lah (3 Viewers)

[Capitolron]

I personally like the WWI Hitler Corp. figure - I think that was a great idea. Very clever IMO.

 

[jazzeum]

Joe,

I'm sorry I disagree but I have done a fair amount of reading on this period and following Hitler's rise to power in 1933 and his methodical (albeit sometimes brilliant but with extreme use of violence exercised through the SA) eradication of the political opposition (i.e. Communist Party and Social Democrats), a great majority of the German people were enthusiastic supporters and willing participants in his ideas and methods. This includes the people who fought for him. Studies have shown that the Wehrmacht knew what exactly was going on with the eradication of the Jews and other ethnic groups and were also willing participants. This includes the Waffen SS obviously.

The German people supported a brutal dictator and reaped the whirlwind. I've been reading Martin Gilbert's excellent book on the Holacaust lately and it sometimes makes you wish that we had instituted the Morgenthau plan. So, please don't give us this pap about generalizing about the SS.

 

[jrsteel]

Gentlemen , if you find an item personally offensive you can simply voice your displeasure by not purchasing it. I do not feel there is a need to begin a lengthy period of conjecture because of the little Bohemian Corporal figure. I don`t have any of the LAH figures , because parade style figures don`t interest me (give me action & firing poses). While I have a best friend who has the LAH collection in its entirety & does not harbor any deep seated love for the ideals of National Socialism. He like many other people feel intrigued by the Nazis & that period of history. In addition I do not feel it just to catergorize all Waffen SS men as mass murders , many felt they were fighting for their country like any other soldier. The battlefield performance of the Waffen SS is self explanatory & would explain (in part) collectors interest in the sets. It is always wrong to generalize or stereotype any group of people (I.E. all SS or German soldiers are mass murderers) .. We`re ALL individuals.
In conclusion in the end Andy is a businessman & has a bottom line if the Hitler figures sell well for him. so be it , if you don`t like them don`t buy them.

Sorry if I insulted the Waffen SS. I'm sure most of them were "great guys". Scary.

 

[Steven Chong]

... as he has firmly moved the series in the direction of a pre-War "Parade Ground" type series, with SS, SA, police, Wehrmacht, H/Jugend and so forth ...

The LAH series has always been a pre-war "parade ground" type series, so I do not think the type of poses have changed. Andy has mentioned several times that this series is one of K&C's best sellers, so there is a market for this theme.

 

[jazzeum]

Sorry if I insulted the Waffen SS. I'm sure most of them were "great guys". Scary.

Scary indeed.

 

[Combat]

There was an interesting and controversial book a few years back called "Hitler's Willing Executioners" which argued that the German soldiers including even the non-SS Wehrmacht were so anti-semitic that they eagerly participated in the crimes against the Jews. Contrary to the later defense that they were only carrying out orders, it seems that many Germans often took the initiative to increase the level of violence and brutality against the Jews. With that said, I also remember that Ronald Reagan visited a German war cemetery even after it was discovered that members of the SS were buried there. As I recall, he believed that the time had come to acknowledge that the Germans themselves had suffered greatly at the hands of Hitler.

 

[Capitolron]

Not to keep beating a dead horse - but, there is a big difference between German Conscrips and SS Troops - a very big difference.

 

[sceic2]

Not to keep beating a dead horse - but, there is a big difference between German Conscrips and SS Troops - a very big difference.

NOPE, I disagree. It was not the method of induction into the German military, it was the performance of the individual service member. Some conscrips were war criminals and some SS were not. But more important, its the atmosphere that the individual found to be acceptable as expressed by their higher authorities. And as higher authorities fostered war crimes, then war crimes were the sad and horrible result.

If you would like some light reading (as if 800 pages about the Holocaust could be considered light reading) I recommend "The Holocaust - The Fate of European Jewry" by Leni Yahil. It's disturbing to read how a whole society accepted this kind of inhuman behavior and modeled their entire society around the Nordic ideal.

