From the mouth of Aristotle

[Arryn]

Boron said:
Not if the man is gay . The most prominent example what can happen then is hitler

Hitler wasn't gay. Amongst his many psychological flaws, he appears to have enjoyed being abused and degraded by women (in private), whom he then had murdered later on (couldn't allow anyone to know he's sick and perverted). I'll leave out the details of his perVersions. BTW, Hitler married Eva Braun hours before his death, in case you've forgotten.

[Boron]

Arryn said:

Hitler wasn't gay. Amongst his many psychological flaws, he appears to have enjoyed being abused and degraded by women (in private), whom he then had murdered later on (couldn't allow anyone to know he's sick and perverted). I'll leave out the details of his perVersions. BTW, Hitler married Eva Braun hours before his death, in case you've forgotten.

Well it isn't important but Hitler was gay . Lothar Machtan wrote a 400 page long book about this were he gathered info and proved that Hitler was gay .
This is a main reason why he wanted always to become an artist because in that time only artists were allowed to be gay .
He probably even had an "affair" with Röhm .
But as politician this was at that time a No-No and so to hide this he murdered Röhm and made laws against Gays .

Eva Braun was only "camouflage" for the public .

[Arryn]

Roehm was gay. Hitler wasn't. Hitler despised gays. It was one of the reasons Hitler ordered that Roehm be shot once Roehm's usefulness was at an end.

Machtan is in a very small minority where it comes to historians' opinions concerning Hitler. To the best of my knowledge, no other reputable historian has agreed with Machtan's carefully orchestrated conclusions.

A few small details that might interest you:

Himmler had an extensive dossier on Hitler. And from 1943 on, Himmler was debating how best to remove Hitler and save the Reich (and assume control himself). Had Hitler been gay, Hitler's inner circle would have had him killed immediately (and used his homosexuality in addition to his mismanagement of the war against the USSR as justification for their actions). If not Himmler, Bormann would have done it.

Had Hitler been gay why would he have bothered to marry his "window-dressing" just before he died?

Hitler had at least 3 girlfriends prior to Eva. Hitler was no more capable of keeping the details of those affairs secret than he was of keeping any alleged homosexuality a secret. Especially when he had plenty of sharks swimming around him looking for any chance to strike at him and thus rise in power themselves.

BTW, I've been studying history, in particular Nazi Germany, for about 35 years and I'm still considering doing my Master's thesis on this subject.

[Boron]

Arryn said:
BTW, I've been studying history, in particular Nazi Germany, for about 35 years and I'm still considering doing my Master's thesis on this subject.

Wow cool . I have history as a hobby and especially world war 2 is one of my most favourite areas . I am most interested there though in the military history .

The book of Machtan is iirc quite new ( 2000 or 2001 ) . Unfortunately because Hitler was so evil research on Hitler's private life was a taboo for many years and when Machtan wrote his book a lot of contemporary witnesses were dead already .
But during world war 1 and some years after Machtan had still so many examples that he prove i think good enough at the time he wrote the book ( he said that unfortunately some contemporary witnesses were e.g. in prison until e.g. 1980 and asked questions by historians but nobody asked them if hitler was gay and when he wrote his book they were dead already ) . Nonetheless i think his numerous examples are enough to prove it .
But future will hopefully bring even more clear results pro or contra .

When he became more popular then ( ca. 1928 + ) he concealed his sexuality very well then and when he was in power he eliminated most of those who knew his little secret .


Do you have more info about that dossier from Himmler when he started to make it or a source where i can read it ?
Göring was another of his companions who wanted to replace Hitler .
I think the problem of both but especially of Himmler was that he was not very liked in puplic . And Hitler had iirc always named a successor if something happens to him who never was Himmler .
And Himmler + Göring had both a lot of power and both wanted to become Hitlers successors so perhaps they decided to wait for the "endsieg" and get rid of Hitler after that by an assasination . Especially for Himmler since he was the chief of the Gestapo too iirc that should have been easy . This is just my personal speculation though and i would love to hear your thoughts about these speculations .

Arryn said: Had Hitler been gay why would he have bothered to marry his "window-dressing" just before he died?

