I don't want to derail either, but it seems that I should attempt to clarify. What I mean is that nationalism is by necessity delusional. Always. And as a consequence, so is war among nations, most of all that which takes pride of its conquests "for the good/glory of the nation".
Ok. I think I see your point. Could we agree that a war with a delusional goal or cause could still be managed in an effective way (in terms of management of industry, military decision making, etc) by the rank and file regardless of the 'worthiness' of the war itself?
Because it's not the wars goals I am judging here, but the management in particular of German Heavy Industry, in much the same way any business would be judged...
I don't think so, unless you are using what would be an unusually wide understanding of what constitutes "war".
But maybe we can agree that war does not have to be frankly suicidal, nor to involve pointless sacrifice of untrained civilians, while that example discussed here clearly does both.
Fair enough. Sorry to you and Nieztsche for derailing the subject to this degree. I did not want to.
Oh, the Volkssturm?
Sorry...on that I completely agree with you. I can't fathom the reasoning behind that sort of cynical brainwashing exercise at all, and its certainly not the only example of such extreme andcstrange behaviour in WW2.
It's not my topic, nor my place to suggest what is a derail, so i apologise too. I thought your comments were more specifically linked to what I'd said about heavy industry, rather than being at least partly in relation to the outcome of extreme ideology. The whole psychology of the nation/era is fascinating and disturbing.
Have you read anything about some of the thought experiments done post war, in trying to understand how normal people were driven to extremes? They would be considered unethical now, but they were even more disturbing, since they suggested the capacity to do great evil based on simple expectation is quite common in people from various cultures and backgrounds.
I wouldn't really call this a derailing, honestly, because it highlights how truly, radically different Nazi Germany was when compared to the Kaiserreich or Kingdom of Prussia. There is an oft-repeated notion that Nazi Germany was the natural extreme of 'Prussian Militarism'. I disagree, and this is a good example as to why.
Prussia, and the Kaiserreich that followed it, always had clearly obtainable goals. While they were happy to use force to obtain them, they were never things that couldn't be done. People like to compare the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk to the notion of Lebensraum or Drang nacht Osten(
Drive towards the East). However, all that they share is that they cover some similar territory. The actual plans for B-L were to create a series of puppet-kingdoms and satellite states between the Kaiserreich and whatever Russia was able to coalesce into. The only areas marked for annexation of any kind were the 'border-strip' of Congress Poland and potentially the United Baltic Duchy(there was a
significant German-speaking population in the Baltic).
But other than that, the power-play they were attempting was no different than what France, Britain, Russia, the Ottomans or what have you had both attempted and
accomplished in the past in other parts of the world. These goals could be obtained & enforced. The idea was to weaken Russia so that it's no longer a threat to Germany, not utterly destroy it. Nor was the idea was to push Germandom to the Urals and beyond. They wanted to exploit the resources in the East. No more, no less.
I have an old, hard cover book by a guy called Williamson Murray. Strategy for Defeat: The Luftwaffe.
It has a lot of the normal strategic and tactical info, but also a lot on production rates, in commission rates, etc.
Some of the manufacturing decisions are amazing, with 41 being the fulcrum where initial success was replaced by a very marked decline in readiness. Took a while for that to show through on the battlefield of course.
Fighter readiness at jan 41 - 70%
Crew readiness at jan 41 - 75%
Fighter readiness at dec 41 - 50%
Crew readiness at dec 41 - 60%
Bomber readiness at jan 41 - 50%
Crew readiness at jan 41 - 65%
Bomber readiness at dec 41 - 30%
Crew readiness at dec 41 - 45%
Combine that with the decision to switch the bulk of heavy production to armour/artillery without effective examination or change in raw material acquisition...bah...
Anyone with half a brain could see they were not in a position to cope with a twin front war from an air superiority point of view, nevermind their complete lack of strategic bombing and heavy lift capability.
In fairness to the Reich, strategic bombing was something I don't think Germany could've done to begin with. Not without sacrificing their "Flying Artillery" Luftwaffe, which enabled their ludicrously swift advances. The Heer would cut-off enemy forces from supply, ignore them and continue on and let the Luftwaffe hammer them with tactical bombers & close air support. Force Multiplication was how they were able to succeed, turning the spearhead of their advance into something effectively unstoppable.
Honestly had Hitler allowed the Panzers to destroy the Brits at Dunkirk(it was
not him trying to make friends with Britain, Goering had told him the Luftwaffe could do it), it would've ruined Churchill's chances at becoming PM and the Peace-Party in Westminster would've taken the reigns.
