Hitler’s Control-The lessons of Nazi history

National Review ^ | 5-23-03 | Dave Kopel

[oldfart]

"The vast majority of Americans are simply not as worked up as you are.

You're right of course. Most of the people are better described as "Sheeple," perfectly willing to look the other way whenever one of their neighbors is pulled down by some wolf in official clothing. They're much like the French civilians who shrugged their shoulders and went back to tend their grapes when the Panzers rolled down the road. Later, when their daughters were seduced by the drivers of those tanks, they had second thoughts. And when their own ranks were depleted for speaking out against the actions of the German troops, they began to look the other way when the resistance fighters struck. In time, many of them actually joined the resistance.

That pattern is pretty much standard for any population suddenly (or gradually) invaded by a tyrannous regime. The American people, asleep now, would awaken when they became threatened. It isn't really a matter of hardware or training or political indoctrination. It's a matter of survival, and even the soft couch-potatos of American suburbia will fight for that. Not all of them will fight with guns, some will fight by 'losing' a registration sheet or by 'accidently' dropping a bag of sugar in a fuel tank, but they'll fight. If the enemy is wearing blue hats, it'll be easier to organize resistance, but even if a few misguided National Guard groups elect to fire on their fellow citizens, their officers will never be able to go home.

If the unthinkable should happen and America sinks into some sort of civil war, I think it will make the French Revolution look like a Sunday picnic.

[kms61]

Given the logistical and tactical constraints, if Hitler had been serious about conquering Britain or knocking her out of the war, I think his best bet would have been a change in government...say the Nazis keep up the pressure with bombing raids and U-Boats, while showing a credible bluff re: Sea Lion, and at the same time working the diplomach/espionage angle with fellow travelers in Britain, of which there were a not inconsiderable number.

Perhaps they could have forced Churchill's government to fall, with the possibility that the successor would be sympathetic or at least neutral....it's known that the Nazis were keenly interested in bringing back the abdicated Edward Windsor as a figurehead for a pro-Nazi British government.

A noncombatant Britain frees up more resources for the Eastern Front, and secures the Meditteranean flank. Who knows what might have happened after that.

Someone wrote a what-if novel about ten years ago set in the early sixties, in which the US had stayed out of WWII, the Nazis had defeated Russia, and there was a Cold War between the United States and Germany and it's European vassal states. Interesting premise. The book was called Fatherland, but I don't recall the author's name.

[harpseal]

Although the Diplatic and subversion channels might have yielded results, the Third Reich could have still defeated Britain by focusing on the sector stations and the radar installations. Such a plan which was teh initial plan would have given the Luftwaffe ultimate air superiority then air supremacy. Howevert, following the first Bomber Command strike on Berlin Hitler ordered the bombing of London and that was counter productive for the Luftwaffe. When they focused on London the loss statistics changed into Britain's favor.

Had the shipyards then cranked out additional destroyers and some amphibious support ships without teh armey launching Barbarosa in May 1941 by 1942 Britain would have been out of the war with Suez taken by the Afrika Corps and Britain sucessfully invaded in late 1942. By not declaring war on America and condemning the Japanese had Pearl Harbor still happened and proposing generous terms to Churchill and Rosevelt in late 1941 to allow the British Empire to keep its possessions he could have then had sufficient forces and a secure rear to defeat the Soviet Union.

[Travis McGee]

Exactamundo. Now picture Hillary engineering a successful but messy and transparent theft, and the consequences.

[Roscoe]

This talk of armed insurrection, of targeting the sons and daughters of other Americans as "evil agents of the gubmint," is sheer lunancy.

Don Matthews is dead, but his spirit lives on here in a handful of wannabes.

[Jeff Head]

Your statement is both ignorant and insulting. The people Kevin addressed in his post are in no way similar to the killer Matthews or in any way his "wannabes".

What is being discussed here has no bearing or relation to an individual who is so twisted in his/her thinking that he takes the opportunity for what should be a routine traffic violation and turns it into murder. What is being discussed here is simply hypothesis about what would occur in the event of either an invasion or an internal overthrow of constitutional government.

