"Why the Germans?" Topic

Erik had it right, Germans in WW2 are in most cases and rule sets superior troops. Coupled with them being smaller sized armies, that are cheaper to collect you tend to see many new entrants to this part of the hobby building and playing a German force within their first two armies.

My first WW2 army was US Armoured Infantry for FoW. My next was DAK Panzers, go figure.

My favorite army has always been the British.My favorite episode of "Combat" was the one where Sgt. Saunders & his squad joined with a British unit to defend a town. I like battledress, tin hats, Brens, berets & Gloster Gladiators. The American army seemed boring by comparison. Oh, and the Vickers-now that's a machine gun.

Never thought I would say it, but I agree with John OFM, there, I've said it!
Panzer-porn, nazi-obsessed weirdos who can tell you every form of SS camo, and the day it was issued, can hide behind all the 'balanced views' and 'research' they like but we know the sad, soup smelling bedsit with an airbrush print of Wittmen on the wall truth!
I game in 1/35, and do a lot of Normandy games, and have painted up a lot of 21st Panzer boys, but, for a Market Garden game, couldn't bring myself to paint up SS. Got someone else to do it, can't separate the little plastic man from the scum. Idiots calling SS 'Cool' 'Zen' or 'Neat' does it for me to, murdering scumbags.

Love 'n' manhugs

John

At the end of the day, its a GAME. They are TOYS. Play what you like, like what you play. Or not. IT'S A GAME.

By John 54, don't take it that hard. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day. You cannot calibrate your existence to disagreeing with me. Sooner or later I will be right. That's unavoidable.

I've never fell for the Germans as having the coolest looking uniforms, tanks etc etc. As a consequence, the ONLY reason I have Germans is so my Allied troops have someone else to fight.

Give me Marine Greens, Dress Blues, or dungarees any-day.

Who else could charge into a line of T-34s with a hand full of Pzkfw II's kick butt, take names, dress immaculately throughout the whole affair, and return through the wreckage in time for a bit o schnapps and schnitzel. Oh, and sing those stamping songs from Battle of the Bulge (or was it the Sound of Music?).

Hmm.. you know I don't believe it either.. schnapps and schnitzel.. how barbaric.

Leland wins.

They have BIIIIIIIIIG guns:

link

And all this before all the enhancement spam.

"schnapps and schnitzel"

Italian cooking is definitely waaay ahead of this…. and we're smart enough to use some of those handy T-34/76s the Russians so thoughtfully left lying around after they ran away…

Ciao, Bella Bambina! What's your name?

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

"They have BIIIIIIIIIG guns:"

So do we:

link

And we always have the hottest looking cars:

link

Chicks always dig Italian cars…

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

Naval gamers have it easier. While some of the German stuff is pretty (say the Hippers, Scharnhorsts and Bismarks), it is mostly second rate and compared to say, the Italians, alot like parking a Kubelwagon next to a Ferrari.

Sahariana or Aliens APC? You decide!

A soft spot for losers.

I started miniature gaming with WWII Soviet Micro armor, because everyone else had elite German SS Panzers and they needed someone with T34Cs to fight against. I still remember the day my new JSIIs and SU100s arrived. I liked playing the Communists against the Nazis during the Cold War. It always seemed like a win/win situation.
A few comments on the above discusion:
Did anyone notice that the Germans were winning the war early on with inferior equipment, and later on when they had "superior" equipment they lost.
The Germans did not begin and end the war, the Japanese did.
The problem is that there are players who are so caught up the German superiority myth that they believe the Germans should win Just because they arrived. I could always beat those guys 1 to 1 with Soviets. Try and warn one of those guys that PzIs and PzIIs don't automatically win against equal numbers of Polish tanks in 1939. They say the rules are wrong!

"Try and warn one of those guys that PzIs and PzIIs don't automatically win against equal numbers of Polish tanks in 1939. They say the rules are wrong!"

Hate to hear them howl when those same PZ Is and IIs go up against a Char B1bis…

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

("See that town? That's Landricies. You are to take that town and hold it while the rest of the division moves forward. The French? Don't worry, recce assures us that there's just a few scattered French tanks and infantry in the area…as you're operating in regimental strength, you should just brush them off like so many flies, ja?!")

