Photos of Third Riech Land-Marks and Events, Then and Now (1 Viewer)

[Louis Badolato]

Guys, this is a Toy Soldier Forum. Lets not get off on sports tangents. If you think the thread about collectors versus investors got ugly, I don't even want to think about how low Yankees vs. Mets or, god help us, Yankees vs. Red Sox could sink. Brad, as the moderator, you should know better!

 

[jazzeum]

Can't see that really happening since Dave not being from NY doesn't really have that love the Yankees hate the Mets attitude and although you're a Yankees fan Louis, you're still a great guy Unfortunately, my son is a Yankees fan so what are you going to do

 

[Eazy]

The "What IF" scenario's are all really interesting i think. With World War 2 I guess most are about ways Germany or Japan could have won or at least ended the war on better terms.

Being a Brit and driving past "Spitfire Island" in Birmingham everyday on the trek to work the obvious one is what if Hitler had invaded Britain?

Offhand it's doubtful the US would have been able to mount a recapture of Britain or invasion of Europe without a staging point.

Also crucially there would have be no arctic convoys resupplying the Russians.

No desert war. Hitler would have had a free hand in the middle east and access to all the oil he could wish for.

 

[jazzeum]

Eazy,

I'm sure you've seen this but as part of the BBC Collection of WW 2, a 10 DVD set, they have the Dunkirk programs, a combination newsreels and re enactment, including Lord Halifax counseling accomodation with Hitler. Although I am now reading Churchill's History of WW II, I am not enough into it to know what Churchill thought about Halifax (although I can guess) or what reputuation history has accorded him. What is the general view about Lord Halifax?

 

[DMNamiot]

Can't see that really happening since Dave not being from NY doesn't really have that love the Yankees hate the Mets attitude and although you're a Yankees fan Louis, you're still a great guy Unfortunately, my son is a Yankees fan so what are you going to do

Hi Brad and all,

I am not living on the east Coast but that wasnt always the case. To make matters worse my mom is from Mass and my dad is a New Yorker who went to his first ball game at THE Stadium back in 41. So you can imagine what it like when we get back there for a game. But you guys are right if we wander down the sports stories lane we'll really loose our focus.

Go Yankees!

Dave

 

[jazzeum]

Dave,

Did you know that a lot of people from Mass, especially Western Mass, are big Yankee fans and I mean big.

I saw my first game in 1962 at the Old Polo Grounds. What a great place. Center Field was huge. I've been to a lot of the old Stadiums that don't exist any more: the Old Yankee Stadium, Connie Mack, Shibe Park. Great places all. Where you could go and have a nice relaxing time at a doubleheader and just talk baseball. No loud music, just teams playing.

I actually think talking about other things besides soldiers is a good thing.

 

[Louis Badolato]

Brad,

My 95 year old grandfather was a security guard at both the Polo Grounds and old Yankee Stadium back in the 1930's and 1940's. I saw a couple of games as a little kid at old Yankee Stadium in 1970-1971, but the Polo grounds was way before my time. I would have loved to see Willie Mays running down balls in that huge horsehoe shaped outfield.

 

[Eazy]

Eazy,

I'm sure you've seen this but as part of the BBC Collection of WW 2, a 10 DVD set, they have the Dunkirk programs, a combination newsreels and re enactment, including Lord Halifax counseling accomodation with Hitler. Although I am now reading Churchill's History of WW II, I am not enough into it to know what Churchill thought about Halifax (although I can guess) or what reputuation history has accorded him. What is the general view about Lord Halifax?

To be honest he's a largely forgotten figure as far as i know. There's no real resentment towards either him or Chamberlain, they weren't pro Hitler, just pro peace.
"jaw, jaw, jaw not war, war, war" was the famous phrase.

Churchill,of course, realised that you just cannot reason with the unreasonable.

 

[CannonFodder1971]

Btw I read somewhere that Hitler invaded Russia mainly because he believed Russia was going to invade Germany, and of course he wanted more oil. But I wonder how the war would have gone if Germany didn't invade Russia, maybe it would have dragged on for a while longer but I guess the result would have been the same.

