# Adolph The Great? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 19, 2009, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adolph-the-great/490027 "2009-03-19T15:06:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![chowder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/977dab/32.png) [@chowder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chowder)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2009, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adolph-the-great/490027/21 "2009-03-19T18:19:00Z")
> [@Estilicon](#): > > Let’s say that Hitler wasn’t a racist and his ideas (an actions) hadn’t killed millions of jews, polish, etc. He was just an stateman who made a huge bet and lost. To make it more clear, WWII still happens in this scenario minus the holocaust. > Having said that: > > 1. Hitler managed to rebuild Germany. > 2. Till September, 1939 he also managed to tear page by page the Treaty of Versailles. He also “conquered” Checoslovaquia and Austria. > 3. Until that moment he was, certainly, a great statement. > 4. His achievements made him careless and he miscalculated with Poland (and then Rusia and U.S.A). > 5. But still, he deserves to be called Hitler the Great. > > True or false? As has been pointed out he didn’t rebuild Germany, recovery was under way. He may have occupied Czechoslovakia but conquer it. The country was handed to him on a plate. Austria wasn’t conquered, there was an Anschluss (sp) a joining of the two German speaking nations. I believe that the Austrians voted for this. A great STATESMAN my arse, he was a fucking nutjob who bullied and cajoled. Careless, you betcha, taking on the world is certainly careless Hitler the great? do me a favour ---
**Author:** ![AppallingGael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9bd4f/32.png) [@AppallingGael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AppallingGael)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2009, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adolph-the-great/490027/22 "2009-03-19T18:25:13Z")
> [@orcenio](#): > > Wikipedia has this to say about [Ivan IV Vasilyevich](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_IV_of_Russia#Death_and_legacy) > > But we still call him “the Terrible” Where is the “but”? He was “terrible” in the sense of “fearsome”. No contradiction there. ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2009, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adolph-the-great/490027/23 "2009-03-19T18:41:33Z")
> [@chowder](#): > > He may have occupied Czechoslovakia but conquer it. The country was handed to him on a plate. > > Austria wasn’t conquered, there was an Anschluss (sp) a joining of the two German speaking nations. I believe that the Austrians voted for this. As an aside, Hitler was pissed as hell when he wasn’t given the chance to go to war over Czecheslovakia. Though it seems possible had the West stood up to Germany and offered support, an army coup might have occurred to prevent him from launching a war that the German military was pretty certain it would lose. As for Austria, it seems to have done a pretty great job painting itself as “Hitler’s first victim.” Which isn’t necessarily a true representation of the facts. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2009, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adolph-the-great/490027/24 "2009-03-19T18:59:32Z")
> [@villa](#): > > …As for Austria, it seems to have done a pretty great job painting itself as “Hitler’s first victim.” Which isn’t necessarily a true representation of the facts. You could say that: [Google Image Result](http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.ushmm.org/lcmedia/photo/lc/image/65/65595.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/media_ph.php%3Flang%3Des%26ModuleId%3D10005452%26MediaId%3D1873&usg=__EyO1IRl3neHlMbZ8_-VaDc0N68o=&h=342&w=256&sz=27&hl=en&start=16&tbnid=umrtinEWj7OoRM:&tbnh=120&tbnw=90&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dhitler%2Baustria%2Banschluss%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DX) ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2009, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adolph-the-great/490027/25 "2009-03-19T19:07:16Z")
And 150,000 members of the Waffen SS (I seem to remember a greater percentage of the Austrian population than German population volunteered for the SS). ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2009, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adolph-the-great/490027/26 "2009-03-19T19:08:00Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Not so fast! [Vatican City - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vatican_city) Vatican City is a state but it is no nation. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2009, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adolph-the-great/490027/27 "2009-03-19T19:49:41Z")
> [@ShibbOleth](#): > > He also killed off a mustache style. And a name ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2009, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adolph-the-great/490027/28 "2009-03-19T20:30:22Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > As others have said, you don’t get a lot of credit for starting a war if you end up losing. Hitler was a moron. I’ve always thought that Hitler’s early successes were largely the result of other leaders underestimating the crazy. Chamberlain assumed that he could buy Hitler off with Czechoslovakia because Chamberlain didn’t think Hitler was crazy enough to plunge Germany into a replay of WWI. Stalin assumed that he could trust Hitler in the partition of Poland because Stalin didn’t think Hitler was crazy enough to fight a land war in Asia. Both men were taken completely by surprise by Hitler’s betrayal because Hitler’s actions were so strategically stupid they weren’t seriously considered as possibilities. ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2009, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adolph-the-great/490027/29 "2009-03-19T20:45:17Z")
