Were the Nazi's the cleverest people ever?

kelly5078 writes:

> 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.

I had nothing to do with this. Why would you . . . Oh, you must mean my cousin Richie. For what it’s worth, the late eighteenth through the mid-twentieth century were the heyday of nationalism all over the world. Most of the present-day conceptions of one’s loyalty to one’s country were formed during that time. Nationalism was so popular in the nineteenth century in Germany that many Jews were supporters of it. Germany as a united country didn’t even exist until the nineteenth century. The mythic support given to nationalism by people like Wagner were only a part of what caused it to become so popular.

Hitler had the Spear of Destiny mojo working. It just made them *seem * clever.

Given that everything the Germans did either followed from non-Nazi technology (was Goddard an alien?) or was quickly equalled or surpassed by non-Nazis and non-Germans, those aliens weren’t very impressive. I mean, what, the aliens couldn’t give Hitler an ICBM?

Also, get your facts straight. The Nazis weren’t working with Extratrerrestrials as we commonly picture them, but with elder gods via Rasputin. Geeze, read your Hellboy.

While the OP’s first example is exceptionally silly, this is not quite the reason. In most respects, heavy water was the best technical choice for a moderator and this was recognised in all the wartime projects. The snag that everybody then faced, however, was getting enough of it. It was therefore the wrong choice under those particular circumstances of a crash programme to build a useful reactor in wartime, but it wasn’t a dead end per se.
No, what the OP overlooks is that German progress was underwhelming even if one narrows the issue to just heavy water reactors. Chicago Pile 3, using natural uranium and a heavy water moderator, went critical at Argonne in May 1944 - see e.g. sections 8.55 to 8.62 in the Smyth Report. The Germans were at least a year behind that and more probably several. Not an obvious example of an “impressive” achievement on their part.

So the Nazis weren’t very clever, but German society in a post-WWI period, a period not noted for its economic boom time in Germany, was producing great and creative scientific minds, who went on to create scientific ideas such that the world had not seen since the time of Newton. Yup, Germany in its nationalistic Nazi fervor failed to exploit some of that intellectual resource because they were of “inferior stock” (and killed off intellectualism in general actually) but they “germinated” in that land nevertheless.

Why? What was special about Deutschland uber alles in that time period, at least in regard to scientific advances?

You forgot to list the medical advances made by Joseph Mengala.

As well as great looking uniforms they also had some really cool songs to march to.

Also Hitler was not only a great dancer he just adored cream cakes.

But clever, the Nazis? nah, stupid yeah

Reading up a little, it seems that Weimar Germany was a hotbed of intellectual accomplishment in many fields, as Wikipedia states

Nazism destroyed what produced it. Not very clever. Still, there was enough gas in the tank to drive some military technologies through.

But how did Weimar Germany get so intellectually accomplished, so much so that Germany could intellectually even survive the ravages of Nazism?

The Weimar had an intellectual and artistic heritage - the Nazi’s drove it to technological advances.

I’m amused that my initial “silly” post has been followed by the Nazi’s starting the first world war and the heralding of the Enigma engine as surpassing Nazi technology. It’s wierd that the Nazi’s used the engima machine for so long before we cracked the code (only after capturing one.) I think there are some confused posters here.

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.

Many posters have heralded ANTI Nazi technology as being superior. This misses the point that we had to raise our game to get there. I suggest many are responding emotionally to this thread rather than logically.

I don’t think you really thought through that notion before posting it. If, in our hypothetical situation of an American loss in the Pacific, history books would say we committed genocide against Japan, they would be lying. The US did not initiate the conflict with Japan, did not have as a stated goal the extermination of any class among the Japanese people, fought primarily against the Japanese military throughout the war, stopped killing Japanese, both military and civilian, when Japan surrendered, and withdrew from Japanese territory after a relatively short occupation. Contrast that with the Nazi regime, which, as undisputed fact, initiated war against its neighbors with the expressed intention of expanding its territory and occupying siezed lands forever, expended vast amounts of energy murdering enormous numbers of non-combatants from its own and neighboring territories, and continued doing so right up to the moment of its surrender.

Are you now going to claim that the Nazis did not in fact practice genocidal tactics against Jews, Gypsies and other classes of people who were no military threat to them? Because I think you’ll find that a rather difficult sell.

“Seen as attempting genocide?” WTF? According to my dictionary genocide is the planned, deliberate destruction of a particular group. Do you mean it’s not genocide, only attempted genocide, if the complete eradication of the group isn’t accomplished?

The things that Germany accomplished during the war were no more Nazi than the building of huge numbers of airplanes, ships, tanks and the like by the US were Democratic party achievements.

People are getting involved in the emotive arguements here - semantics around genocide etc.

Not one person has even conceded that the V2 “doodlebug” was years, decades in advance of the allies. Jeez, people seem indoctrinated here.

Can’t that case be made though given your definition? Analogous to attempted homicide v. homicide?

Not that I’m supporting anything else Imonfire is saying, I hasten to add.

The V1 was the doodlebug, and the V2 was indeed years ahead of the competition. But the Allies concentrated on things that were actually going to win the war - planes and tanks etc. Oh, and the atom bomb.