 

[desert fox]

My intention & writing was not meant in any way to offend or disturb any members of the board who may be Jewish & are sensitive (& rightfully so) to these types of issues. This will be my last post on the subject because this forum is supposed to be a place to breed "fraterinity" into our hobby & not bring up issues that may cause people distress. I feel that prior to a judgement of the German people we should first consider the economic factors that were a significant contributing factor in the German peoples accepting of the Nazis (please don`t forget that in the `33 election Hitler did not win a majority vote but rather strong armed his way through back door dealings with Hindenburg). I feel it is unfair to judge the German people w/o attempting a full understanding of the severely depressed economic climate precipatating Hitlers rise to power. In addition it was a member of the German army (with significant asistance) who made the attempt on Hitler`s life. Also I believe that approximately 250,000 Germans were imprisoned during the war for politcal resistance. I fully acknowldege that a great many Germans were complicit in the holocaust but feel that the brush of victors justice is too often applied to the German people. That is w/o a comprehensive & balanced assessment of ALL factors that would lead a cultured people to such a horrendous action that would stain humanity for a very very long time.

 

[jazzeum]

We can understand economic factors. After all, there was a worldwide depression at the time. It should be pointed out that the Weimar Republic was never accorded much legitimacy by the German people, both from the left and the right, so it only needed a spark to bring about its downfall. However, we cannot understand and refuse to accept the embrace of the German people by Hitler following his consolidation of power or how they quickly came to follow his rascist theories when there weren't even that many Jews in Germany as compared to the Pale of Settlement from Lithuania to the Ukraine. The brush of victor's justice is properly applied to the German people for their complicity and for the ethnic passions they unleashed. In the five weeks following the invasion of Russia in 1941 as many Jews were killed as had been killed in the prior eight years.

 

[nmrocks]

This is a difficult issue for me, no one can justify Hitler in any way, but this broad swath bull about the german people is a little too much for me to stay silent on.
I was born in Bremerhaven, Ger. my mother and half my family live in germany and are great people. My grandfather was a shipyard worker and built u-boats throughout the war. I have uncles that were wounded by Americans during and after the war. One was a member of the hitler youth as ALL boys of the proper age were required to, he was wounded as a young teenager trying to steal food off an american supply train to try to keep my family from starving after the war.
The subject of these times is hard for the family to discuss, not from personel shame, but from the pain and suffering of defeat and the revelations that followed for them.
My mother freely admits how happy people were as Hitler came to power, before they were literally starving and there were no jobs, Hitler changed all that. But the totalitarian side came so swiftly as did war, they simply did not see it coming and frankly could do little to nothing about it. The news they recieved was totally controlled, she said they literally had no idea any issues of jewish extermination were taking place, let me say at this point Bremerhaven was a reletively small town and all my family is in that area to the north, so it's possible that in the big cities the jewish issue was more prominet. But this is my point, these were simply good, hard working people, concerned with family and day to day life caught ina country that was taken over by a tyrannt and manipulated by a totallly controlled media.
To say the german people were "Complicite and ethnically Charged" is utter crap. Most lived in a society that was caught in war and wanted nothing more than families everywhere want, to live well and happy and watch there children and grandchildren grow and prosper.
Brad, you make it sound they they all went out and marched with torches through the street everynight, nobody in my family ever attended any political functions or rallies, they were simply not interested and too busy with regular day to day life as I venture to guess most germans were.
War was thrust upon my family by a tyrannt, not by dreams of conquest and Aryan purity.
I am sure there is plenty of guilt to go round, but please spare me the Broad characterization about ALL germans, its patently rediculous.
Ray

 

[jazzeum]

Ray,

Perhaps I overstated the point. There are good and bad people everywhere and many people were caught up in the fury of the times, but the German people willingly served the state and were complicit in what happened.

When I made references to "the ethnic passions they unleashed", I was referring to what the Germans wrought in the East, not what happened in Germany. They unleashed passions that had been held in check for hundreds of years. The Jews had lived in the Pale of Settlement for hundreds of years but when the German Army and Einsatzgruppen swept through, those passions simmering below the surface came to the top.

