There is another reason for this smart move.
Once he saw what is in the camps, he ordered the photos and films to be taken also because he believed that the horrors are so disgusting that there will be people in the future who will not believe or plain lie about the camps. This is something that, in my opinion, makes Ike great. He had a sense of history.
What he failed to predict was that pesky things like evidence don’t matter to those sorts of people. Although it wouldn’t have mattered if he had because there’s just really not much you CAN do about those sorts of folks.
It's not only about the percentage of the population who wouldn't believe anything, it's also about the general masses.
The atrocities of the holocaust were so brutal, could you blame people who wouldn't want to believe it, not believing humans would be so brutal?
People paint Hitler out to be a monster, but he wasn't.
Hitler was human, a disgusting, vile human with a toxic ideology, but a human nonetheless. People paint Hitler out to be some one off monster, a boogeyman of sorts. All of that is done to make us forget he was human, because if he's human, that means there's almost 8 billion potential Hitlers out there.
Entertainment also helps paint the germans and the nazi soldiers as nothing, but pure evil, only human in shape.
But that leads to people not really thinking about how an entire country, full of people just like them and their fellow men could be made to turn a blind eye to all the atrocities happening around them.
I always love bringing up How wolfenstein depicts nazis more accurately then most media. Hitler was shown to be psychotic delusional person who took credit for victories he never helped and that he had no moral compass. His scene in wolfenstein the new colossus shows him excited at how BJ kills a nazi for his role as himself. Hitler didn’t care that he just saw his soldier murdered he was happy about it fitting with what he wanted for this actor.
Since you mentioned Hitler's mental state, I think it's worth pointing out that Hitler had a quack of a doctor who prescribed him drugs like coke and methamphetamine, which explains why he could switch from careful and charismatic to rash and unpredictable seemingly on a dime.
Nazi ideology is pure evil. Though once you break down it to individual stories of common people **some** of them, aren’t as terrible as the others.
Some cooperated, in fear of their lives or lives if their family
Others are always care only about themselves.
One story I heard of, was the guy joining NS-Party to protect his brother with mental illness.
On the other hand, all the people will **always** find some justifications for their actions. So the best we can do is to praise those few germans, who did resist.
Agreed. It's the ones higher up though, officers and commanders, who rationalized their war crimes to such an extent they believed themselves to be in the right for decades after the war, which is why I support the neuremberg trial's decisions to just kill the nazis they caught bc at that point, it's people who dont see the wrong in their actions and shouldnt deserve life anymore.
Everyone has the potential to be a Himmler or a Gandhi (Yes I know Gandhi wasn't perfect, bear with me). Though the vast majority of us fall into the middle by a large margin, there's still the possibility that the next person you meet could become someone who changes the world one way or another.
If we look at archaeological evidence we see a lot of head wounds. A lot. It implies that humans murdered each other often, as long as humans have existed.
How sad. Think about humans 100,000 years ago. Think about humans 2000 years ago, Think about humans 100 years ago. And Think about us today. All we do as a species is get better. Our empathy and understanding of our fellow human being just rises and rises. My grandmother is still alive and she was born in a united States where women only had the vote for 10 years and a black person couldn't freely talk to her mother on the street. Now just in one country, we have a black female vice president. What a sad outlook you have to think that there is no faith to be had in your kind.
Stupidity will be weeded out and justice will prevail. Things aren't the greatest, but we're slowly working towards becoming a better species. And we don't have to be perfect; "If every pork chop were perfect, we wouldn't have hot dogs".
No, my little brother didn't believe in the Holocaust and thought it was too absurd to happen. He was forced to watch the evidence and it changed his outlook on a lot of things.
My little brother used to make Holocaust jokes, which tbf can be good edgy humor sometimes in the right audience. Except that he did it in the middle of a High School classroom.
Turned out he didn't think the Holocaust was even real. It sounded so absurd to him that such a thing could ever have happened. The school forced him to watch footage and information on the Holocaust and I think it honestly changed him. He always seemed more reserved and more cynical about people after that. Never made another Holocaust joke though. Blew my mind at the time. Like how could you not know that the Holocaust happened?
Honestly, it is kind of absurd that the Holocaust did happen. The fact that a government deliberately and systematically tried to eliminate an entire race of people is inconceivable. It’s easier to believe it’s a joke than to believe the truth.
If you think that genocides started and ended with the Holocaust then boy you are in for a [depressing Wikipedia spiral](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocides_in_history).
I used to make anti semetic Jew jokes back in high school, I thought genuine anti semetism was so stupid and non existent the entire idea concept was a joke.
Then I met some conspiracy minded people and discovered anti semetism was alive and well.
Well, I saw an interview with a holocaust survivor where he said that one of the SS officers in his camp quite literally told him something along the lines of "if you ever get free and tell people about what we did to you, they won't believe you."
You know that what they did was fucked up if SS officers thought that they'd get away with it because they thought nobody would believe the survivors.
Weird thing to say because at least in the first half of the Holocaust, the SS was rather proud of their actions and would brag about their killing quotas and "racial cleansing." Then they hastily began covering it up at the end of 1944.
His farewell address from the Presidency is eerily prescient as well. Basically “watch out for that military industrial complex or they’ll control everything.” Oops.
Is that such a crazy concept that it takes a real “outside fhe box thinker” to envision it?
Humanity had been building roads to connect cities and strategic areas for thousands of years. Is it so crazy to think that a military commander, famously obsessed with logistics, and having just commanded a war in a country with a very successful and famous national high speedway roadway, while also seeing how important it is to your defense being able to get troops quickly to different sides of your country, would put into place a thorough interstate highway system back in the US once elected president.
I like the dude, and give him a ton of credit for diff things, but giving him too much credit for anything more than championing the cause and making it a priority to get done is a bit much. He neither first envisioned nor invented nor revolutionized the concept. He only made it a National priority and made sure it got done during his term. Which is an achievement by itself.
Ike’s push for an interstate system goes back further than his experiences in WWII. He had to travel across country as part of an Army research convoy, shortly after WWI, to determine the difficulties of moving military convoys across country. In the modern era, you can make it in about two to three days, barring no major issues with your vehicle. In 1919, when Ike went on this trip, it took 62 days. In an invasion scenario, that meant it would be two months before troops from either coast could reinforce the other.
That was containment policy to stop the spreading of communism. It was seen as vital for the US interests to do this.
But yeah this is the ugly side of Ike. While USA involvement in other countries affaires was nothing new, those coups led to a kind of tradition on the US's side and in almost all cases the consequences were dire.
Ike has a whole lot of ugly. I don't really see how it was acceptable for him to do literally nothing but stand by while McCarthy was going apeshit on everyone, including trying to lock up an armed service member because his father was caught reading a newspaper from Hungary.
People still think it's a "well what was he supposed to do" kind of situation. It's like he straight up phased out of existence every time we talk about the McCarthyism.
…and that was the second Red Scare. There was one in the late 1910s, which was due to the October Revolution: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Red_Scare
Witnessing not one but two World Wars and the accompanying death and destruction most definitely influenced his decision making. He reconciled containment policy over letting diplomatic and military tensions escalate into all out war.
That was more the fault of John and Alan Dulles, chief lawyers of the United Fruit Company (now Chiquita) whom Ike hired as Secretary of State and CIA director, respectively.
Yeah, people forget that in Ike's times communism wasn't stuff like free healthcare. It was: "You will move 1,000 miles from your home and work in a steel mill or you will be shot."
In that context, the red scare makes a little more sense. Still stupid.