Nobody seems to have focused on a major point – I was taught to regard the Germans as the perfect foe from extreme childhood.

When I jumped out from behind the bins, dodging empty Angel Delight Packets and tripping over my mate's Chopper, and went DAKKA DAKKA we were Brits v Germans. Why?

Movies largely made me what I am today. In the days of three TV channels, two of which were off the air between noon and 4PM, the only thing that was ever worth watching was'Where Eagles Dare', 'Ice Cold in Alex', 'Dambusters', '633 Squadron' et al.

Pat

PS – you can still GET Angel Delight. We gave some to the kids last night. Christ, It's vile. They loved it.

Pat

Addressing the original points (I'll think about the other stuff in a bit):

"But surely they don't look as cool as, say, the Japanese, Red Devils or Soviet Marines? And Tigers and King Tigers, though impressive, are surely at least equaled by KV tanks or the Joseph Stalins?"

Japanese – umm. The most charitable thing I can say here is that their uniforms look like sacks of potatos. Definately not cool. My views on playing the Japanese in WW2 in general and the reasons for it can be found by using the search engine.

Red Devils – these guys are paras. They are most certainly not cool. Big, aggressive, good guys to have on your side in a fight, but at the end of the day they are wearing baggy old battledress trousers, carring No. 4 rifles and do not have any tanks apart from Tetrachs.

Soviet Marines – not familiar with the coolness factor here? Naval troops wearing their sailor suits I can understand, but Russians – well they are just a dull drown mass on the table really.

Tigers vs KV/IS. There really isn't any contest here, although compared to the Tiger 1 the II is an unreliable piece of junk. All the KV-1 has going for it is its thick armour, it is a bit like a Russian Churchill (one of my fave tanks), cool it is not. The IS-II looks like something GW would produce. The Tiger 1, especially early or mid production version with proper curvy wheels is just beautiful all over, as Oddball might have said.

What was a Chieftan if it wasn't a 1970s version of the Tiger…

"schnapps and schnitzel" – Italian cooking is definitely waaay ahead of this

Actually, from what I have read of Austrian cuisine, schnitzel is originally derived from somewhere in northern Italy and then adopted to the Austrian (and further German) cuisine.

and do not have any tanks apart from Tetrachs

Anyone can go to a battle with a Tiger, with thick walls of steel all over and a gun the size of a tree tank. But it takes a real man to ride into a battle in something like a Tetrach!

Griefbringer

The OP asked:"This is not a rant. I simply wish to know what is so alluring about the Germans to so many people."

I am a 99:1 guy, meaning I spend 99% of my hobby time alone painting and 1% with my mates gaming, because we all have jobs and families and are spread out over a quarter of Sweden.
Since the research and the painting is the big part of my hobby, I give you:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flecktarn
link
de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumpftarn
link

And on the other hand I give you: Brown or OD.
Makes the choice pretty easy.

So it's alright to play mass murdering raping abusive Romans but not mass murdering raping SS?

Isn't that a hypocrisy?

Not condoning the actions of certain members of the SS in any way, but I am curious why we wargamers of all people react so strongly on this subject.

After all, it was we Brits that invented the concentration camp. We were hardcore imperialist racist bigots and in the thirties comitted our fair share of atrocities and masacres, all in the name of "order" and "Empire".

During the war we indiscriminitly bombed innocent people in the Low Countries, France and Germany and flattened their homes, wiped out entire towns. As we liberated them, certain members of our forces weren't slow to take advantage of the women or loot the buildings for their own personal gratification. And lets not even mention the Russians.

How is all that different? Why is that different? Why condemn the SS so unreservedly yet just shrug our shoulders at our own antics?

And Scutatus bushed The Big Red Button. Good thing I had time to give my answer before this all goes totally pearshaped.
Anyone else want some popcorn?

Well said Scutatus.

Knight Templar 11 Jun 2008 10:40 a.m. PST
The Luger is quite arguably the "sexiest" pistol ever made

So what? It's is a weapon – you gonna date it or kill someone with it? That is undoutedly the single silliest reason to play the Germans that has been put forward in this or any previous thread on the subject.

I've never seen a game of Round up the Jews being played at a store or a Con so I don't think people playing the Germans can be considered as closet supporters of the Holocaust either.

