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 Manchu wrote:

 Art_of_war wrote:
It was a process that took time to evolve, initially on the Eastern Front the Wermacht did treat the Russians reasonably well. There were more prisoners than they bargained for however, add to this the fact that when the 'state authorities' took control of the rear areas the genocide started. Which began that slippery slope...

Unfortunately, this was not the case. As mentioned above, the invasion of the USSR was an ethnic cleansing from the start. Read up on the Barbarossa Decree. In the more candid, less self-serving memoirs of German soldiers (such as this one), you can read about the eagerness with which Germany went to war against the USSR.

Yes right, the intention was to go for the East and then on to Russia right from the start. It's right there in Mein Kampfe, the concept of 'Lebensraum' (living space), and Hitler certainly wasn't thinking about sipping wine on the terraces in southern France when he wrote that.

Re. answering the OP in terms of FoW:
- Playing Germans you've technically got the possibility of most opponents; Americans, Brits, Russians, even Italians if we are talking about late war. Although I realise that in practise this isn't often the case (I chose Americans as my first force, simply because so many people were collecting Germans and Brits!)
- The tanks, both in terms of their style and their utility. Stuff like the Tiger, Jagdtiger/panzer, even the humble PzIV look good. They are also often hard-asses in the rules, even if often outnumbered, because of the 'veteran' attribute as much as the tank's stats. Anyone who has ever had a Tiger knock out 2-3 Shermans in a turn from the length of the board (or whatever other 'tiger ace' rule you have) will know the appeal.
- I think also there is a propensity towards 'elite' forces, although of course this also applies to people who like to collect Brit paratroopers and the like. A friend of mine once described Germans as marines and Soviets as orks in terms of the mindset of the players that choose them. While that is a bit of a crass generalisation, I kind of understand what he meant especially when seeing the mass of Strelkovy crossing the table while the few Panzergrenadier's desperately try and defend against them.
- Personally, I've found painting the infantry and tanks much more interesting than the US force I painted previously; camo patterns, even doing research on the net for the correct shade of 'Dunklegelb' (and finding there isn't one!), mixing the camo patterns etc. It feels more like bespoke than production-line, which is a general feeling that most people have when painting anything - not many people prefer hordes!
- Also, perhaps Dreadclaw69 has a point, there might be some attraction in trying to 'reverse history' by doing better than the generals managed in real life. In that sense, the German forces hold a certain fatalistic appeal.

I would think as a final note however, that considering the attention to detail, patience (and to an extent, intelligence) required to collect and play wargames, I very much doubt that there are many who collect Germans because they admire Nazi ideology, or what they tried to do.

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
One can really ignore and separate what the regime did and be captivated by a form that is designed to do exactly that.

But we're not separating anything. We're talking about Nazi design in the context of Nazi armies. No one is talking ITT about an army merely influenced by such aesthetics; rather, we are talking about the thing itself or at least its embodiment in table top wargaming decades after the fact. For the very reason that this is a discussion about historical gaming, it is simply ahistorical to pretend one can consider the Nazi aesthetics of the Nazi military apart from Nazi ideology. When people chose to play a WW2-era German army, it is obvious that they are not necessarily aligning themselves with Nazi politics. But it is just as obvious that the decision to collect, model, and game with such a force is made in the context of those politics as a matter of history.

I guess at this point we can agree to disagree.

For me the vast majority of players that will choose to play Germans in a WW2 game will do it either because it looks cool (design aesthetic), or because of the military history behind the army which again is not based on the ideology of the regime.

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
the military history behind the army which again is not based on the ideology of the regime

This is an ahistorical concept.

 Manchu wrote:

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
the military history behind the army which again is not based on the ideology of the regime

This is an ahistorical concept.

If you say so I will not disagree, but if your definition of historical gaming is so broad, then I believe the vast majority of historical gamers play ahistorical.

The German military enthusiastically attempted to achieve the ideological goals set out by Hitler's regime. This logic made it all the way down to the level of individual soldiers who fought, killed, and died because they believed to a greater or lesser extent in Nazi ideological precepts (which included patriotism, albeit in an inextricably racist form). Does this generally come up in specific instances of war games? I doubt it. On the other hand, don't most people participating value historical war gaming precisely because it is historical? That seems certain.