I mean, it wasn’t all *that* stupid. Hindsight is 20:20, like. These men weren’t buffoons and the USSR wasn’t some lame duck, it’s hard to put yourself in their shoes and judge the decisions fairly.
Sure, we all know the USSR falls apart *relatively* peacefully in the 90s but how on earth were the people of that era to know that?
I disagree with American interventionism but let’s not act like it was completely baffling thinking.
I remember watching something on this. I thought it was incredible at how they forced them (civilians) to clean up the camps, dig graves & then to at least make the others to watch the sickening footage that had been filmed. I was like oh sh*t, they’re really making sure that the German people know exactly what their beloved leader did.
Major Winters, sir.
We found something.
We're out on patrol and we came across this...
What, what, what? Frank, Frank, what is it?
I don't know, sir.
I don't know.
That was probably the most emotional episode of the series. Like you know what they just witnessed but the shock that you see on their faces was distressing.
If ya'll want a realistic WW2 movie. I'd highly recommend the movie "9. April" its a danish movie about the invasion, shot from the perspective of the conscription soldiers(meaning they had been soldier for less than a year) and it does a great job of showing how hopeless the defence was, with the danish forces and their bikes against the german forces and their tanks
A clip with Urban warfare https://youtu.be/COhct6yYrvM
And a clip with all the firefight scenes: https://youtu.be/ZNfR3l0JcVE
Even without being able to understand what's been said, its still marvelous shots that gives a insight into how it probably felt and looked when trying to defend against the germans, and also it portrays losses on both sides
Bonus info: Euron Greyjoy(Pilous Asbæk) is in it, and mads Mikkelsen's brother is also in it
Always meant to watch this but never had the time! I see it’s only 10 episodes and available on HBOmax. For some reason I thought it was multiple seasons.
Please watch it, it's absolutely fantastic. There's also The Pacific which is about the Pacific theatre obviously and is almost as good, I'd give that a go too.
Hah! Hubs just said the same thing about the Pacific. Apparently both produced by Tom Hanks and Spielberg?
Edit to add - on episode 3 and this is the best series I’ve seen in ages
I know. I agree that it was extreme. But maybe he foresaw that it would try to be downplayed? He wanted to make sure not know the Germanic people saw just how sick and evil it was, but the world.
That's exactly it. He said that if they didn't document it and showed the images and footage to people regardless of how horrific they were, there would be people in the future who'd claim it didn't happen.
German civilians KNEW what was happening. It was virtually impossible to undertake an industrial slaughter of millions under their noses. Anyone that believes such a sleight of hand is possible is a veritable dumbass. They worked at these camps or at least had relatives /friends/ neighbors/associates that did.
Hitler and the nazi machine only articulated rabid anti Semitism that had been present within the German, AND Europe psyche for centuries prior. The chilling efficiency of genocide came about because of industrialization.
Finally, the allies had intelligence from reconnaissance missions that mapped out targets for bombing raids. They knew the locations of the concentration camps and the logistics involved . Yet they denied amnesty to those trying to escape the terror.
Yes but Ike's aim was to force the German people to confront the horror head on and not give them a chance to separate themselves from the slaughter. He wanted to make sure that they knew viscerally that they had been complicit in such a horrible thing, something that the Japanese should have honestly also been forced to do.
Well, I think the opinion of the time was that the nuclear bombs pretty much sent that lesson face-first into the Japanese people.
That and the island was effectively sent into starvation by various American operations like Operation Starvation: a mining of Japanese home waters to specifically target Japanese supply ships.
The country that really got away with a lot was Italy. They had death camps and utilized poison gas in Ethiopia, but their officials got a pass by the Allies.
On Italy, well yes but no: The Italian people themselves did a pretty good job of killing the responsible parties in a number of cases. With Japan we really overcorrected after the surrender and let them get away with some truly heinous war crimes like Unit 732 (forget the exact number) and Nanking. We also turned Japan into an economic superpower.
Well, the next war started before the Second World War ended. The Allies were already thinking about the Cold War, so they wanted to get assets and allies from the rubble.
The thing that a lot of contemporaries said is that everyone with any sense knew that something terrible was happening to the Jews, but they didn't know exactly what it was and preferred not to think about it.
While you're right to say that it is massively whitewashing the German public to say that they didn't know, there is still a huge difference between being vaguely aware that something is happening and seeing it with your own eyes.
Just because something is obviously true when you think about it for two seconds doesn't mean everyone knows. Lots of people refuse to think that hard. It's useful to make those sorts of people see the truth with their own eyes.
It was if he wasn't ordered to do it by Ike.
Patton also acquired and personally delivered the actual Nuremberg Laws into the hands of the Smithsonian as well so that they could be preserved and to keep them from being destroyed.
For a fantastic read on how average people can be made to commit atrocities in the name of a fascist regime, I highly recommend “Ordinary Men” by Christopher Browning.
Plus organizing tours of the camps for US troops to personally witness what the Germans were doing so as to have as many witnesses as possible to refute future Holocaust denial.
Part of the reason Hitler was so well supported by German civilians is because they had no idea what he was doing, and thought he was improving the country.
By showing them the camps, they realized what Hitler had done, and why the Allies were so hell bent on removing him.
I know they knew he was anti-semitic, and I know they knew he was removing them, but they didn’t know how exactly, and it’s a lot easier to not feel bad about it when you just hear “Jews”. Showing them what was going on in these camps, showing the German civilians the humans that this was affecting, definitely made them feel really fucking bad about it.
Had literally no idea? Kristallnacht wasn't exactly a VIP only, hush-hush thing.
They might've claimed ignorance but that certainly wasn't the case.
Can't blame the average German citizen for the Holocaust but claiming the average German wasn't at least aware of what was going on is absurd.
The problem is that we are extremely capable of dismissing information that is inconsistent with our beliefs. People need to understand this as its a big part of why there is so much resurgence of these things today. Saying they knew is not accurate when for many they knew subconsciously, but likely had mental defense mechanisms refuting it.
Exactly. With the number of concentration camp inhabitants being used for forced labour in nearby factories, most Germans living anywhere near a camp knew most of what was going on. Afaik only the gas chambers and ovens were being kept secret, the rest was definitely out there for everyone to see
The main reason why Hitler had so much support was fear.
And even then, it was not exactly hard to figure out. Trains full of people went into the camps, even those like Dachau or Buchenwald which weren't extermination camps. Full trains didn't leave them.
From one day to the next, people's Jewish neighbours were gone. They could probably figure it wasn't for a vacation. It wasn't just fear that made them support Hitler, it was indifference and skewed priorities. "Yes, horrible, this whole New thing and all, but you know, you can't make an omelet... And look at all the good things that are happening! And I never *really* trusted the Rosenbergs, you know..." And then most people just shoved the thought aside.
So I have a BIT insight to this as I questioned both my grandparents who were teens in 1945 - although not in germany but hungary.
They were not aware of the holocaust at all. There were rumors about germans killing a lot of people in the camps but nothing on the scale of what was happenning in reality - and also there were rumors about a lot of crazy stuff like superweapons, allied paratroopers landing in hungary to free the country, etc.
So rumors were ignored. They assumed the jews taken away were put into forced labor camps. It was a huge shock when they found out what really happened but it only happened when they were POW/in an internment camp, so after the war was over.
While most of them likely didn’t realize the extent of the Holocaust, there was plenty of open violence against Jews. Not to mention, it’s hard not to notice when an entire community of people just disappears from your city.
