# Were the Nazi's the cleverest people ever? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 10, 2006, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-nazis-the-cleverest-people-ever/379905 "2006-11-10T18:41:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2006, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-nazis-the-cleverest-people-ever/379905/81 "2006-11-13T02:41:23Z")
[QUOTE=Iamonfire] That UN definition could also apply to the UK bombing of German cities during WW2. [/QUOTE] It was never the intent of the Allied bombing campaign to destroy the entire population of Germans, or a subset thereof, so in fact the UN definition doesn’t fit there. > [@](#): > > It could also apply to me killing a Muslim. Not unless you did so as part of a program to kill them all, or to kill all Sunni Muslims, or some such thing. > [@](#): > > It could also apply to the Bali Bombings. What was the population intended for annihilation there? > [@](#): > > It could also apply to a lone gay bashing incident. No, it could not. Gays are not a “national, ethnic, racial or religious group.” ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2006, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-nazis-the-cleverest-people-ever/379905/82 "2006-11-13T02:47:13Z")
[QUOTE=Iamonfire] That UN definition could also apply to the UK bombing of German cities during WW2. [/quote] I think it’s pretty much agreed that the allied, US and UK, bombing of cities was a deliberate attack on civilian populations. That comes from the agreement at Casablanca between Churchill and Roosevelt to implement the Portal Plan to bomb German residential areas to stifle war production. However bad as it was in retrospect, this was killing with a definite military objective in mind and not just because the victims were of a particular group. The upshot of the whole thing is that all war, even so-called “good wars,” lead people to do things that are unconsicionable. Nevertheless, the bombing were not genocide by the definition because they were not done because the targets were a member of a group but rather as what was presumed by the bombers to be a military necessity. > [@](#): > > It could also apply to me killing a Muslim. > > It could also apply to the Bali Bombings. > > It could also apply to a lone gay bashing incident. > > By this definition the BNP, the Klan and ANYONE going to war could be cited as genocide. You will have to take any deficiencies you find in the UN definition up with the UN. For better or for worse, that’s the ordinary definition of genocide. You are just being silly. If you kill a Muslim you are not committing genocide unless to intend to, and procede to try to kill all Muslims. If you do that, it’s genocide. And, as for the Klan, I do believe that they could have been charged with genocide when the organization was first formed. As quite possibly could the USA with regard to the Native Americans had the concept been developed at that time. > [@](#): > > Where did I say that? You didn’t have to say. The implication is clear that you regard the killing of millions of people for their ethnicity as only attempted genocide because all of those Jews, gypsies, _et al_ weren’t exterminated. If you don’t agree, then just what would you consider genocide, as opposed to attempted genocide to mean? ---
**Author:** ![Iamonfire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b3f665/32.png) [@Iamonfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iamonfire)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2006, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-nazis-the-cleverest-people-ever/379905/83 "2006-11-13T03:03:50Z")
[QUOTE=David Simmons] However bad as it was in retrospect, this was killing with a definite military objective in mind and not just because the victims were of a particular group. [/quote] Highly subjective. We decided to kill German civilians - therefore genocide. The Nazi’s could have said that killing jews was a military necessity because it freed up resources. [QUOTE=David Simmons] You will have to take any deficiencies you find in the UN definition up with the UN. [/quote] You quoted it originally. [QUOTE=David Simmons] You are just being silly. [/quote] No I’m being literal [QUOTE=David Simmons] The implication is clear that you regard the killing of millions of people for their ethnicity as only attempted genocide because all of those Jews, gypsies, _et al_ weren’t exterminated. [/quote] Implied by whom? I simply stated that this was attempted genocide and a holier than thou moral backlash occured.“Complete genocide” “partial genocide” it’s is still systematic killing of an entire religion, race or nationality. I sense the moral panic has come because there is a fear about holocaust denial rearing its ugly head. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2006, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-nazis-the-cleverest-people-ever/379905/84 "2006-11-13T03:15:51Z")
If the Nazis were so clever, why didn’t they kill Hitler? He kept them in WWII long after it became impossible to win, and his strategies contributed greatly to their defeat. Leaving him in power was a stupid decision. ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2006, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-nazis-the-cleverest-people-ever/379905/85 "2006-11-13T03:26:48Z")
[QUOTE=Iamonfire] Implied by whom? I simply stated that this was attempted genocide and a holier than thou moral backlash occured.“Complete genocide” “partial genocide” it’s is still systematic killing of an entire religion, race or nationality. I sense the moral panic has come because there is a fear about holocaust denial rearing its ugly head. [/QUOTE] So why qualify the term “genocide” at all? ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2006, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-nazis-the-cleverest-people-ever/379905/86 "2006-11-13T03:49:22Z")
