← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · friedrich braun

D-DAY: HYPOCRISY AT ITS GUT WRENCHING WORST

Thread ID: 14012 | Posts: 19 | Started: 2004-06-02

Wayback Archive

friedrich braun [OP]

2004-06-02 14:10 | User Profile

Dear Friends and Fellow Fighters for Truth and Justice,

Why not spoil the D-Day party? This week you will endure the biggest knees-up to the Goddess of Cant you have ever seen. But if the devil in you inspires you to be a party-poop, why not print off the attachment, and send it to every lying hack’s name that appears in your local newspaper. Go on, you spoiler you!

D-DAY

HYPOCRISY AT ITS GUT WRENCHING WORST

HENRY LABOUCHERE “We are without exception the greatest robbers and marauders that ever existed on the face of the globe. We are worse than other countries because we are hypocrites also, for we plunder and always pretend to do so for other peoples’ good.” - Liberal M.P. and journalist.

Friedriche Nietsche, one of the great thinkers of all time dryly observed England to be ‘The Land of Consummate Cant.’ From June 1st 2004, as the D-Day Landings are heralded as ‘the liberation of Europe’ we will experience England’s hypocrisy at its gut-wrenching worst.

Within twelve-months of D-Day eleven formerly free countries would be devoured by the allied armies. The betrayed nations, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Yugoslavia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Rumania, Bulgaria, Albania and Germany – not to mention already Soviet enslaved peoples, were each to be denied democracy and subjected to terror regimes at the point of the rapists’ gun.

Have we missed something? Wasn’t the purpose of the war to uphold the rights of the smaller nations? The subsequent genocidal suffering that these populations endured is almost without equal in the history of mankind.

AN UNFORTUNATE CONSEQUENCE OF HITLER’S WAR?

In fact it was not Hitler’s war any more than the current ‘land grab’ is Saddam’s War. Even the celebrated historian A J P Taylor conceded that Hitler, who wasn’t a pretend champagne socialist, fought ‘largely a defensive war.’ A clique of political gangsters had sealed these nations’ fate at the Conferences of Quebec, Tehran and Yalta.

Of these ‘champions of democracy’ only the American President had been elected – on the lie that: “I give you one more assurance. I have said this before but I shall say it again and again and again; your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars!" - Franklin D. Roosevelt, Campaign Speech in Boston eve of his 1940 election.

THE INEVITABLE AMERICANS “In order to make the individual’s culture and society acceptable to him, steps must be taken to prevent inconvenient fact from becoming obstructive. People do not love men who give them the truth, but rather men who give them illusions.” - John Greenway, The Inevitable Americans.

D-DAY FOR FRANCE – COURTESY OF THE AMERICANS

As with Iraq this was largely an American invasion with a British-supporting cast. In the U.S.A. the incredulous public was given the impression that their sons were a band of angels. Thankfully they didn’t have digital cameras and camcorders then. ‘Saving Private Ryan’ might have been more aptly named, ‘Raping Private Ryan.’

Covering these events much later NBC anchorman Tom Brokaw fell into line with real history and said, ‘The bloodied landscape of France and Belgium was American made. The crimes committed by individual American soldiers – rape, thievery and murder – surpassed the crimes of the ‘Nazis’ in every respect. Even American generals were stealing from French civilians. During one period over 500 rapes a month were being reported.

Before, during and after the D-Day landings the Allies dropped over 590,000 tons of bombs on France – equal to almost half the amount of bombs dropped on Germany during the entire course of the war. Over 1 million French homes were destroyed by Allied bombing attacks and some cities such as Caen, Saint-Lo, Carentan, Montbourg and Valgnes ceased to exist.

For every German who lost his life resisting the American invasion of Europe the lives of four Frenchmen were taken. Whereas German troops had wandered at will during their occupation of France, the British and the Americans were repeatedly confined to barracks or had their movements restricted because of the French resistance to their presence on French soil.

D-DAY FOR FRANCE – COURTESY OF THE FRENCH

As soon as the American forces had made it safe for the ousted French General deGaulle, brigands and Communist gangs sought revenge for their humiliation.

The most appalling massacres of civilians began to take place whilst American troops stood idly by. Generally the British media ignored these awful events but one English journalist among others of various nationalities, recorded these desperate tragedies. “There has never been, in the history of France, a bloodier period than that which followed the liberation of 1944-1945. The massacres of 1944 were no less savage than the massacres of Jacquerie, of St. Bartholomew, of the revolutionary terror, of the commune, and they were certainly more numerous and on a wider scale.

