Should Hitler be in the game?

[Brian_B]

It clearly is disgusting - to say the least - to see these "polls" come up again and again. Seems that certain people don't get their lesson from history.

About the argument "civ is a game for adult" people, I only can laugh. This thread clearyl shows that minors are attracted by controversal figures like Hitler, Stalin and Mao. Drooling with excitement they seem to see themselves in a black uniform.
Absolutely disgusting!

I'm nearly 30 and I think he should be in the game for purposes of historical accuracy. Go figure.

Brutality-wise, there is little difference between Hitler and Stalin. Obviously Firaxis thought Stalin was a significant part of Russian history to include him in their game. The same applies for Hitler. He had a large hand in shaping the 20th century, albeit for the worse.

 

[BearMan]

It clearly is disgusting - to say the least - to see these "polls" come up again and again. Seems that certain people don't get their lesson from history.

About the argument "civ is a game for adult" people, I only can laugh. This thread clearyl shows that minors are attracted by controversal figures like Hitler, Stalin and Mao. Drooling with excitement they seem to see themselves in a black uniform.
Absolutely disgusting!

I was about to write a reply to this...
But the post is just so much "out there" I don't know where to start..

 

[Sohan]

Honestly, even though Hitler and Stalin are comparable, in most of the world Stalin isn't stigmatized as much as Hitler. Looking at it from an emotional POV, based primarily on impressions and not necessarily on the historical facts, Hitler is the worse evil. He is the one who is demonized more. Even if Stalin killed huge amounts of his own people, Hitler is looked upon in a worse light typically. Thus, including him is more of a problem than including Stalin, who is demonized less.

By the way, when I was in first grade, I dressed up as Hitler for a school project. Just an fyi. I actually knew who Hitler was even back then. Took a High School education for me to figure out who the heck Stalin was.

 

[diablodelmar]

CIV is an adult game. I dont think teenagers dare to play such complex and long game. Thus, everything can be added, Hitler, talibans, units as suicide bombers, why not.

We can make the difference between good and bad. And between real life and video game. Hitler would trigger amazing/famous succesion games and scenarios.I voted "yes, because he was great in a way", he can be subject for a good book or video game.

Im a teenager! My little bro who is 9 years old plays it.

 

[jar2574]

Hitler and Stalin both murdered millions. Hitler is more dangerous today because of his ideas.

Stalin contributed no significant ideas to human thought. He was ruthless and effective at gaining power. He was like a gangster who murdered all his rivals, not all that much different than Al Capone. But idea-wise, Stalin is just a commoner. He was just a thug who murdered millions for no higher purpose than his own power. He adopted whichever ideas aided his pursuit of absolute control, and shifted ideology constantly.

Hitler created a unique ideology. Of course he borrowed from plenty of previous thinkers, but he created something new and unique. His ideas live on and are dangerous today, because the core of Nazism was racism.

Hitler was ruthless and effective at gaining power and he stood for more than just himself. Hitler did not abandon his ideology of racial animus even when its pursuit hampered the German war effort. He was more than a common thug, he was a mass murderer with a higher purpose than his own power. That makes him more dangerous to today's world IMO.

I am not saying one is more evil than the other, their evil is not quantifiable. I'm explaining a reason why Stalin presents less of a threat to today's world than Hitler.

 

[Pawel]

I must say I don't quite agree. Stalin himself may not have left much of an intellectual legacy, basically continuing the work of Lenin. The latter had already killed all class enemies, so Stalin could focus on political rivals and ethnic minorities. The terror was also the fundamental principle from which all political action was derived. This was later picked up by Mao (during the great leap and cultural revolution), Pol-Pot, Milosevic, as well as other communist leaders.

 

[SilentDemon]

Germany was not at all close to a nuclear weapon. Even if Heisenberg had not declared that a chain reaction was not possible using fast neutrons, there was no enrichment capability. The capture of the Norwegian heavy water facility opened the path of a Pu-weapon, but the Germans did not know how to actually build a reactor. (Enrico Fermi was the first one who solved the problem.) At the end of the war their uranium was shipped to Japan for use in their nuclear program, but instead the submarine ended up in the US.

This is one of the many myths of Nazi achievements. In fact, the German industry was in total chaos. Compared to allied projects, productivity was much lower, fewer new technologies were implemented in projects that were mature for enough for production, and the failure rate for new projects was much higher. As a consequence, the bulk of the German weapons in 1945 were just upgraded versions of what was already in production in 1939. The Bf109 and PzIV are good examples of this. There was nothing 'great' about Hitler at any level.