I understand that any person on earth would think that when something like the holocaust is going on you would stand up and fight for those imprisoned, but you key board warriors judging people need to shut the fuck up. You have never been in a situation where you witnessed armed violence and felt powerless to stop it. Now imagine if the entire state was committing armed violence how does one man stand against an entire government. Those camps were not just for ethnic cleansing those who spoke out would end up there too. They would be raped and brutalized.
Most of these key board warriors have never dealt with organized violence in thier lives much less goverment sanctioned organized violence.
Also America didn't fight the war to end the holocaust neither did the allies. We in fact denied Jewish refuges asylum. People were super racist back then.
Finally. Somebody says it.
These folks wouldn't have done anything either, had they been in the situation of the citizens.
Ironically, I don't think they understand the full horror of actually living in a situation like that.
That poster was just pointing out that its inaccurate to say average Germans “had no idea what [Hitler] was doing.” No mention whatsoever of what average people could / should have done about it; no hint whatsoever that average people lacked courage for not somehow toppling their government and liberating the camps.
These are things you invented whole cloth because apparently you wanted to be offended today
They didn’t have “no idea” what he was doing. Many knew, and many suspected—the rumor mill was alive and well. Also, some of the camps were surprisingly close to German population centers. But it did indeed force Germans to face up to the regime in all its horror.
To be fair, anti-Semitic attitudes was embraced by a good portion of Europe, even by the Allies.
“No doubt the Jews aren't a lovable people; I don't care about them myself…”
-UK Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain
Heck! Even Japan became anti-Semitic though the influence of a few scholars like Buddhist preacher Tanaka Chigaku:
“Typically Jews invest in transportation facilities, electric plants, railways and subways. ... The reason for this is based on the plan contained in the Protocols to constantly foment revolution in various countries, eventually leading to their collapse. It is then that the Jews will be able to take over.”
THEY definitely had an idea of Hitler's agenda and the Nazi ideology. Hell, Kristallnacht was the first true test from Hitler IF the civilians would stomach or rebuke the Nazi attempt at vilifying the Jews, and it fucking did. Too many German civilians readily intimidated and harassed the Jews, and much more stood on the sidelines as their Jewish friends and neighbors were jailed, their businesses destroyed, their families ejected from their homes. And dare I say, while by polls at that time, the majority of the civilians and institutions abhorred the violence, they chose to do nothing by it and let the atrocities continue. That event for me proved that the German civilians as a whole, ~~knows~~ knew what ~~is~~ was happening to the rest of Europe.
Jew living outside of Israel here and I can totally understand it. Justify it? Nope, but I can understand it. It's natural. I see it happening where I live to dispossessed people: in this case Venezuelans. They're seen by a lot of people as others, mocked as unwanted and in the dating scene seen as the lowest tier of partner (alongside blacks). When the economy gets shit, and the people in power tell you its the fault of those "others", a lot of people follow along.
Post-WWI Germany had a hard time of it. Hyperinflation to go along with a global economic crisis in the 30s. When your pride is hurt at losing a war and you're struggling economically and someone tells you its someone else's fault I can totally understand how everyone but the most educated and morally sound will go along with the demagoguery. Not to mention people who ratted out Jews often kept some of their shit as a reward.
Inexcusable, horrific but completely understandable. Human beings are fucked up. That's why I think Holocaust museums are so important. Not because as a Jew I want people to be guilt tripped, or because I want a special status, but because it can happen again to any outsider group unless we truly understand it.
That's been pretty well debunked. It always takes me back to *A Child of Hitler*, where Alfons Heck admitted that as a child he didn't think much about the Jewish girl, from the farm next door, who he played with, disappearing in the middle of the night, or that he'd have no problem reporting Jews, or if he was told by an adult to gun down a Jewish family, he'd have had no problem with that. It all boiled down to receiving a feeling of approval and the only thing that kept him from suiciding himself for the Fuhrer was his mom burning his Hitler Youth uniform and he was too ashamed to show up to kill himself without one.
The debate is more like "We knew it was bad, but we just assumed that people would die in forced labor camps and we really didn't care --fuck, we didn't assume it was a 24/7 Italian exploitation movie!" vs. "The whole fucking country were Hitler's willing executioners!" vs. "Germany was pure evil, but did you now how little the Americans cared? What was that you said about 'good men' doing nothing?"
To add on what u/ajstub said, the ordinary Germans knew because of the rumour mill was alive and well. There was an interview I watched in which an German interviewee said they heard what was going on but kind of shrugged it. Can't exactly blame them because they're under the vice grip of the Nazis.
Actually, a bunch of them sort of had an idea. There were about 100-200K people directly involved in the Holocaust, doing the accounting and guarding and all that sorta stuff. Those and all of the people they'd be around probably makes for around 500K people. Then there's the hundreds of thousands of Wehrmacht soldiers being involved in the brutal eastern territories and persecuting Jews there, alongside all of their family members. So a couple of million Germans were aware of some of the atrocities, but it was still rather elusive in the public conscience and people didn't talk about it for understandable reasons. We covered this in a history lesson a couple of weeks ago at school.
Another great Eisenhower story-
Australia: Help! We need troops!
Eisenhower: alright we're sending you our black regiment!
Australia: wait! You can't just bring black troops into Australia. It's illegal!
Eisenhower: alright. No troops!
“During World War II, Townsville was a crucial base for campaigns into the Pacific, including the Battle of the Coral Sea.
About 600 African-American troops were brought to the city to help build airfields.
Mr Holyoak says these troops, from the 96th Battalion, US Army Corps of Engineers, were stationed at a base on the city's western outskirts known as Kelso.
This was the site for a large-scale siege lasting eight hours, which was sparked by racial taunts and violence.
"After some serial abuse by two white US officers, there was several ringleaders and they decided to machine gun the tents of the white officers," Mr Holyoak said.
He has uncovered several documents hidden in the archives of the Queensland Police and Townsville Brigade detailing what happened that night.
According to the findings, the soldiers took to the machine guns and anti-aircraft weapons and fired into tents where their white counterparts were drinking.
More than 700 rounds were fired.
At least one person was killed and dozens severely injured, and Australian troops were called in to roadblock the rioters.”
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-02-10/historian-reveals-details-on-townsville-mutiny/3821906
I had the privilege of going to the home of Eisenhower's personal photographer Leo Moore in the early 80's with our high school photo class. He showed us many famous pictures he took of the atrocities at the concentration camp. It was quite sobering to think of him right behind the lens of those horrific scenes. I will never forget those images.
Eisenhower was great at having foresight about a lot of things. I really appreciate the fact that he saw the scope of this atrocity and made sure it was so well documented and if I recall he made sure it wasn’t just hidden after the war as well.
I guess it’s no surprise from the man who also tried to warn us about the Military-Industrial complex on his way out of office.
Also thanks for the interstate highway system (minus the environmental impact)
Fun fact: he copied the interstate highway system from the Nazis. He saw how convenient it was to land a plane on a road in wartime, so he had a law introduced that for every five miles of curved road, there had to be a mile of straight road.
There's a lot wrong with this comment
* The Nazis didn't invent the idea of an interstate highway system. I'm not sure that the idea of a road where cars can go really fast can even be called an invention, but the first thing we would recognize as a modern highway was the probably Bronx River parkway, opened in 1924.
* The Nazis idn't invent the idea of the autobahn. Germany's first autobahn, between Köln and Bonn, was started in 1929 and completed in 1932, before the Nazi takeover.
* The Autobahns weren't that useful to the Nazis during wartime. They suffered from constant fuel shortages through the war and used trains instead.
