2007-01-20 00:51:54 · 12 answers · asked by devonlad06 1 in Arts & Humanities ➔ History
They bleeding started it! There wouldn't have been a war if they hadn't started it.
Don't they teach history in schools any more?
2007-01-20 00:55:48 · answer #1 · answered by mcfifi 6 · 0⤊ 2⤋
Do you mean Germany as a nation or individual Germans?
Great Britain and France declared war on Germany for invading Poland in September,1939. Technically the war was started by France and Britain.
Individual Germans in a totalitarian state had the choice of fighting or being imprisoned (if they were lucky). Most likely killed as traitors.
If history is still taught in schools I don't think many pupils pay attention
2007-01-20 08:59:57 · answer #2 · answered by Rob Roy 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
I presume you are talking about German soldiers. If they refused to fight in the war, they would be arrested and put into concentration camps along with the Jews and the gypsies. There were a lot of German conscientious objectors that didn't fight in the war and they were treated with contempt and often killed.
2007-01-20 08:56:55 · answer #3 · answered by JillPinky 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Military was mandatory, youth camps were started for the German boys like Boy Scouts and trained for the Army--and when they reached 16 they were moved into the ranks of the Military--they were brainwashed into believing they were needed to protect the Furor and their country against the Jews and other countries
2007-01-20 12:18:45 · answer #4 · answered by Maria 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Interesting - Germany is often thought of as the instigator of World War II, but in fact much of Germany's reasons for opening hostilities was to answer to the threat of communism from Russia. Initially, Germany did not want a war with Britain.
If Germany had not invaded Poland (bringing France and Britain into the war), then Russia would've gained power, and the cold war might have been very, very different, and far from cold. Germany would have been forced to defend herself against the Russians, and Britain, the US etc would have been her allies.
2007-01-20 08:57:20 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
If you are talking about whether the individual German had a choice whether to fight or not, then the answer is yes, he had one, albeit a bad one. Refusal to fight would spell concentration camp, and/or straightaway execution, especially in the later years of the war. Most refusals to fight were religiously motivated, not because of political attitude agains the war or pacifism. For example, nearly 300 of the Jehova's witnesses who refused to fight were executed by the Nazis. There's a small chapter in Guenter Grass recent autobiography 'Beim Haeuten der Zwiebel', where he talks about a soldier in training who did anything a soldier had to do except taking the gun...eventually, the man vanished from Grass' training unit, never to be seen again.
My father served in a Sturmpionier unit in Russia from 1943, and knew of one of his friends from the same village being executed for refusing to fight.
2007-01-21 06:21:06 · answer #6 · answered by Ruediger H 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
did you ever hear of the old saying do or die well I had a grandfather on my sisters husband side that fought in WWI which was no different He lived in Czechoslovakia and the Germans invaded that country and he had to fight with the Germans or else they would of shot him
2007-01-20 09:08:52 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
They were classified as honorary Jews, gypsies, mentally handicapped, genetically unsound. You can work out for yourself what happened to them then.
2007-01-20 11:19:28 · answer #8 · answered by cymry3jones 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Military service was mandatory. Refusing to serve was deemed treason and was punishable by execution.
2007-01-20 08:54:55 · answer #9 · answered by GenevievesMom 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Yeah, Germany started WWII. Aldolf Hitler, does that ring a bell, he German.
2007-01-20 08:56:43 · answer #10 · answered by j0kr420 2 · 0⤊ 2⤋