Amazing photos of Nazi Germany by Hugo Jaeger using a Leica LTM??

[Paul T.]

Much of that may be true.

Fascism was inspired by communism; much of the arms race derived from the Soviet Union's huge production. They all saw state control as the way to go and increased armaments in imitation of each other, according to Cry Havoc, a recent study, and many others.

The people who had sympathy for Hitler saw him as a bulwark against the threat of communism; it's hard to imagine, today, how fluid the situation in Europe was, so we shouldn't judge people in the very early 30s on the basis of hindsight. Of course, after Kristallnacht there was no excuse.

 

[nebraska]

Those of you who really would like to get a good perspective on the German situation of the 1920s and 1930s might consider taking a look at Fritz Stern's book Five Germanys I Have Known. Stern is a highly respected Jewish-German-American scholar of German history. Chapters 2 and 3 are of particular relevance.

 

[peterm1]

What's with this 'humanizing' and 'looking human' rhetoric permeating parts of this thread?

They (the Nazis) were humans ... we are all humans!

Hitler may have been a psychopathic meglomaniac but he was as much a 'human' as any of us here ... like it or not!

Keith I think this is perfectly true.

But I noticed when I watched the movie "The Downfall" Hitler (who was played by brilliant Swiss actor Bruno Ganz) suddenly appeared to me as being a 3 dimensional character, not just a raving frothing at the mouth cardboard cutout as he has so often been depicted. (Although in The Downfall he did also managed to froth at the mouth and rave.)

But there was something in the depiction of him that for perhaps the first time made me think of him as a full formed human (even if a hideously psychologically deformed one).

Some how its the same with these pictures I found as others have commented. I have become so used to seeing this era depicted in black and white images that it somehow seemed to be "just" history. Seeing it in color made it more real. I think this is what people are referring to. I felt the same.

 

[Nikon Bob]

...and from the United States, Hitler was enthusiastically and materially supported by many on the right wing, including Henry Ford, Charles Lindberg, and Prescott Bush.

Never forget.

How about http://hnn.us/articles/697.html too. The right has always been the right and the left has always been the left in politics in most countries.

Bob

 

[Ken Smith]

I wonder if anyone has stopped to consider how strange it is that even today these pictures and the history of the third reich still fascinates so many. And whether what fascinates people now is part of what fascinated them back then. The strutting, the pomp and ceremony, the fantastic (in the original sense) imagery evoked by the nazis in their mythology, the huge parades, the spiffy uniforms and so forth. If we cannot look away all these years later, then its little surprise that so many fell under its evil spell back then. Hitler seemd to understand instinctively what appealed to peoples' emotions and used it ruthlessly. ( Something that as much as anything shows him for the incredible pyschopath he was - psychopaths have just such an ability to use people for their ends.)

I suppose you could imagine something like the nazi party being formed in the aftermath of the great war and the depression that led Germany back to a solid footing, made up of men in business suits and ties determined to bring stability and social justice to the the country. But this is not what nazism is about of course because this is not what Hitler was about and the Nazi party was created very much in his own image. (OK I understand that originally it was the German Workers Party but from what I have read, that was not much more than a bunch of malcontents drinking beer and grousing about the state of the nation in beer halls until Hitler remade it in his own image.) Right from the earliest days Hitler invited riff raff and thugs into the party and their culture permeated the culture of the party as it grew- because this is what he wanted and needed.

We know he was a monster and we know what he created was a perversion. But still we cannot look away. Still I suppose there are lessons in it for us - think wannabe despots like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran. Oddly enough with very similar agenda to Hitler! lets hope western democracies learn that lesson before its too late and he gets his hands on atomic wepaons which is clearly what he is stalling for. God help us all if he does.

You can't look at WWII Germany and set atrocities aside, but from someone who spent 26 years in the military, the Germany military machine rocked on the battlefield. They were the first to fully understand and implement the concept of Air Superiority. The knew that having control of airspace above the battlefield allowed the troops on the ground to concentrate on the business at hand. They were the first to meld armoured forces with infantry on a wide scale into a cohesive units that produced an effective fighting force. Then they combined air power with that mixture. They called it Blitzkrieg - we now call it "Shock & Awe." They used airpower to soften the battlefield prior to assault. Now it's consider SOP in any ground offense. They introduced the use of ICBMs via the V2 and cruise missiles via the V1 Buzzbomb. They fielded the first jet fighters. They introduced the first modern assault rifle which is now a standard fixture in every army - and terrorist organizations. My troops carried M-60's' later the M-240 machine gun, and the M-249 SAW - all three have fixed headspace that allows for rapid barrel change - a concept the Germans introduced with their MG 42 machine gun. Pop the cover on an any of the three above and you'll notice that feed tray assembly looks pretty much the same as the MG 43. The German army created the modern battlefield, thankfully they introduced much of it too little and too late.