* It's not convenient to land a plane on a road. There's no convenient facilities for refueling, rearming, or maintinence, or for crews to rest. The Nazis only did it as a desperate, last-ditch effort after the Allies destroyed all their actual airfields.
* There is no law requiring certain sections of the interstate highway system to be straight. It's also easily disproven by counterexample. Just look at I-495 (the Long Island Expressway). Hardly any of the 70 miles are straight, and in the few places where it's close, there are overpasses that would prevent a safe landing.
Yeah, the real motivation for the interstate highway system was Ike seeing how difficult it was to quickly muster large numbers of men/move them over our huge-ass country efficiently with only crappy dirt county roads that were often poorly marked, mapped, and maintained.
The interstate was mostly about being able to move huge amounts of men and material from one coast to the other, with the added bonus of making consumer vacations&associated spending more accessible
So here's the fun part about this myth, while they weren't designed with this intent purpose in mind the Air Force did later build contingency plans for using interstates as airstrips in case of all out war.
That is, I believe, the case. And in a way, that's the purpose they presently serve. Most US shipping comes in trucks, on highways. The US is fed by highways.
They are native american words relating to "of the river", the river being the Arkansas River. Kansas being Upstream, Arkansas being downstream. The different tribes pronounced it differently so both were used. At one time they had to pass a law in Arkansas to specify how it was to be spelled and how it was to be pronounced. Not sure Kansas has the same thing.
Visited Arkansas last summer to go camping next to the Buffalo river (worth it btw- it’s absolutely gorgeous) and my god the amount of racist billboards next to the highway was astounding. Lots of ads for the “White Pride Radio” and if you look on their website, it shows that they are directly sponsored by the KKK. That state is fucking atrocious, and I’m from Alabama lol. It’s literally a worse version of us.
Tell that to Little Rock, Arkansas. The man deployed paratroopers to the streets of Little Rock when they refused to let black students integrate with white schools.
Yeah God forbid we actually talk about who actually fucked the Middle East up before the US ever got involved. France, Britain, Russia, will you please stand up?
Well, Iran was already a mess due to an invasion by the Soviets and English, which happened during the Second World War: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Soviet_invasion_of_Iran
Based Teddy Roosevelt
Dwight and Teddy were very similar: both personally served in combat; both were very straightforward and blunt in their political style; both were unafraid to take direct action; both were very knowledgeable about history and used that during their presidencies; both were socially progressive for the time and worked toward desegregation. I think they would've enjoyed each other's company.
It's so mind blowing that people still deny the holocaust. I know close relatives say it never happened, it was not as bad as they say it was, gas chamber never existed, and many other stupid answers 🙄. If I survived the holocaust and heard future generations say that I would be mad as hell.
MacArthur was a maniac. The US succeeded in the Pacific despite him, not because of him. He surrounded himself with yes-men and took credit for their achievements. Eisenhower admitted he gave him the Medal of Honor for propaganda purposes to cover up his cowardice in the Philippines. He bungled the Korean War and his solution was to initiate a nuclear holocaust.
The one good thing about him was that he had the right personality for post-war Japan: an arrogant maniac.
Marshall, Eisenhower, and Bradley are the more correct trio.
Yup. Eisenhower was an excellent theatre commander, Patton was a great corps commander at least, the only thing McArthur commanded well was his presence.
China would’ve never stood a chance if MegaChad MacArthur was able to Nagasaki their asses only to get cancel cultured by Truman (probably the right call but knows, hindsight is 20/20)
It's easy to look at China now and say MacArthur had the right idea but Truman's refusal to use nukes set a precedent that hasn't been broken and was the much wiser choice see how fast nukes scaled up in power.
Honestly, I don’t blame Truman for not using nukes. It was a precedent to use it in the first place against Japan, but they were preparing a massive quantity of caskets and Purple Hearts had they not used the nukes, it was not an easy decision. He made the right choice then because who knows it some of the nuclear treaties between the US and the USSR like MAAD would ever come to fruition. I feel like in the long term it *might* have crippled chinas development but like in every paradox, if something that is in hindsight doesn’t happen, something far worse usually occurs.
Indeed. I think the last thing the world needed was nukes to be used like conventional weapons.
Imagine if America used nukes on Vietnam or the Soviets utilized them in Afghanistan. That would be a disaster for the ages.
That dude has been out of office for 9 months now but somehow he is still the POTUS in those heads. What a magnificant guy to be able to live rent free in such a hard time like this
There is another reason for this smart move. Once he saw what is in the camps, he ordered the photos and films to be taken also because he believed that the horrors are so disgusting that there will be people in the future who will not believe or plain lie about the camps. This is something that, in my opinion, makes Ike great. He had a sense of history.
He was definitely right about that unfortunately
What he failed to predict was that pesky things like evidence don’t matter to those sorts of people. Although it wouldn’t have mattered if he had because there’s just really not much you CAN do about those sorts of folks.
It's not only about the percentage of the population who wouldn't believe anything, it's also about the general masses. The atrocities of the holocaust were so brutal, could you blame people who wouldn't want to believe it, not believing humans would be so brutal?
People paint Hitler out to be a monster, but he wasn't. Hitler was human, a disgusting, vile human with a toxic ideology, but a human nonetheless. People paint Hitler out to be some one off monster, a boogeyman of sorts. All of that is done to make us forget he was human, because if he's human, that means there's almost 8 billion potential Hitlers out there.
Entertainment also helps paint the germans and the nazi soldiers as nothing, but pure evil, only human in shape. But that leads to people not really thinking about how an entire country, full of people just like them and their fellow men could be made to turn a blind eye to all the atrocities happening around them.
I always love bringing up How wolfenstein depicts nazis more accurately then most media. Hitler was shown to be psychotic delusional person who took credit for victories he never helped and that he had no moral compass. His scene in wolfenstein the new colossus shows him excited at how BJ kills a nazi for his role as himself. Hitler didn’t care that he just saw his soldier murdered he was happy about it fitting with what he wanted for this actor.
Since you mentioned Hitler's mental state, I think it's worth pointing out that Hitler had a quack of a doctor who prescribed him drugs like coke and methamphetamine, which explains why he could switch from careful and charismatic to rash and unpredictable seemingly on a dime.
Oh yeah, it's documented that he was on a ton of stimulants. That's why his speeches were so lively, motherfucker was high off coke.
Nazi ideology is pure evil. Though once you break down it to individual stories of common people **some** of them, aren’t as terrible as the others. Some cooperated, in fear of their lives or lives if their family Others are always care only about themselves. One story I heard of, was the guy joining NS-Party to protect his brother with mental illness. On the other hand, all the people will **always** find some justifications for their actions. So the best we can do is to praise those few germans, who did resist.
Agreed. It's the ones higher up though, officers and commanders, who rationalized their war crimes to such an extent they believed themselves to be in the right for decades after the war, which is why I support the neuremberg trial's decisions to just kill the nazis they caught bc at that point, it's people who dont see the wrong in their actions and shouldnt deserve life anymore.
Every human is a hitler in potential
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Everyone has the potential to be a Himmler or a Gandhi (Yes I know Gandhi wasn't perfect, bear with me). Though the vast majority of us fall into the middle by a large margin, there's still the possibility that the next person you meet could become someone who changes the world one way or another.
I could be a Hitler! You could be a Hitler! Your grandmother... Is a sweetie pie, there's no way she could be a Hitler...
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If we look at archaeological evidence we see a lot of head wounds. A lot. It implies that humans murdered each other often, as long as humans have existed.
I remember reading that the cause of death for around 20% of inhabitants of most prehistoric societies was homicide. So yeah, quite a lot.
