Before - and After - Iraq

[sirs]

As I said, there is NO direct evidence at all linking Hitler to the Holocaust.

Between his own statements (a number of them) and the documentary evidence that he knew it was going on and didn't stop it, would be enough to convict. And it's also enough to link Hitler to the Holocaust in any reasonable person's mind.

You do have to consider who you're responding to, Ami 

[Michael Tee]

Nice try, Ami.  Almost snuck it through.  Too bad you don't read German.

The first paragraph, obviously, refers to the killing of "Banditen" (bandits.)
The next paragraph refers to helpers of armed gangs ("Bandenhelfer") or what we might call accessories, and to suspected gang members ("Bandenverdachtige," sorry I can't add the umlaut) which has a high number of Jews included as "executed," and the third paragraph relates to the killing of deserters (Uberlaufer.)

sirs, for once in his life, was right - - you DO have to consider who you're responding to, Ami.

[Michael Tee]

<<It's enough of a confession to be admissible in every court in this country for that purpose. To qualify broadly as a "confession," a statement need only be incriminatory, not necessarily conclusive.>>

I don't dispute its admissibility, my point is that on its own, without any circumstantial evidence, it's not a clear-cut confession and does not by itself, standing alone, constitute any kind of proof one way or the other as to what Hitler did.

<< I have no doubt, as do you in your heart of hearts, that this particular comment, in context (that is, with circumstantial evidence) would have been enough to hang the bastard.>>

My point throughout this thread was that the circumstantial evidence alone, including the so-called confession as a very minor part of it, would have been enough to hang the bastard. 

My beef is with those who claim - - in the absence of direct evidence - - that the Bush administration did not green-light the attempted coup against Chavez.  Provide assurance to the coup plotters, as they had with the plotters against Allende, that they would receive U.S. government recognition if the coup succeeded.  There is a mind-set that (where Bush is involved) will not accept circumstantial evidence that he lied, that he approved of torture, that he plotted to overthrow Chavez, etc.  That was the only point I was trying to make - - certainly not that Hitler was innocent.

[Amianthus]

Too bad you don't read German.

English is my third language. I learned German at home, from birth (my "mother tongue" - since it's what my parents spoke and continue to speak at home). My second language was Spanish since I was living in Honduras as a child. I also learned some Greek, Italian, and French through the years.

The first paragraph, obviously, refers to the killing of "Banditen" (bandits.)
The next paragraph refers to helpers of armed gangs ("Bandenhelfer") or what we might call accessories, and to suspected gang members ("Bandenverdachtige," sorry I can't add the umlaut) which has a high number of Jews included as "executed," and the third paragraph relates to the killing of deserters (Uberlaufer.)

Since your German is so good, you should know that you represent an umlaut on a standard keyboard by adding an "e" after the vowel.

Category 2 is translated properly as "Bandit accomplices and suspects." This category includes Jews. This report, incidentally, was regarding insurrections in parts of Russia, the Ukraine, and Poland. You should note that the number of Jews "executed" far exceeds the number of "bandit accomplices and suspects" arrested (line 2A). The area that this report covers includes Treblinka.

And category 3 is translated properly as "Turncoats thanks to German propaganda." These are not numbers killed, but people who became Nazi accomplices.

The "Bandits" they talk about here are Russian partisan (resistance) fighters. This is known from the note at the bottom, translated as "[t]he number of casualties are to be considered much higher, because the Russians carry off their fallen or bury them immediately."

sirs, for once in his life, was right - - you DO have to consider who you're responding to, Ami.

So do you.

[Michael Tee]

As I said the document makes no reference at all to the massacre of an entire civilian population.  You have bandits (their well-known propaganda term for resistance fighters,) suspected bandits and helpers (literally) or "accessories" as they would be known in Canadian criminal jargon ("accessory after the fact") or as you put it best of all, "accomplices" and finally, not a tally of executed German "deserters" as I had assumed, but "deserters" from the other (Russian) side or as you put it, "turncoats" - - converted but not killed. 

The basic fact remains - - this document does not refer to any massacre of innocent civilians, rather it purports to be a tally of resistance fighters, suspects and accomplices killed.  It is NOT documentary proof of Hitler's knowledge of a Holocaust in progress.

[Amianthus]

The basic fact remains - - this document does not refer to any massacre of innocent civilians, rather it purports to be a tally of resistance fighters, suspects and accomplices killed.

Well, let's see. Bandit accomplices arrested: 3078. Bandits accomplices executed: 3020. Jews executed: 165282.

You claim the "Jews" listed here are part of the "accomplices." How come the "Jews" number is so much larger than the total bandit accomplices arrested? Where did the extra come from? Possibly the civilians?

Oh, I got it. Germans were just bad at math, right?

It is NOT documentary proof of Hitler's knowledge of a Holocaust in progress.

Funny, this was part of the evidence used at Nuremburg. Seems to have helped convince someone.

[Michael Tee]

<<Funny, this was part of the evidence used at Nuremburg. Seems to have helped convince someone.>>

As I'm sure you know, Hitler was not one of the Nuremburg defendants, so it didn't help convict him of anything.

<<Well, let's see. Bandit accomplices arrested: 3078. Bandits accomplices executed: 3020. Jews executed: 165282.

