Because of German anti-Semitism, the Allies gained:
Albert Einstein
Edward Teller
Jon von Neumann
Hans Bethe
Leó Szilárd
Felix Bloch
Franz Simon
Nicholas Kurti
Did I exaggerate earlier? Sure. Forgive me if I’m a little peeved by the idea that Nazi Germany was somehow “clever” for thoughtlessly losing those towering scientific minds because of their fixation on persecuting and eliminating the Jews.
Thanks to them, America had the Manhattan project. Were the eventual consequences of the nuclear research ultimately a good or a bad thing? That’s a great debate, not a general question. But it can’t be denied that it was a great scientific advance, and one that was not equalled by the Nazis.
I assume he’s referring to the Night of The Long Knives, when Hitler consolidated his power in the Nazi party by killing off all his rivals (and lots of other people). Don’t know if I’d call it clever - brutal and ruthless, with a strong dose of paranoia, seem to be a better description.
The jet engine as we now know it was invented independently in the 1930’s by Frank Whittle (in Great Britain) and Hans von Ohain (in Germany). The engine used in the U.S. aircraft was built from plans for one of Whittle’s engines already flying in the U.K.
They weren’t very clever when they decided to attack the USSR. That was a fatal mistake. And like others have said, their achievements aren’t “Nazi” achievements anymore than inventions in the US since 2001 are Republican achievements or inventions beween 1993 and 2001 were Democractic achievements.
What, exactly makes you say such a thing? Do you think that the great minds Germany produced were the result of the Nazi’s pursuit of higher education or something? The brilliant scientists Germany produced were brilliant before the Nazis came to power; the Nazi’s just abused the talents of many of those they didn’t scare off.
Cite? IIRC, the industrial base was not all that poor, although it benefitted greatly from Hitler’s refusal to pay reparations (which I have to admit was not a bad idea).
The nation was united by Bismarck. The Nazi’s inherited that, plus the mythic nationalism promoted by the likes of Wagner, plus the “stab in the back” excuse for the loss of WWI. And it doesn’t take a lot of genius to induce a frightened and desperate populace to go to war.
Only as an example: In the beginning of the war, the French (and perhaps the English) had better tanks than the Germans’ tin boxes; at the end of the war, the Soviets had better tanks than the Germans. The Germans under the nazi regime developed a lot of fine weaponry, but it is a myth that they were technologically superiour in all or any aspect. Fighters, bombers, tanks, you can’t say that the Germans had “the best” of anything (though of course you could, and some will debate this forever). Most of the “genius” of the nazi regime had little or no impact on the war outcome – and you can find clever blueprints from any nation’s war archives, no doubt.
Remeber, it took a democracy to go to the moon. (Though it wasn’t a democracy who ultimately beat the nazis, but the beast from the east, like it or not.)
“Clever” does not describe the pitiful record of the Nazis in covert communications and the performance of their intelligence service (Abwehr) during the war (relying on an encryption device that was solved and its output used against the Germans for much of the war, plus the futility of their spying effort - including the jailing/execution and/or double agent creation that was the fate of virtually every agent sent to Britain). That the Abwehr’s chief eventually turned against Hitler does not explain this failure, which is remarkably similar to the rotten record turned in by the German intelligence service during WWI.
Horrendously unclever military tactical decisions were, of course, of greater import.
As noted, this would have been considerably advanced (although doubtfully by “100 times”), had they not driven away minds like those of Einstein.
dwarfed by the British and later American development of anti-sub tactics which resulted in the sinking of the greater part of the German sub fleet.
When you start at rock bottom, it’s hard to go anywhere but up.
Efficient enough, but better than anyone else, including the Soviets?
But no comparison to the Japanese and their Ginsus.
Kill millions, cause your country to be left in smoking ruins (as well as trying to destroy the functioning remnants on your way to commit suicide) and yeah, the reviews can be merciless.
Um, I’d remove the word “attempted”.
Few people know it, but the Fuehrer was a really great dancer.
I’ll see your Japanese and raise you a Gurkha .
I think most of what Germany achieved technology and strategic value wise is dwarfed by Radar and the Enigma Engine.
It seems to me that that one might consider the Nazis clever if they had managed to rebuild the post-WWI German economy without having had to resort to the seizing of land area of their neighbors and the persecution, looting of property and murder of a large proportion of their own population. Any idiot can prop up an economy through looting; once the loot runs out, however, then what?
To add on what the other posters have said, when the Nazis came to power, Germany had a sound industrial base, and was recovering from hyperinflation and the stock market crash. When the Nazis were out of power, the German industrial base had been destroyed, the economy was in ruins, a large number of Germans were dead, and the surviving Germans were starving.
Maybe not all that far, though, depending on whether one accepts claims that massive attacks against civilians in the Filipino-American war at the start of the 20th century qualified as genocide.