The American services put the figures of ‘summary executions’ in France in the first months of the ‘liberation’ at 80,000. A former French Minister, Adrien Tixier, later placed the figure at 105,000.” – Huddleston, op. Cit., 243 & 245-46.

FORMER PRIME MINISTER TWICE OVER. “I strive not to throw Europe into this criminal adventure. But the States, even the British Crown, are not the masters of their destiny. Powers that elude us are promoting in Great Britain, as in other countries, special interests and an aberrant idealism.” – Stanley Baldwin, British Prime Minister 1924-1929 and 1935-1937.

D-DAY FOR THE BALKAN NATIONS

What you will not be told in your ‘history books’ is that Adolf Hitler, through the Yugoslavian leader, General Draza Mihhailovich, offered to hold the Balkan line with German troops if the United States and Britain would agree to occupy and deny these imperiled states to Stalin’s ruthless hordes. Ironically while German troops were dying by the thousands to save Europe from Stalin’s slaughterhouse, Winston Churchill, the silk-knickers wearing drunkard (check it out) and his henchmen had already sealed the fate of these soon to be ‘liberated’ victim states.

D-DAY FOR GERMANY, COURTESY OF THE USSR

"The disaster that befell this area with the entry of the Soviet forces has no parallel in modern European experience. There were considerable sections of it where, to judge by all existing evidence, scarcely a man, woman or child of the indigenous population was left alive after the initial passage of the Soviet forces.” - George F. Kennan, Memoirs, 1967, Vol. 1., p265.

"Since the end of the war about 3,000,000 people, mostly women and children and over-aged men, have been killed in Eastern Germany and south-eastern Europe; about 15,000,000 people have been deported or had to flee their homesteads and are on the road. About 25% of these people, over 3,000,000 have perished.

About 4,000,000 men and women have been deported to Eastern Europe as slaves. It seems that the elimination of the German population of Eastern Europe - at least 15,000,000 people - was planned in accordance with decisions made at Yalta. Churchill had said to Mikolakczyk when the latter protested during the negotiations to Moscow against forcing Poland to incorporate eastern Germany; 'Don't mind the five or more million Germans. Stalin will see to them. You will have no trouble with them; they will cease to exist.’’” - Senator Homer Capehart; U.S. Senate, February 5th 1946.

GEORGE ORWELL ON THE PRESS “At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed all right-thinking people will accept without question.

It is not exactly forbidden to say this or that or the other, but it is ‘not done.’. . . Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing, either in the popular press or in highbrow periodicals.”

D-DAY FOR GERMANY - COURTESY OF THE AMERICANS

"At home our papers carry articles about how we 'liberate' oppressed countries and peoples. Here, our soldiers use the term 'liberate' to describe the method of obtaining loot. Anything taken from an enemy home or person is 'liberated' in the language of the G.I. Leica cameras are 'liberated', guns, food, art. Anything taken without being paid for is 'liberated'. A soldier who rapes a German woman has 'liberated' her.” - The Diaries of Charles A. Lindbergh, p.953. Harcourt Brace Javanovich, N.Y. 1970

D-DAY FOR GERMANY – COURTESY OF BRITAIN

"Our own Army and the British Army along with ours have done their share of looting and raping... this offensive attitude among our troops is not at all general but the percentage is large enough to have given our Army a pretty black name - and we too are considered an army of rapists.” - Time Magazine, September, 17th, 1945

D-DAY FOR AUSTRIA

"They came like the ancient Mongol hordes out of the Steppes. The people in the working class districts had felt that when the Russians came they at least would be spared but not at all. In the working class districts the troops were allowed to rape and murder and loot at will. When the victims complained, the Russians answered. 'You are too well off to be workers. You are bourgeoisie.'" - op.cit. p.24

D-DAY FOR HUNGARY

"Besides looting, it is especially the raping of women which has caused the most suffering to the Hungarian population. These violations were so general (from the age of ten up to seventy years) that there are practically few women who could escape this fate. Acts of incredible brutality have been registered and many women prefer to commit suicide in order to escape monstrosities. Even now, when order is more or less established, Russian soldiers will watch houses where women live and they will return there at night to take them away." - The Swiss Legation, KAP News Services, Tablet, July 28th 1945.

