U-864 is finally being raised!

[Letum]

Originally Posted by Schroeder

@Letum

If the UK should ever start an unjust war and draft you I bet you will just say "I don't want to take part in this!" and bravely meet the firing squad....

I believe I would, but that is besides the point.

I'm not saying the u-boat crews made any bad personal decisions. I just don't think
that they did anything that warrens military honor.
Remembrance of their death as humans, yes. Honoring the sacrifice they made for
the Third Reich, no.

[FIREWALL]

A warrior can only die once. A coward dies a thousand deaths.

[Letum]

Originally Posted by FIREWALL

A warrior can only die once. A coward dies a thousand deaths.

...you have lost me.
You think I am a coward because I would rather meet a firing squad than take part in
an unjust war?

I don't think it is an especially brave thing to do, but I don't see how it could be
considered cowardice.

Originally Posted by Letum

What part of their country do you think they where fighting for?
They certainly didn't fight for the freedom loving, peaceful or humane part.

The allies fought for those parts of Germany, not the German army.

The men entombed in U864 fought for much less desirable aspects of Germany. That
makes them human and does not lessen the tragedy of their death, but it does not
bring them any honor, glory or righteousness.

Unluckily I have to correct you here. The allies did not fight for any german or german group/part, no matter if Nazi or the numerous but small and isolated german resistance groups. Despite parts of these groups trying to get in contact with the allies, they never really gave them any hope. Chruchill was actually afraid of Hitler beeing killed for this would have ment a possible compromise in the allied war goals, the unconditional surrender of Germany. You also may want to check the Morgenthau Plan, which upon it's release caused great uproar in Germany and was one reason why the german soldiers fought on to the very bitter end even in the west.

As to the problem at hand, if military honors or not, that's a difficult question. Modern day Germany has a problem with military per se. There are no heroes in todays german military, up until 2009 there weren't even any "fallen" soldiers in the Bundeswehr, just "accidently killed" ones. The reinistatement of the iron cross was declined for some ugly new medal without any reputation or feel of achievement to it. Within such an environment honoring any soldiers from WW2 is very difficult, unless they were proven members of some anti Hitler/Nazi Organisation. Even I am not yet quite sure how to deal with this. On the one hand these ppl more often then not just fought to protect (by all they knew) their country. Many many soldiers nevertheless sympathized with the NAZI regime. The U_boat arm at the start was the least NAZI brand of arms for sure, but that changed from 43 onwards when the old crews were send to the bottom and new recuits were mostly die hard nazi fanatics. It's not a question of black and white, but lots and lots of different shades of grey. Some ppl certainly deserve propper honoring, some certainly do not. And it's not always clear how to decide that.

[Letum]

Originally Posted by Bewolf

Unluckily I have to correct you here. The allies did not fight for any german or german group/part, no matter if Nazi or the numerous but small and isolated german resistance groups.

It could be argued that we fought for your future just as much as we fought for our
own survival. Better a Germany divided as per Morgenthau, than a Germany under
fascist rule.

Even if the Morgenthau Plan came to fruition and was still in place today, it could be
argued you should be grateful to those who bought it about if the alternative is the
survival of fascism in Germany.

I'm not convinced that Germany would be in a better place now if there had been a
conditional peace agreement in 1943.

Originally Posted by Letum

It could be argued that we fought for your future just as much as we fought for our
own survival. Better a Germany divided as per Morgenthau, than a Germany under
fascist rule.

Even if the Morgenthau Plan came to fruition and was still in place today, it could be
argued you should be grateful to those who bought it about if the alternative is the
survival of fascism in Germany.

I'm not convinced that Germany would be in a better place now if there had been a
conditional peace agreement in 1943.

I am not sure how to respond to this. Though at first glance I'd agree to you, at least when it comes to the current generations of germans, I think we were talking about the folks back then, and they certainly would have not agreed with that. And even though I consider democracy and human rights as some of the most important achievements in human history, I do not give it the holy sanction of them beeing the only important factors in defining the well beeing of a country. The german empire, for example, was not a democracy, but it was a country build on the principles of justice nevertheless. The justice system of the holy roman empire had a reputation of not making destinction between nobles and peasants when cases were brought to court, one contributing factor to the german tendency to be rather trustworthy of their government and not as willing to revolt as in was the case in other countries, which came biting us in our asses when the Nazis took over. Whenever germans started to revolt big time, the case of national "unification" was the most dominant one, 1918 beeing the sole exception to that rule. The Morgenthau Plan in this would have been much worse then the partition of Germany had been anyways.

So, I am grateful for what the allies did, but I am certainly not grateful because ppl like you tell me "you should be", or because I think the allies back then were of any morale superiourity in their goals for this war. The only ppl I'd shake hands with are the soldiers and all the other folks that took the burden to go to war for their own private reasons, mostly idealistic ones, willing to risk their lives for these. Everything else just served the political and economical goals of Russia, England and the US respectivly.
In this we actually have to thank the Russians, without their opposition to the US and the american politics to contain communism, Germany would have faced a much worse fate me thinks. And this would have led to huge problems nowadays.

