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 Manchu wrote:

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
If you refer to me I think you can refer to me by the forum nickname and not a faux nickname.

Just a typo :/

My apologies then

 Manchu wrote:

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
And this is not what I said, I never force, in contrast to what you do, what people should or should not do

(1) You're mischaracterizing my statements. (2) You're mischaracterizing your own statements. Here's exactly what you posted:

 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.

I really have an issue in what your statements are, I don't get what you try to say.

And on point b, yes, I feel the topic was and still is why people get attracted to WW2 Germans, if you honestly think WW2 warcrimes atrocities and ethnic cleansing are valid reasons or that people consider these strongly before choosing to play Germans, then I am speechless on what priorities these people have, who did which warcrimes and what atrocities, why they did it and who knew them and accepted them, who didn't know about them and who supported them, I feel are not on topic for this tread.

There is the worry of some that if the dark side of wars is ignored in games we may forget what happened.

For me its all about the history. By definition historical wargaming will always have history in it.

The individual decides how much and how relevant it is to them.

Personally I've always thought that the historical side of historical games was a key part of the interest of playing them.

I don't see why anyone would bother to play a game about a particular period without having any awareness of the actual history.

 Manchu wrote:
What I described isn't really a matter of expending energy. When you say "people simply accept" that right there is the moment I'm talking about, where people decide what to do about the history.

Well I'm sure that some people aren't fully aware while others accept that Wargames are basically WW2: the movie and are designed purely for entertainment and as such don't require any soul searching. Fielding a Grenadier Kompanie in FoW certainly doesn't mean that you have any sympathy with Nazi Ideology.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kilkrazy wrote:

I don't see why anyone would bother to play a game about a particular period without having any awareness of the actual history.

Awareness is fine, as is historical accuracy, but that doesn't mean that you need to worry about your chosen force's motivations in the real world.

I think you are right, I dont think people should worry about real world motivations but perhaps they should be aware of them though?

But I guess we must accept that people have differing levels of interest in history, from those who can just just manage to watch a history channel programme to the musty old farts who pour over vehicle returns to get the correct vehicles in their army for the right day... I have come to terms with the fact Im in the latter section.

Each to their own.

 Manchu wrote:

]The Allies got their hands dirty, no doubt, but they did so at least in part to stop something that has no redeeming qualities from a morally sane perspective.

Not entirely true, the US would not have even gotten involved in WW2 on the scale it did had it not been for Pearl Harbor (which, yes, it can be argued was caused by US political and economic belligerence). Had Japan cow-towed to our economic and political belligerence, it is highly doubtful we would have gotten involved in WW2 until such a time that the Axis Powers turned their gaze across the respective oceans they resided on. There's been a number of books and studies on this and related topics. It's naive to think we intervened in the European theater, or even got involved at all, over moral issues. If facts suggested otherwise, why didn't we intervene earlier for our ally, Great Britain

Take Dresden as an example. It's naive to think that the bombing of Dresden was anything more than retribution for the bombing of Cumberland, and the London Blitz etc. Dresden was a retributive atrocity perpetrated by the allies. They weren't prosecuted because they were the victors, and anyone calling bs on that (there's always a couple!) really has no concept of the effective birth of international criminal law in the modern age, vi-a-vis the legal precedent quandries presented by the Nuremberg trials. Ex-post facto trials and the very real spectre of "Victor's Justice" (that only the vanquished were being submitted to prosecution) were very real concerns of Jackson's, Beadle's, and Maxwell-Fyfe's.


I'm not going to argue this point though, because frankly, we're all just throwing words at each other at this point on this topic. And its a forum, you never really change anyone's mind. People just look for their next little snippet to quote-chop into an out of context counter point.


Anyone looking for a superb, and easily digestible book on the international criminal legal aftermath of WW2, with the first Nuremberg Trial as a backdrop should check out "Nuremberg: Infamy on Trial" by Joseph Persico - he wrote the book based on his notes from actually being at Nuremberg during the period before, during, and after the trials. Excellent book, i recommend it to anyone interested in WW2, or international criminal law.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Personally I've always thought that the historical side of historical games was a key part of the interest of playing them.

I don't see why anyone would bother to play a game about a particular period without having any awareness of the actual history.

If it's a good game, people will also flock to it because it's a good gameset with good rules.

 Manchu wrote:
What amazes me is that people can claim historical war games have nothing to do with history.

Name one poster here who has stated that along with the quote proving it.

 Grot 6 wrote:


I'm not really interested in Hitler being a great guy, I said at the TIME he was a great guy.

The subjects are out there to be found, and YES= Some of them are gakky, but this is the stuff that Historians know about that the general public doesn't want to be put out as fun and games.

Aside from that, my post was for general examples of why WW2 is not all black and white. I'm not involved with what Manchu has going on, because honestly I disagree with him, but am not engaging his comments in the way that you seem to think you have to do with me.

MINE? I'm saying that People play the german sets just because. Has nothing to do with anything, other then they want to play them.

Oh, by the way, add something to the conversation then just an insult.