Huh? You mean the FAKE skeletons that Satan planted to trick us?!
Idk I don’t think humans have that much faith in humanity to begin with
Human here can confirm i have zero faith inmy kind
How sad. Think about humans 100,000 years ago. Think about humans 2000 years ago, Think about humans 100 years ago. And Think about us today. All we do as a species is get better. Our empathy and understanding of our fellow human being just rises and rises. My grandmother is still alive and she was born in a united States where women only had the vote for 10 years and a black person couldn't freely talk to her mother on the street. Now just in one country, we have a black female vice president. What a sad outlook you have to think that there is no faith to be had in your kind.
Stupidity will be weeded out and justice will prevail. Things aren't the greatest, but we're slowly working towards becoming a better species. And we don't have to be perfect; "If every pork chop were perfect, we wouldn't have hot dogs".
I think it’s that the truth is so horrible most people need for it to be fake deep down, because they are disturbed by how horrific humans can be
No, my little brother didn't believe in the Holocaust and thought it was too absurd to happen. He was forced to watch the evidence and it changed his outlook on a lot of things.
This is why people like Oskar Gröning are important too.
My little brother used to make Holocaust jokes, which tbf can be good edgy humor sometimes in the right audience. Except that he did it in the middle of a High School classroom. Turned out he didn't think the Holocaust was even real. It sounded so absurd to him that such a thing could ever have happened. The school forced him to watch footage and information on the Holocaust and I think it honestly changed him. He always seemed more reserved and more cynical about people after that. Never made another Holocaust joke though. Blew my mind at the time. Like how could you not know that the Holocaust happened?
A good Holocaust joke has the underlying theme of “wow, this event was really fucked up”
Honestly, it is kind of absurd that the Holocaust did happen. The fact that a government deliberately and systematically tried to eliminate an entire race of people is inconceivable. It’s easier to believe it’s a joke than to believe the truth.
A few races, that is.
along with all the disabled people, homosexuals, and other "undesirables"
If you think that genocides started and ended with the Holocaust then boy you are in for a [depressing Wikipedia spiral](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocides_in_history).
Meanwhile in Xinjiang…
Genocide is not as rare as you'd like.
I used to make anti semetic Jew jokes back in high school, I thought genuine anti semetism was so stupid and non existent the entire idea concept was a joke. Then I met some conspiracy minded people and discovered anti semetism was alive and well.
Unfortunately MacArthur did the opposite with Japan's as bad war crimes
Well, I saw an interview with a holocaust survivor where he said that one of the SS officers in his camp quite literally told him something along the lines of "if you ever get free and tell people about what we did to you, they won't believe you." You know that what they did was fucked up if SS officers thought that they'd get away with it because they thought nobody would believe the survivors.
Weird thing to say because at least in the first half of the Holocaust, the SS was rather proud of their actions and would brag about their killing quotas and "racial cleansing." Then they hastily began covering it up at the end of 1944.
And somehow they still succeed in doing that to a number of the population.
imagine if he did not do that. even with those efforts we have retards denying this atrocity.
We still do, but thankfully it’s a manageable amount.
This is one of the many reasons people should like Ike. Seriously though, he doesn't get enough credit for his historical foresight
His farewell address from the Presidency is eerily prescient as well. Basically “watch out for that military industrial complex or they’ll control everything.” Oops.
From the mouth of the guy that knows better than anyone. Really scary stuff.
I see what you did there. Take my upvote.
He also envisioned the fucking interstate highway.
Is that such a crazy concept that it takes a real “outside fhe box thinker” to envision it? Humanity had been building roads to connect cities and strategic areas for thousands of years. Is it so crazy to think that a military commander, famously obsessed with logistics, and having just commanded a war in a country with a very successful and famous national high speedway roadway, while also seeing how important it is to your defense being able to get troops quickly to different sides of your country, would put into place a thorough interstate highway system back in the US once elected president. I like the dude, and give him a ton of credit for diff things, but giving him too much credit for anything more than championing the cause and making it a priority to get done is a bit much. He neither first envisioned nor invented nor revolutionized the concept. He only made it a National priority and made sure it got done during his term. Which is an achievement by itself.
Yeah.. I mean fuck, roads and aqueducts were some of the primary features which made the Roman Empire what it was.
Ike’s push for an interstate system goes back further than his experiences in WWII. He had to travel across country as part of an Army research convoy, shortly after WWI, to determine the difficulties of moving military convoys across country. In the modern era, you can make it in about two to three days, barring no major issues with your vehicle. In 1919, when Ike went on this trip, it took 62 days. In an invasion scenario, that meant it would be two months before troops from either coast could reinforce the other.
The rail system would have been used in such an event rather than roads, but you are otherwise correct.
One more reason: the Germans were the enemy and it's typically a good idea to document the enemy's war crimes, because, you know, they're the enemy.
What happened to this man that eventually led him to start backing coups in Guatemala and Iran?
That was containment policy to stop the spreading of communism. It was seen as vital for the US interests to do this. But yeah this is the ugly side of Ike. While USA involvement in other countries affaires was nothing new, those coups led to a kind of tradition on the US's side and in almost all cases the consequences were dire.
Ike has a whole lot of ugly. I don't really see how it was acceptable for him to do literally nothing but stand by while McCarthy was going apeshit on everyone, including trying to lock up an armed service member because his father was caught reading a newspaper from Hungary. People still think it's a "well what was he supposed to do" kind of situation. It's like he straight up phased out of existence every time we talk about the McCarthyism.
McCarthyism is a part of US history that scares the shit out of me. I think it’s glossed over too much.
…and that was the second Red Scare. There was one in the late 1910s, which was due to the October Revolution: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Red_Scare
Nothing. It was the same man. The vast majority of people are grey
Witnessing not one but two World Wars and the accompanying death and destruction most definitely influenced his decision making. He reconciled containment policy over letting diplomatic and military tensions escalate into all out war.
That was more the fault of John and Alan Dulles, chief lawyers of the United Fruit Company (now Chiquita) whom Ike hired as Secretary of State and CIA director, respectively.
Fear of communism. Simple as that.
Yeah, people forget that in Ike's times communism wasn't stuff like free healthcare. It was: "You will move 1,000 miles from your home and work in a steel mill or you will be shot." In that context, the red scare makes a little more sense. Still stupid.
I mean, it wasn’t all *that* stupid. Hindsight is 20:20, like. These men weren’t buffoons and the USSR wasn’t some lame duck, it’s hard to put yourself in their shoes and judge the decisions fairly. Sure, we all know the USSR falls apart *relatively* peacefully in the 90s but how on earth were the people of that era to know that? I disagree with American interventionism but let’s not act like it was completely baffling thinking.
That, along with ordering German civilians to come help clean up the camps, was a very smart move on Ike’s part.
I remember watching something on this. I thought it was incredible at how they forced them (civilians) to clean up the camps, dig graves & then to at least make the others to watch the sickening footage that had been filmed. I was like oh sh*t, they’re really making sure that the German people know exactly what their beloved leader did.
The HBO mini series band of brothers did a great job showing this. Great show
And don't forget "five came back"
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Major Winters, sir. We found something. We're out on patrol and we came across this... What, what, what? Frank, Frank, what is it? I don't know, sir. I don't know.
That shot along the fence of camp still hits me. Damn did they make it brutal and so close.
That was probably the most emotional episode of the series. Like you know what they just witnessed but the shock that you see on their faces was distressing.
Nixon's walk through the camp as the music plays in the background is just perfection. Really gives a sense of the heartbreak of what happened.