Just as you feel troubled as you are of German background, I am troubled as well being of Jewish background, having relatives who lived in Poland in the city of Lvov before the war, never to be seen after it, whose existence was wiped from the face of the earth.

Here is an account of what happened in the eastern Galicia (Poland) town of Drohobycz by SS Sergeant Felix Landau. It is quite disturbing to say the least but reveals some of the mindset.

“In the evening we drove into town. Here we experience things it is impossible to describe. We drive to the prison. The streets tell of murders. We would like to take a closer look at everything but it is impossible to enter the gas chambers and cellars of the prison without wearing gas masks. In a side turning we notice some Jewish corpses covered with sand. We look at each other in surprise. One living Jew arises up from among the corpses. We dispatch him with a few shots.

Eight hundred Jews have been herded together; they are to be shot tomorrow. We drive further along the street. Hundreds of Jews with bloodstained faces, with bullet holes in the head, broken limbs and gouged-out eyes, run ahead of us. One of the Jews carries another one, who is bleeding to death.

We drive to the Citadel. Here we see things no one has ever seen on earth before. It is almost impossible to describe them. Two soldiers stand at the entrance to the citadel. Wielding sticks as thick as fists, they lash furiously at the crowd. Jews are being pushed out from inside. Covered with blood, they collapse on top of another – they scream like pigs – we stand and look on.

Who gave the order to kill the Jews? No one! Somebody ordered them to be set free.

They were all murdered because we hate them.”

This is taken from Martin Gilbert’s excellent The Holocaust, a book so difficult to read that one can only take it in limited dose.

It is important to forgive, but never to forget. The German people have never forgotten and they have the most incredible museum in Nuremberg about Nazism that is just simply amazing. I spent several hours there in 2005 and was moved by it. I was gratified to see that so were many German teenagers.

 

[nmrocks]

Brad,
I am in no trying to minimize the evil that took place by a select group of people within the german country and army, but I'm still troubled by your characterization of Complicitness. if we folow your logic than the Jews were complicite with the Genocide of the Canninites, Americans genocide of the American indians, Serbians, ruwandans, Cambodians, Soviets, Islamics Etc. Etc.
All these peoples are Complicit in all these atrocities?
Ray

 

[OzDigger]

I usually keep my opinions to myself these days because people are entitled to their own opinion and rarely do they change them.

However, the simple fact is that to say that all Germans were/are bad is pure racism.

 

[maddadicus]

In my little world, my toy soldiers never killed anybody....We come here to the forum, so that we can escape from mankind's bad life choices and relive a simpler, less complicated, maybe even naive, past childhood experiences. Because, we are an international forum, not one of our countries has totally unclean hands in any of history's horrors. For us to refight this " my country's attrocities were never as bad as your countries'", is not helpful. No patriot of any country would allow their nation to be broadly trashed ,because history says, that for a little bit of this planet's existence, their forefathers became monsters. My religion has a very wise man who said that HE WHO IS WITHOUT SIN CAST THE FIRST STONE. It is written that no one could make that claim then and no one here ,can make that claim now.

Oh man, my toy soldiers just killed KENNY.....Michael

 

[jazzeum]

Perhaps to say that the entire German people were responsible for what happened is perhaps as I said a very broad overgeneralization as they suffered greatly as well and let's leave it at that and move on.

 

[Louis Badolato]

Brad,
I am in no trying to minimize the evil that took place by a select group of people within the german country and army, but I'm still troubled by your characterization of Complicitness. if we folow your logic than the Jews were complicite with the Genocide of the Canninites, Americans genocide of the American indians, Serbians, ruwandans, Cambodians, Soviets, Islamics Etc. Etc.
All these peoples are Complicit in all these atrocities?
Ray

Ray, I can't speak to any of the others, but the Americans who were here during the genocide of the Indians (including a few of my own ancestors) were certainly complicit. They didn't just know about it, they coined the phrase "the only good Indian is a dead Indian."