I've got more to add, but you being obtuse is making me not want to continue in this discussion.


Its history, chief. I have no dog in the fight.

Here is a parting gift for you to. "Suspect" as you think it is.

http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,760539,00.html

Speaking as an actual historian, this post pains me.

No. Hitler was not a 'great guy' even at the time. Some people may have believed he was a great guy. This does not mean he was a great guy. If it did, that would mean he was a great guy even now, because many neo-facist groups still believe that.

Linking to Soviet medical experiments with regards to detecting brain activity does not somehow prove that WW2 was 'not all black and white'. The 'German Secret Weapons link you posted is inaccurate on several factual points. The fact that nazi's came from many nations to volunteer is genuinely not shocking/surprising/even remotely new to anyone who knows anything about the Spanish Civil War, or even modern day Syria. Borders do not restrict ideologies.

The Germans, Russians, and Japanese conducted war crimes on a level that made what the Allies did generally look like a toddlers scraped knee next to a multi-limb amputation. At least quote Dresden or Napalm bombings if you're going to try and make a serious point.

I've been looking at FoW for a while now, though I haven't gotten into it.

This thread depresses me, because I probably would've started with Germans. But apparently that means I love the Nazis, so now I can't.

I play FOW Germans because simply i want to play them. others want to as well leave it at that

I can't count how many of these type of threads I have seen on wargaming forums. They generally end poorly. I have to say that Manchu and Ketara have given the most mature and reasoned responses I have yet encountered in these style threads. Thank you.

 Seaward wrote:
I've been looking at FoW for a while now, though I haven't gotten into it.

This thread depresses me, because I probably would've started with Germans. But apparently that means I love the Nazis, so now I can't.

For God's sake don't think that!

All of the historical games I have played over the years, in various places, I have never once seen anyone denigrated for choosing to play as Germans. Or, for any force for that matter.

Think Big P's last couple of comments have been a nice concise summary of how I feel about it..

@Haight - I will say there was a fair bit of shame attached to Dresden, even Churchill and Bomber Harris trying to distance themselves from the decisions regarding the bombing there. From what I have read it wasn't seen as 'noble'. I know such a concept in war is faintly ridiculous, but I believe there were a fair few 'whys' asked about it and it wasn't popular.

Looks like I created a monster with this thread!

 Seaward wrote:
I've been looking at FoW for a while now, though I haven't gotten into it.

This thread depresses me, because I probably would've started with Germans. But apparently that means I love the Nazis, so now I can't.

Screw that. Play the Germans.

People suggesting that enjoying playing Germans in wargames is somehow an endorsement of national socialism are being obtuse or trolls.

I mean seriously, it's the height of inanity to suggest that by playing the 3rd Reich in a wargame equates to somehow supporting or ignoring Germany's actions during that era.

Play what you like. Do not let ninnies on a forum dissuade you.

(and i know they won't, i've seen your posts in OT ! )

Yeah, you caught me.

 Pacific wrote:


@Haight - I will say there was a fair bit of shame attached to Dresden, even Churchill and Bomber Harris trying to distance themselves from the decisions regarding the bombing there. From what I have read it wasn't seen as 'noble'. I know such a concept in war is faintly ridiculous, but I believe there were a fair few 'whys' asked about it and it wasn't popular.

Yeah, Dresden was one of those situations that, after the fact, most people involved had a "What have I done?" reactions to it.

At the time the Dresden bombing happened, it had no significant military materiel output (and, mind you this is February 1945 - at this point in the game, the outcome is pretty much a forgone conclusion - the major questions mark is how long it's going to take to button everything up - but by this point both the Reich, the other Axis, and the Allies all know the war in Europe is over, a forgone conclusion - it's just going to take a little bit of time. About the only person of any real import in the equation who doesn't admit this is Hitler, which is why the war lasts another roughly 3 months, and very shortly after his death, Doenitz surrenders nearly immediately. Unlike at other times in the war, this was pretty well known to a level of certainty that military intelligence was satisfied with), and was not a major troop center. It was also of no strategic importance either.

So you had a major population center, with no real tactical or strategic importance aside from having many railways coming into the city, and there's debateable argument about it being a "military communications hub" (the problem with that argument is that there were larger communications hubs and railway centers that did not necessitate 3900 tons of incendiary bombs being dropped over 40 km to destroy.... it's a really thin and paltry argument).

It's widely accepted that Dresden was retribution for Cumberland.

There were lots of "eyewitness" accounts of huge movements of troops into and out of Dresden, but they could never be corroborated, and a lot of them were ex post facto.

Another thing too... which is really horrible... it was a known quanity that the casualties would likely be very highly civilian in nature. It had been decided that incendiary bombing was the way they wanted to approach the raids. In a planning execution meeting, it was brought up that Dresden was known to have an almost non-existent level of bomb shelter system. This still didn't deter either the raid itself, or the vector of destruction they intended to use. It was also discussed that Dresden, and other areas like it, were where civilian evacuees were being moved to as other parts of the country were becoming threatened.

