What If?

[lambsy_uk]

So what would life be like if Germany had won the war?

We rightly pay respect to those who faught but then people say "We owe them so much". So, what is it exactly that we owe them, what would have resulted had we just capitulated?

[Anonymous]

Hello

That is the question like to be or not to be ??!!

Who knows & will be great if some of us were mind readers or not !!?? 

I rather live in the moment & "what if" is is not viable for me as the present moment is what there is & enough to be dealing with 

Just my personal opinion ...

[lambsy_uk]

Then how can we know what we are so thankful for?!

[saasher2012]

Well if you had blond hair & blue eyes you'd be ok but for those of us who are not ????????????

[lambsy_uk]

So fill in the question marks.

Not everyone in the Hitler Youth or German army had blonde hair and blue eyes so I'd suggest the idea that those who did would be ok and it was curtains for the rest would be a bit simplistic!

[saasher2012]

I don't want to fill in the question marks, I feel it is disrespectful especially to all my relations who made it possible for me not to even contemplate having to fill them in!.

[lambsy_uk]

Well I just wonder when people say "we owe them so much", what is it we owe them?

So let's start from an obvious point, those of Jewish ethnicity could have some weight to a claim that they owe them their lives. Having said that how much would the rest of us know about it? The death camps were only revealed to us after the invasion forces had landed so we could perhaps have lived in sweet ignorance.

We could look at the common premise that "We'd all be speaking German". Is this really the case? What evidence is there for this?

We could be living as happy German subjects with little or no thoughts regarding "perhaps we should have put up a fight."

Maybe the Germans would have got fed up and buggered off like the Romans did. Maybe Russia would have eventually taken over Europe and we'd be speaking Russian.

So what is it we owe to those who gave so much?

[right-then-petal]

Shalom

[evoman3957]

The right to call an "A***hole" an "A***hole" to their face, even if it's the "A***hole" who runs the Country. Something tells me if you'd called Hitler an "A***hole", it might have been the last "A***hole" you'd have been able to educate.

[lambsy_uk]

Are you really suggesting all those people fought and many gave their lives so that future generations may call someone an A**hole?!

[sir_arthur_strebe-grebling]

It is indeed ironic that our fathers and grandfathers fought, and many of them died, for our freedom; yet now many people are campaigning daily to restrict our freedom of thought and speech.

[evoman3957]

That was merely a simplistic overview of the many things we can do now, that in my view we would not have been able to do; had the Germans won the War..........critisize those that need to be criticized. What's more worrying is that you need to ask the question.......why and what did they die for.

[sir_arthur_strebe-grebling]

And another irony, as I discovered when I lived in Berlin in 1987, was that for the first 30-odd years of the last century, German was the international language of science. Scientists from other countries, including Britain, learned to speak and write German, attended conferences using the German language and publishing their papers written in German. It was eye-opening for me to visit the many (excellent) Berlin museums and realise that, largely because of the brilliance of their scientists, especially physicists and chemists, Germany had become the de facto centre of the scientific world.

Then, after the National Socialists came to power, from 1933 onwards, the majority of the best scientists left Germany, mostly coming to Britain or the United States. They learned English and gradually English became the international scientific language, and, eventually, the international language of commerce, entertainment and so on.

The irony is that Hitler and the National Socialists wanted Germans to rule the world but their actions had the opposite effect.

[saasher2012]

With the greatest respect it wasn't just the Jewish race they murdered,in the death camps !

[lambsy_uk]

I ask the question because I'm interested in how others think and is a subject that can be discussed.

I personally believe they fought for an ideology; that Germany should not be allowed to expand empire in such a way that impinges on the self-determination of their neighbours.

[lambsy_uk]

"The irony is that Hitler and the National Socialists wanted Germans to rule the world but their actions had the opposite effect."

And so perhaps it would be the case that but not for the Nazis we'd all be speaking German!

Irony in deed!

[lambsy_uk]

"With the greatest respect it wasn't just the Jewish race they murdered,in the death camps !"

Of course not, goes without saying!

[rose2008-2008]

I suppose we owe them for ACTUALLY just going,,,,, signing up,,, doing their duty for queen and country and fellowman!!!!. It must have been B***Y scary going into war knowing that you might get done for!!!. We would not have won it without them!!. If they had not then we might not be here or a bloomin lot of us would not be here as people would have then gone to camps and such. The English human race i mean,,, as they would have gassed as many of us as possible,,, more so than they did. i know people went to the camps anyway and im sad for them. Women, men and little children, terrible!!!

[saasher2012]

Well actually I think it does need saying! The Final Solution, would be the same principle used to our race if Hitler had achieved Victory, our old , infirm, mentally I'll, disabled, mixed race that didn't conform to his idea of a pure race& that includes millions of English who have many foreign peoples in their ancestry etc ! etc!!.lets face it if you laughed at the wrong time you were sent to the camps, we had a lucky escape thanks to those service men & women & from our allies & may I also say so did the German people as well!.

[joe_bloggs*]

"We owe them so much" We certainly do,without them we would have no NHS,no welfare state,no trade unions,which along with strikes would be outlawed under a fascist regime who would work hand in glove with big corporations to bring about low business costs by employing cheap labour,no doubt slave labour would exist,perhaps being named workfare with badges stitched to their working attire proclaiming "Work sets you free" You would no doubt have an alarming increase in professional curtain twitchers being paid some blood money by the state to denounce their neighbour as a suspected socialists or heaven forbid being gay.
Yes we do owe them so much,ask Harry Leslie Smith,there's a series of his articles in the Guardian taken from his book "Harry's Last Stand"