BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Ron Davies
Date: 26 May 09 - 09:59 PM

Truth be told, it's probably not the attitude toward GE employees which is the problem.

On the other hand, the attitude toward blacks, Jews, Catholics, Mexicans etc...

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Riginslinger
Date: 25 May 09 - 12:34 PM

I can recall when Ronald Reagan was selected to host the General Electric Theater. He used the notoriety to launch into a campaign for president, and was probably the only General Electric employee that I ever came to fear and hate.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Ron Davies
Date: 25 May 09 - 12:27 PM

Not afraid of me. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I am neither Catholic, Jewish, Mexican, black, nor an employee of GE--nor a strong Christian or believer of any stripe.

It seems to be mainly these which summon forth the Queen's irrational fear and hate. Who knows why.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Riginslinger
Date: 24 May 09 - 09:20 PM

Well, Ron, as long as you are going to refuse to research anything, he's certainly not afraid of you. Though maybe he should be, collectively, if theres enough of you, and you all vote.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Ron Davies
Date: 24 May 09 - 01:05 PM

As usual, the Red Queen of Mudcat tells only part of the story. I suppose we should be grateful he got any part of it;   usually his version and the truth have only a coincidental relationship. MSNBC is owned both by GE and by Microsoft--as he should have been able to figure out.

Ah well, perhaps he needs to get some more input from "America's Most Stupid Conspiracy Theories",   which must be his favorite show by far.

So now he adds another to the list of his all-powerful foes:   Catholics, Jews, Mexicans ( a bit of overlap there with an earlier entry) and now GE. Ah yes, and not to forget his sworn enemies: sources, facts and logic.

I wonder if there's anything he's not afraid of.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Riginslinger
Date: 23 May 09 - 08:36 PM

What can I say, robo, call up the board of directors and bitch!

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: robomatic
Date: 23 May 09 - 05:30 PM

"...still waiting for the worldwide Jewish banking conspiracy to pay a dividend..."

               Maybe we forgot to mention, it only pays dividends to members of the conspiracy--though "conspiracy" is not really the right word.

Well, according to YOU, rig, I qualify.

still waitin'....

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: GUEST,CLETUS HARDDINGER
Date: 23 May 09 - 02:24 PM

I never much git ta say anything on theez kinda threads but heers one I know the answer to cuz I got a solid forth grayd edgeekashun!

Iffen Stalin had lived 10 yeerz longer heeda bin 10 yeerz older.

CLETUS

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Riginslinger
Date: 23 May 09 - 12:00 PM

Of course the owner's names are different that show up on the titles, but one is owned by Murdoch and the other is owned by America's largest defense contractor.
                         You need to do more research, Ron, and quit worrying about sources. This is all common knowledge.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Ron Davies
Date: 23 May 09 - 11:12 AM

This is too pathetically easy but:   Fox News and MSNBC are not in fact both owned by Mr. Murdoch---(whose real name is probably thought by Mudcat's Red Queen to be Murdochstein ). The Queen will have to dig into his bottomless bag of stale conspiracy theories to find another one.   Tough luck.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Riginslinger
Date: 23 May 09 - 09:48 AM

"What if MacArthur had gone on to attack Manchuria in the Korean war?"


                     I suspect we'd still be there, the economic boom of the '50s and '60s wouldn't have happened, Vietnam probably wouldn't have happened, and Ronald Reagan would have become an opium addict in Los Angeles.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Riginslinger
Date: 23 May 09 - 09:45 AM

"...still waiting for the worldwide Jewish banking conspiracy to pay a dividend..."

               Maybe we forgot to mention, it only pays dividends to members of the conspiracy--though "conspiracy" is not really the right word.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 23 May 09 - 09:33 AM

What if MacArthur had gone on to attack Manchuria in the Korean war?

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: robomatic
Date: 23 May 09 - 08:59 AM

still waiting for the worldwide Jewish banking conspiracy to pay a dividend

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Teribus
Date: 23 May 09 - 03:10 AM

I'll stand by what I said Rig, newspaper journalists and editors do not write history.

A historian will use every source of information he can uncover. If something is worth reporting in the media that newspaper report will not be the only thing that records the event.

Changes in the way things are reported by the media over the years have to be taken into account as well. 100 years ago events were reported far more factually than they are today. What you get today is spin and predetermined opinion.