Well this was only a few hours/days before he suicided . It was one of his Last in vain tries to glorify him and to conceal that he is gay .

He often said he is married to germany and can't care for a woman too . Iirc he never introduced Eva Braun to the public too and only after the war begun his inner circle who was with him on the "berghof" knew that Eva Braun was his "girlfriend" .

And there was a niece of Hitler who made suicide because she was in unhappy love with Hitler too .

Arryn said:
Had Hitler been gay, Hitler's inner circle would have had him killed immediately (and used his homosexuality in addition to his mismanagement of the war against the USSR as justification for their actions). If not Himmler, Bormann would have done it.

Göring was responsible for the disaster against the soviet union a lot too . With Himmler i am not totally sure but i guess he didn't get much fame too .
And a bit later Hitler made him i think it was called "Reichsfeldmarschall" but Himmler failed there catastrophically too .

But you are very right : If Himmler had such plans in late 1943 after the disaster of stalingrad and the failed counter offensive at kursk the opportunity for him to get rid of Hitler + Göring would have been quite well .
The question is why he didn't do that .
Perhaps he feared the chaos that would have happened then probably and perhaps even led to a civil war .
Only some days of chaos without one clear leader would have been perhaps enough for the Soviets to exploit this and break through the front and encircle large parts of the east armies .
I think during a war it is very hard to replace a dictator and become the new dictator .


A grim sidequestion : Who of these 2 do you think was even more evil and insane : Stalin or Hitler ?

[Arryn]

Boron said:
Nonetheless i think his numerous examples are enough to prove it .
But future will hopefully bring even more clear results pro or contra .

I have a book that asserts, and quite well-reasoned I might add (which includes detailed forensic evidence), that Hitler did not commit suicide (he was shot by an SS officer), and that the body alleged to be that of Eva Braun wasn't her, but someone else (Eva likely died attempting to escape Berlin a day or so later, and was never found in the rubble). I mention this because that book is at least as "thorough" as Machtan's book, yet that author, too, seems alone in his conclusions. One book, no matter how "good" it may appear, does not constitute "proof" of an assertion. Especially if other experts in the field fail to agree with the assertions.

Boron said:
Do you have more info about that dossier from Himmler when he started to make it or a source where i can read it ?

I'll see if I can dig up something for you Online. The actual dossier is, no doubt, buried in a top-secret vault in either the U.S. or Russian archives. The only "evidence" to its existence are the numerous people who knew Himmler quite well and who have alluded to it over the years.

Boron said:
Göring was another of his companions who wanted to replace Hitler .

Not really. But Goring was a highly decorated WW1 officer who thought Hitler was more-or-less inept (which Hitler was) and Goring's ego pretty much assured that he thought he could do a better job. Which he couldn't, as the Battle of Britain and Stalingrad's relief proved beyond any doubt. Though Goring couldn't have done worse than Hitler, either. (It's very hard to imagine anyone doing a worse job of managing the war than Hitler did.)

Boron said:
I think the problem of both but especially of Himmler was that he was not very liked in puplic .

Goring was actually popular. Himmler, OTOH, most assuredly wasn't.

Boron said:
And Hitler had iirc always named a successor if something happens to him who never was Himmler .

After the Hess fiasco, it was Bormann. At the end of the war, Hitler actually named Doenitz as his successor.

Boron said:
Especially for Himmler since he was the chief of the Gestapo too

The Gestapo chief was actually Heinrich Mueller, who in turn reported to Himmler.

Boron said:
And a bit later Hitler made him i think it was called "Reichsfeldmarschall" but Himmler failed there catastrophically too .

Himmler was "Reichsfuhrer SS", a unique and higher-ranking title (in essence, a "six-star" rank).

Boron said:
But you are very right : If Himmler had such plans in late 1943 after the disaster of stalingrad and the failed counter offensive at kursk the opportunity for him to get rid of Hitler + Göring would have been quite well .
The question is why he didn't do that .

Himmler's almost schizophrenic mindset on the subject of Hitler. On the one hand he adored Hitler and had immense personal loyalty to him. On the other hand, the cold, calculating part of him knew that Hitler had to go. In between, Himmler's fear of what would happen to him should Hitler find out that he was plotting against him. Days before the war's end, Hitler did find out and ordered Himmler's death, after stripping Himmler of all his titles and offices.