As to why they play the Germans, stop worrying about it and be glad they do. If they didn't you wouldn't have an opponent and WWII – European Theatre gaming would vanish.

Well Scutatus, if I may attempt to answer your question

Scutatus 12 Jun 2008 10:31 a.m. PST
Why condemn the SS so unreservedly yet just shrug our shoulders at our own antics?

While pogroms against Jews was not new or novel the Germans in WWII advocated it as state policy. rue that was done in the day but not by "civilized" countries. Our prejudices at that time period thru today have seemed to focus more on physical attributes like skin color.

Besides the war didn't start over the atrocities committed by the Germans. That was merely a convenient discovery of the Allied ppropoganda machine to make the Axis look bad. We were fully committed to killing "Nazis" and "Japs" to use the parlance of the day long before we learned of Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Bataan or Corregidor.

"So it's alright to play mass murdering raping abusive Romans but not mass murdering raping SS?
Isn't that a hypocrisy?
Not condoning the actions of certain members of the SS in any way, but I am curious why we wargamers of all people react so strongly on this subject.
After all, it was we Brits that invented the concentration camp. We were hardcore imperialist racist bigots and in the thirties comitted our fair share of atrocities and masacres, all in the name of "order" and "Empire".
During the war we indiscriminitly bombed innocent people in the Low Countries, France and Germany and flattened their homes, wiped out entire towns. As we liberated them, certain members of our forces weren't slow to take advantage of the women or loot the buildings for their own personal gratification. And lets not even mention the Russians.
How is all that different? Why is that different? Why condemn the SS so unreservedly yet just shrug our shoulders at our own antics?"

Because the losers have no say in the way history is written.

Greetings, Frans.

I went through my "German Phase" during the heights of the Cold War where every day brought the threat of nuclear annihilation. Those in the Under-30 crowd really can't understand what that was like. The modern threat of terrorism is incredibly trivial in comparison. So, I will admit that there was a very definite thought in the back of my head: "It's a shame the Germans didn't wipe out the Soviets before they finally lost to the US and Britain." These days that rationalization is no longer available (although it's making a comeback!) :)

WWII German Mythology Part II:
1) The Germans were always horribly outnumbered by hordes of enemies. (someone said 20-1) When? Where? As the agressors they picked the time and place of each new war and almost always had a local numerical superiority.
In Poland, the Low Countries, Norway, France, Yugoslavia, Greece, Crete, Battle of Britian, and "Yes" the invasion of the Soviet Union the Germans and their allies (Italy, Romania, Hungary, Bugaria, Iraq, Croatia, Slovakia, and 100s of K volunteers from occupied countries and Spain) had superior numbers. In Greece, for instance, the German and Italian forces each outnumbered the defending Greeks and Brits.
At Kursk, Leningrad, Stalingrad, and the Bulge the numbers were similar. They were outnumbered in Normandy, but that was what the Atlantic Wall was supposed to be for. Even at Budapest the SS was only outnumbered 2-1. The Germans freed up millions of men for combat duty by using slave labor.
If the argument is that they often had less equipment than their opponents, then they shouldn't have started a mechanized war.

I posted earlier and deleted it, but I keep coming back to this…

You know, I never knew it was THAT hard to distinguish between atrocities committed informally during the course of a conflict and the premeditated, mass industrialized, deliberate slaughter of a population simply for their crime of existing.

Apparently I was wrong.

I mean if one REALLY can't tell the difference between atrocity and atrocity as a deliberate ideological/racial state policy as part of an extensive plan to wipe out an "enemy" race…

I simply don't know what to say.

And thats a pretty big assumption to say we "just shrug our shoulders at our own antics". I don't know of many people today who defend Empire or atrocities committed by their own nations. None of those kinds of actions are good. It's just that the Nazis (and Communists) did it on such a large scale and for distinct racial/ideological reasons that it IS unique and worthy of being singled out. Others may have done similar things, but none so massively and unfortunately, nearly successfully. And the SS were part of that.

