Enemy at the Gates, not a brilliant film but interesting because it's one of the few Horrywood war films that deals with the war from the Russian perspective. The love story with Rachel Weisz was pointless, and the sniper duel overstated in comparison to it's actual importance in the battle. The story is lifted from a non-fiction account of the battle by the same name, and the sniper duel has a small semi-chapter to itself. Zaitsev was certainly a real character and his career was much as described, Major Koenig is an amalgam of different characters with a lot of script licence.
I've just got to Stalingrad in CoD and I'm loving it!
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Sun Feb 01, 2004 10:14 am
Didn't Hitler mess up the attack on Stalingrad by charging headlong into a large and heavily defended city instead of taking Baku to the south with its oil reserves? IIRC the attacking force at Stalingrad was badly supplied and tired. Plus if Baku had been taken, he could probably started and offensive from bothe the west and the south.
Sun Feb 01, 2004 10:23 am
Stalingrad had a symbolical significance to the Russians (and to Stalin himself, of course, it's his namesake city), and Hitler thought that capturing or leveling it could break the Russian army's and people's fighting spirit.
Stalin was just as stubborn and vain, so both sides expended valuable resources fighting for control over some rubbles.
Stalin was just as stubborn and vain, so both sides expended valuable resources fighting for control over some rubbles.
Sun Feb 01, 2004 3:09 pm
Yeah, Stalin was so arrogant that he couldn't let a city with his name on it be captured. It was strategically advantageous as I recall, but that was not important to him. Taw's views of the movie conside with my own, almost exactly. Freaky 
.
Th Russian missions in CoD are pretty great, but let's stay on topic. Back to propaganda. Any further comments, or do I have to find a new topic?
.
Th Russian missions in CoD are pretty great, but let's stay on topic. Back to propaganda. Any further comments, or do I have to find a new topic?
Sun Feb 01, 2004 4:26 pm
no let's carry on about Stalingrad.
Hitler's obsession with this city was not at the forefront of his mind in 1942 when the Germans drove into the Ukraine and Southern Russia. The plan, known as Fall Blau, was to drive to the oilfields of the Caucasus, while the flanks of this Operation were to be established and protected by 6th Army and Italian and Romanian armies. The operation was so swift and advanced so far that in a few weeks elements of 6th Army found themselves overlooking Stalingrad. At this point, the city was unfortified and almost undefended, with no hope of immediate reinforcement.
The disastrous German command structure at the highest level, with Hitler vacillating and often indecisive and often uninterested, meant that 6th Army simply rested up, in preparation for what they assumed would be a fresh advance. In the meantime, the Russians organised defences at Stalingrad, as they in turn assumed the Germans were waiting to attack the city. Wrong actually! Once reports of fortifications and increased military activity on the part of the Russians got back to the German command, it was decided to prepare for an assault on the city, which would naturally incur street fighting. Considering the German army's victories had been won by rapid advances across country and bypassing strongpoints and urban areas, this was just stupid, especially as the Russians were increasing numbers and quality of men and material and the German qualitative advantage was being steadily eroded.
So by the time the Germans attacked in earnest, they had sown the seeds of their own downfall. The flattening of the city by the Luftwaffe and artillery gave cover for snipers and strongpoints, well the rest you know.
Hitler's manic obsession with the city of Stalin's name really begins when von Paulus, quickly aware that he's got sucked into a battle he can't win, and growing more concerned at the 6th Army's relative isolation on the front and mistrusting the integrity of his flanks to erstwhile allies of dubious quality, fears encirclement as all German staff officers are trained to, and asks Hitler for permission to disengage and re-align the front. Hitler refuses and thus 6th army is indeed eventually encircled. Even the all is not lost, von Paulus could have ordered a breakout at anytime. Initially the Germans were generally confident, they'd been encircled before and got out of it, with the assistance of releif forces and air supply (but even that had been inadequate)
Indeed, even once Hitler had belatedley agreed to von Manstein's attack to break through to Stalingrad, there was the last and prob best chance to break out of der Kessel, the Stalingrad pocket. But Hitler had previously told von Paulus there would be no retreat and despite the urgings of his staff, indignantly refused to order a breakout. It's quite probable that another commander would have simply ignored Hitler's order and endeavoured to save his men, as had happened before and would happen again (Kharkov 1943, SS General Steiner? directly refuses to obey Hitler's personal stand and fight order under threat of death, pulls his men out, the SS close ranks and refuse to let Hitler have him shot or imprisoned)
So really if Paulus had a bit more character and hadn't simply be a high-ranking desk wallah turned staff ofiicer, unable to act on his own initiative despite basically sound military instincts, things might have been very different. he certainly wasn't a Nazi, as high predecessor in commnad of 6th Army had been. He was afraid of Hitler and was essentially dutiful and obedient. 6th Army veterans who knew him all say he was unsuited to be in command and lacked leadership qualities, but was a fine staff officer.