100 years ahead someone will pick up a copy of Piers Morgan's Daily Mirror and state that British troops abused Iraqi prisoners and provide photographic "evidence" to back it up - what that researcher will not know unless he has all the subsequent editions of the newspaper and other newspapers of the period will be that the photographic "evidence" was all fake and the incidents reported never happened at all. A historian will look at the photographic evidence and question it, if that historian studies military history and is familiar with the period they will deduce very quickly, from fairly basic sources (relating to uniform, equipment and weapons), that the photographs are fake.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Riginslinger
Date: 23 May 09 - 12:22 AM

I'm sure it pains you to discover that Fox News and MSNBC are on the same side, but...

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Ron Davies
Date: 22 May 09 - 11:06 PM

Now, run along, don't you have some important TV to watch--maybe "America's Stupidest Conspiracy Theories", or something of that nature?

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Riginslinger
Date: 22 May 09 - 10:20 PM

Ron - I might quibble with the "Red Queen" analogy, but at least I don't use the Wall Street Journal as a source--which I thought was the point of this stretch of this conversation.
                     I think Hitler's murderous nature being due to his Catholic upbringing came from some place else. I think he was motivated by other forces.
                     As far as Hillary, I think she would have made a fine president, but Obama has surprised me. I'm very pleased with what he has done so far.
                     There is no real danger in the world-wide Jewish banking conspiracy--though it was kind of unfortunate what George Soros did to the UK a few years back--but I don't like the idea of being manipulated by outside forces.
                     Illegal immigration has pretty much done in California. It would be a good thing, in my opinion, if Obama does not bail them out and the people there are forced to deal with the problem that has caused them so much misery. Obama says he's going after the employers, though, which is a much better policy than George W. Bush's non-policy.
                     The Wall Street Journal is a good source if one wants to know how many bushels of corn were produced in Iowa last yeae, but as a political source, it's in the bag with the the New York Times.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Ron Davies
Date: 22 May 09 - 09:55 PM

Oh, don't be hard on poor Rig. Just think of him as Mudcat's very own Red Queen.   Believing 6 impossible things before breakfast is child's play for him.   All he has to do is open his mouth and another pops out.   Let's see:

1)   Hitler's murderous nature is due to his Catholic upbringing.

2) Hillary would have been a stronger opponent for McCain.

3) That perennial favorite:   the danger of the world-wide Jewish banking conspiracy

4) The Brown Peril:   Illegal Mexican immigration will destroy the US.   


6 things?   No sweat.    And then another 16 before lunch.


But he does provide good comic relief. Anytime the discussion threatens to actually get anywhere, the class clown steps in.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: robomatic
Date: 22 May 09 - 02:13 PM

Rig:

You stream together a bunch of disparate factoids (not fact, reported as fact) frankly cherry-picked out of the thin silicon that is wikipedia and we are left with no additional knowledge but a very definite implication.

Even an organ grinder's monkey could do better!

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Riginslinger
Date: 22 May 09 - 11:50 AM

Well, Teribus, the discussion was really about "sources." One poster on this thread seems to think nothing can be true without a source. If the source was something Uncle Herb said in 1952, and Uncle Herb died 10 years ago, it has no credibility to him.

                        On the other hand, when we see historians research a topic, they often go back to the media of the day, be it newspapers or hieroglyphics. I would agree that historians--at least those without an axe to grind--get it more right than popular media, but they are still influenced by what is found. And certainly more by what is not found.

                         Therefore, if you have a conspiratorial media that is keeping some voices silenced, 50 years down the road, those voices won't be found by even the most dedicated historians.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Teribus
Date: 22 May 09 - 11:02 AM

There again Riginslinger - History is not written by newspaper journalists or editors - so who does or does not provide financial backing to Rupert Murdoch is totally irrelevant.

I am actually amazed that there are any people left who actually believe what is written and reported in newspapers these days.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Riginslinger
Date: 22 May 09 - 06:59 AM

Over the course of the last year or so, we've been advised by many sources that Rupert Murdoch has purchased the Wall Street Journal--along with a series of other media outlets that were owned by the Journal. And we see posters use the WSJ as a source, but is that a reliable source?
          The following items were found in various Wikipedia sites. The source is Wikipedia:

Within a few years Murdoch was acting as the front-man for Oppenheimer, Bronfman, Armand Hammer, and the Rothschild empire. This almost limitless financial backing is the real force behind Murdoch's mercurial rise to control, among his other media interests, a yearly newspaper circulation of 3.5 billion copies.