I went through my German's are cool phase when I was in my teens and twenties. Now its yeah they had nice stuff, but they still lost. Now I play Italians. Bersaglieri look much more strack with their ostrich plumes than strutting Germans any day. M11/39's look mickey mouse but there is a beauty to their design. Italian planes especially their Mid War fighters truly looked like elegant birds of prey. I'm speaking as a modeler and gamer, of course. Leland said it best.
"schnapps and schnitzel"

Italian cooking is definitely waaay ahead of this…. and we're smart enough to use some of those handy T-34/76s the Russians so thoughtfully left lying around after they ran away…

Ciao, Bella Bambina! What's your name?

Anywho! Salut y'all!

I wargame WWII.

Of course I, as is any student of history, am well aware of all the horrible systemic and government sponsored evil that went on by the Germans and Japanese.

If someone is not comfortable with wargaming WWII, I can respect that. Like me for Viet Nam, GW I, and the current day Afghan and Iraqi conflicts, it is too close in time for me.

But if you do wargame WWII, you usually need Germans or Japanese. The Italians, Hungarians, Finns, Vichy French and others were allies of Nazi Germany and therefore were morally complicit, whether they cooperated with the Nazis in systematic murder or not. Also complicit by association, if not actual acts, were the Heer, Luftwaffe and Kreigsmarine personnel. The einsatzgruppen, gestapo, SS and Waffen SS were not some outlaw groups running around – they were official organs of the Nazi Germany state. As were the other German combat organizations just mentioned.

So, that means if you do wargame WWII, your hands are "dirty" (if you want to use that hand wringing expression) whether you play Germans or not. Pure and simple, I'm sorry.

With the greatest of respect to those to whom the following is directed – I hope you can take it as a close friend cajolling you at a bar for a statement you've made that he disagrees with:

So, given the preceeding, please don't put on the false bravado of being a self-righteous fellow who doesn't want anything to do with two of the major combatants or part of their armies and insultingly put down those of who do play with and model and paint those units. If you want to put yourself up on a soapbox and shout "Oh I'm superior to you because I don't play or make Nazis" then you can avoid the well deserved label of, I'm afraid, HYPOCRITE by avoiding WWII altogether and not redefine it.

Again, I said that with the greatest of respect: Because I really feel that what you're doing now is the same as a well known figure in late 20th century who said he never had sex with someone and then tried to redefine what sex really is. I mean, c'mon guys. Sex is sex, wwii Germans fight for Nazi Germany, and wargames where you play an allied player means you are still in contact with the Nazis.

And I'm sorry if either of the Johns or anyone else takes offence, but if you did please read again the above paragraph that is all in bold.
--
Tim

Why condemn the SS so unreservedly yet just shrug our shoulders at our own antics?

No offence, but that statement sounds ridiculous and SS apologist. See Iron Ivan Keth's last and excellent response to this before this post.

But again, as I just said, if the SS offend someone, that's understandable. But don't just partly do it, avoid wwii altogether.

We play simulation games and paint miniatures, just that.

Iron Ivan Keith hits the nail on the head. You will have random atrocities in every war and they should be condemned. But the Nazi's acts and plans go beyond the pale. If they had won and their reich had actually lasted a thousand years, at the end of that time the only people left in world would have been Aryans. Everyone else would have been exterminated. That was their stated goal and they were actively working to achieve it. Not even Stalin's bloodthirstiness had that sort of scope.

"Why condemn the SS so unreservedly yet just shrug our shoulders at our own antics?"

Because there isn't a moral equivalence, although even at the time there was a degree of uneasiness about the strategic bombing campaign.

There is a difference between the planned enslavement and/or extermination of entire groups of people based on spurious racial grounds and theories of social darwinism compared with the targeting of enemy facilities contributing to their war effort.

This is very popular ground with people like David Irving and should be treated with caution.

As for collecting/playing the Germans – I have no problems at all, and I really don't care if they are Heer, Kriegsmarine, SS, Luftwaffe or whatever. They were all instruments of the nazi parties quest for world domination, and as such make worthy opponents for my plucky Tommies and heroes of the motherland. In fact I think it is a dis-service to our brave servicemen who stood up to the jack booted nazi thugs not to oppose them with the Germans in all their 'glory' – Tigers, Panthers whatever, bring it on. Our forebears beat them, and we can beat them on the tabletop as well.

For some reason I can't see the difference between governments gassing people because of their race and governments burning people because of their nationality.

Greetings, Frans.