 

[peterm1]

You can't look at WWII Germany and set atrocities aside, but from someone who spent 26 years in the military, the Germany military machine rocked on the battlefield. They were the first to fully understand and implement the concept of Air Superiority. The knew that having control of airspace above the battlefield allowed the troops on the ground to concentrate on the business at hand. They were the first to meld armoured forces with infantry on a wide scale into a cohesive units that produced an effective fighting force. Then they combined air power with that mixture. They called it Blitzkrieg - we now call it "Shock & Awe." They used airpower to soften the battlefield prior to assault. Now it's consider SOP in any ground offense. They introduced the use of ICBMs via the V2 and cruise missiles via the V1 Buzzbomb. They fielded the first jet fighters. They introduced the first modern assault rifle which is now a standard fixture in every army - and terrorist organizations. My troops carried M-60's' later the M-240 machine gun, and the M-249 SAW - all three have fixed headspace that allows for rapid barrel change - a concept the Germans introduced with their MG 42 machine gun. Pop the cover on an any of the three above and you'll notice that feed tray assembly looks pretty much the same as the MG 43. The German army created the modern battlefield, thankfully they introduced much of it too little and too late.

Absolutely true.

Here's a little piece of history that many may not know. One of the great allied generals of WW1 on the western front was Major General Sir John Monash, commander of the Australian Corps.

Monash was widely attributed by professional soldiers on the battlefield (and some politicians) as being the first - perhaps the only allied general of WW1 who truly understood the nature of modern warfare. The later Field Marshal Montgomery named him as the best general on the western front for example). He was a hugely successful advocate of using combined forces (together with integrated planning) to dominate the battlefield.

Late in the war there was even talk of making him the supreme commander of all British forces. But Monash had three stikes against him. He was not a professional soldier - he was an engineer and part time soldier (perhaps this is why he was such an original thinker as he had not grown up in the "system" ); he was a "colonial" i.e. an Australian, not British and he was a Jew. Not only that, a Jew of German origin. So of course in that class ridden and vaguely anti Semitic society he could never be appointed even in the face of staggering losses by inept and unimaginative generals who were still in their minds sometimes dreaming of cavalry charges, bayonet drill and musketry.

I have read that after WW1 the German planners and commanders (in particular Major General Heinz Guderian) studied his techniques of warfare and applied them to develop blitzkrieg techniques. The German high command was trained in the Prussian School and I imagine would have been quite content to use such ideas if they worked - no matter what the source.

John Monash is a kind of personal hero of mine (I think he was a real Mensch!) but its a sad irony of history if its true that the intellect of a German Jew should ultimately used by the Nazis through their control of the German military to crush Europe.

http://www.convictcreations.com/history/monash.html

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/the...tlers-blitzkrieg/story-fna7dq6e-1111114149341

http://www.awm.gov.au/exhibitions/1918/people/genmonash.asp

 

[whitecat]

Good history. Thanks.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Here's a little piece of history that many may not know. One of the great allied generals of WW1 on the western front was Major General Sir John Monash, commander of the Australian Corps.

Fascinating! I'd have said I was more interested in history than most, but I knew nothing about Monash. Proof that even when the victors write the histories, they prefer things that fit their preconceptions.

Cheers,

R.

 

[mynikonf2]

Has anyone seen any places online with postwar color photos of Germany, in the aftermath of the war, shots of the destroyed Berghof (Hitler's House) or shots of the major cities taken with color film, by American or British military photographers?

Tom

Tom,
This is one of the best that I have found, hows the bug running? Got any pic's of your VW ride?:

http://www.thirdreichruins.com/kehlsteinhaus.htm

 

[agricola]

Peter - well said. And Roger - a generous acknowledgment.
Harking back to WW1, I was in France a couple of yrs ago and enquired of the girl in the tourist office where the Aussies were buried, and she had no idea what I was talking about. We lost so many, and came from the far side of the world to do it. And now it's forgotten. My son served with the Brits in Basra and the Yanks in Talil - lets hope Iran settles down. Did you know that the Aussies have been there before? The last cavalry charge in the middle east? Google it.

 

[kbg32]

Fascinating! I'd have said I was more interested in history than most, but I knew nothing about Monash. Proof that even when the victors write the histories, they prefer things that fit their preconceptions.

Cheers,

R.

