Reddit reviews The Fire: The Bombing of Germany, 1940-1945

You'd think so, but read this book or this one. Firebombs are as close to the antichrist as you can get in warfare, and I say that as someone who reads a lot into war.

> If you truly believe a victory of Wilders will lead to genocide, leave the country, because then we are already lost.

I don't "believe" anything, I merely note what he actually said. Which is the very opposite of "sensationalist nonsense". EDIT: I already left the country some time ago, not least because of the noxious political climate around Wilders. My win, your loss.

> you insist that Wilders is genocidal based on your own emotions about his speech

Again: I don't insist on anything. I can't see into Wilders' dark soul: for all I know he was just tickling the lizard brain of his audience. But I can read exactly what he said.

> Because otherwise Moroccans would mistake your for... a woman, and you would come into contact with their cultural view on women. Which isn't all too nice.

Oh, you know all Moroccans, so you feel qualified to assert that they are all sexist? I'm familiar enough with North African sexism, thank you very much, but I wouldn't generalise my experience with specific people to a whole country on that account, just as I wouldn't generalise my experience with individual racists in the Netherlands to all Dutch people.

You, on the other hand, seem comfortable with sweeping generalisations.

> And this is basically just one big insult, not an argument.

Believe me, if I insulted you, which I'm certainly feeling like doing, you'd know. You're just avoiding a reply.

> If you call people literally "evil" for voting a certain party, that's pretty much synonymous to calling them a "nazi", because no-one who actually uses the word means to invoke political ideology.

Quite frankly, you don't make any fucking sense. I believe that Maoism and Stalinism are evil: does that make them "synonymous" with Nazism?

I believe that PVVers are evil (but not Nazis, never mind "Nazi's"), because I've had a look at that party's platform and I find it is evil. If I'm not allowed to call a party program "evil" because that is "synonymous to calling it Nazi", then we are done discussing politics, thank you very much.

> No, the point is that you can't discuss someone's political views without, in effect, dehumanizing them

Evil, idiocy and misdirection are essentially human. I can hardly "dehumanise" anyone by pointing those out where they occur.

> if you're going to be a grammar Nazi

YOU CALLED ME A NAZI!!!!

> you should know that text between quotation marks is being quoted

Well, where did you quote "Nazi's" from, then?

> You have never heard of the Sack of Berlin?

I've even read Beevor's book, just as I read "The Fire. I even personally know several women who had to flee the advancing Red Army. Again, I don't see your fucking point.

I'm currently reading Bob Ward's biography of Wernher von Braun.

To be fair, von Braun worked on rockets for civilian applications at first. Then he started contracting for the German military because, as is common in the aerospace industry, the primary customer for his work are governments. He then joined the German military to further schmooze and get resources for his team and project.

He did join the Nazi party and eventually the Nazi SS, but historians still argue about whether he truly fell in with the Nazi belief system. His own accounts are conflicting and likely influenced by when/where he wrote them.

From the biography, it sounds like von Braun was forced into the SS at the threat of losing support for his rocket program. There is plenty of evidence that von Braun did not enjoy this position, nor did he enjoy his meetings with higher Nazi and SS officers.

The fact that von Braun's rockets were used against London should not come as much surprise. While von Braun is on record stating his regret that rockets were used on civilian targets, keep in mind that at the time his country was being subjected to carpet bombing raids by the Allies. While I personally feel the Allied bombing raids were necessary for the Allies to win the war, they most certainly were terrible acts that could easily be considered war crimes. The entire war was crazy; see Dan Carlin's Logical Insanity podcast or Jorg Friedrich's book about the bombing of Germany.

When the writing was on the wall that the Nazis would loose the war, von Braun ignored many orders to continue producing V-2 rockets until being overrun. Instead, he had designs, tools, equipment, parts, and entire rockets hidden in various mines and caves. He then arranged for an entire trainload of rocket technicians, workers, and scientists to hide in an out-of-the-way area. When the fighting simmered down, he promptly turned his entire group over to the Allies (specifically the Americans; he feared Britain's response and of course wanted nothing to do with the Russians). After hostilities ceased, the German rocket scientists provided the Americans with the design documents, parts, and whole rockets (under operation Paperclip). Within a few weeks, von Braun had met with the rocket scientists in the American military and British military to discuss the state of the art. Within a month, von Braun arranged for the Americans to get training from the German rocket scientists themselves to assemble and launch the remaining V-2 rockets.

TLDR: Wernher von Braun pursued rocketry his whole adult life. In order to pursue the development of rocketry in the 1930s and 1940s in Germany, he had to procure resources and favor from the German military and government; leading unsurprisingly to involvement with the Nazi party and participation in war activities. I feel it would be more accurate to characterize von Braun as a leader of a rocket design/development team (which of course evolved in size and member makeup) that over time worked for different militaries and governments.

> "Der Brand" by Jörg Friedrich is a comprehensive and well-researched book on the bombings of German cities in WWII. The English translation was well-acclaimed by the New York Times, but it's banned in Britain.

Doesn't appear to be banned:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fire-Bombing-Germany-1940-1945/dp/0231133812/