I have to disagree with this post, simply because until the manhattan project was started the German nuclear program was argueably closer than the U.S. To say there was "nothing great" about someone who, if I have to reiterate changed most of the face of history, is just plainly ignorant.

This post didn't merit a long winded response.

 

[Atropos]

Hitler and Stalin both murdered millions. Hitler is more dangerous today because of his ideas.

Stalin contributed no significant ideas to human thought. He was ruthless and effective at gaining power. He was like a gangster who murdered all his rivals, not all that much different than Al Capone. But idea-wise, Stalin is just a commoner. He was just a thug who murdered millions for no higher purpose than his own power. He adopted whichever ideas aided his pursuit of absolute control, and shifted ideology constantly.

Hitler created a unique ideology. Of course he borrowed from plenty of previous thinkers, but he created something new and unique. His ideas live on and are dangerous today, because the core of Nazism was racism.

Hitler was ruthless and effective at gaining power and he stood for more than just himself. Hitler did not abandon his ideology of racial animus even when its pursuit hampered the German war effort. He was more than a common thug, he was a mass murderer with a higher purpose than his own power. That makes him more dangerous to today's world IMO.

I am not saying one is more evil than the other, their evil is not quantifiable. I'm explaining a reason why Stalin presents less of a threat to today's world than Hitler.

I think that you underestimate Stalin's originality slightly, and drastically overestimate Hitler's.

Stalin's doctrine of intensifying class struggle as the communist millenium approaches may not be the greatest of theoretical contributions to Marxism, but it was original and it helped steer the USSR even further towards brutality. As a justification for mass murder, it was far more original than Hitler's racism. Name one idea Hitler had that cannot be traced to earlier racists.

Regarding current danger to the world, I think it varies from country to country. Certainly, however, no neo-Nazi movement currently forms part of the governing majority of a major Western country as, say, Fausto Bertinotti's Rifundazione Communista does of Italy's. Both Nazism and Stalinism were ideologies of consummate evil and the world needs to remember just how evil they were.

Finally, however, I should comment that I am uncertain how this remembrance is served by excluding them from the game. Hitler's Satanic nature (I can find no stronger expression) should be placed on a pedestal for the world to see. And there is no better way to discredit the man than to cite what he wrote in the diplomatic quotations. Can you imagine, for example, his asking you for a wartime alliance with the words "Who now remembers the massacre of the Armenians?" There is no more reason to write Hitler out of the game than there is to write him out of the history books. Rather, writing him out of the game, it seems to me, would waste an excellent opportunity to show, in his own words, how evil he was.

 

[jar2574]

Stalin himself may not have left much of an intellectual legacy, basically continuing the work of Lenin.

We basically agree. Stalin didn't create his own ideology, he just perverted existing ones. And he used intellectuals only if it suits his purpose. Hitler did create an (evil) ideology with a (flawed) intellectual basis.

 

[SilentDemon]

Hitler's decisions were stupid. They led to the destruction of Germany. Of course it's easy to say that in hindsight. So what? That doesn't mean he was any better of a leader. In hindsight we can see that his decisions led to the annihilation of Germany.


At huge moral costs, which you disregard in disturbing fashion.


Ask Germans whether they think their cultural zeneith occurred during Nazism.
Your assertion that "culture" and "morality" were at a zenith during Nazism implies flat out racism, and I'm sure you haven't thought through what you are saying. Only a racist could seriously argue that an ideology based upon racism and hate was an "elevation" of German culture. And let's not kid ourselves. Nazism was racism, not an "elevation" of some noble German ideal.



The moral code of a Nazi is immoral and evil. No sense of unity changes that. Morality does not solely come from a sense of self and racial unity.



I do. Any moral individual should.

Their prosperity? You act as though they had to pay more taxes.
They were murdered. Your post displays callous indifference to human life.

Visit any of the concentration camps. Regain your humanity. Do not ignore the deaths of millions in a rush to glorify the sick acts of a racist mass murderer.


It undermines them all. All of his "accomplishments" were only meant to further his war aims. His goal always involved world war. Losing it undermined any "accomplishments" he had made.

How much good did all the rockets and new gadgets do the Germans when their cities lay in ruins and their women and children were being bombed?