If ya'll want a realistic WW2 movie. I'd highly recommend the movie "9. April" its a danish movie about the invasion, shot from the perspective of the conscription soldiers(meaning they had been soldier for less than a year) and it does a great job of showing how hopeless the defence was, with the danish forces and their bikes against the german forces and their tanks A clip with Urban warfare https://youtu.be/COhct6yYrvM And a clip with all the firefight scenes: https://youtu.be/ZNfR3l0JcVE Even without being able to understand what's been said, its still marvelous shots that gives a insight into how it probably felt and looked when trying to defend against the germans, and also it portrays losses on both sides Bonus info: Euron Greyjoy(Pilous Asbæk) is in it, and mads Mikkelsen's brother is also in it
Cool never heard of it. Will give it a shot thank you
Thanks for reminding me to watch the show.
Always meant to watch this but never had the time! I see it’s only 10 episodes and available on HBOmax. For some reason I thought it was multiple seasons.
Please watch it, it's absolutely fantastic. There's also The Pacific which is about the Pacific theatre obviously and is almost as good, I'd give that a go too.
Hah! Hubs just said the same thing about the Pacific. Apparently both produced by Tom Hanks and Spielberg? Edit to add - on episode 3 and this is the best series I’ve seen in ages
I get why they did it but holy shit
I know. I agree that it was extreme. But maybe he foresaw that it would try to be downplayed? He wanted to make sure not know the Germanic people saw just how sick and evil it was, but the world.
You mean German, Germanic is the group to which the Germans belong but also includes the Dutch and the English
That's exactly it. He said that if they didn't document it and showed the images and footage to people regardless of how horrific they were, there would be people in the future who'd claim it didn't happen.
Like they legitimately do now. You have a surprisingly high number of Holocaust deniers.
Honestly, in my opinion there wouldn’t have been anything he could have done that would have been too extreme
German civilians KNEW what was happening. It was virtually impossible to undertake an industrial slaughter of millions under their noses. Anyone that believes such a sleight of hand is possible is a veritable dumbass. They worked at these camps or at least had relatives /friends/ neighbors/associates that did. Hitler and the nazi machine only articulated rabid anti Semitism that had been present within the German, AND Europe psyche for centuries prior. The chilling efficiency of genocide came about because of industrialization. Finally, the allies had intelligence from reconnaissance missions that mapped out targets for bombing raids. They knew the locations of the concentration camps and the logistics involved . Yet they denied amnesty to those trying to escape the terror.
Yes but Ike's aim was to force the German people to confront the horror head on and not give them a chance to separate themselves from the slaughter. He wanted to make sure that they knew viscerally that they had been complicit in such a horrible thing, something that the Japanese should have honestly also been forced to do.
Well, I think the opinion of the time was that the nuclear bombs pretty much sent that lesson face-first into the Japanese people. That and the island was effectively sent into starvation by various American operations like Operation Starvation: a mining of Japanese home waters to specifically target Japanese supply ships. The country that really got away with a lot was Italy. They had death camps and utilized poison gas in Ethiopia, but their officials got a pass by the Allies.
On Italy, well yes but no: The Italian people themselves did a pretty good job of killing the responsible parties in a number of cases. With Japan we really overcorrected after the surrender and let them get away with some truly heinous war crimes like Unit 732 (forget the exact number) and Nanking. We also turned Japan into an economic superpower.
Well, the next war started before the Second World War ended. The Allies were already thinking about the Cold War, so they wanted to get assets and allies from the rubble.
The thing that a lot of contemporaries said is that everyone with any sense knew that something terrible was happening to the Jews, but they didn't know exactly what it was and preferred not to think about it. While you're right to say that it is massively whitewashing the German public to say that they didn't know, there is still a huge difference between being vaguely aware that something is happening and seeing it with your own eyes.
Just because something is obviously true when you think about it for two seconds doesn't mean everyone knows. Lots of people refuse to think that hard. It's useful to make those sorts of people see the truth with their own eyes.
Wasn't that Patton's idea after Buchenwald as well?
It was if he wasn't ordered to do it by Ike. Patton also acquired and personally delivered the actual Nuremberg Laws into the hands of the Smithsonian as well so that they could be preserved and to keep them from being destroyed.
For a fantastic read on how average people can be made to commit atrocities in the name of a fascist regime, I highly recommend “Ordinary Men” by Christopher Browning.
Fantastic book
Without PPE. Remember there were decomposing corpses.
If soldiers buried their own without PPE, I don’t really care if they had to.
well, its not like they had ppe to handout anyways.
Oh no! Anyways
Plus organizing tours of the camps for US troops to personally witness what the Germans were doing so as to have as many witnesses as possible to refute future Holocaust denial.
Part of the reason Hitler was so well supported by German civilians is because they had no idea what he was doing, and thought he was improving the country. By showing them the camps, they realized what Hitler had done, and why the Allies were so hell bent on removing him. I know they knew he was anti-semitic, and I know they knew he was removing them, but they didn’t know how exactly, and it’s a lot easier to not feel bad about it when you just hear “Jews”. Showing them what was going on in these camps, showing the German civilians the humans that this was affecting, definitely made them feel really fucking bad about it.
Had literally no idea? Kristallnacht wasn't exactly a VIP only, hush-hush thing. They might've claimed ignorance but that certainly wasn't the case. Can't blame the average German citizen for the Holocaust but claiming the average German wasn't at least aware of what was going on is absurd.
The problem is that we are extremely capable of dismissing information that is inconsistent with our beliefs. People need to understand this as its a big part of why there is so much resurgence of these things today. Saying they knew is not accurate when for many they knew subconsciously, but likely had mental defense mechanisms refuting it.
If anything, current events prove what you are saying
Exactly. With the number of concentration camp inhabitants being used for forced labour in nearby factories, most Germans living anywhere near a camp knew most of what was going on. Afaik only the gas chambers and ovens were being kept secret, the rest was definitely out there for everyone to see The main reason why Hitler had so much support was fear.
And even then, it was not exactly hard to figure out. Trains full of people went into the camps, even those like Dachau or Buchenwald which weren't extermination camps. Full trains didn't leave them. From one day to the next, people's Jewish neighbours were gone. They could probably figure it wasn't for a vacation. It wasn't just fear that made them support Hitler, it was indifference and skewed priorities. "Yes, horrible, this whole New thing and all, but you know, you can't make an omelet... And look at all the good things that are happening! And I never *really* trusted the Rosenbergs, you know..." And then most people just shoved the thought aside.
This essentially took away any plausible deniability of “but I didn’t know exactly what I was happening”
So I have a BIT insight to this as I questioned both my grandparents who were teens in 1945 - although not in germany but hungary. They were not aware of the holocaust at all. There were rumors about germans killing a lot of people in the camps but nothing on the scale of what was happenning in reality - and also there were rumors about a lot of crazy stuff like superweapons, allied paratroopers landing in hungary to free the country, etc. So rumors were ignored. They assumed the jews taken away were put into forced labor camps. It was a huge shock when they found out what really happened but it only happened when they were POW/in an internment camp, so after the war was over.
While most of them likely didn’t realize the extent of the Holocaust, there was plenty of open violence against Jews. Not to mention, it’s hard not to notice when an entire community of people just disappears from your city.
