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Was Hitler a great leader?


Lantairu
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Hitler helped develop Germany during the thirties. The problem is that everything every German did had to be linked to the state and Aryan superiority, things like that, so lots of very ugly things were done to promote this ideal. Businesses were seized from their rightful owners to support the regime, talents and entrepeneurs with Jewish ancestry had to flee the country to avoid being enslaved and killed, and so on. Nazi Germany also had no reservation when it came to using "inferior" people as slaves or guinea pigs for experiments. This is far from being "efficient", as they would go as far as sacrificing the best people for the job in their goal of racial superiority.

The German war effort also wasn't very good because they weren't as prepared as they thought, and relied more on surprise than raw power, not to mention the increasing severity of the regime itself. In the end he led the country to a disaster worse than its prewar situation so he can't be considered a good leader.

Edited by Cerberus87
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Ooh, I can't believe I forgot to mention the stupidest thing Hitler did: not putting Germany on a total war footing until after Stalingrad. All this while the UK, USA, and USSR were on a total war footing since they had entered the war. Albert Speer, Hitlers economic minister, estimates in his memoirs that had Germany been fighting a total war since 1939, they would have had twice as many tanks and planes for the invasion of Russia.

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total war footing

What's that?

He could have chance of winning if he conquered Great Britain and USSR but that's a far stretch IMO. I think the war would last longer and cause much more grief had he been successful at that. He wouldn't win against USA by invading them either, he'd need to starve them out of fronts. I don't recall anyone successfully invading the USA after Independence.

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Hitler was charismatic. He had *some* 'good' ideas that did help Germany and, IIRC, some that are still around today. However. He was incompetent and self-centered and his successes happened more because he was lucky and had good underlings instead of his own, personal, skill. His belief that 'bigger = better' lead to many short-comings and failings and his stupid over-spending, while it did result in some things like rocket science, was a major factor in the fall of Germany. He was far too quick and aggressive for his own good which resulted in his many failings. In short... Good figurehead. Lousy leader.

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Ooh, I can't believe I forgot to mention the stupidest thing Hitler did: not putting Germany on a total war footing until after Stalingrad. All this while the UK, USA, and USSR were on a total war footing since they had entered the war. Albert Speer, Hitlers economic minister, estimates in his memoirs that had Germany been fighting a total war since 1939, they would have had twice as many tanks and planes for the invasion of Russia.

Myth:

http://chris-intel-corner.blogspot.com/2013/05/wwii-myths-german-war-economy-was.html

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What's that?

He could have chance of winning if he conquered Great Britain and USSR but that's a far stretch IMO. I think the war would last longer and cause much more grief had he been successful at that. He wouldn't win against USA by invading them either, he'd need to starve them out of fronts. I don't recall anyone successfully invading the USA after Independence.

A total war economy is when every aspect of the economy is focused on the war. Germany was still producing cars until Stalingrad, when those cars could have been tanks. He could have won had he conquered the USSR. He can't take Britain, though, because Germany simply couldn't have beaten the USN and the RN combined by 1941, or even at the start of the war. Regarding that last point, the US got successfully invaded in the War of 1812, to the point where the White House was burned down.
What are this guy's qualifications? Is he a historian? Pretty much every Hitler biography I've read, all of them by respected historians, have said Germany wasn't on a total war footing until 43. Further, even if they were, the economy still would have been mismanaged. Hitler spent too much energy on wunderwaffen and not enough on actually useful things. Ooh, you can bombard London with your rockets! At least you have that as consolation while you get beaten by the Red Army because you didn't have enough tanks!
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Incidentally, wait till Life sees this thread.

Consider it seen.

First off, you cannot be a great leader if you scapegoat a healthy population of your own people and then devise a way to "solve" them. The ironic part is that shooting the Jews/blacks/Roma and leaving them in graves wasn't efficient enough so the Nazis felt a need to divert troops and expenses away from the war effort in order to keep concentration camps going. Imagine how much stronger they would have been if they simply added Jews/blacks/Roma to the war effort (since the original goal of the Nazi party was for the betterment of Germany through military means and national pride).

I've had arguments with my best friend over my next comment and I still think that I'm right.

If Hitler does not invade Russia in 1940, Great Britain falls and the USA could possibly have fallen next.

It's no secret that Nazi Germany wanted to take out the USA. But they absolutely win the war in Europe if they don't screw themselves by initiating a two-front war. End of story.