<<You claim the "Jews" listed here are part of the "accomplices." >>

They obviously are.  They're the third sub-category under the heading "Accomplices and Suspects."  First a number arrested, then a number almost equal to the first shown as executed; obviously most of the arrested "accomplices and suspects" were executed, but some escaped execution after arrest; third is "Jews Executed" - - this would be consistent with a policy not to bother arresting Jews accused or suspected of complicity but to shoot them on the spot.  Evidence that Jewish "banditry" suspects were treated more harshly than non-Jewish suspects, but still not proof of a generalized massacre of all Jews, whether or not suspected of "banditry."

<<How come the "Jews" number is so much larger than the total bandit accomplices arrested? Where did the extra come from? Possibly the civilians?>>

Sure.  Who but a bunch of Jews could possibly object to the benevolent rule of the Master Race?  The Jews - - plus the few unfortunate Christian dupes they could find - - were the "bandits."  But since the Jews (according to Nazi racial theory) are too cowardly and weak to join in the fighting themselves, they don't appear in the first sub-category ("Bandits") at all.  To include the Jews in the actual "Bandits" heading would imply that some German soldiers had actually been killed by them, which would constitute a huge disgrace to a brave Aryan warrior - - killed by an untermensch!

However, it now occurs to me that this whole argument is really a gigantic waste of time - - since the document itself is no proof whatsoever that Hitler either ordered or approved of the Holocaust.  Just because the document is entitled "Report to the Fuehrer" is no proof that he got it or read it.  It's just more circumstantial evidence.  Proving yet again my point that circumstantial evidence can be as damning as direct evidence if there's enough of it.

[Amianthus]

As I'm sure you know, Hitler was not one of the Nuremburg defendants, so it didn't help convict him of anything.

Gee, what did I say early on?

[Amianthus]

However, it now occurs to me that this whole argument is really a gigantic waste of time

Every argument with you is a gigantic waste of time.

You have a preset notion and everything that contradicts your notion is dismissed out of hand, and even a lack of evidence for support of your position is taken as evidence.

Even physics must bend to your preset notions - obviously, if the physical world disagrees with you, it's the world that's wrong, not you.

[Michael Tee]

<<You have a preset notion and everything that contradicts your notion is dismissed out of hand, and even a lack of evidence for support of your position is taken as evidence.>>

You mean I'm right most of the time and your bullshit arguments don't fool me?  Guilty as charged, your Honour.

[Amianthus]

You mean I'm right most of the time and your bullshit arguments don't fool me?

ROFLMAO

That's just what I needed before I go to bed, a good belly laugh.

You're soooo funny when you act serious.

[Michael Tee]

Had a feeling you'd be unable to come up with a decent comeback and you didn't surprise me.  "ROTFLMFAO,"  "I needed a good laugh" and "You're a riot" are about what I've come to expect from you in terms of content. 

[Amianthus]

Had a feeling you'd be unable to come up with a decent comeback and you didn't surprise me.

To the claim that you're always right?

There is nothing that could have said it better.

You're wrong so often that hearty belly laugh is about the only response I could make.

Stuff like 190 degree coffee boiling, RAF never made daylight bombing raids, Castro never used torture, things like that.

As a matter of fact, I'd say that you have a visceral knowledge of the fact that you're often wrong; this was expressed when you claimed that you wouldn't take any wagers because you didn't want to go broke paying out. If you're always right (or nearly always right) you wouldn't go broke paying out, you'd take in more than you paid out. So, your subconscious apparently knows that you're wrong quite often.

Hell, I can find 3 errors in one post you've made on this thread alone.

[Xavier_Onassis]

umlaut, umlaut, umaut ü,ü,ü Hold down the left ALT key and type 0252 on the keypad. Release the ALT key and voilá!

capital umlaut, ALT 154 Ü, or ALT o220 Ü.

In Spanish we call this a diéresis.

á é í ó ú ñ Á É Í Ó Ó ¿ ¡ « » €€€€- hah!

I can even do a ¢ (ALT 162)

÷? ~ ALT 0247

[Michael Tee]

I didn't say I'm always right, I said I was mostly right.  You can't even get a simple quote like that right, it shouldn't surprise me that you misrepresent anything else I might have said too.

<<Stuff like 190 degree coffee boiling . . . >>

Originally, that was a theoretical prediction about what happens when heated liquid undergoes rapid depressurization, as when a lid is removed from a cup.  Since the boiling point of a liquid varies with air pressure, theoretically it is possible (depending on the actual boiling point of, in this case, a colloidal solution, the air pressure with the cap on, the air pressure with the cap off, and the speed of removal of the cap, none of which factors were capable of precise measurement at the time) that the cup could boil over with the removal of the cap.

 <<RAF never made daylight bombing raids . . . >>

It turns out that a small percentage of RAF bombing raids at the beginning of the war were daylight raids.  When I produced the entire operational log of the RAF operations during WWII to prove that your father's claim to have had his school in Austria bombed during a daylight RAF raid had to be bullshit, you had no real answer.

<< Castro never used torture, things like that.>>

Castro didn't use torture.  Tad Szulc's biography of Fidel refers to an incident where he appears to laugh at a Commandante using torture to extract confessions from a group of counterrevolutionary guerrillas after another Commandante had had to let them go for lack of evidence.  Szulc claims he managed to convince Castro that this wasn't right and that seems to have been the end of it.  While Cuban jails might leave something to be desired in terms of prisoner comfort, there's no credible evidence I'm aware of that Castro either practices or condones torture.  Certainly nothing on the scale of Abu Ghraib, Baghram base, secret European torture centres maintained by the C.I.A. or other centres of U.S. torture and abuse.