Hammer was born in Manhattan, New York to Russian-born Jewish immigrants Julius and Rose (Robinson) Hammer.[5] His father (from a family that had made and lost its fortune in shipbuilding) was brought to the United States from Odessa in 1875, and settled in The Bronx, where he ran a general medical practice and five drugstores.

The Rothschild family (often referred to simply as the Rothschilds), is an international banking and finance dynasty of German Jewish origin that established operations across Europe, and was ennobled by the Austrian and British governments.

The Bronfman family is one of the most influential Jewish families in the world. It owes its initial fame to Samuel Bronfman (1889-1971), who made a fortune in the alcoholic distilled beverage business during the 20th century through the family's Seagram Company. The family is of Russian Jewish heritage. Most of its members are Canadian citizens, most of whom are based in Montreal and New York City.

Harry Frederick Oppenheimer (28 October 1908 – 19 August 2000) was a prominent South African businessman and one of the world's richest men. In 2004 he was voted 60th in the SABC3's Great South Africans.
The son of Sir Ernest Oppenheimer, Harry was born to an assimilated Jewish family of German origins in Kimberley, the original centre for diamond mining in South Africa, and lived most of his life in Johannesburg. He had a formal Bar mitzvah ("coming of age") ceremony in the Kimberley synagogue when he turned thirteen.


       So any source owned by Rupert Murdoch is probably not going to report much about the better part of Hitler, and will omit elements they don't want to see surface about WWII.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Ron Davies
Date: 21 May 09 - 10:36 PM

Talk about those who "ramble on meaninglessly"--that wisdom about history and the victors was right on cue. I couldn't possibly have come up with a better illustration.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Ron Davies
Date: 21 May 09 - 10:31 PM

If you don't think there is such a thing as a reliable source, especially when confirmed by other sources, you have no place in a historical discussion--though you will be a master of wasting everybody's time.

I'm sorry, but a Mudcatter who for instance believes that Hitler had no choice but to grow up a mass murderer since he was raised a Catholic, is not quite as reliable a source as some published authors might be.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Riginslinger
Date: 21 May 09 - 10:16 PM

It must have occurred to anyone who is a student of history that the "story" is written by the victors. Therefore something might very well have happened and have been handed down by word-of-mouth through generations, but when a heckler demands to know "what's the source," the documentation is hard to come by.
                              Consider the factions that control what is published in the mean stream media today, and the many issues that you, yourself, might know a great deal about, and how often what is reported to the public is blatantly wrong. But you saw what you saw, and you know what you know, while the public continues to believe the fairy tale because you simply don't have a microphone.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Ron Davies
Date: 21 May 09 - 10:09 PM

As far as I can tell, Germania appears to be a novel. But it's certainly true that Donitz and others were desperately grasping at straws to try to persuade the Western Allies to join them in an anti-Bolshevik crusade. I've just recently read a fascinating book called Tapping Hitler's Generals.   British intelligence set up a means to record, between 1942 and 1945, conversations of German high-ranking prisoners--officers-- they had set up in an (amazingly luxurious) estate in North London.   The Germans discussed freely--and argued with each other, forming cliques etc., often on the basis of attitudes toward Hitler, and dealt with questions of the war in great detail. They appear to truly have not realized they were being recorded, since some gave incriminating anti-Semitic remarks and discussed atrocities, etc.

Among many other things, the excuses given are amazing, as are the stories of how some at least tried to bring soldiers who committed atrocities--against Russians at least,--to justice. And how any attempts to do so were steamrollered by higher authorities.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Ron Davies
Date: 21 May 09 - 09:31 PM

Too bad, LH, that you feel compelled to sink to gutter language.

It's simple. Either you can refrain from making unsupportable statements or you can support them. Among other assertions "A good number of German soldiers" shot themselves rather than be taken prisoner by the Soviets.

Source?

Either you can support that with a specific quote from a reputable, and verifiable, source, or it bears all the field marks of somebody running off at the mouth just to hear himself talk.   I'm sure you wouldn't want to be lumped with those who ramble on meaninglessly, so since you are not one of that sort, you can support what you say.