Even when war gamers are explicitly engaging in counterfactual narrative -- for example, the glorification of the "good Germans" when it comes to Wehrmacht apologetics -- we're still dealing with the realm of history inasmuch as people can only create such narratives on the basis of some historical awareness. This is why I posted earlier that even the most superficial historical awareness makes it impossible to ignore Nazi ideology when choosing to play a WW2-era German army.

 Manchu wrote:
This is why I posted earlier that even the most superficial historical awareness makes it impossible to ignore Nazi ideology when choosing to play a WW2-era German army.

Except of course thats exactly what I did, and I very much doubt that I am alone in doing so. There are also a fairly wide spectrum of 'Naziness', with most DAK units on the good side of the spectrum all the way through to the Dirlewanger bridage and the Totenkopf division on the other with everything else in between. Not all German soldiers were Nazis and while they were ultimately fighting for the Nazi party and its idealogy at the end of the day they were also fighting for their country, just like every other combatant and that many of them were conscripts (even in SS units).

I'm not a Wehrmacht apologist but I do recognize the error in labelling all German soldiers as Nazis or adherents to Nazi ideology.

 Manchu wrote:
The German military enthusiastically attempted to achieve the ideological goals set out by Hitler's regime. This logic made it all the way down to the level of individual soldiers who fought, killed, and died because they believed to a greater or lesser extent in Nazi ideological precepts (which included patriotism, albeit in an inextricably racist form). Does this generally come up in specific instances of war games? I doubt it. On the other hand, don't most people participating value historical war gaming precisely because it is historical? That seems certain.

Even when war gamers are explicitly engaging in counterfactual narrative -- for example, the glorification of the "good Germans" when it comes to Wehrmacht apologetics -- we're still dealing with the realm of history inasmuch as people can only create such narratives on the basis of some historical awareness. This is why I posted earlier that even the most superficial historical awareness makes it impossible to ignore Nazi ideology when choosing to play a WW2-era German army.

I'm not really sure what you are saying here. I think you can certainly separate the ideology of an army from onces choice to play in a war game. Playing as the he South in an American Civil War game doesn't mean you in any way support or condone slavery for example. Your choice to play as that army may entirely be based of aesthetics or tactics and have nothing to do with Ideology.

Of course I may be completely misreading what you are saying and arguing against a point you are not making.

That said I agree that there does seem to be a great deal of apologetics when it comes to Nazi germany. Sure there were good germans, they were not an entire country of monsters but the army still fought for a regime that committed terrible acts of genoside and its very unlikely that the German army at large did not know of this.

It's a bit difficult to ignore the German role in WW2, so I'm not surprised a lot of players have German armies. I don't think the ratio is 95%, though.

As for motivation, most people probably just want a dynamic army that offers a variety of possible opponents.

 Haight wrote:

Swastika is an ancient symbol and the hysteria that surrounds it for the brief time Nazi Germany used it is at least disheartening.

While yes, technically true.... didn't they turn it from the Hindu symbol... i.e. the arms are rotating in the opposite direction of the hindu sign ? I was always under the impression that while they ripped off the design, they tweaked it in this way on purpose.

I mean, they totally did steal it, not denying that, but a backwards R and a frontwards R are still relatively different things.

The swastika is one of the most ancient symbols known to man. It's been known to various European cultures for thousands of years. It appears in ancient European contexts that predate the Indus Valley civilisation meaning it first appears in Europe and not India.
Under christianity the symbol was not so common as the cross became favoured. It wasn't until the romantic ideals of the 18th century brought about an interest in paganism that the symbol started becoming popular again. At the same time, discovery of the Aryans ,this supposed super people who spread out from somwhere in the Russian Steppes to bring civilisation to the world, introduced their word for the symbol into Europe. The Germans called it a Hakenkreuz (crooked cross) but the English and others called it a swastika, the sanskrit word used by the Indians. The word came from India, not the symbol.

As for its rotation, left or right, it can be both and appears as such in ancient European art, and both forms are used in Asia. Swastikas are also to be found in many old Synagogues, especially as part of floor decorations.

Thought this image was interesting as it's from an American car company that existed during the early part of the 20th century. It went out of business while Hitler was still a corporal serving in WWI. The company did export overseas so if the nazis did "steal" their swastika from anywhere, it was from a small car company out of Detroit.