Chamberlain knew Hitler was willing to go to war. He thought Britain needed more time to rearm. Hitler wanted to go to war over Czecheslovakia. Stalin is more complex, probably because of the streak of paranoia running through him. But I think it likely he always expected Hitler to invade - again the importance of the partition of Poland was to buy territory that could act as a buffer zone to protect Mother Russia (a traditional Russian foreign policy goal), and to buy time to complete the industrialization of the Soviet Union. I am not sure either understimated Hitler. I just don’t think Chamberlain would have had a lot of success coming home from Munich saying “I hold in my hand a peace of paper that guarantees us a few more months to rearm, because we know the crazy mofo is going to pull this same shit later.” ---
**Author:** ![ivan\_astikov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/58f4c7/32.png) [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2009, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adolph-the-great/490027/30 "2009-03-19T20:49:48Z")
> [@ShibbOleth](#): > > He also killed off a mustache style. The best thing he did. There was only that guy from Sparks brave enough to wear it after him. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2009, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adolph-the-great/490027/31 "2009-03-19T21:21:20Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > And may I add, this is one of the most entertaining misspellings I’ve seen in a long time. 😃 Not in Spanish. I believe the OP is Argentinian. ---
**Author:** ![Estilicon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/848f3c/32.png) [@Estilicon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Estilicon)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2009, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adolph-the-great/490027/32 "2009-03-20T01:01:52Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Not in Spanish. I believe the OP is Argentinian. This is correct. I am lazy and sometimes I don’t bother to check the correct name in english. Anyway, I feel many missed my point, and perhaps it’s my fault: the thread title it’s a bit unfortunate. My point is that by 1933 Germany was in a depression the Versailles treaty was in place and Germans couldn’t even defend themselves. 6 years later Germany was an economic miracle, once again a world power and had tear, page by page, the Versailles treaty, but for one single page: Danzig. On September 1939 Hitler risked war with Britain and France to recover Danzig. In 1940 he had defeated all his enemies but the U.K and if he had followed the navy advice (conquest of Suez and Middle East oil fields), London Bridge would have fallen dawn. In my view till that moment Hitler could qualify as a great stateman. After that, we all know, he miscalculated badly by invading the Soviet Union and later put the last nail in his coffin when he declared war to the U.S. As Napoleon more than a century before, his success was the basis of his destruction. Of course Hitler was also the evil madman. We know now that National Socialism itself was the reason of it’s own demise: my excirse was to imagine National Socialism without it’s racism and, if you want, anti intellectualism. Incidentally (I don´t know if this justify another thread) Does anyone find Hitler attack of Poland justifiable? In order to answer take into account that Danzig was an impossible situation to begin with and one not sustainable in time. ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2009, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adolph-the-great/490027/33 "2009-03-20T02:03:30Z")
> [@Estilicon](#): > > My point is that by 1933 Germany was in a depression the Versailles treaty was in place and Germans couldn’t even defend themselves. > 6 years later Germany was an economic miracle, once again a world power and had tear, page by page, the Versailles treaty, but for one single page: Danzig. You can repeat this as often as you like, but it doesn’t make it true. When Hitler came to power, the German economy was recovering. What he did economically was unsustainable. It sped up recovery in the short term, but was running off a cliff. It was based on brutally suppressing the working class, reducing wages, enforcing labor discipline in unacceptable ways, and front loading expenditure with the intent of paying for it by raping other countries. The Versailles Treaty was already being renegotiated. Look at the Locarno Treaties, for example, culminating in the withdrawal of Allied troops from the Rhineland in 1930. What you are in essence trying to do is akin to trying to prove Bernard Madoff was a financial genius by looking at the “returns” he generated up until 2007. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2009, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adolph-the-great/490027/34 "2009-03-20T02:13:37Z")
Of course if Hitler had won WWII then anything is possible. But the reality is that when Hitler killed himself in his bunker, Germany was a flattened ruin. Communist Russia would occupy a third of the country as a colony for the next 50 years. Millions of Germans were dead, and many more were homeless. Large portions of Germany were ceded permanently to Poland and the native German population was expelled. The Holocaust isn’t the only reason Hitler is synonymous with evil. Even if the Holocaust hadn’t happened, Hitler would have been responsible for tens of millions of deaths and the ruination of Europe for decades. Compare Hitler to two non-genocidal fascist European dictators, Mussolini and Franco. Mussolini ended up hanging from a lamppost and his country occupied. Franco’s regime survived WWII and lasted another 40 years, but Franco isn’t exactly remembered fondly by most Spaniards. It turns out that now that he’s dead everyone was against him. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2009, 7:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adolph-the-great/490027/35 "2009-03-20T07:51:15Z")