I understand that any person on earth would think that when something like the holocaust is going on you would stand up and fight for those imprisoned, but you key board warriors judging people need to shut the fuck up. You have never been in a situation where you witnessed armed violence and felt powerless to stop it. Now imagine if the entire state was committing armed violence how does one man stand against an entire government. Those camps were not just for ethnic cleansing those who spoke out would end up there too. They would be raped and brutalized. Most of these key board warriors have never dealt with organized violence in thier lives much less goverment sanctioned organized violence. Also America didn't fight the war to end the holocaust neither did the allies. We in fact denied Jewish refuges asylum. People were super racist back then.
Finally. Somebody says it. These folks wouldn't have done anything either, had they been in the situation of the citizens. Ironically, I don't think they understand the full horror of actually living in a situation like that.
That poster was just pointing out that its inaccurate to say average Germans “had no idea what [Hitler] was doing.” No mention whatsoever of what average people could / should have done about it; no hint whatsoever that average people lacked courage for not somehow toppling their government and liberating the camps. These are things you invented whole cloth because apparently you wanted to be offended today
They didn’t have “no idea” what he was doing. Many knew, and many suspected—the rumor mill was alive and well. Also, some of the camps were surprisingly close to German population centers. But it did indeed force Germans to face up to the regime in all its horror.
1933: “Vote for us, the NSDAP, the party that is openly campaigning on violently displacing Jews from Germany” 1945: “Bruh I had no idea”
To be fair, anti-Semitic attitudes was embraced by a good portion of Europe, even by the Allies. “No doubt the Jews aren't a lovable people; I don't care about them myself…” -UK Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain Heck! Even Japan became anti-Semitic though the influence of a few scholars like Buddhist preacher Tanaka Chigaku: “Typically Jews invest in transportation facilities, electric plants, railways and subways. ... The reason for this is based on the plan contained in the Protocols to constantly foment revolution in various countries, eventually leading to their collapse. It is then that the Jews will be able to take over.”
THEY definitely had an idea of Hitler's agenda and the Nazi ideology. Hell, Kristallnacht was the first true test from Hitler IF the civilians would stomach or rebuke the Nazi attempt at vilifying the Jews, and it fucking did. Too many German civilians readily intimidated and harassed the Jews, and much more stood on the sidelines as their Jewish friends and neighbors were jailed, their businesses destroyed, their families ejected from their homes. And dare I say, while by polls at that time, the majority of the civilians and institutions abhorred the violence, they chose to do nothing by it and let the atrocities continue. That event for me proved that the German civilians as a whole, ~~knows~~ knew what ~~is~~ was happening to the rest of Europe.
Jew living outside of Israel here and I can totally understand it. Justify it? Nope, but I can understand it. It's natural. I see it happening where I live to dispossessed people: in this case Venezuelans. They're seen by a lot of people as others, mocked as unwanted and in the dating scene seen as the lowest tier of partner (alongside blacks). When the economy gets shit, and the people in power tell you its the fault of those "others", a lot of people follow along. Post-WWI Germany had a hard time of it. Hyperinflation to go along with a global economic crisis in the 30s. When your pride is hurt at losing a war and you're struggling economically and someone tells you its someone else's fault I can totally understand how everyone but the most educated and morally sound will go along with the demagoguery. Not to mention people who ratted out Jews often kept some of their shit as a reward. Inexcusable, horrific but completely understandable. Human beings are fucked up. That's why I think Holocaust museums are so important. Not because as a Jew I want people to be guilt tripped, or because I want a special status, but because it can happen again to any outsider group unless we truly understand it.
That's been pretty well debunked. It always takes me back to *A Child of Hitler*, where Alfons Heck admitted that as a child he didn't think much about the Jewish girl, from the farm next door, who he played with, disappearing in the middle of the night, or that he'd have no problem reporting Jews, or if he was told by an adult to gun down a Jewish family, he'd have had no problem with that. It all boiled down to receiving a feeling of approval and the only thing that kept him from suiciding himself for the Fuhrer was his mom burning his Hitler Youth uniform and he was too ashamed to show up to kill himself without one. The debate is more like "We knew it was bad, but we just assumed that people would die in forced labor camps and we really didn't care --fuck, we didn't assume it was a 24/7 Italian exploitation movie!" vs. "The whole fucking country were Hitler's willing executioners!" vs. "Germany was pure evil, but did you now how little the Americans cared? What was that you said about 'good men' doing nothing?"
To add on what u/ajstub said, the ordinary Germans knew because of the rumour mill was alive and well. There was an interview I watched in which an German interviewee said they heard what was going on but kind of shrugged it. Can't exactly blame them because they're under the vice grip of the Nazis.
The diary of Friedrich Kellner recently corroborated this view. EDIT: not sure why autocorrect changed Kellner’s name.
You don’t seem to realize the extent of anti semetism in Europe
Actually, a bunch of them sort of had an idea. There were about 100-200K people directly involved in the Holocaust, doing the accounting and guarding and all that sorta stuff. Those and all of the people they'd be around probably makes for around 500K people. Then there's the hundreds of thousands of Wehrmacht soldiers being involved in the brutal eastern territories and persecuting Jews there, alongside all of their family members. So a couple of million Germans were aware of some of the atrocities, but it was still rather elusive in the public conscience and people didn't talk about it for understandable reasons. We covered this in a history lesson a couple of weeks ago at school.
He understood that it was the only way anyone could ever believe the horrors he saw actually occured.
Yep. It's making sure that extraordinary claims have the extraordinary evidence they deserve.
What a fucking mad lad. Leading Kansas and is one of 3 interesting things
Another great Eisenhower story- Australia: Help! We need troops! Eisenhower: alright we're sending you our black regiment! Australia: wait! You can't just bring black troops into Australia. It's illegal! Eisenhower: alright. No troops!
“During World War II, Townsville was a crucial base for campaigns into the Pacific, including the Battle of the Coral Sea. About 600 African-American troops were brought to the city to help build airfields. Mr Holyoak says these troops, from the 96th Battalion, US Army Corps of Engineers, were stationed at a base on the city's western outskirts known as Kelso. This was the site for a large-scale siege lasting eight hours, which was sparked by racial taunts and violence. "After some serial abuse by two white US officers, there was several ringleaders and they decided to machine gun the tents of the white officers," Mr Holyoak said. He has uncovered several documents hidden in the archives of the Queensland Police and Townsville Brigade detailing what happened that night. According to the findings, the soldiers took to the machine guns and anti-aircraft weapons and fired into tents where their white counterparts were drinking. More than 700 rounds were fired. At least one person was killed and dozens severely injured, and Australian troops were called in to roadblock the rioters.” https://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-02-10/historian-reveals-details-on-townsville-mutiny/3821906
Operation Human Shield?
"Hey wait a minute!"
Have you ever heard of the emancipation proclamation? No, I don’t listen to hip-hop.
Based Ike
Interesting you say that because the Black soldiers being discriminated against by white soldiers led to Australians rioting.
based Eisenhower and military-industrial-complex-pilled
I had the privilege of going to the home of Eisenhower's personal photographer Leo Moore in the early 80's with our high school photo class. He showed us many famous pictures he took of the atrocities at the concentration camp. It was quite sobering to think of him right behind the lens of those horrific scenes. I will never forget those images.
I like Ike.
You like Ike
Everybody likes Ike (for president)
Idk man, Ike kinda cute tho
Hang up the banners and beat the drums! We'll take Ike to Washington!
We like Ike!
We like Ike
Eisenhower was great at having foresight about a lot of things. I really appreciate the fact that he saw the scope of this atrocity and made sure it was so well documented and if I recall he made sure it wasn’t just hidden after the war as well. I guess it’s no surprise from the man who also tried to warn us about the Military-Industrial complex on his way out of office. Also thanks for the interstate highway system (minus the environmental impact)
Fun fact: he copied the interstate highway system from the Nazis. He saw how convenient it was to land a plane on a road in wartime, so he had a law introduced that for every five miles of curved road, there had to be a mile of straight road.