[QUOTE=Iamonfire] History never favours the losers - the winning side get write the history books. That’s why the Nazi’s are seen as attempting genocide, but Enola Gay is just a sad song. Americans not attempting genocide? No, but if we had lost I’m sure the history books would have said we did. [/QUOTE] Spare us your moral relativism. It is not only an insult to the millions of people killed by the Nazis but to the intelligence of the people who post to the SDMB. The Nazis attempted genocide (and I say “attempted” only because they did not in fact suceed in killing every single Jew, Gypsy and homosexual, not for lack of trying) because they designed and developed the infrastructure to systemically kill millions of their own civilian population for no other purpose than ethnic cleansing. The atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as well as the firebombing of Dresden, Tokyo and other cities, while horrific, were not genocide. They were strategic attacks in the context of fighting a large scale war where a large portion of each countries infrastructure and industry were used in the support of that war. > [@Iamonfire](#): > > I sense the moral panic has come because there is a fear about holocaust denial rearing its ugly head. No, its that you have said something most reasonable people would interpret as asinine and people are responding to it. At best you appear ignorant and at worst you appear to have some sort of agenda. > [@Iamonfire](#): > > Take your blinkers off people, and realise that perhaps, just perhaps, we have been given a jaundiced view of the Nazi’s as a stupid goosestepping master race crushing all before them. Hey, if the leather jack-boot fits… Anyhow…to answer the OPs question, no. The Nazis were not the most clever people ever. Like any totalitarian economy, theirs was inefficient. It was good at some things like creating super-weapons like Panzer tanks, Blitzkrieg tactics and Big Bertha railroad cannons, but terrible at other things - like logistics for actually winning the war. Note that these are my impressions from various History channel documentaries so take them as you like. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2006, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-nazis-the-cleverest-people-ever/379905/87 "2006-11-13T04:00:02Z")
[QUOTE=msmith537] It was good at some things like creating super-weapons like Panzer tanks [/QUOTE] “Panzer” means tank, so that literally means “tank tanks.” They didn’t have any particularly super tanks, anyway. In any event, as you point out, if the Nazis were so clever, why was their economy so much less efficient than their enemies? Why didn’t they invent the A-bomb first? Why did they lag behind the Allies in electronic warfare, computers, and industrial productivity? Why was their intelligence service so hopelessly flummoxed by the Allied services? In other words, why did they LOSE? ---
**Author:** ![Imasquare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Imasquare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Imasquare)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2006, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-nazis-the-cleverest-people-ever/379905/88 "2006-11-13T04:03:32Z")
I don’t think that attacking the Soviet Union while still battling in the West was very clever. Pretty stupid really. ---
**Author:** ![Malienation](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Malienation](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malienation)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2006, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-nazis-the-cleverest-people-ever/379905/89 "2006-11-13T04:07:39Z")
[QUOTE=Iamonfire] Many posters have heralded ANTI Nazi technology as being superior. This misses the point that we had to raise our game to get there. [/QUOTE] Yeah, but the point is we _did_ get there. Motivation is not relevant to the issue at hand. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2006, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-nazis-the-cleverest-people-ever/379905/92 "2006-11-13T05:11:35Z")
**Romeo0310** , what does any of this junk have to do with the topic at hand? > [@](#): > > You also have the most people on skid row, wineo’s, drunks, drug addicts, divorces, college drop outs, suicides, child molesters, wife beaters, credit card debt, bankruptcies, people in jail, people awaiting trial, dope growers, backyard crack factories, serial killers, bank robberies, murders, rape and robberies (muggings) people murdered at work (going postal), children murdered at school, school kids on drugs, pill poppers, coffee drinkers, the most people in rehab at any given time Can you give me a cite that backs up any of these things? In terms of sheer numbers, this isn’t too surprising… the US is the third most-populous country in the world. > [@](#): > > the most ghetto’s where 20% of your nation speak gutter snipe English you call Ebonics… the most screwed up, back logged justice system in the Western world. A South African is criticizing America for having ghettos and a screwed-up justice system? And criticizing the language its people speak, in a manner that sounds racially insensitive? I didn’t think there was such a thing as a lethal dose of irony, but this is close to it. ---
**Author:** ![chowder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/977dab/32.png) [@chowder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chowder)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2006, 10:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-nazis-the-cleverest-people-ever/379905/93 "2006-11-13T10:43:40Z")
[QUOTE=Struan] Yeah, what did the Romans ever do for us? [/QUOTE] Well Hadrians Wall for one thing. Kept you lot out… 😃 ---
**Author:** ![chowder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/977dab/32.png) [@chowder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chowder)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2006, 10:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-nazis-the-cleverest-people-ever/379905/94 "2006-11-13T10:57:46Z")
[QUOTE=Imasquare] I don’t think that attacking the Soviet Union while still battling in the West was very clever. Pretty stupid really. [/QUOTE] Yes indeed it was stupid and Hitlers generals did point out to him that in Mein Kampf, Hitler had said that to fight a war on two fronts was inviting defeat. However, he convinced his generals that altho’ Britain was not yet defeated it was only a matter of time and that the invasion of the USSR would be complete by August/Sept 1941. After this, and assuming Britain was still fighting on, then all German resources could then be turned against the UK. ---
