Berlin in July 1945 , Coloured, HD - General

[QUOTE=4NGRY MUFF1N;47679469] Poland is a good example, Hitler modernised their industries and built it up to a more (german standard) the russians plowed Everything to shit.[/QUOTE] Poland, what Poland. There wasn't such a country at that particular time. And there wouldn't be such people as Poles soon enough, had the Germans been allowed to have their way.

[QUOTE=gudman;47679829]Poland, what Poland. There wasn't such a country at that particular time. And there wouldn't be such people as Poles soon enough, had the Germans been allowed to have their way.[/QUOTE] This Poland: [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Polish_Republic[/url] You know, the one your country "liberated" from the brutal rule of the Third Reich (after first conquering it and sharing it with the Reich) only to absorb it themselves.

[QUOTE=4NGRY MUFF1N;47679469]The soviets tried to destroy Everything that Hitler/the germans built up. Poland is a good example, Hitler modernised their industries and built it up to a more (german standard) the russians plowed Everything to shit.[/QUOTE] Dunno about Poland but attacking Berlin without heavy bombing would've been suicide considering how large the city is and how many fanatical Germans there would have been to take advantage of the huge amount of buildings. I mean look at the Germans attacking Stalingrad, they did the same thing

[QUOTE=cxcxxxxx;47680119]This Poland: [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Polish_Republic[/url] You know, the one your country "liberated" from the brutal rule of the Third Reich (after first conquering it and sharing it with the Reich) only to absorb it themselves.[/QUOTE] Yeah I haven't denied that. The fact is, Germans didn't "progress" and "modernize" their industry. They claimed it to themselves and made Poles work there. For the time being, too. The fact that Soviets did more or less the same or similar thing afterwards doesn't really change that one bit.

[QUOTE=bdd458;47667462]This is a really interesting video of footage from Berlin from around 1900 or so (pretty much from what I can tell it's all pre-WWI). Makes for an interesting comparison. [video=youtube;C1IGNLg-RSU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1IGNLg-RSU[/video][/QUOTE] It's amazing when you see the young children (who nowadays wouldn't bat an eye at a camera) seeming so bemused by what the cameraman's holding. It makes you realise that every single person seen here is dead now.

[QUOTE=J!NX;47668350]actually, it did, but nazi Germany was so evil that it literally was black and white' when the war ended, Germany became saturated with color. [/QUOTE] So, The Saboteur was actually educational nonfiction?

eerie, I've just had dinner with my grandma and she talked about how miserable mid- and post-war germany was. someone younger she met argued about how hitler and the war 'might not have been such a bad thing' and boy did she tell that woman. the bottom line was pretty much, it just wasn't. There wasn't a good thing about it, regardless of what might have been in the eyes of someone who didn't experience the misery. I don't think it's possible to comprehend just how awful everything was without experiencing it, I cannot compare the things she tells me to any experience of my own that I could use as I reference point. I just don't know that level of awful. All the war brought her was misery and that is how it was. No would have and could have will change that.

[QUOTE=gudman;47679829]Poland, what Poland. There wasn't such a country at that particular time. And there wouldn't be such people as Poles soon enough, had the Germans been allowed to have their way.[/QUOTE] We haven't been there for 123 years, but we've always "been" there, and honestly it wouldn't be surprising if Poles were something of a cultural/ethnic minority on its current lands if it hadn't reclaimed sovereignty. In any case, he does have a point. Nowadays Western Poland is refereed to as "Poland A" and Eastern Poland as "Poland B" colloquially, due to the difference in industry, structure and mentality that people figure roots back to the Third Partition of Poland and the Occupation. And usually you wanna stay as far away as possible from Poland B. It's a rather interesting subject actually. In a nutshell though, if there's one thing the average pole hates more than Germany, it's Russia, and for good reason. Generally if 10 years ago you asked the still living seniors, they were rather in favor of Germany.