[Letum]

Just to avoid confusion, I said "It could be argued that" because that isn't necessarily my view.

[FIREWALL]

Originally Posted by Letum

...you have lost me.
You think I am a coward because I would rather meet a firing squad than take part in
an unjust war?

I don't think it is an especially brave thing to do, but I don't see how it could be
considered cowardice.

I don't see your name being mentioned in my post.

Got a guilty conscience ?

[Letum]

Originally Posted by FIREWALL

I don't see your name being mentioned in my post.

Got a guilty conscience ?

I don't see who it is referring to, but it is below my post.
I don't see a name in your post either.

Got a habit of veiled knives?

I have a guilty conscience,, but not for anything you know or could guess about.

[Dowly]

Originally Posted by Letum

I disagree.
Those who fought for the Nazis should be respected in death as humans, but not
honored in death as soldiers.

You sir, make me sick with that statement. I really wouldnt have expected that from you, Letum.

And what Letum said above is waht pisses me off, German is always looked as the baddies, every one of them. Yet, I dare to say that 80% of the armed forces had nothing to do with the political Nazi party or had any will to fight for it. They fought for their country, just as brits for UK, finns for Finland, americans for US.

And to top that, we all know (yet some dont want to admit it) germany had the most advanced and the most skilled army at the time.

If you take a dive to the history books of german army, you realise that there's hundreds or even thousands of soldiers who all would deserve an statue somewhere, but they dont. Why? Because they were the baddies.

[Letum]

Tell me what they did in their role as soldiers that deserves the slightest bit of honor.

Don't tell me they had nothing to do with the political Nazi party! The German military
was the only reason the Nazi party was still in power.

As humans that died tragically through no fault of their own, the deserve statues, but
as soldiers they deserve nothing what so ever.

There certainly should be a monument to them, but one that is is memory and morning
for them, not one to give glorification of their military endeavor. That would sicken me.

[Dowly]

Originally Posted by Letum

Tell me what they did in their role as soldiers that deserves the slightest bit of honor.

The same as any soldier, fought for their country.

Don't tell me they had nothing to do with the political Nazi party! The German military
was the only reason the Nazi party was still in power.

Ok, they were under the government of lead by an Nazi leader. That's about as much they had to do with it. And by that I mean, most of them werent nazi's.

As humans that dies tragically through no fault of their own, the deserve statues, but
as soldiers they deserve nothing what so ever.

And I say again, some of the german Wehrmacht and even SS showed bravery that no other soldier had shown to that day, and that is a fact, said and written by many historians.

As for the statues, why there's statues for allied soldiers? Not because the were brave or elite, but because the won the war.

There certainly should be a monument to them, but one that is is memory and morning
for them, not one to give glorification of their military endeavor. That would sicken me.

I feel like repeating myself, but let's take another approach. Let's say, you live in a street X, on the next morning you watch the news and hear that on that street X, a murderer has been arrested. Now, the next you know is that the police is knocking on your door, you open in and they arrest you. You ask them what the heck is this and they answer "A murderer was living on this street, all living on this street must be murderers too, so we arrest everyone."

See, this is exactly what you are saying about the german military in WWII. Some do bad things = everyone are bad.

[Letum]

Originally Posted by Dowly

I feel like repeating myself, but let's take another approach. Let's say, you live in a street X, on the next morning you watch the news and hear that on that street X, a murderer has been arrested. Now, the next you know is that the police is knocking on your door, you open in and they arrest you. You ask them what the heck is this and they answer "A murderer was living on this street, all living on this street must be murderers too, so we arrest everyone."

That is not analogous.
A correct analogy would be you live in a street with a murderer. When the police
come to arrest him you start shooting the police because you are "fighting for your
street". After the police manage to kill you and the murderer someone thinks it would
be a good idea to honor your brave battle against the police.

[Thomen]

Tell me what they did in their role as soldiers that deserves the slightest bit of honor.

Don't tell me they had nothing to do with the political Nazi party! The German military
was the only reason the Nazi party was still in power.

As humans that died tragically through no fault of their own, the deserve statues, but
as soldiers they deserve nothing what so ever.

There certainly should be a monument to them, but one that is is memory and morning
for them, not one to give glorification of their military endeavor. That would sicken me.

That kinda brings up the question why honor any military men or women that died for their country. Or are you saying 'Bomber' Harris is any more honourable than the U-Boat crew? And Harris certainly has more blood on his hands than they do...

As long as they did not commit war crimes, I don't see what should speak against a burial and remembrance with Military honors.
Even your Countrymen, assuming you are indeed Britsh, and the Americans showed respect for their adversaries and gave burials with military honors to fallen Germans.

[Dowly]

Originally Posted by Letum

That is not analogous.
A correct analogy would be you live in a street with a murderer. When the police
come to arrest him you start shooting the police because you are "fighting for your
street". After the police manage to kill you and the murderer someone thinks it would
be a good idea to honor your brave battle against the police.

That's not right either. The correct would be that the police is coming to take your street by force and kill you if you'd oppose it. Knowing that yer wife would personally kill you if you didnt oppose the attackers, you have no choice but to fight. (The wife in this case being the leader of the nation)