Battle of the Bulge

[harmonica]

the Germans did a great job of keeping it as secret as possible:
general officers risked death for any leaks
straw used on roads to deaden vehicle sounds
night fighters flying over head at night to mask movement sounds
vehicles parked with camo/under trees/etc
...the Germans were very good--good with discipline/sound-light-etc discipline/camo discipline/etc
etc etc

And poor at being human.

they were just like any other soldiers, except possibly the SS
many say they were the best soldiers regarding fighting ability
many German General Officers were HUMAN--like Rommel/etc
Admiral Canaris knew hitler was not good for Germany
do you know about My Lai?

 

[there4eyeM]

There is no justification of the Wehrmacht, and certainly not by comparing them to other atrocious humans. This type of arguing against a worse or equivalent wrong isn't right.
If you want really want sick, degenerate examples there are the Spaniards in the Americas, Genghis Khan and many others. That doesn't make the German Army any better than they were, and they were horrible. What they did in Russia during their long decline into self-immolation was done by the majority of the soldiers there, not just the S.S.
As for My Lai, that horror was small potatoes on your scale of how to rate outrages. Even there, according to the rules from Nuremberg, West Moreland and on up to Nixon could have been convicted and hanged.
What about Kent State?
Inhumanity and war crimes are seldom punished, and never cured. But no doubt, American troops always seem ready act like all others throughout time and kill like machines.

 

[Syriusly]

Sure Germany was desperate and Hitler was insane but why was Ike attending a series of Christmas parties while Americans could actually hear the roar of freaking tanks as they relaxed in what they thought was a secure area? Somebody should have gone to jail but the media immediately took the offensive proclaiming the tragedy of the Ardennes offensive to be some sort of victory for the allies because some American general said "Nuts" to a German. Pop history is an amazing thing.

Maybe you should actually support some of your claims?

Which ones do you think are untrue? Did Ike attend Christmas parties? Did the Troops think they would be home for Christmas and was the worst intelligence failure in freaking history downplayed or ignored?

Like I said- maybe you should actually support your claims.

I understand that backing up your claims is a new concept for you. But that is what I am challenging you to do.

 

[Syriusly]

The attack was a disaster for Hitler

Correction- the attack was a disaster for the German people. Germans knew that the Russians were going to rape, murder and pillage- and should have concentrated their forces on slowing down the Soviet onslaught while stripping the Western front bare- and just letting the Americans come in.

 

[Syriusly]

There is no justification of the Wehrmacht, and certainly not by comparing them to other atrocious humans. This type of arguing against a worse or equivalent wrong isn't right.
If you want really want sick, degenerate examples there are the Spaniards in the Americas, Genghis Khan and many others. That doesn't make the German Army any better than they were, and they were horrible. What they did in Russia during their long decline into self-immolation was done by the majority of the soldiers there, not just the S.S.
As for My Lai, that horror was small potatoes on your scale of how to rate outrages. Even there, according to the rules from Nuremberg, West Moreland and on up to Nixon could have been convicted and hanged.
What about Kent State?
Inhumanity and war crimes are seldom punished, and never cured. But no doubt, American troops always seem ready act like all others throughout time and kill like machines.

While there is some degree in truth in what you say- troops in war time do horrible things- there are certainly degrees- and the behavior of the American troops towards civilians and pow's for the most part- was far better than that of the Germans, the Soviets or the Japanese.

 

[Syriusly]

The Battle of the Bulge isn't a right or left argument, it's tragic history. I'm as critical of future republican president Eisenhower as I am of the FDR administration and the media at the time. Ike should have been relieved of duty but the FDR administration had absorbed the media to use as a propaganda tool and the main issue became the heroism of American Troops rather than the profound negligence that led to the deaths of almost 20,000 Americans abut six months before V.E. day.

Big claims. Unsupported.

Certainly there was a failure of military intelligence- but hard to pin that on Ike.

If you replace military commanders everytime they make a single mistake- and disregard the rest of their performance- you just teach commanders to never take chances and always try to get someone else to approve their decisions.

 

[Syriusly]

It is always a mistake to underestimate an enemy. Commanders, however, are also subject to overestimation. McClellan could have ended the Civil War two years earlier if he'd had just a little Napoleon in him.
No one, it must be said, on the Western Front would have expected more than annoyance strikes from the German lines, given how desperately they were engaged with the Red Army. A full scale offensive looked out of the range of possibility in addition to being absurd. What could such a campaign accomplish? Where would it be going? What would be the goal?
Perhaps there was over confidence at work, but it was far from strategic error.