[QUOTE=gudman;47679829]Poland, what Poland. There wasn't such a country at that particular time. And there wouldn't be such people as Poles soon enough, had the Germans been allowed to have their way.[/QUOTE] Poland wasn't an independent country but that doesn't mean the area and its inhabitants didn't exist.

[QUOTE=Kljunas;47698367]Poland wasn't an independent country but that doesn't mean the area and its inhabitants didn't exist.[/QUOTE] Yeah, this basically. Poland as a country didn't exist, but the majority of people with Polish roots still considered themselves Polish, and Polish literature never really stopped. Parents were teaching their children polish customs, and there were secret polish schools even though teachings in polish were illegal, and so on. Wikipedia sums it up nicely, [QUOTE]The King of Poland, Stanisław August Poniatowski, under Russian military escort left for Grodno where he abdicated on November 25, 1795; next he left for Saint Petersburg, Russia, where he would spend his remaining days. This act ensured that Russia would be seen as the most important of the partitioning powers. As a result of the Partitions, Poles were forced to seek a change of status quo in Europe.[18][19] Polish poets, politicians, noblemen, writers, artists, many of whom were forced to emigrate (thus the term Great Emigration) became the revolutionaries of the 19th century, as desire for freedom became one of the defining parts of Polish romanticism.[20][21] Polish revolutionaries participated in uprisings in Prussia, the Austrian Empire and Imperial Russia.[22] Polish legions fought alongside Napoleon[23][24] and under the slogan of For our freedom and yours, participated widely in the Spring of Nations (particularly the Hungarian Revolution (1848)).[22][25] Poland would be briefly resurrected—if in a smaller frame—in 1807, when Napoleon set up the Duchy of Warsaw. After his defeat and the implementation of the Congress of Vienna treaty in 1815, the Russian-dominated Congress Kingdom of Poland was created in its place. After the Congress, Russia gained a larger share of Poland (with Warsaw) and, after crushing an insurrection in 1831, the Congress Kingdom's autonomy was abolished and Poles faced confiscation of property, deportation, forced military service, and the closure of their own universities. After the uprising of 1863, Russification of Polish secondary schools was imposed and the literacy rate dropped dramatically. In the Austrian portion, Poles fared better, and were allowed to have representation in Parliament and to form their own universities, and Kraków and Lemberg (Lwów/Lviv) became centers of Polish culture and education. Meanwhile, Prussia Germanized the entire school system of its Polish subjects, and had no more respect for Polish culture and institutions than the Russian Empire. In 1915 a client state of the German Empire and Austria-Hungary was proposed and accepted by the Central Powers of World War I: the Regency Kingdom of Poland. After the end of World War I, the Central Powers' surrender to the Western Allies, the chaos of the Russian Revolution and the Treaty of Versailles finally allowed and helped the restoration of Poland's full independence after 123 years.[/QUOTE] I've had to learn all this boring shit at school so now I'll inflict that paint onto you.

My Great-Great Grandfather lived in what's now Poland back in the late 1800's, early 1900's. Well, the Russian controlled bit (I have other Polish ancestors who lived in Austrian controlled bits and German controlled bits). Anyway, back in 1905 he was conscripted by the Russians to fight their lovely little war against the Japanese. Some Russian military officials showed up to their home one day looking for 2 able bodied men to fight, but there weren't two able bodied men, and he was iirc would have been considered too old to fight normally; but they took him anyway. I doubt he had much sympathy for the Russians, and I suspect that entire thing was part of the reason they eventually left for the US.