When I make a historical assertion, I'm prepared to back it up.

I have too much respect for history to accept dubious notions--without evidence. So sorry if that doesn't meet with your approval.

But you may as well get used to it--or go back to your what-if's--the ostensible topic of this thread--which will be safe from my unwanted queries for evidence, logic, sources etc.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: robomatic
Date: 21 May 09 - 09:06 PM

Little Hawk, as usual you mean well but you don't always mean what the rest of us mean.

To say the Germans were fighting for Germany is to overlook that they were fighting for Germany in Poland, they were fighting for Germany in Belgium, Czechoslovakia, in Norway, over England, in France, in Russia. Much as the Japanese were fighting for Japan in Korea, China, Russia.

You have an automatic sympathy for the underdog, no matter how much of a cur he might be.

I just finished a book called "Germania" which concerns itself with the end of the Hitler regime and the brief Doenitz government. As the Americans and English are encountered, Doenitz is trying to surrender under terms that the Germans will immediately become allies of the West and proceed against the common enemy, the Soviets. Their desperation and exhaustian has fed this delusion to the extent that they can't comprehend that the West won't do this.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Little Hawk
Date: 21 May 09 - 01:42 PM

Ron, we have nothing to argue about on this particular subject. I know you must find that somewhat disappointing, but we don't, so kindly piss off.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Teribus
Date: 21 May 09 - 12:41 PM

Apologies that should have read

"In the wake of a German victory France would have lost her colonies to Germany and that would have set Germany on a collision course with Great Britain."

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Teribus
Date: 21 May 09 - 10:38 AM

Had Stalin lived 10 years longer, I believe that the Soviet Union would have collapsed very rapidly after his death.

Had the French retained Canada after the Seven years War, a number of things would have followed that would have had a significant impact on that side of the "pond". There would have been no War of Independence and there would have been no expansion by the "colonists" westward into the Ohio and Wabash Basins, Britains fledgling colonies on the eastern seaboard of America were hemmed in by French and Spanish possessions, and it would have they who would have "Won the West" - a thing I suppose the natives would have been much happier with.

Points made regarding what would have happened if Germany had won the First World War rather fancifully allows France retention of her overseas possessions. Now I say fancifully as IIRC Kaiser Bill at one point or other prior to the totally pointless stramash that became known as the "Great War" was known to have wittered on about Germany "winning her place in the sun". In the wake of a German victory France would have lost her colonies to France and that would have set Germany on a collision course with Great Britain.

While the thinking behind the treaty of Versailles was seriously flawed (at the insistance of Clemanceau) Hitler would have been stopped dead in his tracks if he had been confronted the second that Germany started to break and ignore the conditions of the treaty that they had signed.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Ron Davies
Date: 20 May 09 - 10:27 PM

"Minutiae".   Anything the poster says. I like facts. Evidence. Logic. Some people like empty pontificating--no particular person meant, of course.

The poster is of course welcome to actually provide some evidence. With source.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Little Hawk
Date: 20 May 09 - 10:21 PM

That's what I mean, Ron. They were fighting for Germany. That's what I MEAN when I say "that society". And they were fighting, naturally, for their fellow soldiers, and their families, towns, and cities....as any soldier does.

If you weren't so busy trying by hook or by crook to find something...anything....some tiny bit of minutiae...to disagree with me about, you wouldn't keep misunderstanding what I am saying in the first place.

Your combative attitude is the problem here, Ron. We DO not disagree about anything substantial on this subject, and you are wasting your time and mine looking for a dispute that isn't real.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Ron Davies
Date: 20 May 09 - 10:02 PM

"...5 years fighting for that society".   I'd disagree.   They mainly fought for Germany, and, as soldiers always do, for their fellow soldiers---not for the 3rd Reich. Hitler tried to merge the two--but for most of the military that was a veneer, which was long gone by the final stages of the war.

It was not despair at the destruction of the 3rd Reich which drove some to suicide--and I'd still like some figures on numbers of suicides. and a specific, reputable source.   I'd particularly like some hard evidence that more than a few soldiers committed suicide.

I just pointed out that the main reason by far for any to commit suicide was fear of falling into the hands of the Russians, since many were aware of the incredibly inhumane treatment meted out by the 3rd Reich to the Russians, and, with good reason, feared payback. And some women did commit suicide after their treatment by the Russians.