Hitler declared war on the USA first. Not the other way around. You've just got things all mixed up.

The USA was selling weapons to the allies. So what? The USA was not at war. Hitler was the one who declared war. The USA responded in self-defense. What was it supposed to do? Ignore the u-boats headed for the Eastern seaboard.


So what? The USA was attacked at Pearl Harbor and then Germany declared war as well. WWII was fought in self-defense. Other conflicts deserve other threads.



Yes, many of Hitler's decisions were insane, stupid, and disastrous.

And yes, that's easy to tell in hindsight. That's the point of looking at history. We can tell the crappy leaders from the good ones by seeing who made better decisions from the vantage of hindsight. And here, we can see that Hitler made awful decisions, and that Germany offers many better leaders to choose from.

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--EDIT

Don't have time to comment on the rest. I've got to go to bed.

I enjoy debating with you SilentDemon.

But your positions really make you look like a Nazi sympathizer, which makes you look like a racist. Nazism is racist to its core, and cannot be defended as any kind of a cultural or moral achievement unless one is willing to overlook its racism.

I doubt that you are racist. I honestly think you're probably just fascinated by Hitler, not his ideology. I just wanted to let you know how it looked. Saying things like "who cares" about all the gays, the jews, and the handicapped who died. That's just an awful thing to say. All of that is only relevant because you started defending Hitler's cultural contributions to Germany. If you would have just stuck to his military achievemants then maybe you'd have had a better argument. Although, obviously we disagree on his effectiveness there as well.

Take care,
jar

This reply was mostly an attack upon myself rather than much of a refutation, so until a better one is constructed I don't feel the need to respond to it.

 

[jar2574]

To say there was "nothing great" about someone who, if I have to reiterate changed most of the face of history, is just plainly ignorant.

You confuse power with greatness. They are not the same thing. Changing the face of history only shows power, not greatness.

The worship of power for power's sake threatens our moral fabric.

 

[SilentDemon]

Well none of that is true. His goal of world domination was not successful. His goal of eliminating the jews was not successful.

And furthermore, Germany was not the most powerful nation. The USA was. The USA gross domestic product was more that double Germany's in 1938.
http://www.onwar.com/articles/0302.htm

The USA military production capacity was higher six months after it was attacked than Germany's ever was.

Despite the GNP, the military application, technology and experience aside from production was higher than that of the United States, the U.S. was not the most powerful military at the time.

 

[SilentDemon]

You confuse power with greatness. They are not the same thing. Changing the face of history only shows power, not greatness.

The worship of power for power's sake threatens our moral fabric.

Unfortunately "moral fabric" doesn't hold water in logics sense, and theres a reason for it. Most if not all posts that make an argument of "morality" aren't worth responding to for this reason.

 

[jar2574]

This reply was mostly a an attack upon myself rather than much of a refutation, so until a better one is constructed I don't feel the need to respond to it.

Defend Nazism as a "cultural advancement" and your motives will be questioned. If you find it to be a personal attack then so be it.

Nazism is racism. Those who apologize for Hitler's racism and claim he offered "cultural advancement" of any kind must be questioned.

Those who ask "who cares?" when talking about the murders of minority groups, gays, and the handicapped must be questioned.

Your defense of Hitler would not have warranted a response, except to point out its racist implications. I guess if you don't find the racist implications disturbing, that says even more about your character than your initial post.

 

[Brian_B]

Hitler's Satanic nature (I can find no stronger expression) should be placed on a pedestal for the world to see. And there is no better way to discredit the man than to cite what he wrote in the diplomatic quotations. Can you imagine, for example, his asking you for a wartime alliance with the words "Who now remembers the massacre of the Armenians?" There is no more reason to write Hitler out of the game than there is to write him out of the history books. Rather, writing him out of the game, it seems to me, would waste an excellent opportunity to show, in his own words, how evil he was.

That's pretty much my thoughts. Although I'd caution in using words like "satanic" when describing Hitler. When looking at Hitler it's important to remember that he was a human being (a truly reprehensible one, but a human being nonetheless). That makes an historical examination of him all the more poignant. The movie "Downfall" is probably the best portrayel of Hitler I have ever seen in any medium. As you note: Hitler shouldn't be excluded from this game for the same reason he isn't excluded from movies, plays, and history books.