[QUOTE=Zzztops;47674736]Here, might as well toss this in since we're doing the whole color thing. Mind the music. [video=youtube;CErUTpuDbd8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CErUTpuDbd8[/video] The soldier who raises his pickelhaube at 1:47 and the saluting soldier at 6:03 always get me. It just fascinates me, here they are fighting a war around one hundred years ago and they don't even have the slightest clue that they salute thousands of people even long after they are dead. I dunno', I just find something moving about that, maybe it's just the fact that they are the most animated people in the clips, the most "real." What I think it is though, is the fact that they have managed to leave their mark and essentially immortalize themselves, all while existing during a time which is difficult to today imagine or fully comprehend.[/QUOTE] They were fooks back then and the enthusiastic proud soldiers today are fools too. So are we who are living in a society that has the need for them built into itself and I don't know who is more foolish, the people thinking that you can get rid of war, soldiers and military(me) or the people who embrace, love and respect the military. [editline]10th May 2015[/editline] Urgh, you guys made me google my name with your Poland discussion since my Grandfather is from Breslau, Poland nowadays. This guy is from the same area and we have the same last name: [url]http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Riedel[/url] Strange feeling.

[QUOTE=Zzztops;47674736]Here, might as well toss this in since we're doing the whole color thing. Mind the music. [video=youtube;CErUTpuDbd8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CErUTpuDbd8[/video] The soldier who raises his pickelhaube at 1:47 and the saluting soldier at 6:03 always get me. It just fascinates me, here they are fighting a war around one hundred years ago and they don't even have the slightest clue that they salute thousands of people even long after they are dead. I dunno', I just find something moving about that, maybe it's just the fact that they are the most animated people in the clips, the most "real." What I think it is though, is the fact that they have managed to leave their mark and essentially immortalize themselves, all while existing during a time which is difficult to today imagine or fully comprehend.[/QUOTE] I tried to understand where you're coming from but watching the video at 3:37 really gave me the chills - there's a small group of Germans moving through a trench filled with dead Commonwealth soldiers in heaps around their feet. Maybe its just because I'm British but I found that particularly unsettling. I have a real interest in history but the First World War is probably one of my hated parts of it. At its heart it is nought but years of slaughter and death, showing the absolute rock bottom Humanity can stoop to - go and fight for a fantasy ideal and get yourself killed pointlessly, throwing humans at each other with as much regard as statistics and numbers, glorifying war, dictators and military incompetence, topped off with all the shittyness of Imperialism, just to say a few things. The only positive thing that ultimately came out of World War 1 was some cases of accelerated technological/medical advancement and a contribution to the idea that war is not something to be glorified and desired by the masses. But it still took another World War and millions more dead to get there.