Interesting you should say that, as quite a few recent documentaries over the past decade (which have been infromed by now accessible Russian archive material) seems to suggest that Stalin was paranoid about Churchill "deceiving" Hitler into attacking the USSR. When the German build-up for Barbarossa became undeniable the Russians were still under orders not to let tension build up - German assurances on these being further training manouvres were accepted not because the Russian military believed them but because Stalin was confident that the Nazis were being lured into doing so by the British who were desparate for relief from the pressures in the Atlantic, Mediterranean and Far Eastern theatres. Stalin's delusion was that if he ordered aggressive deployments on the the USSR's European borders it would provoke the Germans, and it seems that he maintained this delusion for quite some time into the war.

I suppose it shouldn't be forgotten that the historic "Great Game" and the old Czarist Russian desire for an outlet into the Indian Ocean via Afghanistan remained a latent objective, and during WWII the Communists continued to stir the Azeri pot in northern Persia (now Iran) as part of various populist front activities. It remains possible that Stalin could have maintained his own self-deception right up until the months before the German invasion.

On the issue of Russian involvement when the Great Patriotic War began well you should try reading some Russian accounts (Use the Babelfish or Google translation tools). Basically they see it as a token phoney war in Western Europe, a serious enough Sino-Japanese event, and the main theatre in the war being what we call the Eastern Front. For them it was everything, and Allied intervention was a welcome assistance but a rather minor involvement in comparison to their contribution. Perhaps the Cold War and censorship didn't help, but you will find many Russians who are very jealous in terms of how they guard their history of the war. They barely credit a British/Commonwealth involvement, let alone an American one (half a million GIs would still only have been a few weeks on the Eastern Front). It's still very difficult to explain to them that in the West (or Australasia for that matter) the Russian contribution and sacrifice is looked on as part of the Allied War effort but no more than that.

 

[DMNamiot]

The big problem with Russians is they have a major chip on their shoulders over WWII and with the general perception of the West. They have always wanted to be western in thought and not perceived as a strange land with strange people. This goes back to Peter the Great and maybe even farther. I have a ton of issues with the Soviet version of things mainly because I have a big issue with the communist way of life, this goes back to my grandfather who as a young man fled Russia with his family and he hated them! But having read some fairly straight forward translations of their records of events on the Eastern Front they make no bones about the fact that they think they won the war. Of course the raw material and tanks and half tracks and the aircraft especially the B29 they stole and reverse engineered to use as the proto type for their future bombers and other things we did in the west to help dont count. They certainly did take some staggering casualties but when you use wave tactics against fortified positions with machineguns you are going to get creamed. They did need to do something to try and slow down the Germans so they sacrificed men and land inorder to get their tank factories moved and running again and to get some of their trained units from the eastern fringe of the country back to Moscow and into the fight.

So take anything written by a Soviet about the war as the official party line not a reallistic or even necessarily factual description of the events.


Dave

 

[OzDigger]

But Dave, every country has propaganda or at best a biased view of their part in a conflict. Suffice to say historic records (from different countries) have proved that about 85 out of every 100 German casualties occured on the Russian Front. And you can't blame a country or a race for trouble (past or future), it's the leader/regime in control at the time that is usually the cause - the people are usually just along for the ride - whether they like it or not.

 

[DMNamiot]

True and good points Ozdigger. I merely am trying to point out the issues with the Russians point of view. I would recommend you try and find a copy of White Mammoths by a russian tanker. It is biased to the point of Monty Pythonesque humor. I am sure they view our (Western Allies) vision of the war and its events the same. As for the people you can decide...

Dave

 

[OzDigger]

......I am sure they view our (Western Allies) vision of the war and its events the same......

Dave

I wouldn't be surprised if they considered the Western input into WWII exagerated comparred to Russia's commitment at the time, and they wouldn't be entirely wrong I guess. As for the book, I imagine it would have been written years ago for a typical Russian peasant with little education and virtually no global knowledge. But the Russians aren't unique in that area as I remember reading Heinz Knocke's 'I Flew for the Fuhrer' many years ago, and found the stiff German prose very amusing, and a bid pathetic.