**Author:** ![chowder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/977dab/32.png) [@chowder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chowder)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2006, 10:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-nazis-the-cleverest-people-ever/379905/95 "2006-11-13T10:58:57Z")
For invasion (para 2) read conquest ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2006, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-nazis-the-cleverest-people-ever/379905/96 "2006-11-13T15:23:04Z")
[QUOTE=RickJay] “Panzer” means tank, so that literally means “tank tanks.” They didn’t have any particularly super tanks, anyway. [/quotes] Actually, the German word for tank is “Panzerkampfwagen”. Panzer is the shortened form of the word and the name of several tank models: Panzer I, II, III, IV > **[List of German combat vehicles of World War II](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_AFVs_of_World_War_II)** > > The German Wehrmacht used an extensive variety of combat vehicles during World War II. > The VK.31 Leichttraktor ("Light tractor") was an experimental German light fighting tank developed in the 1920s under secret conditions. Only four were produced and they were used in the late 1930s and the early part of the war for training purposes. > The Panzer I (Sd. Kfz. 101) was not intended as a combat vehicle, but more to familiarise industry and the army with tanks. By the time production had ended in... The Tiger I tanks were pretty super compared to the US Sherman tanks. My impression is that the Germans are more efficient and precise but more rigid. The Americans were more “clever” as in finding unorthidox solutions to overcome setbacks on the battlefield (like welding beach obsticales to their tanks to cut through hedgerows) ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2006, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-nazis-the-cleverest-people-ever/379905/97 "2006-11-13T17:54:12Z")
[QUOTE=msmith537] The Tiger I tanks were pretty super compared to the US Sherman tanks. [/QUOTE] The Tiger was a near-complete peice of shit, actually. We’ve had many threads on this subject before, but to sum up, the Tiger was the tank equivalent of a pickup truck that looks great and has a big cargo box and a lot of carrying capacity but that can’t go above 20 MPH and breaks down five days a week and the steering doesn’t work. Yes, the Tiger had tremendous frontal armor protection and a very powerful main gun. It also almost never worked. At any given time it was generally the case than half or more of the fleet was out of service. The engines were woefully inadequate; it took the thing forever to get going and the turret traverse rate was far too slow, and as often as not the engine would burn out and seize up after a substantial amount of use. It would have been much better to sink the money into building more gun bunkers because the Tiger wasn’t much more mobile than that. Shermans were smaller and weaker. But they worked, and they were especially effective against what Germany mostly threw at them - German infantry and light vehicles. No point in arming yourself against a weapon that sits in the shop all the time. The Eastern Front was more of the same - the Tiger was vastly more powerful than a T-34, but the T-34 was reliable and easily repaired, and the Tiger wasn’t, so most of the time it was Germans without tanks fighting Russians with them. The German tank fleet was generally filled with other models that could be relied upon to work with some consistency. The Tiger is easily the most overrated weapons platform in the entire history of warfare. ---
**Author:** ![Iamonfire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b3f665/32.png) [@Iamonfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iamonfire)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2006, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-nazis-the-cleverest-people-ever/379905/98 "2006-11-13T18:30:23Z")
Some of you lot would have made great Nazi’s. You all have an unbearable superiority, a clear idea that you are right and a pompousity that knows no bounds. I can hear you now crying for lebensraum for your private schools and 4 x 4’s ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2006, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-nazis-the-cleverest-people-ever/379905/99 "2006-11-13T18:32:32Z")
[QUOTE=Iamonfire] Some of you lot would have made great Nazi’s. You all have an unbearable superiority, a clear idea that you are right and a pompousity that knows no bounds. I can hear you now crying for lebensraum for your private schools and 4 x 4’s [/QUOTE] Dude, you’re just wrong, that’s all. What are we supposed to do, agree with you when you’re wrong? ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2006, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-nazis-the-cleverest-people-ever/379905/100 "2006-11-13T18:48:48Z")
[QUOTE=Iamonfire] Some of you lot would have made great Nazi’s. You all have an unbearable superiority, a clear idea that you are right and a pompousity that knows no bounds. [/QUOTE] Well, no. If our “pompousity” knew no bounds, _someone_ would already have pointed out to you that the plural of Nazi is _Nazis_, not Nazi’s. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2006, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-nazis-the-cleverest-people-ever/379905/101 "2006-11-13T18:51:04Z")
[QUOTE=Iamonfire] Some of you lot would have made great Nazi’s. You all have an unbearable superiority, a clear idea that you are right and a pompousity that knows no bounds. I can hear you now crying for lebensraum for your private schools and 4 x 4’s [/QUOTE] **Moderator’s Note:** I think we’re done here. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-nazis-the-cleverest-people-ever/379905.md?page=4)