> [@Estilicon](#): > > My point is that by 1933 Germany was in a depression the Versailles treaty was in place and Germans couldn’t even defend themselves. Defend themself against who? From the record, it seems the other way around – the rest of the world has to defend itself against the Germans. Frankly, just give up this thread. Apologists trying to find excuses to justify Hitler and the Nazis won’t get much support on this board. ---
**Author:** ![Estilicon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/848f3c/32.png) [@Estilicon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Estilicon)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2009, 10:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adolph-the-great/490027/36 "2009-03-20T10:46:52Z")
> [@](#): > > You can repeat this as often as you like, but it doesn’t make it true. When Hitler came to power, the German economy was recovering. What he did economically was unsustainable. It sped up recovery in the short term, but was running off a cliff. It was based on brutally suppressing the working class, reducing wages, enforcing labor discipline in unacceptable ways, and front loading expenditure with the intent of paying for it by raping other countries. According to Wikipedia, when the Nazis took power unemployment was [30%](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Nazi_Germany). I am aware of the reasons you provide for the “German Miracle”. > [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > Defend themself against who? > > From the record, it seems the other way around – the rest of the world has to defend itself against the Germans. > > Frankly, just give up this thread. Apologists trying to find excuses to justify Hitler and the Nazis won’t get much support on this board. I am speaking of events like [this.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_the_Ruhr) Also remember that I am speaking of Germany before the rise of Hitler, a country that didn’t have much of an army. The second part of your post was reported. I am not trying to justify Hitler or the Nazis. My objective was to try to answer what makes someone a a great stateman, and I used Hitler - minus the holocaust - as an example: Great Statemen usually are the cause of the death of countless persons: Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Trajan, Edward III. Great Statemen usually ultimately fail but, despite that, no one denies their role in history: Constantine XI, Charles XII of Sweden, Napoleon. Great Statemen are usually ruthless: Stalin, Franco, etc. But, because I won’t be called a nazi, specially by someone with so little grasp of history (you don’t seem to be aware of Germany’s armed forced in the early 30s), I won’t continue participating in this thread. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2009, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adolph-the-great/490027/37 "2009-03-20T13:08:46Z")
Hitler was great. Of that there is no doubt. Being evil dos’nt disqualify you from being great. How many people besides Napoleaon have been masters of Europe in oh say 1500 years? ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2009, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adolph-the-great/490027/38 "2009-03-20T14:19:02Z")
> [@Estilicon](#): > > According to Wikipedia, when the Nazis took power unemployment was [30%](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Nazi_Germany). I am aware of the reasons you provide for the “German Miracle”. Here’s a question for you - is employment a leading or a trailing indicator of economic health, do you think? And picking Stalin & Franco as “great statesmen” is a very interesting choice. Stalin I guess an argument can be made for. But Franco was a meaningless (other than for the people he abused and murdered) stain on the pages of history. You might want to report my post too, because I am starting to doubt your motivations. ---
**Author:** ![BlinkingDuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eada6e/32.png) [@BlinkingDuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlinkingDuck)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2009, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adolph-the-great/490027/39 "2009-03-20T14:37:13Z")
> [@villa](#): > > Chamberlain knew Hitler was willing to go to war. He thought Britain needed more time to rearm. Hitler wanted to go to war over Czecheslovakia. I am in the camp, seemingly by myself, that Chamberlain was not the idiot history has made him out to be. However, I do believe Chamberlain thought Hitler would have been content with the Sudantenland (sp?). When Hitler then annexed ALL of Czecheslovakia he then changed his tune.\ Chamberlain wanted peace, yes…but when confronted with the truth about Hitler, he did not flinch away after. It was too late for his political career though. ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2009, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adolph-the-great/490027/40 "2009-03-20T14:47:40Z")
Chamberlain (hard though it is for me to admit a Conservative has ever done anything right) made a very important move when he funded the radar network without any indication it would be of any use. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adolph-the-great/490027.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adolph-the-great/490027.md?page=3)