You also have to remember that in 1942 Hitler was thinking in terms of global strategy, and was toying with grand ideas of pushing through N Africa into the Middle East, while simultaneously pushing southwards from Eurasia into Persia and Mespotamia, and linking up with the Afrika Corps for a march on British India and levering it's ally Japan inyto the war against Russia by a brilliant feat of German arms. So his reluctance to abandon Stalingrad may not simply have been his hatred of Stalin and Bolshevism of itself, but a recognition that this might be the high tide of his war against the Soviet Union and a retreat now might mean never coming back, however grandiose and improbable the aims.
Hitler's behaviour as the battle was approaching its end gives an indication of his state of mind. flush with victory in the summer, he had become increasingly erratic and vindictive as the battle wore on, ending in essentially a deep depression which only medication could rouse him from. In the last days of Stalingrad his tendency to ignore hard reality became increasingly apparent as he refused to discuss the matter and merley repeated his old no surrender orders. His final communique to paulus granting him the rank of Field Marshal in the hope that he wouldn't let himself be taken alive because no German field-marshal had ever been taken prisoner, illustrates his weakness for romantic gestures flying in the face of all reason. if he wanted he could have had Paulus replaced, arrested or even shot at any time during the siege. but instead he finally chiose this appeal to aristoctratic and military "virtue" which was scarcley credible considering he'd left the man to rot in a hellhole for months. Besides Paulus wasn';t exactly a man for romantic gestures, he lacked the imagination.
So just how important was Stalingrad as a "symbol" for the Germans. it wasn't just political and it wasn't just Hitler's mania...
Hitler's obsession with this city was not at the forefront of his mind in 1942 when the Germans drove into the Ukraine and Southern Russia. The plan, known as Fall Blau, was to drive to the oilfields of the Caucasus, while the flanks of this Operation were to be established and protected by 6th Army and Italian and Romanian armies. The operation was so swift and advanced so far that in a few weeks elements of 6th Army found themselves overlooking Stalingrad. At this point, the city was unfortified and almost undefended, with no hope of immediate reinforcement.
The disastrous German command structure at the highest level, with Hitler vacillating and often indecisive and often uninterested, meant that 6th Army simply rested up, in preparation for what they assumed would be a fresh advance. In the meantime, the Russians organised defences at Stalingrad, as they in turn assumed the Germans were waiting to attack the city. Wrong actually! Once reports of fortifications and increased military activity on the part of the Russians got back to the German command, it was decided to prepare for an assault on the city, which would naturally incur street fighting. Considering the German army's victories had been won by rapid advances across country and bypassing strongpoints and urban areas, this was just stupid, especially as the Russians were increasing numbers and quality of men and material and the German qualitative advantage was being steadily eroded.
So by the time the Germans attacked in earnest, they had sown the seeds of their own downfall. The flattening of the city by the Luftwaffe and artillery gave cover for snipers and strongpoints, well the rest you know.
Hitler's manic obsession with the city of Stalin's name really begins when von Paulus, quickly aware that he's got sucked into a battle he can't win, and growing more concerned at the 6th Army's relative isolation on the front and mistrusting the integrity of his flanks to erstwhile allies of dubious quality, fears encirclement as all German staff officers are trained to, and asks Hitler for permission to disengage and re-align the front. Hitler refuses and thus 6th army is indeed eventually encircled. Even the all is not lost, von Paulus could have ordered a breakout at anytime. Initially the Germans were generally confident, they'd been encircled before and got out of it, with the assistance of releif forces and air supply (but even that had been inadequate)
Indeed, even once Hitler had belatedley agreed to von Manstein's attack to break through to Stalingrad, there was the last and prob best chance to break out of der Kessel, the Stalingrad pocket. But Hitler had previously told von Paulus there would be no retreat and despite the urgings of his staff, indignantly refused to order a breakout. It's quite probable that another commander would have simply ignored Hitler's order and endeavoured to save his men, as had happened before and would happen again (Kharkov 1943, SS General Steiner? directly refuses to obey Hitler's personal stand and fight order under threat of death, pulls his men out, the SS close ranks and refuse to let Hitler have him shot or imprisoned)
So really if Paulus had a bit more character and hadn't simply be a high-ranking desk wallah turned staff ofiicer, unable to act on his own initiative despite basically sound military instincts, things might have been very different. he certainly wasn't a Nazi, as high predecessor in commnad of 6th Army had been. He was afraid of Hitler and was essentially dutiful and obedient. 6th Army veterans who knew him all say he was unsuited to be in command and lacked leadership qualities, but was a fine staff officer.
