On Wednesday, August 6, 2014 5:07:29 PM UTC-4, nestork wrote:


That whole Aryan fairy-tale was just another aspect of the massive Nazi

propaganda campaign. Which fell on fertile ground in a devastated

country. Germany was in ruins due to the stupid post-WW I revenge

campaign. The Allies, *influenced by doddering French generals intent

on payback for previous defeats* extracted ultra-punitive reparations

from a starving populace.







Baloney. The Germans got off too easy. It took the destruction of

Germany in WWII to kill off German militarism. Same with the Japs.

They were sick, and their cure was total defeat.





No, the first paragraph is closer to the truth than the second. It was

the poverty that came about due to Germany having to pay war reparations

after WWI that created ideal conditions for another war.

The German economy was doing just fine in the 1920's after
WWI. It was the worldwide depression that started in 1929 that through
Germany and the rest of the world into an economic ditch. Most of the
rest of the world didn't use the depression as an excuse to start a
war to take over all of Europe and shove Jews into ovens.


People who

are doing well and getting ahead in life don't want to go to war.

Nonsense.

It's

when they're working hard and getting nowhere and can see that they're

going nowhere and their kids won't go nowhere either that they vote for

someone like Hitler that captures their imagination in returning their

country to it's former glory and prosperity.

There have been plenty of wars of agression fought over the centuries from
countries that were prosperous at the time. Poor economic conditions
are associated with revolutions within countries, not so much wars of
aggression. One problem is that it takes a strong economy to run a war
machine. Could the Romans have made it to England with a failing economy?
Could the Japanese have a navy capable of striking the USA if they
were broke?


War's biggest enemy is

prosperity. No one who feels they're doing fairly well for themselves

wants to go to war. It's only when they feel there's nothing to lose

that they look at war as a feasible alternative to a miserable life.



WWI was started because the powers involved were broke? Japan went on
it's war of aggression in Asia, invaded China, because Japan's economy
sucked? That's a new one. How about Napoleon's campaigns in Europe?
The Romans?






The Marshall Plan, controversial though it was at the time, was probably

the best decision the US and it's allies made after WWII. It was not

the destruction of Germany that put an end to German militarism, but the

prosperity in Germany as a result of the Marshall Plan that followed

WWII.

Seems the Allies put an end to German militarism. When you have no
Army, no Navy, no airforce, all your leadership is dead, military
leaders are in jail, you have no military. And I'd say the total
devastation that Germany suffered in WWII had a very big role in them
not being dumb enough to do it again. Don't get me wrong, I think the
Marshal Plan was a good thing. I just don't think handing out money
means people are going to convert to being civil. Iraq and Afghanistan
are two examples of where that hasn't worked.




And, for 70 years since, Germany has been both prosperous and

peaceful.



Yes, it worked spectacualarly well in Europe and Japan. And it's also
failed miserably in other countries where we've tried the same thing
recently, eg Iraq and Afghanistan. It seems the culture and values
of the people have a lot to do with it.