I like Germans, especially when I'm painting them. Face it, they look cool. However, I prefer to play allied. I've always been a sucker for the underdog, I don't care if its watching football or playing wargames. When I play late war US and British (Shermans against Tigers)that qualifies as an underdog in my book (this is, I must admit, not exactly accurate….but it feels that way). Another big plus is it's fun to win when there are so many out there that love anything German…to play allied is almost like defying the establishment! Nothing like the feeling of popping that Panther in the flank with a "crummy" little Sherman.

For some reason I can't see the difference between governments gassing people because of their race and governments burning people because of their nationality.

Wow, I feel sorry for you then.

One was taken up by a government at war as part of a war against an aggressor nation's people who were employed in the service of that nation in the aggressor's military efforts. When civilians were deliberately targeted, it was to help bring about an END to the war. (I take it you are referring to the Allied bombing campaigns). It was a highly debated strategy then, it is also debated now by historians and others about whether it even served the allied strategy in helping end the war and lastly and more importantly, even the morality of it is hotly debated today by the nations who engaged in it.

The other was a deliberate, and enthusiastically followed policy taken by a nation (a large enough segment of it anyway) and it's leadership against a racial foe who had not attacked it, asked for the conflict, or was even part of any other kind of strategic plan other than destroying an innocent race. It was an effort taken up as an end in itself, not as a way to win a war and end a conflict. It was a conflict in and of itself.

See the difference?

Man, I sure hope so.

Greetings,

Keith

BTW, the argument of cool stuff is a solid one.

In early war Eastern front, T-35s always almost always make an appearance on my table. And there were only 50-60 of those monstrosities manufactured and most broke down before encountering the Bosche.

iN THE 20+ WWII wargame reports on my site, the jagdtiger makes one appearance while the mighty T-35 is featured in two reports and many other games than the jagdtiger panzer porn star.

I like the T-35. So I play with it.

And that statement is also directed at those who liek tolok down at those who like using the big German cats all the time in their wargames (other topics on TMP).
--
Tim

Tim,
I beleive there is a major difference in using forces like the scumbag SS in games where they were there, and actively dribbling over the 'super-sexy' camo smock porn, and 'way-cool' inanities of the German superarmy player with wall to all tiger IIs ('But they made 20 supasatlagluften120mmjadgbottoms) yes but where they ALL in the same place, at the same battle?
Its a question, I believe, of taste, and the worst offenders to this are, IMHO, the American gamers, sorry, its what I believe, whether it was further away, and more morally remote, I don't know. I don't want to start another Patton/Monty thing, but the fawning adulation and SS t-shirts worn with no sense of shame, irks me. it's just my opinion. And yes, Tim, people who always field 'the big cats' and ignore, for instance, Somuas and Panzer IVs get 'looked down on' but hey, do I know.

John

"That was merely a convenient discovery of the Allied ppropoganda machine to make the Axis look bad.

I just heard my Dad (WW2 USMC) and especially my Uncle Lloyd Erickson (Combat FO, Patton's 3rd Army, ETO) just start banging in their graves at this assertion…

Otherwise, my Waffen SS are *Totenkopfverbande* to prevent any confusion as to their intentions… no villain like an unmistakably vile one IMHO.

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

Hey Tim, just thought, can't fall out with you, need your help on a question I have. Just started a new thread, don't want to spoil this barrel of laughs!!!!!

'That was merely a convenient discovery of the Allied ppropoganda machine to make the Axis look bad'

Jesus feckin red-headed christ on a bike, are you for real!!!!!!

I'd like to point out that concentration camps are mentioned in the movie "Casablanca" (1942), so they were well known enough at the start of the American involvement in the war to make it into a Hollywood movie.

Concentration camps and death camps are two different things – not in the sense of one being morally better than the other, but simply of fact. I have good second hand knowledge of this, as my mother was put in a concentration camp for a while after she was captured in 1941 (she being a Ukrainian). While she did effectively slave labour she was not killed. AFAIK it was common knowledge that these existed and equally that the Germans (for they weren't Nazis, they were Germans) used these camps as a decoy for as long as they could.