This is precisely why many do not know what Kodak did with all the Agfa patents. I studied photo history with the late William Broecker. Unfortunately, he passed away in 2007. He spoke of the final refinement of Kodachrome and of course the introduction, of Ektachrome after WWll. In later years Kodak sued Ansco and Agfa, among others, over patent infringements. Kodak lost.

 

[kossi008]

No, there was no post war change in ideas of left- and right-wing positions, nor were the Nazis ever considered left wing by the general public or any relevant political group in Germany.

Well, I wasn't claiming that there was a general change in ideas, just in how the Nazis were fit into the left-right landscape by many conservatives. And no, I have no statistically relevant figures or profound sociological studies at hand to back up the view of the Nazis as left-wing. All I have to back me up are Klemperer's diaries, and he (a moderate conservative, I'd say) saw them as left-wing, and I don't think he was talking only for himself.

While it has been very clear from the 1930s on that the Nazis were right-wing if just by the very definition of being militantly anti-left-wing, they started out with basically socialist views in the 1920s and downplayed their racism and anti-semitism somewhat in order to attract voters from the communists. Later, when they needed support from the big industrialists for their war preparations, they changed their strategy again. And the right-wing conservatives may have backed Hitler, but they also thoroughly despised him and his Party...

Anyway, I digress. What fascinates me about this era and the mesmerizing pictures of Hugo Jaeger is not a classification of left- or right-wing, but the intricate process of transforming a whole populace of average human beings into one big, well-functioning war and murder machine...

 

[kbg32]

Kodak and Agfa remind me of the great beer war between Anheuser-Busch, and Budvar, both Budweiser.

 

[Mr_Flibble]

Harking back to WW1, I was in France a couple of yrs ago and enquired of the girl in the tourist office where the Aussies were buried, and she had no idea what I was talking about. We lost so many, and came from the far side of the world to do it. And now it's forgotten.

It's true, Heck, Dutch schoolchildren are barely taught anything about World War 2 as it is. But it has not been forgotten yet, at least not by us who are keen on history.
I've visited many World War 1 cemeteries over the last few years, including Tyne Cot and Langemarck. So many lost souls for 6 miles of land fought over 6 months in 1917...... 🙁


I'm sure you have seen the Lost Diggers:
http://au.news.yahoo.com/sunday-night/blogs/article/-/8900933/the-lost-diggers/
Many 'newly' discovered photographs of Australian soldiers in France during WW1. As well as soldiers of a few other nations.

 

[Jack Conrad]

What's with this 'humanizing' and 'looking human' rhetoric permeating parts of this thread?

They (the Nazis) were humans ... we are all humans!

Ha! I used to believe we are all humans too...
before I started reading the Internet. 😱

 

[Roger Hicks]

Ha! I used to believe we are all humans too...
before I started reading the Internet.

Which reminds me of the old joke: a small village of about a thousand souls, or 1500 people.

Cheers,

R.

 

[furcafe]

At least you observe a minute of silence on Remembrance Day. Can't imagine us doing the same in the U.S.

It's true, Heck, Dutch schoolchildren are barely taught anything about World War 2 as it is. But it has not been forgotten yet, at least not by us who are keen on history.

 

[sevo]

All I have to back me up are Klemperer's diaries, and he (a moderate conservative, I'd say) saw them as left-wing, and I don't think he was talking only for himself.

Well, the old far right, Ludendorff and his ilk, had adopted Hitler and the Nazis already in the early twenties - see the Munich coup. That can hardly have escaped Klemperer. I rather think he was comforting himself against all odds that anybody threatening him, the German Jew and nationalist, ought to be from the other side of the political spectrum.

 

[filmfan]

Not that I'm a big fan of Coca Cola & Co., but that's not true. Atlanta pulled Coca Cola out from Germany in 1940/41, obeying the embargo. The german bottler of Coca Cola, Max Keith, in order to rescue his company (left without a product to sell) developed himself a beverage he called "Fanta". After the war, Fanta was part of the plunder.

Great to know I can no longer trust anything my former high school history teacher said.

 

[Paul T.]

... All I have to back me up are Klemperer's diaries, and he (a moderate conservative, I'd say) saw them as left-wing, and I don't think he was talking only for himself.


Anyway, I digress. What fascinates me about this era and the mesmerizing pictures of Hugo Jaeger is not a classification of left- or right-wing, but the intricate process of transforming a whole populace of average human beings into one big, well-functioning war and murder machine...

It's OT, but I didn't get this impression from Klemperer. I think he saw them as deviously populist, but not left-wing.

(for what it's worth, Himmler saw himself as on the side of the workers and vehemently criticised Franco, who was on the side of the landowners).

The post-war period and Klemperer's views of West v East are fascinating, though, especially as soviet anti-semitism starts to ratchet up with the Doctors' Plot...