The main reason any--aside from Hitler's inner circle--would commit suicide, was not    despair at the disaster after "having given your all for your country" but a very personal fear--primarily a well-grounded fear of the Russians.

It is not reasonable to make generalizations about the Germans and the Japanese together on this topic.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Little Hawk
Date: 20 May 09 - 03:43 AM

Don't get carried away by overestimating what I mean when I say the word "many", Ron. I am not suggesting that a large percentage of the overall German population committed suicide, but I am suggesting that quite a significant number of ordinary soldiers and civilians did so under the stress of facing total defeat and destruction of the society they had just spent over 5 years fighting for to the best of their ability. They were in despair. It was that despair that drove most of them to suicide, not some kind of fanatic loyalty to Naziism (although that would have applied in a few cases).

I'm not talking about the bigwigs like Goebbels, Hitler, etc...I'm talking about ordinary people. Many Berliners in particular committed suicide, specially a considerable number of women who had been raped and beaten by Russian soldiers. A good many German soldiers shot themselves rather than be captured by the Russians, because they expected that being captured would lead to far worse suffering than they wished to endure...and a worse death than a self-inflicted bullet.

And they had good reason to think so. Most of the German soldiers who were taken prisoner by the Russians went east to concentration camps from which they never returned. They died in those camps.

As regards the vast number of people who fled west toward the western Allies...you are dead right about that. Any German who could find any feasible way to escape west and surrender (with the exception of Hitler and Goebbels and Mrs Goebbels) made the utmost effort to do so.

I was not suggesting that "many" Germans in the western theatre of action committed suicide at war's end. I was referring to those in the Russian-occupied areas.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Ron Davies
Date: 19 May 09 - 09:53 PM

I know I said I would only read, not comment. And as long as it's just speculation, fine. But when assertions of historical fact are made, it is reasonable to ask for evidence.   "Many German soldiers and civilians" committed suicide in the last days of Nazi Germany. I don't think it's reasonable to count the Volkssturm in this category--they thought they were defending Germany.   And what "many" German soldiers and civilians did at the end of World War II was flee west, hoping to avoid being captured by the Russians.   I know personally two of them--I used to work for one--and there were far more who did this than committed suicide.

It would be quite easy to provide evidence for this view.

The self-identification of most Germans with the Third Reich was quite weak by the end of the war, certainly not enough to commit suicide---aside from Hitler's inner circle-- Goebbels and his wife being obvious examples, who also had their children killed. The exception was if suicide was considered better than capture by the Russians.   Quite a few were quite willing to surrender to Westerners.

However, if there is in fact evidence to support the "many Germans committed suicide" theory, we can certainly consider it.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 May 09 - 04:47 PM

It does feel pretty unbearable to lose a major war, specially if your own country is invaded and devastated during that war and specially if you have given your all for your country. Many German soldiers and civilians committed suicide in the last days of Nazi Germany. Many Japanese also, needless to say, killed themselves in despair when they found they had lost the war. It seems unbearable at the time, and there's a deep grieving process that people go through. Then you start rebuilding, and life resumes.

Many nations have gone through this. The southern states of the USA went through it in 1865. The northern and most of the western states have never gone through it.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Monique
Date: 19 May 09 - 03:08 PM

I agree about the long run. I suppose the French, as other people, wouldn't find unthinkable a different outcome of long passed wars -let's say 150+ years. Actually, I don't believe a different outcome of WW I and WW II to be "unthinkable", I feel it more as "unbearable" therefore we don't want to even think of it, as Shimrod said. But... in the year 2525 if man is still alive, if woman can survive they may find...

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 May 09 - 10:47 AM

That sort of thing is usually unthinkable to people, Shimrod....but it's not nearly such a big deal in the long run as they think it is. A German victory in 1918 would not have been the end of France, England, democracy, civilization, liberty, or anything else we hold dear.

Monique, you made a good point there! ;-D

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 19 May 09 - 04:34 AM

Thank you, LH.
I suspect that you're right. I also suspect that, given the level of suffering and death that the First World War entailed, the idea that the world might have been a better place if the Allies had lost it is just unthinkable to many people.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: robomatic
Date: 18 May 09 - 09:47 PM

Y'see- Back to Nonexistence Theory, which I invented in the late sixties, which then went out of existence in the early seventies, but which encompasses an infinity of threads like this one as a minor corollary-







-Which does not exist!