MARK TWAIN “Statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.” - Chronicle of Young Satan

Enjoy the party, England! We hope you find it truly liberating

Texas Dissident

2004-06-02 16:08 | User Profile

I have to ask for a source for this piece of revisionist propaganda, friedrich.

friedrich braun

2004-06-02 16:30 | User Profile

Every citation is followed by a source. The entire piece is but a compilation.

(What is "revisionist propaganda"? A version of history that falls outside the standard, Nuremberg narrative? Sounds like jewish cuss words, no?)

Texas Dissident

2004-06-02 16:43 | User Profile

QUOTE=friedrich braun[/QUOTE]

You defend a regime, friedrich, that had as a primary goal the complete and utter eradication of the Lutheran Church in Germany. How you can reconcile that, I don't know, but please refrain from posting inflammatory nazi crap like this here.

For what it's worth, I understand the board at thephora.org welcomes nazis with open arms. You could also try VNN for some anti-Christ flavor, as well.

Quantrill

2004-06-02 16:58 | User Profile

To be fair, Tex, don't you think it is possible to discuss some of the less-than-noble actions of the Allies in WWII without automatically being labeled a Nazi? I am anything but a Nazi, but I recognize that American involvement in World War II was totally unnecessary, and led to half of Europe being enveloped by a godless, communist nightmare.

Johnathan

2004-06-02 17:42 | User Profile

Personally, I'm getting a little bit sick of the mantra "they saved the world!" that the media invokes when referring to "the Greatest Generation". Its especially galling when it is considered that the cultural Marxists who currently control America would absolutely hate everything that the average White man in the 1940s stood for.

Additionally, why do historians in this country constantly refer to the battle at Normandy as the "biggest battle in history"? This is an out and out lie. The Battle of Kursk in 1943 dwarfed the D-Day invasion.

I know that this is hard for the court historians to accept, but the USSR defeated the Third Reich...the war wasn't won by Steven Speilberg and Tom Hanks.

friedrich braun

2004-06-02 18:18 | User Profile

[QUOTE=Texas Dissident]You defend a regime, friedrich, that had as a primary goal the complete and utter eradication of the Lutheran Church in Germany. How you can reconcile that, I don't know, but please refrain from posting inflammatory nazi crap like this here.[/QUOTE]

Your ignorance of the Third Reich is frightening, yet that fact does not keep you from making all kinds of [I]ex cathedra [/I] pronouncements on it.

[B]90%[/B] [B]of German Lutherans were members of the Reich Protestant Church[/B] (including my grandfather's brother: a Lutheran pastor who went - unmolested - about his business saving souls during the 30s and 40s).

Who are you to sit in judgment (somewhere in Yankeeland) of who was a heretic during those days and who was not? Who was a "real" Lutheran and who was not? Who has appointed you to be the Lutheran Pope presiding over German Lutheranism?

Is that not the typical insufferable arrogance of a Yankee?

LEAVE OUR GERMAN LUTHERANS ALONE, YANKEE.

[QUOTE]For what it's worth, I understand the board at thephora.org welcomes nazis with open arms. You could also try VNN for some anti-Christ flavor, as well.[/QUOTE]

I will never post on Original Dissent again.

(BTW, do you know, arrogant Yankee, that you're quoting a "Kraut" in your sig?)

Texas Dissident

2004-06-02 21:58 | User Profile

[QUOTE=Quantrill]To be fair, Tex, don't you think it is possible to discuss some of the less-than-noble actions of the Allies in WWII without automatically being labeled a Nazi?[/QUOTE]

Yes I do, Q, but this aint my first rodeo. There's no discussion to be had with some of these guys and most of these type posts are meant to be inflammatory and merely disruptive.

I like to give folks the benefit of the doubt and I'm not quick on the ban button, but I do want the internet nazis to be very uneasy when they are "contributing" here at OD. My experience tells me that almost always they offer nothing but poison.

Texas Dissident

2004-06-02 22:02 | User Profile

QUOTE=friedrich braun[/QUOTE]

I'm not arrogant, friedrich. Just trying to run a good, clean board.

The good and honorable Dr. Martin Luther would have beat the snot out of Adolf Hitler and his 'positive Christianity' bishops. That's one reason among many I greatly respect the man.

Further, Gaunt is the 'kraut'. Some of my best friends are Germans.

Valley Forge

2004-06-02 22:11 | User Profile

Wait a minute.

Doesn't Tex have a point here?

Facts aside, look at the inflammatory title of the thread and the harsh polemical style used in the article excerpts.