. FDR was dying and hard charger General George Patton was discredited by the media and Ike was exhausted. COS Marshall never commanded a combat unit and had no idea of strategy so the Ardennes Offensive became a reality.

FDR frankly was irrelevant in this situation- no President would have been reviewing the depth of troops along the entire European theater. Same with Marshall- he was responsible for the entire American war effort- not the strategy in Europe.
And was Ike exhausted? Any more than any of the generals were?

And as far as Patton- he was busy to the south of the Ardennes with his own battle- and knowing how Patton was, hard to believe that his concern would have been the Germans attacking in the Ardennes- and taking more troops out of his offensive to cover for that possible attack.

 

[sparky]

There is no justification of the Wehrmacht, and certainly not by comparing them to other atrocious humans. This type of arguing against a worse or equivalent wrong isn't right.
If you want really want sick, degenerate examples there are the Spaniards in the Americas, Genghis Khan and many others. That doesn't make the German Army any better than they were, and they were horrible. What they did in Russia during their long decline into self-immolation was done by the majority of the soldiers there, not just the S.S.
As for My Lai, that horror was small potatoes on your scale of how to rate outrages. Even there, according to the rules from Nuremberg, West Moreland and on up to Nixon could have been convicted and hanged.
What about Kent State?
Inhumanity and war crimes are seldom punished, and never cured. But no doubt, American troops always seem ready act like all others throughout time and kill like machines.

My Dad was in Pattons army...the 106th armoured division ..... Dachau was one of his many stops.....quite the revealing story! ~S~

 

[rightwinger]

The attack was a disaster for Hitler

Correction- the attack was a disaster for the German people. Germans knew that the Russians were going to rape, murder and pillage- and should have concentrated their forces on slowing down the Soviet onslaught while stripping the Western front bare- and just letting the Americans come in.

Probably correct

But they deserved whatever wrath they got from the Russians

 

[harmonica]

There is no justification of the Wehrmacht, and certainly not by comparing them to other atrocious humans. This type of arguing against a worse or equivalent wrong isn't right.
If you want really want sick, degenerate examples there are the Spaniards in the Americas, Genghis Khan and many others. That doesn't make the German Army any better than they were, and they were horrible. What they did in Russia during their long decline into self-immolation was done by the majority of the soldiers there, not just the S.S.
As for My Lai, that horror was small potatoes on your scale of how to rate outrages. Even there, according to the rules from Nuremberg, West Moreland and on up to Nixon could have been convicted and hanged.
What about Kent State?
Inhumanity and war crimes are seldom punished, and never cured. But no doubt, American troops always seem ready act like all others throughout time and kill like machines.

My Dad was in Pattons army...the 106th armoured division ..... Dachau was one of his many stops.....quite the revealing story! ~S~

my uncle was with the 45th Div, 179th Regiment also at Dachau
some of the 179th shot SS POWS, but not my uncle's battalion
....he brought back numerous memorabilia - including not one but two Knight's Crosses--one of the most sought after souvenirs...also a CZ-27 pistol, armband, pennant, Spange, etc

here's a story on how one soldier had to control chaos at Dachau

A Fighting Foot Soldier of the 45th

 

[Picaro]

Sure Germany was desperate and Hitler was insane but why was Ike attending a series of Christmas parties while Americans could actually hear the roar of freaking tanks as they relaxed in what they thought was a secure area? Somebody should have gone to jail but the media immediately took the offensive proclaiming the tragedy of the Ardennes offensive to be some sort of victory for the allies because some American general said "Nuts" to a German. Pop history is an amazing thing.

Bottom line is Hitler overplayed his hand and failed
His decision hastened the collapse of the Western Front

Hitler shouldn't have had a hand to play. FDR was dying and Ike was apparently instructed to stand down pending the arrival of the Russian allies and a lot of Americans died. Modern under-educated "historians" brush it off because they were taught to trust FDR no matter what.

FDR had nothing to do with the Battle of the Bulge
Ike had his objectives

Ike stopped his advances just where he said would stop in his original plan back in 1942, a defensible line much better than the line that could be set up near Berlin, which was not even an important target militarily. Not joining in the race to Berlin was the smart tactic; nothing to gain by it, it was just rubble and nobody important left alive there.

