the defensive all the way back to Berlin.
I have to ask: What success? They did typical fascist bullshit: They had an economy so bad they had to invade new countries just to loot them to pay for their horrific economy. They picked fight after fight of the smallest kids in the neighbourhood they could find until they met those kids big brothers and sisters. They required fucking slave labour to try to meet their wartime goals because they grossly underestimated just about every single facet of running a country. They privatized state-owned industries, crippling longterm wealth for their people, they instituted tariffs (sound familiar?). Pay remained as bad as they it had been in the depression because while their wages were raised, they were forced to constantly work overtime for no additional pay. Their military was the majority of their economic spending, and they used deficit spending because they were going to literally plunder the countries around them to pay for it. Sound like solid long-term planning? They killed or jailed anyone in the trade unions, and due to their insane tariffs and you know, generally being the worst people in history, lacked incoming trade so things like poultry or clothing was in short supply for the average person.
Then it took thirty five days for the Nazi German army, along with the Serbian and Soviet armies, to conquer Poland. For every success in the early war they had embarrassing fumbles. They lost entirely because of how fascists work: they need to invade more countries to pay for their insane military spending, make bigger and bigger enemies, then get beat by those enemies, then later people claim they 'could have if...'
Yeah, they could have done just fine if they hadn't been fascist. All of their failings fall to being fascist.
And the first world war, are you kidding me? Are you seriously suggesting their insistence on investing in overseas colonies while fighting against the British was a brilliant plan? In both wars they were led by colossal morons who constantly underestimated their opponents, while in the second world war in particular having the worst spy agency of any nation. Their insistence on torturing, raping, and murdering everyone they came into contact with meant they just got the answers they wanted to hear, instead of the actual truth, and were constantly on the back foot. Their evil, cruel, and twisted nature was their own downfall; the insistence of their superiority, as you are doing now, is the very reason they failed.
What is this, the Übermensch Expanded Universe? Maybe actually learn history.
Not even close dumb fuck and fucking Nazis betrayed the German people with their bullshit.
Do Japan and Italy just not count as part of the world? I mean Japan took over half of Asia and the Pasific while Italy took the Mediterranean countries. Germany took over part of northern Europe and helped a bit of North Africa.
What point are you trying to make here @[email protected]?
I was arguing that there was a terrible war, and the enemy was dangerous and capable. Many of our and other country's soldiers died to destroy them, and it wasn't easy.
They weren't "Colonel Klink" from "Hogan's Heroes", they were efficient at killing, rounding up and killing millions while fighting on a number of fronts.
My grandfather fought in World war I, and my uncles fought in World war II. From what I heard the Germans were not incompetent bumbling idiots. They were a very competent and difficult enemy.
I don't know what history everybody's been reading, but there sure as heck are some major changes to history interpretation that have taken place in the last 40-50 years. Probably peer-to-peer instruction, rather than accounts from those who endured it
Ok fair enough, I accept the explanation you provided. Folks are taking issue with the following comment in particular.
In isolation, this sounds a little too close to admiration for the Nazis, which is why we got some reports about it. It seems to me it's just unfortunate phrasing, because together with the explanation you just provided, it sounds like a reasonable take for you not to want to paint them like some hapless foe that was easily defeated, because that discounts the difficulties faced by those who fought the bastards.
I wanted to clarify, but there were so many comments coming in, I didn't see how I could do it effectively. And not seem like I was what some people thought I was
I know, it's difficult when people pile on with bad faith takes. Anyway don't worry, I think it's clear what you meant now.