WWI is pretty much the most interesting period for me to look at. There was a lot of Politics that went into it Dr_Critic. To really get an idea for why WWI happened you have to look at two preceding conflicts: The Balkan Wars. After those two wars, Russia was left with Serbia as her only Balkan ally (as the Balkan league orchestrated by Russia had fallen apart by the end of the 2nd Balkan War). Russia hadn't really stepped into either of those conflicts because at the time, her allies were relatively safe. Come August 1914, and that all changes. Russia didn't want to lose a critical ally, one in a very strategic position, and as such rushed to defend Serbia in 1914. Franz Josef was an aged leader trying to hold onto a crumbling and crippled Empire, and what better way to bring people together than through war and conquest? Josef had made his mind up far before Franz Ferdinand was assassinated, in fact, many of the Hapsburg didn't particularly care for Ferdinand has he was sympathetic towards the Serbians and their position. Germany's involvement is interesting as well. It was a lot of things at once. Kaiser Wilhelm II, while not close friends with the Archduke, sympathized with him quite a bit. He sympathized with him because many of his family didn't like him, and Wilhelm grew up with a crippled arm and knew what it was like to feel out of place in a situation like that. So, he wanted to avenge that death. Not to mention he didn't want his ally to be creamed by the Russians. And on the other side he was wary of French intentions, and wanting to defeat France The Germans really felt they needed to go through Belgium, and when Belgium said "no" they still went through anyway and Britain got involved since they were friendly towards Belgium. And at your point about just throwing people at each other, at least on the Western Front, it was far from that - Especially by the mid-late war. Quoting don_Durandal who has done far more reading of memoirs and period training books and pamphlets from all sides. [quote]Squad tactics began being developed in early 1915 (not the end of the war) by the creation of specialised grenadier squads. We can see that in all armies of the period ("bombers" for the British, "штурмовые взводы" or "взводы гренадер" for the Russians, etc..). The first widescale reorganisation was by the French army in April 1916 (once again, not really the end of the war) with the adoption as the platoon, half-platoon and squad as the basic infantry organisation. This was partly motivated by the introduction of the Chauchat machine-rifle and rifle grenades, which allowed (and necessitated) the platoon to operate as an independent fire unit. (note that while the official reorganisation was in April 1916, this was actually the codification of practices already implemented in the field by that time) The British followed suit in Fall 1916 and the Germans in 1917 (though once again, this was actually preceded by field practice developed at Verdun and on the Somme). Low-level infantry tactics were already very advanced at that point. The February 1917 pamphlet "Instructions for the Training of Platoons in Offensive Action" issued to the whole BEF describes fire & movement manoeuvres that are still in usage to this day (and which were successfully applied by the Canadians at Vimy), with suppression from Lewis Guns and Rifle Grenades, and movement from the rifle and bomber squads. Likewise the 1917 manual "Manuel du chef de section d'infanterie" describes tactics to use in a variety of situations, fully expecting a platoon to fend off on its own when assaulting an enemy position. Large engagements were fought at any size from the squad to an whole army group. Actual reading, from memoirs to studies, will show you that. Once infantry was in the enemy line (which by 1917 had become pretty easy with the development of the creeping barrage), platoon tactics were the defining feature of combat. you need to get rid of your stereotype of massed bayonet charges against machine guns. That's not how the whole war was fought. Squads existed for most of the war. Actually they already existed before the war, and in the course of the war became a tactical element of their own. Yes, WW1 was a new experience. That's why tactics changed and were developed so fast in that time period. And no, there was comparatively little change during the interwar. As a matter of fact, there were more tactical innovations between 1914 and 1918, than there has been from 1918 to the Gulf War! The rest is all technological innovations based on pre-existing tactics from WW1.[/quote] Don't get me wrong, the entire German idea behind the Battle of Verdun, starting in 1916, was to just try to bleed the French enough to get them to surrender. At the same time, the French were defending a national symbol, and their honor. There were other cases, but that wasn't the majority of what had been happening by 1916. World War One was a war that needed to happen, it was going to happen one way or the other. It was really a question of "when".

You have a lot of soldiers doing selfies, and interesting war shots. Some pictures are sometimes featured in modern time. But what gets me about older styled pictures or videos, is that the ones that were pictured, are remembered always in history. Almost an immortality, if you will. It's crazy. You might not know their name, what they did, but you've seen them, waving, saluting, shooting, running into gun fire, etc.

[QUOTE=Covalent;47699590]You have a lot of soldiers doing selfies, and interesting war shots. Some pictures are sometimes featured in modern time. But what gets me about older styled pictures or videos, is that the ones that were pictured, are remembered always in history. Almost an immortality, if you will. It's crazy. You might not know their name, what they did, but you've seen them, waving, saluting, shooting, running into gun fire, etc.[/QUOTE] I think it was my AP US History textbook that had this picture of some people in NYC, like this taxi-driver and some women, and I remember thinking "damn, these people are all most likely dead - but here I am in 2013 looking at them as if they were still here".

Been said, but wow that last shot. That's fucking intensely fucked.

[QUOTE=proch;47698323]We haven't been there for 123 years, but we've always "been" there, and honestly it wouldn't be surprising if Poles were something of a cultural/ethnic minority on its current lands if it hadn't reclaimed sovereignty. In any case, he does have a point. Nowadays Western Poland is refereed to as "Poland A" and Eastern Poland as "Poland B" colloquially, due to the difference in industry, structure and mentality that people figure roots back to the Third Partition of Poland and the Occupation. And usually you wanna stay as far away as possible from Poland B. It's a rather interesting subject actually. In a nutshell though, if there's one thing the average pole hates more than Germany, it's Russia, and for good reason. Generally if 10 years ago you asked the still living seniors, they were rather in favor of Germany.[/QUOTE] I didn't mean any offense, and I certainly didn't mean that Polish culture, customs etc. didn't exist. Fuck no, I'm not an idiot. I meant that the [b]state[/b] didn't exist, and soon enough as per German plans, everything else was to be eradicated too. So saying that Hitler "modernized Polish industry" is misleading, that didn't happen because Germans were concerned about Poland and Poles. That territory was soon to become German, and that didn't happen because the Germans basically haven't had the time. What happened after Soviets occupied Poland for themselves is irrelevant in this sense, and if you want my opinion, I'm as far away from supporting that as one can be. I really hate what Soviets did to countries USSR liberated (rather, "took from", because "liberation" implies genuinely good intentions) from the Nazis.