Looks like I've opened a can of worms with this discussion, from the bottom of my heart, I can assure people that this was not my original intention

As I mentioned earlier, I do like tiger tanks, and if you're building on a budget, a late war German army stuffed with panthers is pretty cheap to buy.

Maybe this next bit is OT, but it always surprises me when you see people walking around with hammer and sickle t-shirts, or chairman Mao t-shirts (how many people did he kill?) or Che Guvera t-shirts, and nobody blinks an eyelid, but if you were to wear a Swastika....

I think, from a British point of view, if the Nazis didn't exist, we'd have to invent them. The number of books and tv programmes these days on them is getting silly!

From a war gaming view, my personnel preference is British tanks and American paratroopers (dream combination) but the lack of British armies on my scene is strange - maybe it is a case of people wanting to try something different?

Anyway, loads of good comments, here, keep it up!

As for popularity of the German military, there used to be a lot of WWII movies with British or American soldiers in them. There were comics about the same. Today there is a huge focus on the Germans in terms of movies and computer games, often with a fantasy element but people see the Germans more than anyone else.

They looked good for sure but I think exposure plays a part too, you don't see a lot of movies or tv programmes that are about WWII British army forces.

The interesting part about the swastika is I only see it as a Nazi symbol when on a red flag in a white circle any other time I see it as a Hindu simbol of peace and welcome it all depends on context.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Looks like I've opened a can of worms with this discussion, from the bottom of my heart, I can assure people that this was not my original intention

As I mentioned earlier, I do like tiger tanks, and if you're building on a budget, a late war German army stuffed with panthers is pretty cheap to buy.

Maybe this next bit is OT, but it always surprises me when you see people walking around with hammer and sickle t-shirts, or chairman Mao t-shirts (how many people did he kill?) or Che Guvera t-shirts, and nobody blinks an eyelid, but if you were to wear a Swastika....

I think, from a British point of view, if the Nazis didn't exist, we'd have to invent them. The number of books and tv programmes these days on them is getting silly!

From a war gaming view, my personnel preference is British tanks and American paratroopers (dream combination) but the lack of British armies on my scene is strange - maybe it is a case of people wanting to try something different?

Anyway, loads of good comments, here, keep it up!

Personally I plan to collect British if/when I start playing ww2 games.

Welsh_Furey wrote:
The interesting part about the swastika is I only see it as a Nazi symbol when on a red flag in a white circle any other time I see it as a Hindu simbol of peace and welcome it all depends on context.

If you look at Japanese maps they are full of swastikas as the symbol is used to mark the location of Buddhist temples.

I think I am in the only person in the world who actually wants to play Italians in WWII.

In due time, in due time.

I think that there is an obsessive nature that is inherent in Naziism that appeals to gamers. The Nazis were known for their meticulous order and record keeping. They wrote long texts in the German tradition that are more than a little obsessive.

Many gamers that I know have OCD, and it allies nicely with such obsession and order. You can collect obsessively, paint obsessively, and play obsessively. Rules lawyering and WAAC seems to me to come from a perspective of the game that is distorted by obsession.

Now, of course you can obsess about any force, but with Germans, it fits the fluff.

 Easy E wrote:
I think I am in the only person in the world who actually wants to play Italians in WWII.

In due time, in due time.

I dabbled with the idea, myself, so you're not alone!


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 spaceelf wrote:
I think that there is an obsessive nature that is inherent in Naziism that appeals to gamers. The Nazis were known for their meticulous order and record keeping. They wrote long texts in the German tradition that are more than a little obsessive.

Many gamers that I know have OCD, and it allies nicely with such obsession and order. You can collect obsessively, paint obsessively, and play obsessively. Rules lawyering and WAAC seems to me to come from a perspective of the game that is distorted by obsession.

Now, of course you can obsess about any force, but with Germans, it fits the fluff.

My local tax office is known for its obsessive and ruthless nature, as well! It's not just a Nazi thing!

 Palindrome wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
This is why I posted earlier that even the most superficial historical awareness makes it impossible to ignore Nazi ideology when choosing to play a WW2-era German army.

Except of course thats exactly what I did, and I very much doubt that I am alone in doing so.

There is no way to believe such a statement. It's like saying you got into WW2 war gaming without ever thinking about WW2.

