/int/ - International

>>18943 You might like the 9th Division (Australia). Known as the "Rats of Tobruk", they, along with 35,000 allied soldiers, of which 14,000 were Australian, held the city while the Germans sieged it from April 11th 1941 until they were relived in December 1941. The city surrendered on June 21st 1942. The origin of the name stemmed from the extensive below ground defensive works that the Italians dug into the city originally. The Rats would utilize these defensive works along with raids on Axis positions and excellent artillery support as a basis for their defense of the city. Lord Haw-Haw, an American born Axis propagandist, would refer to the defenders as "rats" living in horrid conditions below ground, and mocked the aged warship that supplied and evacuated the defenders as "scrap iron". The Allies would wear the "rats" and "scrap iron" monikers as a badge of honor. The 9th Australian also spearheaded the allied assault in the Second Battle of AL Alamein and were afterwards transferred to the Pacific Theater where they fought in several island campaigns including New Guinea. All in all, the 9th Australian suffered about 12,000 casualties, or approximately 1/4 of their total fighting strength, and received 7 Victoria Crosses. They were praised by both Churchill, Montgomery and Rommell.

>>19049 Yes I know about them but I hate Australia.

>>19050 Why don't you like Australia?

>>19051 Because Australians are uncivilised and also I hate our flora and fauna.

>>19035 WW2 era planes are just gorgeous in general, especially the agile fighters.

Dirlewanger.

11. Panzer-Division

Lots of wehraboos here

>>19069 >11 THEY ARE THE PANZER ELITE BORN TO COMPETE GHOST DIVISION or not they. Maybe I've mistakened it with 10th

>>19069 The Nazis didn't even hide they were allied to the Devil

>>19474 "Hans...are we the baddies?"

>>19475 This is devilish in origin

>>19475 >>19479 >Are we baddies ? And when we laugh The Devil laughs with us Ah aha hahahaha

>>19474 >They aligned with Devil But they don't like atheists

>>19485 Nazis are atheists, they have forsaken God early on

>>19485 The Nazis were an atheist movement.

>>19499 Sort of, there was some effort to revive real or imagined old German / Norse religion.

>>19499 The answer to this question is complicated. It was not an atheist movement in the same vein that Communism was. Its leaders did not advocate atheism, and neither did the ideology. Fascism was not a religiously driven ideology either. Rather, it was driven by nationalism in which Religion was advocated for when it benefited the ideology. Hitler himself was raised Catholic. In his speeches, he praised Christianity and religion. In his actions, he viciously criticized organized religion as well as Atheism, and worked against the Catholic Church and protestant churches in Germany. He can most accurately be described as a Deist or Christian of some sort, but not someone who was particularity religious.

>>19569 It was also a public relations thing, the National Socialists were well aware of the power religion still had over the hearts of many ordinary Germans, that's why they stopped their "mercy killings" of retards after the Bishops protested. They also had some common ground in anti-communism, but that figures like Himmler probably weren't the most ardent Christians should be pretty obvious and the long term, internal goal was to create a new religion for the German people.

>>19479 The Totenkopf wanst invented by the Nazis though. Its origins are the "Totenkopfhusaren" of the evil Prussian Army. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/1._Leib-Husaren-Regiment_Nr._1#

>>19570 Himmler wasn't a christian at all. He was raised Christian but left and was interested in occult and pagan religions. Your view on Hitler's view on Christianity is correct. He publicly praised it and privately criticized it. However, Hitler had the personality type to viciously criticize everything, making his actual views hard to decipher. While he criticized Christianity as absurd and fit for slaves, he did the same with Atheism, Paganism, and the occult.

>>19569 SS divisions didn't have chaplains.

>>19611 They did, but not a broad organized one like the Wehrmacht did. A couple of reasons for this. The SS was lead by Himmler who was a Deist and hostile towards Christianity. The SS was also the armed wing of the Nazi party, split between the military faction, the Waffen SS, the Allgemeine SS or General SS, and the SS-Totenkopfverbande or Deaths Head SS which committed the Holocaust. As they were separate from the German military, they weren't entitled to the general benefits that the military would normally get. They did have Chaplains though, especially in ethnic divisions where religion was a unifying factor amongst that ethnicity. An example being the 14th Grenadiers 1st Galacians.

>>19612 The fact that they could put them in ethnic divisions but didn't put them in standard ones proves it was intentional.