 

[jar2574]

Unfortunately "moral fabric" doesn't hold water in logics sense, and theres a reason for it. Most if not all posts that make an argument of "morality" aren't worth responding to for this reason.

Cultural relativism is SO yesterday.

It is possible to create a logically coherent moral code.

 

[Atropos]

Unfortunately "moral fabric" doesn't hold water in logics sense, and theres a reason for it. Most if not all posts that make an argument of "morality" aren't worth responding to for this reason.

Killing large numbers of civilians is a bad thing. Any moral code has to start from there.

 

[SilentDemon]

These were not government posters. Indeed, I agree with you that the Roosevelt government wanted to bring the US into the war. There was one problem: he couldn't, because popular sentiment (and Congress) were overwhelmingly against it. BOTH candidates in the 1940 election stood on pro-peace platforms. It was simply not electorally viable to demand war with Germany. That is why I believe that it was Hitler's own actions, and, in particular, his failure to bring the war with England to an end, that caused American entry and, indirectly, provided one of the main causes of his own downfall.

On this we have at least some level of agreement.

Of course, counterfactual arguments are never entirely convincing. It seems to me, however, that there were two possibilities:

1. America does not enter the war (hardly plausible once the war with England had lasted two and a half years). Germany probably loses. (Remember that Germany's troops were already in full retreat by 1944).

2. America enters the war. Germany definitely loses.

Given that neither option appears particularly attractive from a German point of view, it seems to me that Hitler's constant tendency to bite off more than he could chew needs to be weighed in the scale when assessing his contribution to Germany.

Although Germany was in retreat on the Eastern front from the campaign with Russia (which most likely would have ended in defeat in of itself) there is a level of questionability as to whether it would have. Afterall normandy had to be defended, and SS panzer divisions were held in reserve simply because Hitler believed there would be a secondary landing location. There is some question as to how the war would have ended if America hadn't gotten involved in the war, since the major progression would have only been on the eastern front then.

The German historian Meinecke wrote a book about the Hitler years in 1946, called The German Catastrophe. It is a ringing condemnation of Hitler's disastrous legacy, his destruction of Bismarck's work. The Jews are barely mentioned and the handicapped not at all.

From the point of view of 2006, we can see that "aliens" were the primary victims of Hitler. From the point of view of 1946, it seemed to most Germans, living in a country devastated by Hitler's war and mourning the loss of family members lost to bombing and service in the army, that they themselves were the biggest victims.

Although there are going to be outspoken people during any act of genocide, it nevertheless was a unifying factor for a good percentage of the German populace.

It's a little more unusual for a Western country in the twentieth century.

I think we agree more on this than anything else.

Hitler never won a majority at any free election, and his share of the vote was decreasing in 1933. It is not quite accurate to see him as the embodiment of German attitudes towards Jews. The reality was much more complicated. Again, read Klemperer if you want to learn about German attitudes towards Jews. There were, of course, anti-Semites in Germany before Hitler, but not nearly so many as in Poland, for example.

Maybe not, but then again you do not necessarily need a majority to influence and control a populace into doing what it is you have set yourself to do. Afterall christian conservatives seem to be running the U.S. these days and they are a minority group (sorry, had to put in a little humor.)

Nationalism increases productivity? Evidence, please?

It's true that GDP increased under Hitler, but there is no data to my knowledge that the increase was caused by patriotic enthusiasm, especially since most of the increase occurred in fields in which Jews had not traditionally participated in any case.

Look at any country during a time of military excercise and the general rule is that productivity does go up, not just because there is a need on an industrious level but because patriotic sentiment and the "rally around the flag" notion triggers a higher level of cooperation in the idea to defend ones country.

But not by what they were doing with the information. That's the point.

The Nazi government catastrophically underestimated the utility of the "Jewish science" of relativity. This was a major blunder on their part. Read Gordon Wright's Ordeal of Total War if you are interested in the ideological dimensions of the Nazi government's funding decisions.

German scientific advances in nuclear technology occurred despite Hitler, not because of Hitler.

The U.S. was doing similarly next to nothing with similar information up until the manhattan project was started, which wasn't even conceived of and may have never been started without being implored by Einstein. So it isn't as though the U.S. or any other country was a beacon of research into this area by which to set an example upon. Although there is some validity in saying advances occured in spite of Hitler rather than because of, you can say that about many advances during any other empires that just happened to occur during a persons lead, they still happened during that persons seat in power is the point.