 Palindrome wrote:
I'm not a Wehrmacht apologist but I do recognize the error in labelling all German soldiers as Nazis or adherents to Nazi ideology.

I don't think you've actually read my posts. Whether or not most Wehrmacht soldiers were party members, the Wehrmacht was a creature of the Nazi state, directed and operated according to Nazi ideology, and its soldiers were certainly willing and in many cases even enthusiastic participants.

 carlos13th wrote:
Of course I may be completely misreading what you are saying and arguing against a point you are not making.

It seems so. I definitely do not think that anyone who buys WW2-era German toy soldiers is a Nazi or even necessarily rationalizes the culpability of the German people (despite there being a lot of the latter ITT). My point is, when we talk about historical gaming we are implicating actual history. Unlike a plastic Space Marine, a plastic Wehrmacht soldier points to real things that actually happened -- including some very troubling things.

I don't know why but every time I see the whole "All Germans were Nazis argument" I can't help but scoff a bit.

Not every American soldier who served in Operation Iraqi Freedom was a Republican, and I'm sure that for every other conflict in history there were enlisted men fighting who didn't sync up completely with the political party in charge.

Somehow seeing the Germans or even the Soviet army of WWII being 100% committed to their ideals (Naziism and Communism) is just painting them with far too broad a brush.

I scoff whenever I see arguments relying on phrases like "100% committed." What is historically obvious is that the German people generally did not oppose Nazism; what is further apparent from even cursory research is that the German people generally supported Nazism. The "not 100%" style arguments explain nothing about what actually happened, including the widespread atrocities committed by the Wehrmacht.

 Manchu wrote:
The German military enthusiastically attempted to achieve the ideological goals set out by Hitler's regime. This logic made it all the way down to the level of individual soldiers who fought, killed, and died because they believed to a greater or lesser extent in Nazi ideological precepts (which included patriotism, albeit in an inextricably racist form). Does this generally come up in specific instances of war games? I doubt it. On the other hand, don't most people participating value historical war gaming precisely because it is historical? That seems certain.

Even when war gamers are explicitly engaging in counterfactual narrative -- for example, the glorification of the "good Germans" when it comes to Wehrmacht apologetics -- we're still dealing with the realm of history inasmuch as people can only create such narratives on the basis of some historical awareness. This is why I posted earlier that even the most superficial historical awareness makes it impossible to ignore Nazi ideology when choosing to play a WW2-era German army.

I think it's possible to recognise and acknowledge the history of the second world war, and still play the army. I don't really understand what point you are trying to make - are you trying to say that people shouldn't play that army, simply because the actions that army carried out, and the regime they were part of, was so despicable? I guess that's very much a personal thing. I do know people who feel the same way (not just about WW2 and Germans.. about playing any force, in any period of history) and prefer to keep tabletop wargaming purely in the realm of fantasy.

I think it's a tough one.. I've got Jewish ancestry that had to leave both Germany and from eastern Europe 50 years before that. Perhaps in part because of this I've read about the war and its causes extensively, I can acknowledge that the regime the Wermacht fought as part of was horrendous. But, at the same time I don't ascribe to the 'they all knew exactly what was going on' view of their history. It's a conclusion I have reached from reading I've done, of life experience, and because I know that most people by their very nature want to protect their own skins and do their very best not to believe stories of atrocities. I can understand though how, if you didn't view things as I do, it would be very difficult to play as a German force. And in fact how a lot of the time playing any historical conflict could become far too emotive if you're unable to view things with a clinical detachment and understanding of historical, cultural and psychological norms. In my case, it allows me to play WW2 as I imagine it to be.. as a bunch of tired, frightened but brave guys who want to fight for the people stood next to them, a meal and bed to sleep in, for the chance to go back to their loved ones back home. In most cases I think that the combatants on the battlefield, the fight taking place before me at 15mm scale, probably felt the same way regardless of the flag they fought under.

So.. ultimately, I think it's really a subjective thing. Finally, I think it's also possible that while a lot of people know doubt know the context of the games they are playing, a lot of people probably simply don't care. Think how blasé the majority of people are about wars taking place in the world right now, and about loss of life through violence, by extension they will care that much less about a conflict that took place more than 65 years ago.