You also have to remember that in 1942 Hitler was thinking in terms of global strategy, and was toying with grand ideas of pushing through N Africa into the Middle East, while simultaneously pushing southwards from Eurasia into Persia and Mespotamia, and linking up with the Afrika Corps for a march on British India and levering it's ally Japan inyto the war against Russia by a brilliant feat of German arms. So his reluctance to abandon Stalingrad may not simply have been his hatred of Stalin and Bolshevism of itself, but a recognition that this might be the high tide of his war against the Soviet Union and a retreat now might mean never coming back, however grandiose and improbable the aims.
Hitler's behaviour as the battle was approaching its end gives an indication of his state of mind. flush with victory in the summer, he had become increasingly erratic and vindictive as the battle wore on, ending in essentially a deep depression which only medication could rouse him from. In the last days of Stalingrad his tendency to ignore hard reality became increasingly apparent as he refused to discuss the matter and merley repeated his old no surrender orders. His final communique to paulus granting him the rank of Field Marshal in the hope that he wouldn't let himself be taken alive because no German field-marshal had ever been taken prisoner, illustrates his weakness for romantic gestures flying in the face of all reason. if he wanted he could have had Paulus replaced, arrested or even shot at any time during the siege. but instead he finally chiose this appeal to aristoctratic and military "virtue" which was scarcley credible considering he'd left the man to rot in a hellhole for months. Besides Paulus wasn';t exactly a man for romantic gestures, he lacked the imagination.
So just how important was Stalingrad as a "symbol" for the Germans. it wasn't just political and it wasn't just Hitler's mania...
Sun Feb 01, 2004 5:17 pm
It makes you wonder if all of those stories about how Hitler was always searching for artificacts are true? You know, all of those narrative fictions about Nazis searching for supernatural objects, etc. I seriously doubt that they are, but they are so widespread that it makes you wonder, does it not?
Mon Feb 02, 2004 2:07 am
actually it was completeley true and there was an entire SS Kommando dedicated to doing nothing else but looking for legendary "Aryan" artifacts and items/places of power, such as Agarrtha, Thule, the entrance to the Hollow Eartn, the Graal, yadyadyada. Oddly, lt it was based in the same castle where Hitler had been imprisoned after his abortive Munich putsch.
played RTCW? based on a true events, Himmler was obsessed by the ancient King of Saxony, Heinrich I, who he believed himself a re-incarnation of, and set out to find his tomb and re-inter H's bones, thus taking upon himself a mystic mantle of power, because H1 was said to have allied himself with "tellurian" forces and command an armyof the dead.
I should point out that the swastika boys were not above faking their own successes and lets just say the scientific method left a lot to be desired. It really became nothing more than yet another propaganda outlet spouting Aryan nonsense, Blood and Earth rubbish etc. But they did send expeditions off to Tibet, India, Africa, and S. America looking for myserious stuff.
played RTCW? based on a true events, Himmler was obsessed by the ancient King of Saxony, Heinrich I, who he believed himself a re-incarnation of, and set out to find his tomb and re-inter H's bones, thus taking upon himself a mystic mantle of power, because H1 was said to have allied himself with "tellurian" forces and command an armyof the dead.
I should point out that the swastika boys were not above faking their own successes and lets just say the scientific method left a lot to be desired. It really became nothing more than yet another propaganda outlet spouting Aryan nonsense, Blood and Earth rubbish etc. But they did send expeditions off to Tibet, India, Africa, and S. America looking for myserious stuff.
Mon Feb 02, 2004 12:46 pm
Scientific method.... Well, if EvD were to have been the reviewer, those methods would have been certified "scientific." 
Seriously, however, those psuedo-scientific methodologies survived in writing to the great injury of us all as the written word on theories on Aryan racial supremacy allegedly proven by those same "scientific methods" survive today and continue to be circulated with desperate currency among fanatically minded groups.
Bad things are good in Bizzaro World
Edited by - Indy11 on 2/2/2004 6:09:36 PM
Seriously, however, those psuedo-scientific methodologies survived in writing to the great injury of us all as the written word on theories on Aryan racial supremacy allegedly proven by those same "scientific methods" survive today and continue to be circulated with desperate currency among fanatically minded groups.