Ian

"See the difference?
Man, I sure hope so.
Greetings,
Keith"

So you think that civilians counting those amongst them that voted for some shrewd politician because he promised to end their economical misery deserve to be incinerated when this politician later on becomes a vicious mass-murdering bastard?
The only possible excuse for this hideous mass-murder of mainly women, children and old people wasn't even known at the time this war crime was committed.
This was a pure act of terror by an Empire used to prevail by imposing terror on those it oppressed for centuries.
They claimed a morale high ground they already lost before they knew they had a real reason to claim it and if you don't see that by lowering yourself to deliberately mass murdering civilians you become as despicable as the despicable enemy you're fighting it is really you who must be felt sorry about.

There didn't exist a "good" side in WW2, there only existed a "bad" side and a "worse" side, and the victors came from both.

"I'd like to point out that concentration camps are mentioned in the movie "Casablanca" (1942), so they were well known enough at the start of the American involvement in the war to make it into a Hollywood movie."

In 1942 a "Concentration Camp", which was a British invention by the way, was only a place were people seen as a danger to a state were interned for the duration of a conflict, what the Nazi version of a concentration camp really stood for wasn't discovered until the end of the war.
I think it is important to realise that the main excuse for their own war crimes the victors came up with after the war weren't known to them at the time they committed these war crimes.

Greetings, Frans.

Frans,

That's a nice display of moral relativism there. Yes, yes there really were "good" sides in WWII, it's a shame you don't see it, because it's kind of disheartening to hear someone who has such a dark view of humanity. But I guess that's post-modernism for you.

You know what's worse?

The comparison.

Look, if you have an axe to grind with the British Empire, fine by me. There is plenty of stuff there to condemn on it's own.

But there is absolutely NO reason to trivialize the Holocaust by comparing it to the Allied bombings. They aren't in the same moral universe, and you know it. One is a war crime, the other is an unparalleled crime against humanity. People like David Irving traffic in this kind of nonsense. You shouldn't.

And yes, we DID know the crimes committed by the Nazis during the war. We just didn't know their extent. If a nation doesn't have a moral justification for going to war against a Nazi regime that brutally attacked, conquered and made slaves out of many of those people under it's boot, then that is pretty sad. The crimes of the British Empire simply pale in comparison. Imagine a guy like Ghandi trying to lead an uprising in territory under Hitler's control. It simply would not have happened because he would be dead. Sure, the British used concentration camps. The Nazis invented an extensive industrialized death factory system. Big difference.

I think it is important to realise that the main excuse for their own war crimes the victors came up with after the war weren't known to them at the time they committed these war crimes.

Again, who is excusing these crimes? No one I know of just shrugs their shoulders about them. There is no excuse for some of the mistakes the Allies made. But why the need to compare these to what the Nazi's did? What possible purpose does it serve? Self righteousness or just to muddy the waters? It must suck to live in a world where everything is so gray.

To condemn the Nazis is not to forget or excuse the Allies crimes. But there is no need to place them side by side. The reasons not to do this I feel I have made abundantly clear in previous posts.

Anyhoo…the baby is getting fussy. Not sure when I will be able to come back to this (or of it is even worth it). I'd probably rather leave this at that once you decide to respond since I don't want us to waste more time on an issue we won't ever agree on anyway. So feel free to post what you like. I believe I made my own view clear.

BlackWidowPilot 13 Jun 2008 12:31 p.m. PST

"That was merely a convenient discovery of the Allied ppropoganda machine to make the Axis look bad.

I just heard my Dad (WW2 USMC) and especially my Uncle Lloyd Erickson (Combat FO, Patton's 3rd Army, ETO) just start banging in their graves at this assertion…

Probably from the fact that their son/nephew doesn't know what started WWII.

Try using the whole quote –

Topkick890 12 Jun 2008 12:36 p.m. PST
Besides the war didn't start over the atrocities committed by the Germans. That was merely a convenient discovery of the Allied ppropoganda machine to make the Axis look bad. We were fully committed to killing "Nazis" and "Japs" to use the parlance of the day long before we learned of Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Bataan or Corregidor.

Trying to compare Allied atrocities to German ones is very definitely a part of the "German Phase" I mentioned earlier :) I did it, too, before I learned better.

I love these threads….They are really useful when it comes to sorting out who to take seriously here and who is a complete T%sser!

Many Thanks, Chris