How do you think fb would react if I went onto the phora and posted a thread called: The Invasion of Poland: German Hypocrisy at Its Finest.

How about this?

Why not spoil the D-Day party? This week you will endure the biggest knees-up to the Goddess of Cant you have ever seen. But if the devil in you inspires you to be a party-poop, why not print off the attachment, and send it to every lying hack’s name that appears in your local newspaper. Go on, you spoiler you!

People interested in reasonable, spirited discussion don't usually take that tone.

What do you think?

Is this really a case of Tex coming down neocon style to suppress the truth?

[QUOTE=AntiYuppie]Why is admitting that the "allies" committed the same atrocities that the Axis powers are accused of "revisionist propaganda?" Even people with no sympathies at all for NS condemn the firebombing of Dresden and other allied war crimes, and attack the hypocrisy of the Nuremberg tribunal for condemning Nazis for the same actions that were commonplace among allied forces. I remember the smarmy clown George Will attacked Kurt Vonnegut as a "revisionist" who "minimized the 'holocaust'" for writing Slaughterhouse Five.

Is any deviation from the John Wayne movie version of history "revisionism?" This is the same rhetoric that the neocons use to silence critics of the war against Iraq.[/QUOTE]

Texas Dissident

2004-06-03 07:44 | User Profile

[QUOTE=friedrich braun]Your ignorance of the Third Reich is frightening, yet that fact does not keep you from making all kinds of [I]ex cathedra [/I] pronouncements on it.[/QUOTE]

friedrich,

You may well be right. I don't think so, but that's not really the point of this post. Given the current fireworks taking place on the board, I thought the title and subject of this thread was put-up by you only to stoke the fire. I posted my initial comments in too much haste and they were needlessly inflammatory themselves. In short, upon reflection that's no way to treat a senior member here, much less a Lutheran brother. I hope you'll accept my apology and reconsider your decision to not visit these pages again. We can and should be able as somewhat free white men to discuss and debate difficult issues without any undue rancor and hostility. At least that is my considered belief and hope for this board.

Kind regards,

Jason

edward gibbon

2004-06-03 20:34 | User Profile

[QUOTE=Johnathan]Personally, I'm getting a little bit sick of the mantra "they saved the world!" that the media invokes when referring to "the Greatest Generation". Its especially galling when it is considered that the cultural Marxists who currently control America would absolutely hate everything that the average White man in the 1940s stood for.

Additionally, why do historians in this country constantly refer to the battle at Normandy as the "biggest battle in history"? This is an out and out lie. [I][B][COLOR=Red]The Battle of Kursk in 1943 dwarfed the D-Day invasion.[/COLOR][/B][/I]

I know that this is hard for the court historians to accept, but the USSR defeated the Third Reich...the war wasn't won by Steven Speilberg and Tom Hanks.[/QUOTE]Americans have great problems facing facts that deny our claim to courage, honesty and virtue. From my book: > What German generals said about the Russian tanks and weapons of the war should startle many American chauvinists. As early as 1937 Panzer General Guderian informed his countrymen the day of the backward Slav had passed and the Russians were making the best military equipment in the world. Commander of the German forces in the West Field Marshal von Rundstedt thought the Russian heavy tanks were a surprise in quality and reliability from the outset. Field Marshal von Kleist contended the equipment of the Red Army of 1941 was very good, most especially the tanks: "Their T-34 tank was the finest in the world". In addition von Kleist thought that their artillery was excellent and that their rifles with a higher rate of fire were more modern than the German. General von Manteuffel felt the Russians maintained their advantage in tank performance to the end of the war and the "Stalin" tank introduced in 1944 was the best tank he saw in battle anywhere. Why did the American army not bother to copy or modify their tank to approach the standard set by the Russians? An American, Walter Christie, had developed many innovations for the American tank first used in the First World War, but was not able to find support in the United States after that war. He then went to the Soviet Union where his work was welcomed. Guderian credited the prototype Russian tank that he had seen as being half due to Christie. British military historian Liddell Hart stated the development of the Soviet T-34 tank could be traced to Mr. Christie. [COLOR=Red]When Mr. Christie at 77 years did die in January 1944 in Falls Church, Virginia, he was described as destitute. He was waiting from the War Department a settlement of $40,000 which had been long due, but payment had been held up on a technicality. [/COLOR] Did he deserve this spiteful meanness because he had not been a team player? Large corporations such as Ford, General Motors or Chrysler would not have been denied payment, but they never designed a tank as good as Christie did either.