[QUOTE=bdd458;47699388]World War One was a war that needed to happen, it was going to happen one way or the other. It was really a question of "when".[/QUOTE] No it really didn't. After Bismarck created Germany he did his best to keep friendly relationships with the rest of Europe, but Kaiser Wilhelm II was a crazy nationalist and fucked it all up. Besides, war is awful, world wars are even more awful. It's really easy to say this type of shit if you're an American born after the war but it's just absolute bullshit and you should feel bad for saying it.

[QUOTE=gudman;47701327]I didn't mean any offense, and I certainly didn't mean that Polish culture, customs etc. didn't exist. Fuck no, I'm not an idiot. I meant that the [b]state[/b] didn't exist, and soon enough as per German plans, everything else was to be eradicated too. So saying that Hitler "modernized Polish industry" is misleading, that didn't happen because Germans were concerned about Poland and Poles. That territory was soon to become German, and that didn't happen because the Germans basically haven't had the time. What happened after Soviets occupied Poland for themselves is irrelevant in this sense, and if you want my opinion, I'm as far away from supporting that as one can be. I really hate what Soviets did to countries USSR liberated (rather, "took from", because "liberation" implies genuinely good intentions) from the Nazis.[/QUOTE] No offense taken what so ever, just adding my 2 cents. I'm not one of those ever offended Polishmen :v: The only modernisation that the Reich did was the creation/refitting of Factories to supply the Wehrmacht, although I don't think that made any greater impact on the Polish industry in the long run. I'm not very informed regarding that topic, actually. Something like a German induced industrial modernization kind of happened though, although that dates back to the Partitions, and it wasn't done by Germany Perse, because it was Prussia.

[QUOTE=Satansick;47701485]No it really didn't. After Bismarck created Germany he did his best to keep friendly relationships with the rest of Europe, but Kaiser Wilhelm II was a crazy nationalist and fucked it all up. Besides, war is awful, world wars are even more awful. It's really easy to say this type of shit if you're an American born after the war but it's just absolute bullshit and you should feel bad for saying it.[/QUOTE] Here's the thing; when you have a bunch of short sighted countries led by people who only truly wants what they want - you're going to have war. Especially when you place those countries into two giant blocs without the threat of M.A.D. and nukes. And on your point about Bismark. He was kicked out of officer in 1890, and he died in 1898. 24 years passed between the start of the war and him being kicked out of office; 16 years passed between his death and the start of the war. A lot happened in both those times, and imo the stress of running the country would have either killed Bismark earlier or caused him to retire. French revanchism; Austria-Hungary's annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina; The Balkan Wars; Russian pan-Slavism in the Balkans; Germany's Weltpolitik; Colonial Ambitions and territorial ambitions of all nations; not to mention the various Arms Races, failing empires, and other such related things. No amount of speeches given by Jean Jaurès would have been able to avoid war, especially by 1911. While inevitable is a bit too simple of a word to describe the situation, for this purpose it gets the job done. Me saying it was inevitable isn't saying the war was a fun time. No, it's me saying that there wasn't much that could have been done to avoid it after a certain date. And BTW, the reason Bismark wanted to keep friendly relations with some nations (and isolate France) is because Germany was surrounded by Great Powers whom would not necessarily be against going to war with them, it was to protect themselves, not the balance of power in Europe.