Edited by Jim Moriarty
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People are wrong to give Hitler credit for the economic recovery in the 30s which has been re-evaluated by historians. The actual good policies that helped the economy most were inherited from the previous government and carried out by Hjalmar Schacht, who (although sympathetic to the Nazis) opposed rearmament and was eventually forced out of the government. And although the economy did grow under the Nazis, the standard of living remained poor and rationing remained part of German life even before the war started, because so much of the economy was devoted to supplying the Wehrmacht. After the war started, the economy was sustained by forced labor from concentration camps and occupied countries such as France. And corruption was rife at almost every level of the German economy. The belief in Hitler as economic savior is a reflection of the success of Nazi propaganda, not of any quality that Hitler himself possessed; he was personally uninterested in economic issues and any economic position he supported in public was for the sake of convenience, a prelude to attaining greater power with which to carry out his insane vision of epic war between civilizations. And there's no doubt he left his country in a worse state than he found it in.

Hitler was not a great leader. He became leader in the first place only by using violence on a massive scale to intimidate his political opponents on the left and by deceiving those in the centre. Once in power, he turned his country into a dystopian war economy and capped it off by declaring war on every major power on the face of the planet (except Japan). The best decision he ever made was his last one.

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Consider it seen.

First off, you cannot be a great leader if you scapegoat a healthy population of your own people and then devise a way to "solve" them. The ironic part is that shooting the Jews/blacks/Roma and leaving them in graves wasn't efficient enough so the Nazis felt a need to divert troops and expenses away from the war effort in order to keep concentration camps going. Imagine how much stronger they would have been if they simply added Jews/blacks/Roma to the war effort (since the original goal of the Nazi party was for the betterment of Germany through military means and national pride).

I've had arguments with my best friend over my next comment and I still think that I'm right.

If Hitler does not invade Russia in 1940, Great Britain falls and the USA could possibly have fallen next.

It's no secret that Nazi Germany wanted to take out the USA. But they absolutely win the war in Europe if they don't screw themselves by initiating a two-front war. End of story.

I have to disagree. Not invading Russia would have prolonged the war in Europe, but there is no way whatsoever Germany is invading Britain, with a POD of 1941 at least. By that point the RAF had already attained air superiority over the Luftwaffe and the RN had complete control of the channel. It's only a matter of time until the Americans join and when they do, Hitler is fucked. The only chance for the Nazis was to bring the Soviets into the Axis; that gives them the manpower to beat the USA in Europe. That decision, however, would be out of character for Hitler. Also, even with the Soviets they wouldn't have been able to successfully invade America. Hitler himself didn't consider that feasible until 1980, and that's with industrial development from European Russia. There's also a little thing called the Atomic Bomb; the Anglo-American nuclear program was leagues ahead of either the Nazi or Soviet one. Hitler frankly didn't care about America. His goal was German domination of Europe and the reduction of all non Aryans in Europe, particularly the Slavs, to slaves of the Aryans. If the Americans stayed isolationist Hitler would have been happy to coexist, so it's good for the world that we didn't.
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I have to disagree. Not invading Russia would have prolonged the war in Europe, but there is no way whatsoever Germany is invading Britain, with a POD of 1941 at least. By that point the RAF had already attained air superiority over the Luftwaffe and the RN had complete control of the channel. It's only a matter of time until the Americans join and when they do, Hitler is fucked. The only chance for the Nazis was to bring the Soviets into the Axis; that gives them the manpower to beat the USA in Europe. That decision, however, would be out of character for Hitler. Also, even with the Soviets they wouldn't have been able to successfully invade America. Hitler himself didn't consider that feasible until 1980, and that's with industrial development from European Russia. There's also a little thing called the Atomic Bomb; the Anglo-American nuclear program was leagues ahead of either the Nazi or Soviet one. Hitler frankly didn't care about America. His goal was German domination of Europe and the reduction of all non Aryans in Europe, particularly the Slavs, to slaves of the Aryans. If the Americans stayed isolationist Hitler would have been happy to coexist, so it's good for the world that we didn't.

You're not following the chain of events properly.

If Hitler doesn't send a vast portion of his army to Ukraine in 1940, where would they logically go? If you say North Africa, you'd be correct.

Think about it. If there are more troops in North Africa (and Southern Europe by extension), there's significantly less chance of breaking through the Med in order to start a land campaign in Italy. In addition, Russia isn't attacking Germany which would lower British spirit even more simply because they have absolutely no help in Europe or Africa. GB would be firebombed even worse than they were and they probably break in 1942 because Germany would be able to get away with a land invasion due to not wasting troops in the East. Britain falls before the USA is ready to deal with them.