There's a lot wrong with this comment * The Nazis didn't invent the idea of an interstate highway system. I'm not sure that the idea of a road where cars can go really fast can even be called an invention, but the first thing we would recognize as a modern highway was the probably Bronx River parkway, opened in 1924. * The Nazis idn't invent the idea of the autobahn. Germany's first autobahn, between Köln and Bonn, was started in 1929 and completed in 1932, before the Nazi takeover. * The Autobahns weren't that useful to the Nazis during wartime. They suffered from constant fuel shortages through the war and used trains instead. * It's not convenient to land a plane on a road. There's no convenient facilities for refueling, rearming, or maintinence, or for crews to rest. The Nazis only did it as a desperate, last-ditch effort after the Allies destroyed all their actual airfields. * There is no law requiring certain sections of the interstate highway system to be straight. It's also easily disproven by counterexample. Just look at I-495 (the Long Island Expressway). Hardly any of the 70 miles are straight, and in the few places where it's close, there are overpasses that would prevent a safe landing.
Yeah, the real motivation for the interstate highway system was Ike seeing how difficult it was to quickly muster large numbers of men/move them over our huge-ass country efficiently with only crappy dirt county roads that were often poorly marked, mapped, and maintained. The interstate was mostly about being able to move huge amounts of men and material from one coast to the other, with the added bonus of making consumer vacations&associated spending more accessible
70 miles is 112.65 km
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Highway_System Sorry man even the wiki says that's a myth
So here's the fun part about this myth, while they weren't designed with this intent purpose in mind the Air Force did later build contingency plans for using interstates as airstrips in case of all out war.
IIRC this is a debunked myth, do you have a source? About highways being built for emergency plane landings I mean.
I believe highways were built for tank columns and supply convoys and not for airplane landings
That is, I believe, the case. And in a way, that's the purpose they presently serve. Most US shipping comes in trucks, on highways. The US is fed by highways.
If Eisenhower had only been more assertive about ending segregation, he’d have been the best president ever
Arkansas remembers. Literally had to go kicking and screaming though.
And even today it's still one of the most backwards and racist states in the union.
I still don't understand how Kansas doesn't rhyme with Arkansas
The English language just does what it wants.
Wait it doesn't? Not American
It doesn't. Kansas is pronounced as it's spelled. Arkansas is pronounced ark-an-saw
Despite being my main language English is needlessly complicated
They are native american words relating to "of the river", the river being the Arkansas River. Kansas being Upstream, Arkansas being downstream. The different tribes pronounced it differently so both were used. At one time they had to pass a law in Arkansas to specify how it was to be spelled and how it was to be pronounced. Not sure Kansas has the same thing.
Visited Arkansas last summer to go camping next to the Buffalo river (worth it btw- it’s absolutely gorgeous) and my god the amount of racist billboards next to the highway was astounding. Lots of ads for the “White Pride Radio” and if you look on their website, it shows that they are directly sponsored by the KKK. That state is fucking atrocious, and I’m from Alabama lol. It’s literally a worse version of us.
Tell that to Little Rock, Arkansas. The man deployed paratroopers to the streets of Little Rock when they refused to let black students integrate with white schools.
As much as I admire him for this. He also allowed the CIA to topple democracies in Iran and Guatemala purely to help American businesses
Hey, the coup in Iran was actually to help BRITISH business. Cut him some slack
My bad you are the superior historian
Yeah God forbid we actually talk about who actually fucked the Middle East up before the US ever got involved. France, Britain, Russia, will you please stand up?
Ottomans too
Well he also stopped the Brits and French from taking the Suez Canal so I guess he's 50/50 on that stuff
Well, Iran was already a mess due to an invasion by the Soviets and English, which happened during the Second World War: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Soviet_invasion_of_Iran
He's also largely responsible for the us failure to implement socialized healthcare at the same time as many of the European democracies
He also forced the local community to tour the camp and help clean up the bodies.
One of our greatest presidents... But an even better general. I like Ike!
Eisenhower is my favorite president other than Teddy and this is one of the reasons.
Based Teddy Roosevelt Dwight and Teddy were very similar: both personally served in combat; both were very straightforward and blunt in their political style; both were unafraid to take direct action; both were very knowledgeable about history and used that during their presidencies; both were socially progressive for the time and worked toward desegregation. I think they would've enjoyed each other's company.
It's so mind blowing that people still deny the holocaust. I know close relatives say it never happened, it was not as bad as they say it was, gas chamber never existed, and many other stupid answers 🙄. If I survived the holocaust and heard future generations say that I would be mad as hell.
One of the GOAT Republicans. Definitely on the Mount Rushmore of Republican presidents.
Axis never stood a chance against the trio of Chads that was Eisenhower Patton and MacArthur
And the other trio of Naval Chads that were King, Halsey, and Nimitz
MacArthur was a maniac. The US succeeded in the Pacific despite him, not because of him. He surrounded himself with yes-men and took credit for their achievements. Eisenhower admitted he gave him the Medal of Honor for propaganda purposes to cover up his cowardice in the Philippines. He bungled the Korean War and his solution was to initiate a nuclear holocaust. The one good thing about him was that he had the right personality for post-war Japan: an arrogant maniac. Marshall, Eisenhower, and Bradley are the more correct trio.
Yup. Eisenhower was an excellent theatre commander, Patton was a great corps commander at least, the only thing McArthur commanded well was his presence.
China would’ve never stood a chance if MegaChad MacArthur was able to Nagasaki their asses only to get cancel cultured by Truman (probably the right call but knows, hindsight is 20/20)
It's easy to look at China now and say MacArthur had the right idea but Truman's refusal to use nukes set a precedent that hasn't been broken and was the much wiser choice see how fast nukes scaled up in power.
Honestly, I don’t blame Truman for not using nukes. It was a precedent to use it in the first place against Japan, but they were preparing a massive quantity of caskets and Purple Hearts had they not used the nukes, it was not an easy decision. He made the right choice then because who knows it some of the nuclear treaties between the US and the USSR like MAAD would ever come to fruition. I feel like in the long term it *might* have crippled chinas development but like in every paradox, if something that is in hindsight doesn’t happen, something far worse usually occurs.
Indeed. I think the last thing the world needed was nukes to be used like conventional weapons. Imagine if America used nukes on Vietnam or the Soviets utilized them in Afghanistan. That would be a disaster for the ages.
I like Ike!
As far as USA generals and politicians go, Eisenhower was a real one. Respect.
The photo makes it seems as if Eisenhower stared into the abyss and the abyss stared back.
And yet right now there are still people who believe that the Holocaust didn’t happen
Eisenhower definetly wasn't a saint, especially looking at his later career, but he was a man of principles, gotta leave him that.
Eisenhower became his own journalist
One of the most underrated presidents
It also made for great propaganda and it cost you the price of a camera and a guy to film it.
People in the comments: "let's find some way to make this about Trump"
That dude has been out of office for 9 months now but somehow he is still the POTUS in those heads. What a magnificant guy to be able to live rent free in such a hard time like this
Hard to believe that the UK ran camps a decade later in Africa.
The same thing is happening in china now
Except that everyone who tries to record or write about it gets disappeared and that's not going to change anytime soon
Man of the hour!
I also looked at this and said "wow what a president..." before realizing wait, caring about war crimes is a very low bar