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[quote]
Weather didn't defeat the Wermacht. Weather affects both sides in a given area. The Germans failed to deliver a lethal blow to the Red Army. The war of attrition that ensued doomed the Germans because they could not match the Soviet Union's production and manpower. I would advise looking at the numbers describing soldiers involved on both fronts, causialties, etc if you want to gain an accurate picture of the relative scale of the fighting in the East and West.
<p>Still Germany was much worse prepared to fight in the frigid climate than the Russians. Their stupid panzers couldnt even run cause they're gas froze. Otherwise, you're absolutely correct that they didnt have the manpower or production to match the Russian (well this was true of them on the Western front, where the US was producing 3x as many tanks as they could). The Western Front was definately much left of an influence, although most people are biased toward its significance since most people are going through ior have gone through the western education system.</p>
<p>Although I don't commend his actions in anyway, I think he had great leadership qualities. I can't think of many individuals who had as much as unwavering support from his people as Hitler. Although he did lead Germany to ruin so I don't know.</p>
<p>the thread that anticipated a one way route seem to have gone astray now.. so let me add something open minded to it.. :P</p>
<p>Hitler's name always goes parallel with evil.. that's obvious for the distruction of both life and material wealth that he caused during his time.. but unarguably he was a great strategist.. Considering the way he grew up, the things he had to undergo from a very young age, It's not surprising that he ended up in such a way. Had he not joined the army duing the first world war, there wouldn't have been a second. but his childhood is what led him to it.. </p>
<p>I have read many books on WWII and watched probably most of the WWII docs and movies starting from World at War to Band of Brothers and a whole lot more.. In almost all of them I saw Hitler as a strong and effective leader who was capable of achiveing his goals in whatever the means that turned out as a possibility.. That's all the matters in warfare..After all most of Europe were first allies of Hitler and Germany, which showed that he did have a good diplomatic record at the begining.. and not to mention that he created a posperous Germany and made the largest and strongest military force in europe in just two years!</p>
<p>I see no leader who was capable of managing warfare so effective as him.. By effective I mean, that he was capable of manupulating all resources he possesed at it's very best. for an instance he captured both Poland and mighty France in a very short time span without even making much of an effort.. this is something that no war commander would ever be able to repeat again.. the biggest mistake he made was operation babarosa, in which he almost invited Russians to victory at Stalingrad, which I see was discussed ealier in the thread.. if not for that we would never know whether anyone, even the leader of the free world at that time, could have put an end to what Hitler started..</p>
<p>but thank God, it did.. and as a result we are living today as free men! everytime I think about it I almost end up in tears.. I always envy myself for not living at that time, to share the pain that 50 million people who had to undergo sacrificing thier lives.. it might sound stupid.. but it sounds stupider to live at this age and just brag about history..</p>
<p>Disregarding the title, there were many good things about Hitler. But none of them really matters because he commited the biggest crime in humanity ever to be commited in the civilized world.. and for that he deserved much more than what we know that happened to him... but sadly one man cannot repay the cost of 50 millions lives with his own..</p>
<p>I agree with you goofus for the most part...and who are you all in this thread to define evil anyway. The definition has been debated ever since the beginning of humanity and the title is more than anything, subjective. Hitler, just like any other person is the product of his childhood and all other experiences and actions and influences exerted on him by others..so it is stupid when someone says that the actions of the ss officers or anyone influenced by hitlers regime are excusable because the people were brainwashed...even at that you need to decide is it more evil to kill a person or influence a person to kill another...because there's no evidence to my knowledge that hitler has ever killed anybody...i agree with that he is evil by my own definition but no more than a lot of people in history..and its pretty nonsensical to say that the holocaust is the biggest crime on humanity in the civilized world because there has been so much worse...even in wwii stalin killed even more people and how many died because of the atomic bomb?
above all, I think it's sad that we even waste time talking about this when there is currently a synonymous thing going on to the pre-concentration camps holocaust, in israel...where poor palestinians have been stripped of their civil rights by the israelis much like the jews were under nazi occupation, and are being kicked off their land and killed but when revolt are labeled as terrorists because they dont have an army unlike the israelis that kill them...and then this also gets blamed on islam being a religion that supposedly encourages the killing...but it was those who gave the jews their "homeland" in israel purely on the basis of religion that have made the whole ordeal-and everything that followed including 9/11- a religious matter. And whenever UN tries to pass a bill to help them, guess which one of the permanent 5 members vetoes it. Yes, the US, the same country which supplies Israel with weapons and propaganda to the US citizens blinding them from the truth on teh issue. All the animosity and terrorism stems from Israel being given to the jews, which I definitely think was one of the biggest mistakes of the century...the arabs have lived there since 12th century and were just kicked off their land, if the US states is that adamant about it they should give US land to native americans...who lived here like 400 yrs ago and not even as long ago as the jews had israel ...but its not so easy now since innocent israeli civilians are born there every day and now call it their home too....conclusion we are all evil or none of us are evil.
srry i digressed there for a moment</p>
<p>My friends and I made a list of the most influential people in history (grouping all major religious leaders as a collective), he cracked the top 5. No other individual has impacted the psyche of today's world more than Hitler. He is the personification of evil, the ultimate low point of our species. </p>
<p>Although, it has been mentioned before, the genocide committed by Stalin is the largest genocide, as least to my knowledge, in modern history. Over 30 million people wiped out by one man's paranoia.</p>
<p>"Although, it has been mentioned before, the genocide committed by Stalin is the largest genocide, as least to my knowledge, in modern history. Over 30 million people wiped out by one man's paranoia."</p>
<p>I think it is significant to mention that Stalin's atrocities weren't really a genocide. He did not attempt to eliminate a specific ethnicity, religious group, etc. The Holocaust manages to stand out amidst all the indescribable horrors of the Twentieth Century because, to a major extent, it was a systematic plan to exterminate the entire Jewish population of Europe. There have certainly been other genocides, but never before or since have they been so carefully executed, nor have they taken place in so 'civilized' a place.</p>
<p>Well Hitler was good at being Evil, one of the best there has ever been. If your ambition in life is to be Evil then Hitler was the best thing to happen to your life. I guess he was good at making the rest of the world hate dominating meanies. Just think if Hitler never came around, who would we all hate. Not that saying that his killing is justified, but it is nice to be able to be on a board where everyone agrees on this one thing.</p>