Well, Pacific, I have been pretty explicit in my posts that I don't think people who play WW2-era German armies are necessarily Nazis or Nazi apologists so it's hard to see how you might even conceive that I'm saying people shouldn't play those armies. My actual point was initially a response to this post:

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
And while the whole discussion of what really happened, from whose point of view one sees it and who was the worse of them all is quite intriguing, I feel it is a discussion for another thread and another topic.

The question of WW2-era German atrocities is very much on-topic in a thread discussing why people play them because every single person who has even the slightest amount of education cannot possibly consider the matter outside of the historical context.

Now people respond in different ways. They might be indulging their own racist and authoritarian fantasies. They might rationalize the atrocities away in favor of the "Good German" myth fairly prevalent ITT. Or they might accept what actually happened and mindfully avoid glorifying or justifying WW2-era Germany. Most realistically, there is a combination of all of these things. But the point is, everyone must consider this question regardless of how they answer it.

 Manchu wrote:

Now people respond in different ways. They might be indulging their own racist and authoritarian fantasies. They might rationalize the atrocities away in favor of the "Good German" myth fairly prevalent ITT. Or they might accept what actually happened and mindfully avoid glorifying or justifying WW2-era Germany. Most realistically, there is a combination of all of these things. But the point is, everyone must consider this question regardless of how they answer it.

Or more realistically they might recognise that war itself involves atrocities against civilians and enemy soldiers alike and that their interest is strictly military and not political. Otherwise we'd need to ask why anyone would play tyranids, a lifeform whose sole purpose is to convert all other life to itself. Maybe such people are closet marxists wanting to replace all global cultures and people with one uniformed peasant mass that worships the state. Lots of ways of looking at things, sometimes it's best not to ascribe motives to things like choice of faction in gaming and either play with the person or not, admire their army or not.

Do you really have trouble seeing the difference between sci-fantasy and historical war gaming?

What Manchu won't tell you is that there is just as much primary evidence from German soldiers who were opposed to Nazi ideals as there were from true believers. The idea that all German soldiers embraced such radical ideas is absurd.

WW2 and the Holocaust cannot be explained by the myth that most or even many Germans opposed Nazism.

What I have difficulty with is ascribing motives to players of armies. You'd have us believe that everyone who plays WWII German forces is a closet nazi or is only playing them so that the "good guys" have someone to fight.

The armies involved in the battles were not taking time out to round up partisans, jews or whoever, they were military formations involved in fighting battles. That is what is represened on the tabletop. The day FOW or any other WWII based game brings in the option of using your forces to oppress civilian populations, run concentration camps/gulags, teach propaganda to your population you'll have a point to make. Until then, WWII games are military in nature and not political, as are all other historic wargames at tabletop level.

The point of asking the motivations for playing a faction in a sci-fi game is that it is equally absurd as doing so for an historic one. People do play historic battles to see if they could effect the same results with similar resources of historic generals.
It's also irrelevant why someone chooses to play a particular army if they're good to play against or with.
If a person chooses to play the Soviets because they're a member of the local communist party then so what? If you're anti-communist then have fun trying to beat them.

One of things I find interesting about the German military is how modern they looked for an army from 70 years ago. That probably is part of the appeal too.

 Samurai_Eduh wrote:
he idea that all German soldiers embraced such radical ideas is absurd.

Again with the "not 100%" argument. For people who make this argument, history is apparently as simple as either on the one hand every single German being a card-carrying Nazi or on the other the majority of them opposing Nazism even as their whole soceity was mobilized to prosecute a war to achieve Nazi goals.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

cadbren wrote:
You'd have us believe that everyone who plays WWII German forces is a closet nazi or is only playing them so that the "good guys" have someone to fight..

Or you could read what I have actually said:

 Manchu wrote:
When people chose to play a WW2-era German army, it is obvious that they are not necessarily aligning themselves with Nazi politics.

 Manchu wrote:
I have been pretty explicit in my posts that I don't think people who play WW2-era German armies are necessarily Nazis or Nazi apologists

But nice strawman post.

cadbren wrote:
The point of asking the motivations for playing a faction in a sci-fi game is that it is equally absurd as doing so for an historic one.

Neither question is absurd in the slightest. It is absurd, however, to pretend they are the same question.

Yeah, way to totally ignore what I wrote and you have in no way been explicit about saying that those who play factions like the WWII Germans are divorced from the political background. In fact you keep bringing it up as though it is relevant to a wargame when it is not.