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Monique
Date: 18 May 09 - 01:36 AM

Little Hawk, I agree that probably most of us would disagree, but they could ask "What if we had won the 1870 war when we lost Alsace-Lorraine" etc etc and we can go backwards on time till we reach "what if some apes hadn't 'lost' a pair of chromosomes = we wouldn't be here asking what if's..." and it would spoil the whole chat, wouldn't it?

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Little Hawk
Date: 17 May 09 - 09:29 PM

The French, however, would probably disagree passionately with my views on that! ;-D

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Little Hawk
Date: 17 May 09 - 09:20 PM

If Germany had won the FIRST world war, it might have been a rather good thing, I think.

It would have left the French and the Russians weakened. The Russian Revolution would probably have occurred anyway in much the same way, either before or following a German victory. The French would have retrenched after the war and done some soul-searching...and they would probably have lost a small amount of land around Alsace-Lorraine, the traditional piece of ground that the Germans and French have fought over repeatedly. There would have been NO cause for the future rise of either Hitler or the Nazis. The German overseas empire in Africa and Asia would have been secured for a time, but I doubt that the British would have suffered any notable defeat themselves in the war (except for their armies on the continent of Europe), so Britain would have remained strong in the world regardless with a huge navy...and their naval rivalry with the Germans would have continued as a potential source of some future conflict. The Austro-Hungarians were so disorganized by 1914 that they might well have gone on to their own revolution, even if the Central Powers had won the First World War. Germany would have become the strongest and most secure nation on the continent of Europe...matched by the similar power of both Great Britain and the USA.

I find the whole scenario considerably preferable to what DID happen with Hitler and the Nazis.

I think it would have been a more stable and less dangerous situation for the world than what did occur in 1914-18.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 17 May 09 - 07:42 AM

What would have happened if Germany had won the FIRST World War? And why does no-one ever seem to ask this question (apart from me, of course)?

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: robomatic
Date: 16 May 09 - 08:26 PM

Skivee:

I'm interested in your Intrepid research, i.e. what sources are there how does this stuff get confirmed, y'know the epistemological realities of our past. I think it might be worth its own thread because it concerns more than mere 'what ifs'.

BTW, local public television (US) just aired a mini series documentary with re-enactments about Stalin, the Nazis, and the West. I don't really think there was much that was new there but I'm wondering what the motivation was for someone to dredge up a lot of nasty stuff about Soviet German Polish inter-nastiness.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: GUEST,Skivee
Date: 16 May 09 - 07:35 PM

Ron, that unknown guest at 5:57 was me above...again.
I dunno what the problem is.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: robomatic
Date: 16 May 09 - 06:26 PM

RIG:
you writted:
Okay - I think this whole thing is getting way off topic. To the extent that it's my fault, I apologize. The only thing I know about banks is I'm always getting screwed by them. I just thought they'd do the same thing to big time customers like Henry Ford--maybe not.
                  In any event, I don't want to insult anybody else, so I'm just going to shut up about it.

Being 'screwed by' banks is not what is the issue:
This is what brought a reaction from me and at least one other:

   These are people who had to deal with Jewish banking cartels. We are experiencing now what they were dealing with then.

You are trying not to insult anybody 'else', but you already passed a calumny against Jews. You seem to have made an association between Jews and banks. Your last post in which you apologize evades the Jewish part and tries to make it simply a matter of banks. To me there are a couple of issues, your problem with banks, (which may also be my problem with banks), and your association of banks with Jews, which you have not buttressed with any facts. Peter K above made a similar allusion before he disappeared, also with no support. I think the nasty part of this is the seagull approach to this attack(fly in, crap, then fly out- no harm done).

If you've got something against 'Jewish banking cartels' float it out or specifically say you have no information, you were just passing gas so to speak.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: GUEST
Date: 16 May 09 - 05:57 PM

Ron, my replies to your posts have been vanishing for a few days. My cookies are disappearing into the ether.
I am researching the underlying truths in the Intrepid book, including a visit to the National Cryptological Museum.
With luck, I'll have verifiable info before the thread goes away.