>>19621 Again, it's complicated. Himmler was against Christianity and sought to frame the SS as a vanguard against Christianity. However, Himmler was also raised Catholic and modelled the SS after the Jesuits. Atheism was, however, not a common belief in Germany at the time and not accepted by the Nazi party nor it's leadership. Only about 1-2% of Germans were Atheists. SS members were required to list their religion, of which there were only 3 acceptable answers, Protestant, Catholic, and "Believe in God". Himmler was a Believer in God. Himmler was the most esoteric, pagan, and anti Christian Nazi leader. Ultimately though,the reason why the SS didn't have chaplains wasn't that they weren't Christian, but that they weren't entitled to that benefit like the Army was. The German government made special arrangements with the Catholic Church to enlist chaplains in exchange for not drafting Priests, but the Nazi party didn't make similar arrangements with the Waffen SS.

>>19623 Forgot to add, 50% of SS members picked Protestant, 25% picked Catholic, and 25% picked believer in God.

>>19623 Hmmm... At some point I will have to read Mein Kampf and see what he says about religion in that.

>>19626 I tried reading Mein Kampf one time. It is delightfully insightful on the mind of Hitler, a young man from Austria of the WW1 generation. It is not particularly worldly or intelligent, however, and consists of nationalistic wandering rambles. I think Hitler was probably a Catholic as a child, a non religious Christian as a young adult, and a Deist as an older adult. You can find Mein Kampf pretty easily online as long as you don't live in Germany. It is hard to relate to as you pretty much have to be from Austria in WW1 to get everything and relate to it.

>>19638 I got Hitler's second book for my mum as part of a Uni thing she was doing and I read parts of that. You are right about the rambling nature of it. It is interesting if you can manage to sit through it though(I wasn't fully able too). I like to read books in physical form. So I will have to buy it.

>>19577 There are churches made of skulls in Czech, Portugal and Italy. There are holy remains everywhere. Skeletons are pretty christian thing, not necessarily "devilish".

>>19749 Catholic churches also have altars with bits of skeletons on them. This all makes sense as Jesus is actually a demon.

>>19772 I think it's to remind people of the transience of life. "Don't sin, because death is near and you'll have to face Last Judgment soon"

>>19749 It’s completely different to using a skull as a symbol for a unit that organizes the mass murder of people, the connotation is clear. The Christian use of those symbols has a different connotation as you correctly said.

>>20015 I don't know about that, they literally perform a ritual where they drink the blood and eat the body of their demon lord.

Hitlerjugend division because they were the OG chuddies

30th Waffen Grenadier Division has some kind of aesthetic

>>20628 You like that logo?

>>19273 It's hard for me to not be somewhat wehraboo, I don't necessarily mean the uniforms, but the Germans and Italians had the most innovative and creative camos for sure.

>>20269 Ha! I am surprised no one has said Dirlewanger Brigade yet

>>20631 >I don't necessarily mean the uniforms

>>20634 We're not on Kohl, that's why

>>20634 Crazy how you can recognise pedophiles just like that.

>>20636 The Kohl division would be Hitlerjugend

>>20634 >>19065 I said it for being funny tho.

263. Infanterie-Division and the Infanterie-Regiment 463 in specific That was my Grandfathers unit. Fought in france in 1940, then went against the soviets in 1941 and ended the war in 1945 in the Courland pocket. 5 Years of frontline service in an infantry regiment and he survived

>>19484 We still sing that song in the german army :3 Just without the Hitler part lol

>>20916 Oh I didn't see it 👍 >>20945 Yeah, not many survived but there are always some who survive. I was reading about the US Civil War and it's a similar story. An infantry regiment would suffer 90% casualties. They would just replace them all with fresh troops and keep going... The old ones now there to direct the young ones.

>>21956 ACW was a horrible meat grinder. In the Battle of Shiloh alone they had more casualties than all the wars on American soil before combined.

>>21960 It was weird. It wasn't a meatgrinder compared to a lot of European wars like WW1 and 2. But the technology and tactics made it a meat grinder. You had troops lining up with muskets, rifle-muskers, and rifles, and just firing away at each other until both sides were 60% dead or so. You had bayonet charges and rock throwing, artillery, even gattling guns where were pre-machine guns. Every year of the war the tactics came closer to trench warfare. The early periods had loose infantry on hills and behind rivers. The middle two year had a gradual recognition of defensive positions like sunken roads and behind railways. And the last year had trench warfare in earnest, with trench systems dug around Richmond and Petersburg being utilized to inflict heavy casualties. The overall tactics were lacking. This was a war of new technology and tactics, while the leaders were fighting Napoleonic style.

>>21966 I guess what I mean was that warfare in this time period was very intense. Causalities happened faster than WW1 or WW2, but battles lasted a day, a couple days at most, then it was quiet again. WW1 and WW2 had battles lasting years. So the casualties were way higher.