Speaking of the USA, they need to give more credit to the Australians for the Pacific War. If Japan had managed to crack Australia (and they came close), it would have been that much more difficult to dig the Japanese out of South-East Asia.

Edited by Jim Moriarty
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You're not following the chain of events properly.

If Hitler doesn't send a vast portion of his army to Ukraine in 1940, where would they logically go? If you say North Africa, you'd be correct.

Think about it. If there are more troops in North Africa (and Southern Europe by extension), there's significantly less chance of breaking through the Med in order to start a land campaign in Italy. In addition, Russia isn't attacking Germany which would lower British spirit even more simply because they have absolutely no help in Europe or Africa. GB would be firebombed even worse than they were and they probably break in 1942 because Germany would be able to get away with a land invasion due to not wasting troops in the East. Britain falls before the USA is ready to deal with them.

Speaking of the USA, they need to give more credit to the Australians for the Pacific War. If Japan had managed to crack Australia (and they came close), it would have been that much more difficult to dig the Japanese out of South-East Asia.

Germany needs one thing to both send 3 million men to North Africa and invade Britain: a navy. Obviously they need to beat the RN to invade Britain, but how do you think 3 million German troops are getting to Africa, by walking on water? The Brits had complete control of the Mediterranean, and even if the Germans get those soldiers to Africa they're having a hell of a time supplying them. Further, even if Germany defeats the Royal Navy they're not invading Britain. Their plan for invasion was basically "land troops on the isles and pray to god the British surrender". The British, meanwhile, had constructed huge amounts of fortifications and were ready to push the Germans into the sea. The German's idea of landing craft were barges, for gods sake! Their best hope is to win the Battle of Britain and offer the British a status quo peace, where Britain gets to keep its independence if they accept Nazi domination of Europe. Problem is, that would be out of character for Churchill, because he knew that if the Germans invaded it would be a disaster for them. Regarding Australia, pretty much yep. Japan wasn't invading Australia for pretty much the same reasons Germany wasn't invading the UK, but still, they deserve far more credit than they get in this Murica fuck yeah,world.
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Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't it well understood that under Stalin the Red Army was virtually undefeatable?

Hitler was obsessed by the idea of the eastern-european lebensraum for the aryan herrenmensch and the inferiority of the slavic untermensch. I think one way or another he would've seen himself "compelled" to invade russia for the sake of his ideology. Even if Hitler decided to hold off on attacking the SU he wouldn't have been satisfied with the stalemate that would've likely resulted.

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Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't it well understood that under Stalin the Red Army was virtually undefeatable?

Hitler was obsessed by the idea of the eastern-european lebensraum for the aryan herrenmensch and the inferiority of the slavic untermensch. I think one way or another he would've seen himself "compelled" to invade russia for the sake of his ideology. Even if Hitler decided to hold off on attacking the SU he wouldn't have been satisfied with the stalemate that would've likely resulted.

Uh... except for all those times in 1941 and 1942 when it got badly, badly, defeated?
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Most of this discussion: I'm fine with

Actual on-topic discussion: I don't have anything useful to add

Mod notes: Stuff like the quote below

I'd say he was dessent. He made the the leaders of other countries like him, and he seemed like a good person.

But, ya know, revenge and shizz. War-war makes boom-boom.

dead people.

~FIN~

is shitposting. Don't do it.

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Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't it well understood that under Stalin the Red Army was virtually undefeatable?

No. Stalin did a very good job killing most of his competent commanders, purging his people and suppressing religion, causing mass chaos in Soviet. Without massive supply from the Allies, Soviet army could have been defeated before they could roll out their first IS tank. The Soviet managed to survive war thanks to the their commit, Stalin contributed nothing. But at least he has the ability to lower his ego and listen to his advisors when things went bad. This alone made him a better leader than Adolf.

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OP: Hitler was good at delivering* speeches, so in the sense that he could rally support to a cause, he had great skill. By a D&D analogy, he had a high Charisma stat.

"His" (not technically his his, more on that later) economic policy was extremely risky, and only worked because (a) he could capitalize on the aforementioned confidence he could inspire in others, which greases the wheels of the economy even when there's not actually anything to power it; (b) he intimidated the nations of Europe into giving him extremely valuable concessions (e.g. the Sudetenland) that injected desperately-needed resources into the German economy; © he, or rather his economic advisers, had pretty much total control over the economy and could dictate how, when, and where it was used and developed; and (d) he stole the resources and money possessed by his political enemies (Jews, gays, Communists, dissenters, etc.) and funneled them into building infrastructure.