Bad things are good in Bizzaro World
Edited by - Indy11 on 2/2/2004 6:09:36 PM
Mon Feb 02, 2004 3:40 pm
@Indy, I was thinking of "von" Daniken as I wrote it!
@ff, the hollow earth theory is the crackpot idea that the earth is a hollow ball, and on its inner surface, underneath us, is another world, populated by advanced races and strange creatures, and older than our surface world.
This ideas been round for millenia, certainly, and has often been the topic of romances and adventures. Not an insignificant number of people actually claimed to have been inside it, and met and conversed with the strange inhabitants.
In the 19th century the idea started to gain credence in some circles and many expeditions were launcehed to find ways into the hollow earth, oddly enough to no result. Those who claim to ahve been there brought back no evidence to speak of, just dubious stories. However it continued to gain ground and became part of the thinking of german "intellectual" groupings such Ostara and ThuleGesellschaft, both of which were foundations of Hitler's thinking.
In more recent times "proof" was offered of the earth's supposed hollowness by aerial photographs seeming to show a large black hole at the poles. Immediately siezed on the by the still-extant hollow earth theorists, in truth all it showed was the edge of the camera exposure in a sequence of time elapsed photographs of an orbiting surveillance aircraft.
true story: during the early tests of the V-Weapons, numerous launches went awry because the gyroscopes had been set to take into account a concave? trajectory (or is convex? i can never remember!) anyway the opposite to the way the Earth actually falls off. that's because Himmler had a personal stake in the project and as head of the SS could enforce his will, and he was a fervent believer in the hollow earth, Agarrtha, all that mystic "aryan" romantic bullsh*t. I once went to the Wewelsberg, Himmler's castle, and it's a freaky place, full of bizarre SS mystic symbolism and ritual chambers. Supposed to be built on a conjunction of several ley lines, Himmler believed in those too.
Hitler's interest in the occult remains more complex. He openly used mystic symbolism as part of Nazi ritual, which he was heavily involved in designing. Whether he truly believed in magic remains under dispute, but he certainly believed it possessed a pyschological hold over its subjects. Hitler certainly had read the works of and even been a follower of sorts of the mystic societies mentioned above, eventually working aspects of their theories on race, manifest destiny, pseudo-darwinism, and the "idealised" society into his own plans. But this doesn't mean he by requisite believed in mysticism, unlike Himmler who surely did.
that hollow earth theory's rubbish. I have made that clear, haven't I?
Edited by - Tawakalna on 2/2/2004 4:32:10 PM
@ff, the hollow earth theory is the crackpot idea that the earth is a hollow ball, and on its inner surface, underneath us, is another world, populated by advanced races and strange creatures, and older than our surface world.
This ideas been round for millenia, certainly, and has often been the topic of romances and adventures. Not an insignificant number of people actually claimed to have been inside it, and met and conversed with the strange inhabitants.
In the 19th century the idea started to gain credence in some circles and many expeditions were launcehed to find ways into the hollow earth, oddly enough to no result. Those who claim to ahve been there brought back no evidence to speak of, just dubious stories. However it continued to gain ground and became part of the thinking of german "intellectual" groupings such Ostara and ThuleGesellschaft, both of which were foundations of Hitler's thinking.
In more recent times "proof" was offered of the earth's supposed hollowness by aerial photographs seeming to show a large black hole at the poles. Immediately siezed on the by the still-extant hollow earth theorists, in truth all it showed was the edge of the camera exposure in a sequence of time elapsed photographs of an orbiting surveillance aircraft.
true story: during the early tests of the V-Weapons, numerous launches went awry because the gyroscopes had been set to take into account a concave? trajectory (or is convex? i can never remember!) anyway the opposite to the way the Earth actually falls off. that's because Himmler had a personal stake in the project and as head of the SS could enforce his will, and he was a fervent believer in the hollow earth, Agarrtha, all that mystic "aryan" romantic bullsh*t. I once went to the Wewelsberg, Himmler's castle, and it's a freaky place, full of bizarre SS mystic symbolism and ritual chambers. Supposed to be built on a conjunction of several ley lines, Himmler believed in those too.