Read what's being said by the people here and what they are talking about and then take the time to learn something about them before you insult them, that's always good advise.

Just my two cents.

[tpaine]

The cheerleaders for the big government agenda on FR, like roscoe & kevin, --- never give up.

They go from thread to thread with their silly asides, hoping to stir up flame wars & to disrupt discourse about what is really going on politically in this country..
-- But lets admit it, they serve an important purpose here. The infantile, repetitive nature of their whinings soon become evident to all as being nothing but basic agit-prop methods.

They have become FR 'characters', and jokes...

[tpaine]

To see something really weird, go to kevins home page, where he quotes:

"If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed. If you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not so costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no chance of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves."
- Winston Churchill


Go figure.
--- Kevin, this is exactly the point many on this thread are making..

[Roscoe]

The people Kevin addressed in his post are in no way similar to the killer Matthews or in any way his "wannabes".

Two were.

[tpaine]

#84: Hitler's Control-The lessons of Nazi history ^
To: harpseal; tpaine; Jeff Head

---

#84 by kevin curry


The people Kevin addressed in his post are in no way similar to the killer Matthews or in any way his "wannabes".
-Jeff Head -


Two were.
-roscoe-


Roscoe, -- I'm calling your cowardly bluff.

How am I, along with either jeff or harpseal, -- "similar to the killer Matthews or in any way his "wannabes"?

[Roscoe]

Look in the mirror.

[tpaine]

I look, - and am very happy that a roscoe is not staring back.

BTW, you seem to have gotten away again with a personal attack on either Jeff Head or harpseal as psycho killers.
Why is that? Are you special?

[Roscoe]

Don Matthews died committing his murder.

[tpaine]

So what?

[SauronOfMordor]

Not "possible", actual. Communists did, briefly, take over a part of Germany.

That, combined with news out of Russia about the terror famine in the Ukraine (millions deliberately straved to death) plus the liquidation of the old Russian middle-class, had the German middle-class terrified that something similar would happen in Germany should Russian-backed Communists gain power. Thus, they would accept anybody who they thought would deal forcefully with the communist threat

[Roscoe]

His death was small consolation for the two small children left fatherless by the fanatic.

[tpaine]

So what?
Roscoe, -- I'm calling your cowardly bluff.
How am I, along with either jeff or harpseal, -- "similar to the killer Matthews or in any way his "wannabes"?
-- Obviously you can't answer.
Which proves that your only motive was a personal attack in order to bait one of us into a flame fest.

[SauronOfMordor]

While I used to believe in the theory that an armed populace was an effective guard against tyranny, I'm rethinking that position. It appears that modern tanks and APCs, helicopter gunships, precision weapons, body armor and small unit tactics have been quite successful in overcoming any armed resistance on the ground in Iraq. I would think that a disorganized rabble with hunting rifles would be even easier to overcome than the Iraqi armed forces.

There is a fundamental difference between an army operating on foreign soil, versus an army operating against its own people. In the former case, the civil service workers who send out the paychecks and purchase orders that keep things running are safely elsewhere, out of reach.

Notice how long it took to nail the "Beltway Snipers". Now visualize a thousand small teams engaged as serial killers of govt employees. How long before people stop coming to work? A govt without clerical workers, is a govt without supplies.

An army without ammo, fuel, food, and clothing is just a ragged mob

[Roscoe]

Among other things, Matthews was a delusional fanatic who hated our legal system and who contended that traffic laws he didn't like were "unconstitutional".

[Kevin Curry]

What I am saying is that it could concievably happen if the situation in this nation deteriorated.

A second civil war? Presumably between the blue states and the red states (i.e., the 2000 election map breakdown by county)?

Political grievances in and of themselves would not be sufficient spark, in my opinion. The country would have to be suffering some deep systemic problem with respect to food, power, or security as well. As long as fundamental needs are met, most people are content to drift along.