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How 85 Jews captured 9000 Italian troops in Bardia, Libya in WWII

If you look at Italian history after the end of the Roman Empire you would notice that most of Italy was ruled by foreigners. Either early Germanic Kingdoms, later the French and Spanish. From North to South. Obviously the Habsburg's (Austria) as well. Italian nationalism was also a new thing since Italy as a united entity first was founded in 1860 and back then it had much clearer regional differences than even today where they are very visible still. Northern Italians often proclaim that "everything South of Rome" is Africa.

Italy did not have the industrial know-how or fierce loyalty to fascism and Mussolini that the Germans had towards Hitler. Defending Italy from foreign attacks is not an easy task either. My grandmother is French but of partial Italian and Spanish ancestry so I am familiar of Southern Europe and it's history. Speaking about Spain then I think that Franco was more clever than Mussolini and his rule proved to last all the way until 1975. Even becoming a staunch ally of the victorious Allies (NATO) later on despite being closer to Nazi Germany/Fascist Italy politically than to the Allied countries.

As I see it then you can only mobilize such a huge percentage of a population like seen in Nazi Germany if you rule with a harsh hand and that's also why the Soviets were so successful militarily. Either you fought until your last breath or you received a bullet through your head. That obviously helps a big deal. Having a defined ideology next to that usually works really well. This would be unthinkable today anywhere outside of North Korea and a few other states.
Mussolini was easily overthrown because he had a "Fascist Grand Council" and the Italian Monarch was still in power, thus providing for alternative authoritative figures for a coup of overthrowing him to succeed and to negotiate with the Western Allies. Mussolini was overthrown because there were other powerful figures to oppose him and fill in his gap.

The same happened in Germany's other Ally Romania. The Romanian Monarch overthrow Marshal Antonescu's gov.t in a coup and settled for a peace agreement with the Soviet Union.

Coming to General Franco, he stayed out of the war because of the German Abwher's head Admiral Canaris (who was fluent in Spanish) convinced Franco's General's to stay out of the war. Canaris was later executed fro treason at the orders of Hitler.

Another reason why Hitler lost the war was due to the double dealings of his high ranking military officers of the aristocracy class who viewed his Socialist views as a threat to their social class.
 
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Of course, he did have a racial fixation, but one has to try and see it from his POV to understand, and that requires plenty of research with a clear and unbiased mindset.

Gypsies are looked down upon throughout Europe, not only Germany. Even Eastern European Slavs and Russians (whom Hitler considered "sub-human") have a very low view of Gypsies, but that is mostly because Gypsies are known to be involved in criminal activity like organized crimes, robbery, prostitution, gangs, etc. One can easily understand his view of Gypsies. But a lot of Europeans today share the same view of Muslim immigrants in Europe today in France (mostly North African Muslims) and England (mostly South Asian Muslims) and Germany (Mostly Turks).

So how would he have treated South Asians? Not really sure because average South Asians don't behave like gypsies neither he had any aspiration to conquer or annexe South Asia. One cannot really deduce a clearly established perspective here.




Hitler before 1939 only wanted back all Ethnic German territory taken from Germany before WW1 and his second desire was to create a Pan-European alliance against the Communist Bolshevik threat posed by the Soviet Union.

Similar to how Putin today desires all of ethnic Russian Eastern Ukraine annexed into Russia.

Me personally, i don't see anything wrong with that. Everyone is Nationalistic and racist, every one has expansionist ambitions, its always been that way in history from Alexander to Genghis Khan. Its a world of struggle.

Well, I only write what I have either heard or read. Apparently, in his Mein Kampf, he wrote that every other race is inferior to the Germanic race (is there even such a thing - well not according to actually genetics when you look at the genetic makeup of Germans) and secondly the European race. Despite that he still considered Slavs who are known for their blond/pale/blue/green hair/eyes as subhumans as you say. Despite them being fellow Europeans and fellow Caucasian people.
I have no reason to believe that he would have acted differently if he was not needing the non-Germanic peoples. As I see it then his alliance with Japan was a temporarily marriage not out of love but out of necessity. I have no doubt that he looked down on the average Japanese.

Well it's not different to every local people being suspicious of foreigners when they become too big in numbers. If Pakistanis received a influx of 4-5 million Christian Nigerians or 5 million Papuans I think that a percentage of the locals would have similar thoughts about the foreigners. Especially if they clash with their own culture, religion etc.