Boron said:
A grim sidequestion : Who of these 2 do you think was even more evil and insane : Stalin or Hitler ?

That is a VERY tough call. Stalin (by far) had more of his own people killed than all the deaths that Hitler caused. But (syphillis aside), Stalin was more ruthless than he was outright evil. Hitler, OTOH, was genocidal. And demented. And perverted. I'd have to pick Hitler.

Saddam Hussein is in the same league as Hitler, BTW.

[Boron]

Very interesting answers Arryn . You are right that one book can be very reasoned but maybe not correct . This is why i wrote but future will hopefully show more arguments pro or contra Hitler being gay .

Arryn said:
Himmler's almost schizophrenic mindset on the subject of Hitler. On the one hand he adored Hitler and had immense personal loyalty to him. On the other hand, the cold, calculating part of him knew that Hitler had to go. In between, Himmler's fear of what would happen to him should Hitler find out that he was plotting against him. Days before the war's end, Hitler did find out and ordered Himmler's death, after stripping Himmler of all his titles and offices.

Not really. But Goring was a highly decorated WW1 officer who thought Hitler was more-or-less inept (which Hitler was) and Goring's ego pretty much assured that he thought he could do a better job. Which he couldn't, as the Battle of Britain and Stalingrad's relief proved beyond any doubt. Though Goring couldn't have done worse than Hitler, either. (It's very hard to imagine anyone doing a worse job of managing the war than Hitler did.)

Göring at least tried to replace Hitler after his dead . Though it is so sad i find this always amusing that Göring really thought he becomes Germany's first "Bundeskanzler" when the war was off .
You are right probably that Himmler was more dangerous there .
If he would have had in addition to his "Waffen-SS" the Airforce which Göring had he would have perhaps killed Hitler already . But in the current state both had significant powers and both didn't want to grant the otherone more power so they "balanced" them .

Btw i am not that familiar with Stalin do you know if he had that significant opposition in his "inner circle" too with most of them only lurkering for a chance to get rid of him ? And do you know how many assasination attemps were made on Stalin ?

Arryn said:

That is a VERY tough call. Stalin (by far) had more of his own people killed than all the deaths that Hitler caused. But (syphillis aside), Stalin was more ruthless than he was outright evil. Hitler, OTOH, was genocidal. And demented. And perverted. I'd have to pick Hitler.

Saddam Hussein is in the same league as Hitler, BTW.

Stalin always seemed so pleasant in his productions like the good old uncle .
Hitler seemed always like a maladjusted child .
But Stalin had more time to let him look better and he had the "won the war" bonus .

I heard in a documentation some days ago for the first time that Stalin had made some really ugly things with his own population for which i even don't know a german similiar action :
Coming once 20-30 minutes too late to work was a crime . You got a few years prison for that . During the war it was modified : You had to go in a punishment batallion .
Your main job there was called euphemistically armed reconnoissance . That meant you had to attack the german lines and the generals observed then the german counter fire to evaluate if an attack was promising .
If you were seriously wounded you were allowed to retreat but if you weren't you were shot .

Furthermore no russian soldier was allowed to go into war captivity . After the war most of the freed russian soldiers were sent into "gulags" for lots of years because they made the crime of becoming a war captive .
And after the war Stalin once again murdered most of his officers . He would have murdered even Schukov but he was too popular .

So i really don't know who of the 2 was even worse .

Saddam is of course evil too but he isn't in the same league as Hitler and Stalin . He couldn't do as much damage fortunately only local and not semiglobal like Hitler and Stalin .
To make a dominioncomparison : Saddam would be a devil while Hitler + Stalin would be Arch demons .

If Saddam would have had really a nuke i am quite convinced that he wouldn't have had a rocket to shoot it only into germany and definitely not to shoot it far enough to hit the usa . Basically only the soviet union and the usa have this knowledge . France e.g. has no ICBMs they need to workaround this by putting them on submarines .