Militarily, he was a complete idiot, as the later stages of WWII demonstrated. The use of Blitzkrieg--"lightning warfare"--was a great idea...that somebody else came up with. The interest in missiles was a great idea...that, again, I'm pretty sure somebody else came up with. Hitler's grand strategy choices included such moves as breaking the non-aggression pact with Russia, thereby trying to fight a war on two fronts. Incidentally, this meant trying to achieve a military victory that, to my knowledge, only one group has ever achieved: that is, trying to take Moscow and other Russian targets in the wintertime. Napoleon, famous for his brilliance, failed at it. Only the Mongols (again, to my knowledge) had ever succeeded at this task, and that's because they were native to a place that is just as cold as Russia in the winter.

Hitler's "strength" as a leader was that he had access to a large group of highly skilled, devoted advisers and assistants who really, truly knew what they were doing. Rommel was a brilliant general (who, ironically, betrayed Hitler because he wasn't devoted to the cause--only to Germany, which meant he ignored orders to kill Jews!). Göring was generally pretty competent as well, his addiction to morphine aside; Hitler essentially delegated control of the German economy to him at the start of the Four Year Plan, which lasted a total of nine years (from 1936 until the end of the war). Fritz Todt was a very competent engineer, and as the head of Organisation Todt, was responsible for most of the industrial and infrastructural development in Germany leading up to WWII.

So, was Hitler a good leader? Well, he was a good leader in the sense that he could tap the talent of others, and had talent available to tap. But in the sense of making sound decisions, he was not a good leader at all; and in the sense of achieving lasting benefits, he was an astoundingly terrible leader, who put Germany into a position almost worse than it had been in prior to the war, from which they did not recover for decades afterward because of interference from the Soviet Union.

*Not sure about writing them; I don't know if he wrote his own speeches. He certainly didn't exhibit his charisma until after he joined the National Socialist (Nazi) party, which would seem to indicate that he needed other people to write for him, but could "play the part" well.

Edited by amiabletemplar
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Woah woah oah, Göring competant? He was an example of Hitlers incompetance, that a moron like him could ever get power.

Was the Four-Year Plan--almost wholly organized and conducted by Göring, who possessed plenipotentiary power (the ability to write law)--not successful in rebuilding the German economy? That sounds like a demonstration of competence to me. The Luftwaffe, under Göring's command, was a major player in the German victories in Norway, Belgium, and France: again, an apparent demonstration of competence.

Toward the war's end, Göring fell out of favor, in part because he made rash promises he couldn't keep (like promising to keep the Sixth Army stocked with supplies by air-drop), but for the pre-war period and (very roughly) the first half of the war, Göring proved pretty effective. Perhaps he would've been better if he'd stuck purely to civilian administration?

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Uh... except for all those times in 1941 and 1942 when it got badly, badly, defeated?

If you're talking about stuff like the winter war then that's a war of aggression, an alltogether different matter than trying to invade SU and take on the red army head on. What I was trying to say was that it probably wouldn't have mattered whether Hitler decided to invade SU sooner or later because he would've done so anyway and he would've failed anyway.

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A major factor in the outcome of the Winter War was that thanks to the Great Purge, much of the competence sorely needed to orchestrate such an invasion was kind of dead (an issue concerning the whole Red Army, so not quite invincible). But the outcome was indeed a wake-up call of sorts for Stalin, seeing how the Red Army was bolstered shortly thereafter (military leadership reforms, equipment more suitable for winter warfare, improved training and such).

'Undefeatable under Stalin' is still somewhat odd of a claim. The Soviet losses in stopping the German advance were atrocious, and that's with all the missteps on Hitler's part.

Edited by Topazd
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'Undefeatable under Stalin' is still somewhat odd of a claim. The Soviet losses in stopping the German advance were atrocious, and that's with all the missteps on Hitler's part.

Just because Russia walked into Eastern Europe before they got stabbed by the Germans doesn't mean that Russia was prepared at any moment for Hitler to go after them. The Russian line was spread thin to start with because they were busy controlling Eastern Poland and arguing with Hitler over the Balkans. Stalin honestly believed that he wouldn't get stabbed in the back less than two years after signing a non-aggression treaty with Germany and dismantling Eastern Europe. Plus, Stalin incorrectly predicted where a possible German invasion would come from.

Edited by Jim Moriarty
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