There are plenty of Germans, who, I'm sure, didn't support what the Nazi's did, and maybe even in small towns some who didn't know what was happening, but you can't tell me that most Germans in big cities didn't know about the rounding up of the Jews. Just like most Americans certainly knew about the rounding up of the Japanese Americans. I still can't figure out how no one made an attempt to assassinate that piece of garbage Hitler until the army officers did late in the war.

 

[jazzeum]

I'll say one more thing on the subject and call me naive, whatever, etc., but after all these years the brutality of men towards other men throughout the history of the world still mystifies me, be they Native American, Jews, Cambodian, Armenian, still mystifies me. When you read a book like Martin Gilbert's it's just mind boggling. I assume the accounts in there would probably not be any different, other than in degree, from what have happened to other groups, but it's still stupefying.

Getting back to the subject at hand, some of us will collect LAH and some won't. As Halo said, it's a period in history.

 

[nmrocks]

Yes Brad, I have to agree, regardless of the cruelty of man upon man, no one ever seems to learn, I don't think evil ever goes away. It simply remanifest itself in some new form in some new place and the process is repeated.
It also seems a most base ingredient is belief that the victims are always first "de-humanized" or represented as sub-human.
Seems man is not as good at killing his fellow man but does a bang up job exterminating lesser man.
Ray

 

[Rob]

Ray,

Perhaps I overstated the point. There are good and bad people everywhere and many people were caught up in the fury of the times, but the German people willingly served the state and were complicit in what happened.

When I made references to "the ethnic passions they unleashed", I was referring to what the Germans wrought in the East, not what happened in Germany. They unleashed passions that had been held in check for hundreds of years. The Jews had lived in the Pale of Settlement for hundreds of years but when the German Army and Einsatzgruppen swept through, those passions simmering below the surface came to the top.

Just as you feel troubled as you are of German background, I am troubled as well being of Jewish background, having relatives who lived in Poland in the city of Lvov before the war, never to be seen after it, whose existence was wiped from the face of the earth.

Here is an account of what happened in the eastern Galicia (Poland) town of Drohobycz by SS Sergeant Felix Landau. It is quite disturbing to say the least but reveals some of the mindset.

“In the evening we drove into town. Here we experience things it is impossible to describe. We drive to the prison. The streets tell of murders. We would like to take a closer look at everything but it is impossible to enter the gas chambers and cellars of the prison without wearing gas masks. In a side turning we notice some Jewish corpses covered with sand. We look at each other in surprise. One living Jew arises up from among the corpses. We dispatch him with a few shots.

Eight hundred Jews have been herded together; they are to be shot tomorrow. We drive further along the street. Hundreds of Jews with bloodstained faces, with bullet holes in the head, broken limbs and gouged-out eyes, run ahead of us. One of the Jews carries another one, who is bleeding to death.

We drive to the Citadel. Here we see things no one has ever seen on earth before. It is almost impossible to describe them. Two soldiers stand at the entrance to the citadel. Wielding sticks as thick as fists, they lash furiously at the crowd. Jews are being pushed out from inside. Covered with blood, they collapse on top of another – they scream like pigs – we stand and look on.

Who gave the order to kill the Jews? No one! Somebody ordered them to be set free.

They were all murdered because we hate them.”

This is taken from Martin Gilbert’s excellent The Holocaust, a book so difficult to read that one can only take it in limited dose.

It is important to forgive, but never to forget. The German people have never forgotten and they have the most incredible museum in Nuremberg about Nazism that is just simply amazing. I spent several hours there in 2005 and was moved by it. I was gratified to see that so were many German teenagers.

My god that sounds like a hard read.I might get myself a copy and as you say take it in small doses.I think the majority of Germans will remember.I get many German students and teachers at the museum come up to me and
say we do and we will remember,but we also want to reach out in friendship.I'm afraid there are many people in my country who will never forgive the Germans and a national resentment runs deep.I hope for the sake of all who gave their lives for us we can move forward,but never forget.

Rob