This is basically the very definition of what would constitute a war-crime as decided by the panel of judges for the Nuremberg trials. Dresden is also a MAJOR point that is always brought up when arguing that however well intentioned the victors were, they were still engaging in Victor's Justice.


One note however.... can you provide a citation for Arthur "Bomber" Harris distancing himself from Dresden ? I had never heard of this. I know that when Churchill likened it to an unneccessary terror attack, Harris protested - even going so far as to paraphrase Bismark with his famous quote "The whole of Dresden is not worth the bones of one englishman. At the time of that speech, he claimed that Dresden had been a "Actually Dresden was a mass of munitions works, an intact government centre, and a key transportation point to the East. It is now none of these things."

If he changed his stance later in life, i'd love to read any material on that !


It is interesting too that Dresden helped produce such staunchly liberal writers like Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five (with Dresden as backdrop, and Vonnegut was actually at the bombing of Dresden) and historians like the late and great Howard Zinn (who was himself a bomber in the air force in world war II).



-- Haight

Didn't read the thread, just adding my opinion so feel free to ignore ; ) I love the imagery of WW2 Germany, especially fantasized versions thereof. I despise what they did, what they tried to do, and why they were doing it. I can easily separate the reality of the situation from the fictional side and enjoy the imagery in an army. I see no problem whatsoever in having a full blown Nazi army with swastikas, SS, all of it. Even if you theme the army with similar goals of genocide, racial purity and all that, it's no worse than the Imperiums every day actions of genocide, ethnic cleaning, slavery, conscription and rigid control.

I don't think the whole "it might offend people" argument warrants not making armies like this if you want to. if they don't want to play you, sure that's reasonable if a bit thin skinned perhaps (unless they were directly affected in some way). But everything you do has the potential to offend someone. Someone whose parents were run over by a red car could be set off by a red tank, the common gamer term of "raping your enemy" could set off a sexual assault victim, even a bunch of Orks in melee with guardsmen could make a victim of assault uncomfortable.

Yonan I can almost understand where you are coming from.

But from this sentence onward...

Even if you theme the army with similar goals of genocide, racial purity and all that, it's no worse than the Imperiums every day actions of genocide, ethnic cleaning, slavery, conscription and rigid control.

I cannot take you seriously.

Being historically accurate regards to unit markings and isignia is - IMO - different from theming an army towards racially motivated genocide. Its a different mindset altogether.

 Haight wrote:




It's widely accepted that Dresden was retribution for Cumberland.
-



-- Haight

Cumberland?

Cumberland is a county in Northwest England and a city in Maryland.

Do you mean the bombing of Coventry?

Big P wrote:

 Haight wrote:




It's widely accepted that Dresden was retribution for Cumberland.
-



-- Haight

Cumberland?

Cumberland is a county in Northwest England and a city in Maryland.

Do you mean the bombing of Coventry?

gak, yes, thank you for correcting me. Slip of the tongue. I did mean Coventry.

I think SS units appeal to some people because they are usually fearless veteran. I feel many war gamers are drawn to the "elite" force. I've never seen groups of 95% German players, most people I know actually prefer allies.

Ofcourse this thread descends into the obligatory ethics of plastic soldiers discussion instead.

I'm glad people don't judge me on the morale standards of my Dark Eldar.

 Strombones wrote:
I think SS units appeal to some people because they are usually fearless veteran. I feel many war gamers are drawn to the "elite" force. I've never seen groups of nothing but German players, most people I know actually prefer allies.

Ofcourse this thread descends into the obligatory ethics of plastic soldiers discussion instead.

I'm glad people don't judge me on the morale standards of my Dark Eldar.

I dont judge the Moral standards of your Dark Eldar, just their fashion choices.

Whatever. Skin tight S & M gear is so in right now.

I don't get it either, because if you play a historical game like World in Flames, not a quasi-historical joke like Flame of War, you realize that the Germans a) were in deep crap from day 1 and b) their stuff wasn't that hot on the strategic level. The crappy range on their airplanes was a serious problem compared to the USSR and USA.

“The man who starts a war only gets what he asked for, you know, if he is destroyed. And he can always call for quarter.”

As a point of fact Hugo Boss did not design any of the German uniforms in World War 2. His company was responsible for producing those uniforms but the actual design was done by Karl Diebitsch and Walter Heck.

If choosing an army that has commited atrocities is a nono, then there is much left to play, name me one army that hasn't commited one kind of atrocity or another during their existence.

The French and Americans in Vietnam, The English in south africa/india/china, The Dutch in the their colonies, The Japanese in China, the list goes on and on.

As long as the person that plays a german army doesn't wear an Nazi Uniform and qouts parts from "Mein Kampf" then i am ok with it.

If your chosen faction in a hobby is evil or good is completely irrelevant to your own beliefs and values in the context. I do not endorse Chaos Space Marine behaviour, but I still have an army of them. Same thing with Nazis in my book.

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
If choosing an army that has commited atrocities is a nono

The only people who have said this are trolling the thread.