As I said there is nothing wrong with nationalism I just think that the Nazi ideology went to far on their racial views. I know that you had exceptions and that not every Nazi official thought this way. For instance I recall half Jews among the higher circles in Nazi Germany. Unfortunately I cannot recall the names of those people.

My intention was not to compare Gypsies with South Asians I was just looking at it from a purely racial view. The Gypsies have a bad reputation in Europe due to their actions. This is bound in history.

Well, I read about that but he went too far in hindsight.

Well Zionism by nature is also racist but their approach is more successful and long-standing for obvious reasons. They are not as direct in their approach but they probably wish for the same to happen with the Palestinians.

I don't agree with that necessarily. Since race is not a clearly defined field. Culture/language is much more so and it also plays a bigger role than just race. When I say race I mean ethnic group. Not your skin color.
 
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You already know better than to air quote Holocaust numbers, iajj, as we discussed this last week. So you just robbed the rest of your writing of all credibility or merit.

what credibility are we talking about here in this thread? didn't you open the thread with the fantastic story of 85 jews - jews, mind you, the sort of creatures that were chained and slaughtered like sheep in concentration camps at the time - capturing 9000 europeans?

truthfully, you started this thread only to provoke me and invite more antisemitism just to reinforce your own bigotry held for your entire life that your aunties were victims, not the cause, of europe's anti-jew sentiments. in this respect, this thread mirrors the entire jew experience prior to and during WWII: that of provocation, of desert punishment, and of sensationalized and falsified victimhood. you and your dead relatives are so alike, really.
 
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Amazing thread. Well done, @Solomon2, you got them crawling out of the woodwork.

I liked the thread. It reminds me that Hindutva bigots are not the only ones around.
 
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Just flipping through Churchill's history for WWII. There seems to have been at least one or two errors in the passage. The Brits captured Bardia three times during the war. Gen'l Montgomery wasn't there in '41. The second time was an unsuccessful all-commando raid. Montgomery was there for the final capture in late '42, the push to Tobruk. Although the Brits captured a lot of prisoners then, the truly spectacular surrender was the first one, when a total of 36,000 Italians surrendered to small numbers of British troops.

Churchill does not record Jews' participation in these ops. But he does have a bunch to say about the difficulties he had with the War Office to arm "the Jews of Tel Aviv": the War Office at first did not respond to his appeals, then resisted, then proposed to send the Jews to fight the Japanese! (The British Army, two or three fine generals excepted, was very anti-Zionist indeed, the cited reason being worries about the loyalties of Indian troops.)

Why aren't accounts of Britain's Jewish commando troop (perhaps 450 men total) widely available? It turns out they were referred to as the "X-troop" or "3(x) troop" and their all-Jewish makeup was kept secret because if captured by the Nazis their danger would have been especially great: they might not be treated as prisoners of war but shot or sent to Auschwitz. And the X-troop wasn't deployed in battle as a unit, but smaller detachments sent to augment other commandos (or later, interrogation and occupation units.)

I recommend this book:

upload_2014-5-12_22-31-29.jpeg


I actually met the author, Peter Masters, a couple of decades ago at a party. Imagine the Jew in the picture older with white hair, bronzed face, pinched in cheeks, trim and muscular with no eyeglasses. But we didn't talk about N. Africa, we talked about his adventures in Europe.
 
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Lets suppose this absurd story is even true, the Italians were lousy fighters which is why Hitler had to bail them out from complete destruction at the hands of the British in North Africa. They lacked the spirit to fight on and were facing major defeats from the onset of their self initiated campaign in Africa.

So celebrating a victory of a few well fed and looked after Jews capturing 9,000 starving, dehydrated, and demoralized Italians doesn't really prove much.

Let me know if ever any such incident took place in which 9,000 of the feared Waffen SS or even Wehrmacht troops were captured by small band of Jews.

And NO, hollywood propaganda like Inglorious Bastards does not count as Historical facts.

Not to mentions Italians also miserably failed in Greece and Germans had to bail them out of there as well.
 
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Not to mentions Italians also miserably failed in Greece and Germans had to bail them out of there as well.
Nevertheless, the Italians managed to make themselves very much hated in a comparatively short period of time. A decade or so back National Geographic ran a story about the Blue Nile in Ethiopia. At one point the correspondent was threatened with a rifle until he could prove he wasn't Italian. This doesn't happen to Brits in India or Pakistan, does it?