 

[Picaro]

It is always a mistake to underestimate an enemy. Commanders, however, are also subject to overestimation. McClellan could have ended the Civil War two years earlier if he'd had just a little Napoleon in him.
No one, it must be said, on the Western Front would have expected more than annoyance strikes from the German lines, given how desperately they were engaged with the Red Army. A full scale offensive looked out of the range of possibility in addition to being absurd. What could such a campaign accomplish? Where would it be going? What would be the goal?
Perhaps there was over confidence at work, but it was far from strategic error.

Well, we know the goal, to drive through and seize the port and depot at Cherbourg,if iirc, one of the Channel ports anyway, and 'cut the allies in two'. The only problem with that is no air support, and then nothing at all to hold on to their flanks with, against several full and well equipped Armies on either side, is all ... that's why it was such a ridiculous strategy and no one expected such stupid ideas. AS it was, they couldn't even break the northern U.S. flanks or hold them, and certainly they had nothing on their left to stop even the rather small U.S. offensive there that finished them off. We suffered a lot of casualties, but not active units, so even that can't be counted as anything for the Germans, just pissed off more Americans, is all.

 

[Sunni Man]

America fought on the wrong side in Europe during WWll.

We should have allied with the Germany and helped them defeat the Russian communists. .....

 

[Pilot1]

My Dad was in Pattons army...the 106th armoured division ..... Dachau was one of his many stops.....quite the revealing story! ~S~

My Dad was in Germany 1945 - 1948 and was one of the U.S. Army medical officers assigned to the Nuremberg War Crimes trials. He knew many of the top Nazi's as people, and patients. Times were different back then. They would sometimes have dinner together with U.S. and other country's officers, and the Nazi prisoners.

He saw some of the Concentration camps right after liberation. Not a pretty sight, and it affected him for the rest of his life.

 

[Pilot1]

America fought on the wrong side in Europe during WWll.

We should have allied with the Germany and helped them defeat the Russian communists. .....

We had more of a relationship with England than a hatred for the USSR at that time. Also, aligning yourself to a madman like Hitler would have never ended well for the U.S. I do believe an argument can be made that we bent over for the USSR at the end of WWII which set us up for a LONG, and COSTLY Cold War.

 

[Sunni Man]

We had more of a relationship with England than a hatred for the USSR at that time. Also, aligning yourself to a madman like Hitler would have never ended well for the U.S. I do believe an argument can be made that we bent over for the USSR at the end of WWII which set us up for a LONG, and COSTLY Cold War.

Actually, during the years right before America got involved in WWll.

A large segment of American citizens, and many notable people, had a very favorable view of Hitler's Germany. ...

 

[rightwinger]

The Battle of the Bulge isn't a right or left argument, it's tragic history. I'm as critical of future republican president Eisenhower as I am of the FDR administration and the media at the time. Ike should have been relieved of duty but the FDR administration had absorbed the media to use as a propaganda tool and the main issue became the heroism of American Troops rather than the profound negligence that led to the deaths of almost 20,000 Americans abut six months before V.E. day.

It is not tragic history......it is the nature of war

We hit them, they hit us

Like any major offensive, stealth is critical. We did not expect them to attack through the Forrest and they did a great job of concealing their troops

Want tragic history look at D Day where we created a bogus Army and faked them into believing we would attack at Calais

 

[rightwinger]

America fought on the wrong side in Europe during WWll.

We should have allied with the Germany and helped them defeat the Russian communists. .....

We had more of a relationship with England than a hatred for the USSR at that time. Also, aligning yourself to a madman like Hitler would have never ended well for the U.S. I do believe an argument can be made that we bent over for the USSR at the end of WWII which set us up for a LONG, and COSTLY Cold War.

We did not bend over for the USSR
They kept the territory they fought and bled over. No matter what we did, they were not going to give up territory they had fought for
It was non negotiable

 

[Picaro]

Stalin and Hitler were both all the same as far as dictators go. Neither was 'preferable' to the other, both mass killers and scum. Hitler and the Japs declared war on us, not the other way around. Both proved there is no refuge or even sense in isolationism, a lesson we keep forgetting over and over and over.

'Allies' are nice once in a while, but at some point they stab you in the back, and we have to be able to dump them the second they do, and we're seeing a European trend in giving us the finger after getting fat, dumb, and happy for decades at our expense, same with Asia for that matter, and their societies are disintegrating by their own national suicides. We'll be back in Europe probably within 20 years, sorting out their garbage yet again for them. 'World Wars' are not a thing of the past, despite what you're being told by academic idiots, and 'globalism' has always been a massive failure, no matter what Wall Street keeps telling you.