Hitler's interest in the occult remains more complex. He openly used mystic symbolism as part of Nazi ritual, which he was heavily involved in designing. Whether he truly believed in magic remains under dispute, but he certainly believed it possessed a pyschological hold over its subjects. Hitler certainly had read the works of and even been a follower of sorts of the mystic societies mentioned above, eventually working aspects of their theories on race, manifest destiny, pseudo-darwinism, and the "idealised" society into his own plans. But this doesn't mean he by requisite believed in mysticism, unlike Himmler who surely did.
that hollow earth theory's rubbish. I have made that clear, haven't I?
Edited by - Tawakalna on 2/2/2004 4:32:10 PM
Mon Feb 02, 2004 6:15 pm
Taw
I believe that would be concave for Himmler in the relative perspective that as we are all on the outward bulging side of the globe, we are on the convex side of things but, were we inside the hollow earth, the trajectory would be concave.
Why Himmler would have been quite that stupid is somewhat interesting (but far from surprising) as it could be taken to imply that he thought he was in hollow earth.
Hmmmm. That wonderful little song from the Producers creeps out...."Springtime for Hitler"
I believe that would be concave for Himmler in the relative perspective that as we are all on the outward bulging side of the globe, we are on the convex side of things but, were we inside the hollow earth, the trajectory would be concave.
Why Himmler would have been quite that stupid is somewhat interesting (but far from surprising) as it could be taken to imply that he thought he was in hollow earth.
Hmmmm. That wonderful little song from the Producers creeps out...."Springtime for Hitler"
Tue Feb 03, 2004 1:28 am
you won't be surprised to learn then that Himmler did believe he was on a ball inside a hollow sphere, that the sky was solid, and that he and Hitler and the other top Nazis were the Unknown Masters of the Aryan fountain-spring, Agarrtha. I kid you not. What's more, this system of belief wasn't peculiar to them, but was common currency amongst many of the romantic reactionary mystic groups of the latter half of the 19C and first half of the 20th; and you can still find it extant today. You don't believe me? spend an hour at a Theosophy meeting or a public seance and get a load of the varieties of bizarre opinion and sooner or later all this sort of cr*p comes up.
think the Holocaust came from nowhere? read the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a late 19C forgery which puts forward a plan for worldwide domination by Jews and Bolsheviks, which was accepted as ancient and genuine by many people who should have known better until conclusively proven to have been concocted in Russia in the 1880s. Did you know the Henry Ford had this document published at his own expense because he believed it was so important that the world know of "the menace of jewish communism" and that it was required reading for the HitlerJugend and SS along with Mein Kampf? several "refutations" of the Protocols advocate a program of genocide against the Jews and several pogroms in Russia and the Ukraine came about because of anti-semitism whipped up by a reading of the Protocols. Nazism was the final and extreme expression of this mode of thought.
think the Holocaust came from nowhere? read the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a late 19C forgery which puts forward a plan for worldwide domination by Jews and Bolsheviks, which was accepted as ancient and genuine by many people who should have known better until conclusively proven to have been concocted in Russia in the 1880s. Did you know the Henry Ford had this document published at his own expense because he believed it was so important that the world know of "the menace of jewish communism" and that it was required reading for the HitlerJugend and SS along with Mein Kampf? several "refutations" of the Protocols advocate a program of genocide against the Jews and several pogroms in Russia and the Ukraine came about because of anti-semitism whipped up by a reading of the Protocols. Nazism was the final and extreme expression of this mode of thought.
Tue Feb 03, 2004 6:09 am
Yeah, I know. The "Protocols" never disappears. It always resurrects itself and is treated with authenticity by a new generation of xenophobic racists every now and then after it has been, yet again, debunked and proven to be false.
People will believe what they want to believe, I guess. Scapegoating is an ancient practice and serves many small minded emotional needs to deny or avoid responsibility for one's own shortcomings or failures.
I vageuly recall that the "Protocols" involves authorship or sponsorship by a group in the Czarist version of the secret police, the Okhrana (sp?). If ever anyone wondered how the NKVD or the KGB became so well organized and run, he should look back and study up on the Okhrana.
Bad things are
good in Bizzaro
World
Edited by - Indy11 on 2/3/2004 6:12:04 AM
People will believe what they want to believe, I guess. Scapegoating is an ancient practice and serves many small minded emotional needs to deny or avoid responsibility for one's own shortcomings or failures.
I vageuly recall that the "Protocols" involves authorship or sponsorship by a group in the Czarist version of the secret police, the Okhrana (sp?). If ever anyone wondered how the NKVD or the KGB became so well organized and run, he should look back and study up on the Okhrana.
Bad things are
good in Bizzaro
World
Edited by - Indy11 on 2/3/2004 6:12:04 AM