And NO, hollywood propaganda like Inglorious Bastards does not count as Historical facts.
There was a movie about the Jewish Commando? Didn't know. I suggest you read the Masters book instead: more fact, less fiction.
 
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don't fabricate stories like that. on a more truthful account, do you want to hear the story about how "six million" jews feared a few guard dogs at the concentration camps more than death? stupid falsehood like how 85 jews captured 9000 europeans is exactly why europeans put your sort in death camps - and this was for real (at least that is what your aunties told me)

Joe Sherer,

There ws no reson for negtive rting---.
 
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Well, I only write what I have either heard or read. Apparently, in his Mein Kampf, he wrote that every other race is inferior to the Germanic race (is there even such a thing - well not according to actually genetics when you look at the genetic makeup of Germans) and secondly the European race. Despite that he still considered Slavs who are known for their blond/pale/blue/green hair/eyes as subhumans as you say. Despite them being fellow Europeans and fellow Caucasian people.
I have no reason to believe that he would have acted differently if he was not needing the non-Germanic peoples. As I see it then his alliance with Japan was a temporarily marriage not out of love but out of necessity. I have no doubt that he looked down on the average Japanese.

Then obviously you haven't read Mein Kampf because Hitler never refers to non-Germans (or non-Aryans) as "inferior" or Germans as superior. He doesn't use such terminology, rather he focuses more on the social ills plaguing the Germany of his day and the Communist threat, the class division and the mistreatment of the factory workers, on boxing, syphilis, preservation of the German people etc... He does not insult other peoples in Mein Kampf.

Whatever racial reference he did make is certainly not in the context which you claim it to be.

Regarding Japanese and Chinese, Hitler actually praises them in Mein Kampf. I don't remember the exact page number but his praise for Japanese and Chinese civilization is all too clear and shows that he admired them.


Regarding genetics and racial differences, they do exist, because if they didn't then we'd all be the exact same copy of each other and we'd all be equally smart/intelligent and ignorant/dumb. However, genetics is not my strong subject but i do know that @p(-)0ENiX is knowledgeable in this regard and i would appreciate his valuable input.

Well it's not different to every local people being suspicious of foreigners when they become too big in numbers. If Pakistanis received a influx of 4-5 million Christian Nigerians or 5 million Papuans I think that a percentage of the locals would have similar thoughts about the foreigners. Especially if they clash with their own culture, religion etc.

I don't dispute that.

As I said there is nothing wrong with nationalism I just think that the Nazi ideology went to far on their racial views. I know that you had exceptions and that not every Nazi official thought this way. For instance I recall half Jews among the higher circles in Nazi Germany. Unfortunately I cannot recall the names of those people.

My intention was not to compare Gypsies with South Asians I was just looking at it from a purely racial view. The Gypsies have a bad reputation in Europe due to their actions. This is bound in history.

Well, I read about that but he went too far in hindsight.

Well Zionism by nature is also racist but their approach is more successful and long-standing for obvious reasons. They are not as direct in their approach but they probably wish for the same to happen with the Palestinians.

I don't agree with that necessarily. Since race is not a clearly defined field. Culture/language is much more so and it also plays a bigger role than just race. When I say race I mean ethnic group. Not your skin color.

Hitler and the Nazis were just a product of their time. As i said, one has to understand the context of the era and the geopolitics of that region at that particular time, and this requires a in depth research with a unbiased mindset.

My admiration for the man is because of his lack of fear, among his other leadership skills and how he was able to unite his nation under a common cause despite all the odds stacked against him from the beginning of his 14 years of struggle (before he became chancellor in 1933) in the face of the Communist threat, massive unemployment, starvation, class divisions, rampant drug abuse and prostitution, among the many social ills prevailing within the German society. The social and economic prosperity Germans of all walks of life experienced under his government was unparallelled anywhere else in the world. And for this his people gave him their loyalty to the bitter end. He rebuilt his country into a prosperous economic power within 3 years while the rest of the world continued to languish in the great depression. His envious enemies wanted to take that prosperity and economic freedom away from Germany, and so they did everything in their power to do so, because they feared that their own people too would start demanding similar economic reforms as those implemented under Hitler's gov.t

 
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Not to mentions Italians also miserably failed in Greece and Germans had to bail them out of there as well.
The Italians became a burden for the Germans throughout the mid to late war period.
 
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