When you say that, you make it sound like their support of the Nazis was an error in judgement and that there was nothing malicious about it, which is 100% wrong. Many of the big corporations and business leaders in the United States in the 1930s were big supporters of Fascism.

Here is something that is routinely missing from most American history books, for obvious reasons:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism...#United_States

Ever heard of the "business plot"? I'm guessing probably not.

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I'm not shocked either. The U.S. was soft on Nazi Germany and didn't have the least bit of interest in getting involved in WWII. Joseph Kennedy (JFK's father) was Ambassador to England at the time and early on assured Hitler that the U.S. only wanted peaceful relations with Germany, and he had his friend, William Randolph Hearst, use his publishing empire to improve the image of Hitler in the U.S. All this led to the U.S. not entering the war until about half way through, when it was almost too late.

Had it not been for secret preparations that had been ongoing for some time between Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, the U.S. would have ultimately entered the war too late and unprepared, and we would no doubt be living today under the thumb of the Third Reich, as they were mere months away from having atomic weapons and already had a nice little delivery system called the V2. Had Roosevelt's secret preparations with Churchill been uncovered, he would have no doubt been impeached. Everyone of us in the western world owes a huge debt to him for having the balls to do what went against popular opinion, but which was ultimately the right thing to do.

While I agree with some of what you say, you are mistaken about this idea that we would be living under the third reich. It wasn't the US & UK who defeated the Nazis. It was the Soviet Union. The Nazis knew they had lost the war long before we invaded Normandy. During the winter of 1943, two-thirds of their army starved &/or froze to death during the harsh Russian winter. By the Spring of 1944, months before the Normandy invasion, the Soviet troops were were already advancing at a brisk rate, and it was only a matter of time before they reached Germany.

After reading lots on WWII, I am convinced that if Germany had been successful in taking out the Soviet Union, the invasion of Normandy would never have happened, and there would have been a peace treaty signed between Germany, the UK and US.

The invasion of Normandy was a rushed last effort to attempt to reach Berlin before the Soviet Army did, as to avoid all of mainland Europe from becomming Communist.

If we had not entered the war, we would not be living under the third reich, but instead the Soviet Bloc may have reached all the way to France, and yes the world would be quite different today.

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my experience on X5world when I spend too much
time posting in political threads in the lounge...

It’s interesting….
Hitler did the same mystique that Napoleon Bonaparte....
Russian winter

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Minds are like parachutes they only work when they’re open.

He misjudged Stalin. He figured Stalin would be too proud to burn Moscow and flee. He was wrong.

Instead, when the German Army reached Moscow expecting to find shelter and food, there was nothing but a city burned to the ground.

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my experience on X5world when I spend too much
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For a second it seemed you were defending Bush.
Then I read your next post. All is right with the world again...

Oh, and it's spelt "Opel" not "Opal."

One's a car manufacturer, the other's a jewel.

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2010 528Xi
I demand justice.
Or, if there must be injustice, let it be in my favor.

Reynold's Wrap: it's not just for hats anymore.

Wrongo. You ignore what would have happened had the U.S. entered the war later or less prepared. Western Europe would have been crushed, allowing Germany to devote their entire focus to defeating Russia, which it would have been able to do handily if its forces hadn't been split across so many fronts. And again, you ignore the fact they were on the verge of developing the A-Bomb. Extending the war as little as a few months, which certainly would have been the case had the U.S. entry been delayed any further, would have given them the time to complete their development work and then it would have been all over. Russia would have been a smoking cinder. In addition to Roosevelt's secret planning, the fortuitous Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor galvanized the U.S. to unconditionally devote itself to the war, so that 'day of infamy' probably helped to save the world as we know it.

About 80% of the German forces were on the Eastern front. Another 20% would not have made a difference. Two-thirds of those on the Eastern front died during the winter of 1943-1944, most from starvation and many from being frozen to death. The supply lines were simply too long. Moscow had been burnt to the ground, and there was no longer any shelter for a thousand miles. Hitler was simply outsmarted just as Napolean had been 130 years earlier. This all happened 6 months before we ever invaded Normandy. While we were fighting some German forces in Africa at the time, that was about it. Germany had devoted almost all of their forces to the Eastern front.


They were still years away:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_...energy_project

In 1945, a U.S. investigation called Project Alsos determined that German scientists under Heisenberg were close, but still short, of the point that Allied scientists had reached in 1942, the creation of a sustained nuclear chain reaction, a crucial step for creating a nuclear reactor


Instead of starting your sentence here with "In addition to....", you should say "As part of...."

Read:

http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=103

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my experience on X5world when I spend too much
time posting in political threads in the lounge...

To save us all time, we don't need to re-debate WWII. Just turn on the History Channel, non stop WWII...24/7

Bottom line, yes companies support wars in other regions by other countries. Does it make that company bad today...an issue that happened over 6 decades ago...no at least not IMO. And if people truly boycott something like a BMW because it did work with Messerschmidt and other "Nazi" providers, and they are doing this on the basis of what the Nazi's did, then buying from the Japanese in the US should be on the verge of sacrilege.

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"promote the general welfare, not provide the general welfare"

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.