[Arryn]

Boron said:
Btw i am not that familiar with Stalin do you know if he had that significant opposition in his "inner circle" too with most of them only lurkering for a chance to get rid of him ?

He didn't. Beria made sure that there were no threats to Stalin. Not even minor ones. Stalin's regime was by far more ruthless and efficient than Nazi Germany at quashing any dissent. Also, you must remember that, unlike Germany, Russia at this time lacked a (well-educated) noble class, especially one that was highly skilled at the arts of war and politics as was Germany's.

Boron said:
And do you know how many assasination attemps were made on Stalin ?

I don't know offhand. I could look it up if you need me to.

Boron said:
Your main job there was called euphemistically armed reconnoissance . That meant you had to attack the german lines and the generals observed then the german counter fire to evaluate if an attack was promising .
If you were seriously wounded you were allowed to retreat but if you weren't you were shot .

The Russians elevated the concept of "cannon fodder" to all-time lows.

Boron said:
Saddam is of course evil too but he isn't in the same league as Hitler and Stalin .

If you take the time to study the rise of Saddam, and his rule, you will learn that he's as wicked as Hitler (and as perverse in his own ways), and as ruthless as Stalin (perhaps even more so). The ONLY thing that has kept him from joining Hitler and Stalin's ranks is that as the leader of a (relatively) small nation (as far as industrial might and population goes) he never had the chance to commit crimes on the same scale. But he most assuredly would have had he been able to.

Boron said:
Basically only the soviet union and the usa have this knowledge . France e.g. has no ICBMs they need to workaround this by putting them on submarines .

You left out China, India, and Pakistan. As well as the UK and North Korea. And Israel. France does have ICBMs. Their subs carry 64 of them, each missile with a 6000km range and 6 MIRVs with a 100-150Kt yield. 6000km is more than enough range to qualify as an ICBM.

[Stormbinder]

Arryn said:
That is a VERY tough call. Stalin (by far) had more of his own people killed than all the deaths that Hitler caused. But (syphillis aside), Stalin was more ruthless than he was outright evil. Hitler, OTOH, was genocidal. And demented. And perverted. I'd have to pick Hitler.

I would have to agree with Arryn's conclusion. I also studied a lot of history and in particular the history of WW2, this is my major hobby.

Both Stalin and Hitler were mass murderers, but Hitler was the only one in this "unholy" pair who murdered based upon nationality. Stalin mostly murdered whose that he though to be potentially dungerious to his reign or to "cummunism" ideas, he didn't use henocide against any particular nation. Although Stalin certanly murdered more of his own people than Hitler. According the various sourses anywhere from 15 to 25 millions died in Stalins's GULAGs during his reign. But than again Hitler murdered much more in the global scale.



As Arryn said it is a very tough call, but I would aslo pick up Hitler as being more evil of these two.



EDIT: As for the suggestions that Stalin was going to attack Germany in 1941 - it is pure nonesense. I have read few books about this very subject, written recently by few authors, who became quite popualr and was milking this idea for all it worth. Thir facts and arguments didn't hold much water, and they were riped appart by real professional historians.

That being said, yt is possible that Stalin was thinkng about backstabing Hitler somewhere in the distant future, if Hitler would be stupid enough to allow him to do it. But that was at best the remote possibility at least few years later, assuming Germany would provide him an opening. Stalin and Red Army was nowhere near being prepared for the invasion into Germany in 1941, and to face Wermaht war machine on their own turf, the best army in the world who have just crashed the every major and minor military power in continantal Europe. Especailly not after the beating Red Army itself got from the tiny nation in Winter War, and Stalin understood it very well.

[Boron]

Stormbinder may i ask you too if you know any good realistic world war 2 strategy game ?
Your detailed post where you gave advice to Tinktank seeking a good rpg impressed me . You said there rpgs are your favourite genre but perhaps you have a good advice for me too

If you and Arryn recommend the same game to me it is even better because then i know that this game is most likely good

At the moment i like steel panthers world at war most tactically and i think Hearts of iron is quite good strategically .

I am really looking forward to HoI 2 and world in flames from matrixgames .
Any other recommendations or do i already have the probably best games for this genre for my special taste ?