Not during that part of his rule that ran from 1942 to 1945, by any definition. "Apart from being defeated" is a rather significant caveat, don't you think?

And not during any other part of his rule either, in my view. Germany never fought an extended campaign prior to Operation Barbarossa. When it was finally forced to mobilize for total war after 1942, the fragility of the German military achievement became evident. In essence they were incapable of defeating any foe that withstood the first onslought. They had neither the industrial production nor the population to win an industrial-age war over the long run.

An agreed problem was that Germany was overextended and fought on too many fronts (the classic reason for losing a war.) The point remains any one adversary engaged in individually probably would have lost against Germany at its height during this era.

Much of German technology was cutting edge, yes. That had been the case since the Kaiserreich. It was not Hitler's achievement.

Already addressed.

The achievements of Germany as a civilization are not at issue. The question is whether Hitler was a great leader. In the field of culture it seems obvious to most historians that he ******** rather than promoting German culture. Mahler, Heine and much of Mozart were banned. Nearly all of the major German writers of the period (Thomas Mann, Hesse, Brecht) were alienated; most left, and Nazism produced nothing comparable as a replacement.

The achievements of the German civilization are directly related to Hitler, many of them in the least. Economicly, it was Hitlers policies which recovered the country, which led to many other achievements. Militarily and Industrially again, how could they not be linked to him? Writing is not the only source of "culture" and I agree that there were areas that were restricted by Hitler, but Nazi Germany was definately a large cultural source. Since many if not all achievements in the broader sense have to be in some small way attributed to him, I have to say he was a great leader.

And back again. The devastation of 1933 was nothing to that of 1945.

But I do not deny that Hitler helped promote the recovery of the 1930s. Nonetheless, not every leader who helps promote economic recovery is a great leader. In these terms, Stresemann was at least as great a leader for ushering the German economy back to recovery in 1923-4. I might add that the credit for the 1930s recovery belongs to Schacht as much as to Hitler.

In some way I disagree that the economic blight of 1945 was greater. True Germany was more thoroughly destroyed and proportionately the debt was likely higher (I don't have exact figures.) However a consideration of the allies was to have Germany rebuilt more quickly and more easily so that a reoccurence of a figure such as Hitler didn't happen.

Germany, once again, is a great civilization. This is not at issue. But was Hitler a great leader?

It is difficult to seperate one from the other. Afterall would you dispute some other figures such as say Alexander the Great on a personal level despite the fact that he held one of the largest empires ever in the world, regardless of the fact it collapsed soon after his death? Would you question if Julius Caeser were a great leader since he inherited what already was the most powerful empire on the earth?

It is difficult to seperate the man sitting in power with the civilization it is he is in power of, they become not only the embodiement of what that empire represents but also dictate the policy that governs it and leads to its success or failure.

Many thanks. Yours too.

 

[SilentDemon]

Defend Nazism as a "cultural advancement" and your motives will be questioned. If you find it to be a personal attack then so be it.

Nazism is racism. Those who apologize for Hitler's racism and claim he offered "cultural advancement" of any kind must be questioned.

Those who ask "who cares?" when talking about the murders of minority groups, gays, and the handicapped must be questioned.

Your defense of Hitler would not have warranted a response, except to point out its racist implications. I guess if you don't find the racist implications disturbing, that says even more about your character than your initial post.

I do not actually recall having my "motives questioned" but rather them being attacked.

The fact that you are trying to link my defense to a ideology of racism in my behalf has such a stunning level of poor conclusion drawing on a logical or analytical basis requires me to cite it out and point out that there is definately a level of bias which makes your arguing ability problematic. I find the racist implication disturbing only because I have done nothing to provide you with a valid argument to make such an accusation.

When I used the simple terms "Who Cares?" I meant the statement from the scheme of government and accomplishment, rather than from a personal perspective. I was trying to simplify the truth in that many governments have had mass extermination campaigns which have not really hindered them from being regarded great empires when they were.

I have for the most part been fair and forthright in arguing the side as I see it without using derogatory remarks and granting people their stance when it is they have made their point well, which I think is what it is I should be doing.

You do not need to be a racist to appreciate a leaders respective position in history. I always seem to find it funny that those who would cite "morality" are often the first to resort to insults.

 

[SilentDemon]

Cultural relativism is SO yesterday.

It is possible to create a logically coherent moral code.

I haven't seen one constructed yet, have you, or better yet can you?