Incorrect. You have put forward the proposition that there is something inherent in Naziism that caused German technology to be more ‘clever’, in some as yet undefined manner, than non-Nazi technologies. Several posters have pointed out defects in your arguments, and I note that you have yet to address any of them directly, preferring instead to hijack your own thread into a discussion of the semantics of genocide, then pretending that someone else had brought up that subject. Refuting your poorly-presented arguments does not become “emotionalism” simply because you say it is.

You of course refer to the V1, not V2. What was the relative effectiveness of the V1, in your opinion; what was its benefit to the German people and how long, would you say, did it stave off Germany’s defeat?

Frankly, if we are simply considering technological inventiveness absent of any other consideration, then I agree; German aviation of the period is an excellent place to start. The V1, the V2, the Me 262 (its axial-flow turbojets became the dominant configuration over Whittle’s centrifugal-flow design) Messerschmidt’s swept-wing fighter designs that clearly inspired US and Soviet developments of the 1950s, Horten’s flying wings, the first practical helicopters, the undoubted cleverness of designs such as the He 162, which maximised performance despite an almost complete lack of strategic materials with which to build it; all quite clever, no doubt.

But how clever was it to use the Me 262 as a light bomber rather than in its natural role as a high-performance fighter? How clever was it, in a time of shortages of strategic materials, to commit to building thousands of turbojet engines with operating lifespans of less than 25 hours each? How clever was it to allow the simultaneous development of all these different, competing weapon designs, when what was needed were enormous numbers of standardized weapons if the Nazi regime were to have any hope of averting its downfall? Spreading out its limited assets in this way, and having no idea for the future, other than endless conquest, to prop up its economy, simply doesn’t seem all that clever to me.

Lastly, you persist in attempting to sweep aside the genocidal tendencies of the Nazis as if they are irrelevant to your premise, but the items you originally listed, as well as the ones I’ve just mentioned, were in fact developed to facilitate those genocidal tendencies and so they must be considered. Were the purposes these things were put to good or useful purposes, in your view? Yes or no?

Sorry, but in my opinion, you have put forward a rather poorly formulated premise and so far have not supported it very well.

I think you seem to want to ignore 20-30 posts ,most, more than ably giving you your answer:

No, absolutely not - the Nazi’s were not the most clever people ever - they were not even the most clever people in the 32-45 timeline.

As to the V-2:

Lets remember that Ballistic, liquid fueled missiles were developed by the father of Rocketry - Robert H. Goddard and American. So start there - really the V-2 could been seen as a Nazi-fied souped up American Invention. German interest in Military rocketry started in 1927 - 6 years before Hitler took power.

The V-2 was different in that it contained a Jet Pulse Engine that allowed supersonic flight and had a unique guidance auto pilot. That’s about it.

The Nazi’s did not invent the Jet Engine (what the V-2 used). They improved a specific type of engine - a jet pulse engine - and it was simply not true that it was decades ahead of everyone. In fact only modern improvements have made jet pulse technology useful for anything other than rockets - it was a evolutionary cul d’ sac for Jet engines from the 40’s to the 90’s.

Its guidance systems were too primitive to hit specific targets, IOW it could hit a City but not a block - or even a quadrant of a city. Hardly decades ahead of anyone

Ultimately I don’t think many people would argue - and to echo the point others are making here - that the V-2 rockets were (yet another) military blunder by the Nazi’s as it diverted attention, resources and money from things that might have helped Germany more - For instance wiki says
its costs were approximately equivalent to four-engined bombers, which were more accurate (though only in a relative sense— see discussion in strategic bomber), had longer ranges, carried many more warheads, and were reusable

So the cleverest people ever have a choice do the V-2 or build (at least) 3,172 4 engine bombers -(or spend the money making/improving tanks, artillery, guns etc) and, as usual made the wrong choice.

I think this is a bad analogy. Murder is ordinarily an act against one person. If two people are involved then there are two murders. So you can either kill one person or fail to do so. The first might be murder and is certainly homicide, while the second is attempted murder.

Genocide refers to the homicide of the members of a certain group. If you kill 50%, 20%, 80% or any other percentage it’s still genocide. It seems to me that “attempted genocide” would be making all the plans and assembling the equipment needed to kill the members of a group but being stopped before you could carry your plan into action.

I agree with you, to be honest. The definition seems to be quite elastic though, as shown by your quoted one, which implies succesful completion. I suppose there is a legally tight one out there somewhere. Anyway, can I just say thanks for helping protect my mum and dad when they were youngsters, if that isn’t too forward a thing for a complete stranger to say.

I think you are very confused about the V1, V2, and jet engines.

The V1 used a pulse-jet engine, which is a simple design. People have made them in their garages for powering model aircraft. Very noisy, though.

The V2 used a liquid-fuel rocket engine, which was far more advanced than anything that Goddard had built.

The ME-262, and some other German aircraft, used jet turbine engines.

They may have been a waste of resources, but they were impressive examples of technology.

I’d also mention German torpedo and submarine technology, which made some great advances towards the end of the war, but too late to affect the outcome.

Thanks, but when they needed protection I was still a Dumbjohn Aviation Cadet. By the time I arrived in the ETO the need for protection had long since passed.