[I][COLOR=Red]In July 1943 the German Panzers and the Red Army fought the greatest tank battle in history at Kursk.  The German side lost 2,900 tanks and the Red Army lost 2,000. [/COLOR] [/I]  The battle climaxed on July 12 when 500 German tanks and 700 Soviet tanks fought in fields outside the village of Prokhorovka, near Belgorod.  By the end of the first day each side lost about 300 tanks.  Some of the few surviving veterans to this day have believed they were lucky to have survived.  One survivor vowed Kursk was by far the worst of all the battles he had been in.   The British contended no frontal attack on Germany was possible unless German strength had been drastically weakened by Russian resistance.   Battles like Kursk sapped German strength and will to fight.

In that summer Colonel Elliott Carr Cutler, chief consulting surgeon of the European Theater of Operations for the American Army, went to Russia and later recalled his impressions: "The Russians are the greatest people for fighting a total war you could ever find...I believe that if the Americans were fighting in their own country, they would make the same effort.  But we are not making war now on anything like the same scale as Russia".  Colonel Cutler met many Russians who had eight wound stripes since the war began: "I am not sure that the Anglo-Saxon nervous system could go into the trenches eight times and be wounded in that period.  But that is the way to win the war, and that is the way the Russians like it".

To deny totally the Russian right to demand another front and to ask where their supposed Allies were has been somewhat disingenuous.  Field Marshal Alan Brooke, Chief of the British General Staff, was never enthusiastic for an invasion of Normandy and the European mainland.  American General Walter Bedell Smith, Chief of Staff for Eisenhower, told of a conversation with Brooke.  Brooke said by history the Western Allies did not have the role to exert power on land in Europe.  The role of the West should be confined to sea and air power with the Russians doing the land fighting.  British historian, Richard Overy, took pains to mention Fleet Admiral Ernest King’s observation in November, 1942 that “in the last analysis Russia will do nine-tenths of the job defeating Hitler”.   He also thought it necessary to include Averell Harriman’s statement that his main job was to keep Russia in the war to save American lives.  Brooke told Smith in January 1944 that in the previous war he had fought in the bocage country of Normandy and knew how difficult it was for land operations.   George Marshall claimed his G-2 never informed him of anything he needed to know during the war.  He specifically mentioned the hedgerows in Normandy.  American troops had to pay in blood for that lack of knowledge.   A great heresy for present-day Americans has been for the British to reflect if an accommodation with Hitler sometime prior to invading Europe would have allowed them to keep their empire.  Would this have left them better off economically?  Probably.[/QUOTE]Needless to add, the American contribution to victory over Hitler's Germany has been over-rated for more than half a century.  I must assume it will continue for another 50 or 250 years.  At no time during that war could the American army have fought a battle such as Kursk.

Despite what we profess to believe our performance in World War II left much to be desired. Our weapons simply were not that good.

il ragno

2004-06-03 20:41 | User Profile

[QUOTE]An American, Walter Christie, had developed many innovations for the American tank first used in the First World War, but was not able to find support in the United States after that war. He then went to the Soviet Union where his work was welcomed. Guderian credited the prototype Russian tank that he had seen as being half due to Christie. British military historian Liddell Hart stated the development of the Soviet T-34 tank could be traced to Mr. Christie. When Mr. Christie at 77 years did die in January 1944 in Falls Church, Virginia, he was described as destitute. He was waiting from the War Department a settlement of $40,000 which had been long due, but payment had been held up on a technicality. [/QUOTE]

Sobering and shameful.

Franco

2004-06-03 21:35 | User Profile

I, too, am sick of all the flag-waving about D-Day. America did not have to sail across the ocean [on the orders of FDR's Jewish cabal] to aid the mostly-Jewish Red communists in their assault on Western culture. If Hitler was re-creating the Roman Empire with a White twist, who cared? His invasions of various countries in Europe were, for the most part, simply Hitler's reversing of the awful [and Jew-rigged] Versailles Treaty [1]. And the Holocaust [tm] was a response to the First Holocaust in Russia carried out by the mostly-Jewish Bolsheviks from 1917-onward.

As far as Hitler ending any certain religion in Europe, does the entire West not come before a religion? Would Tex trade a religion for the sacking of European culture [both via communism and via leftism], wholesale mass murder in Soviet satellite countries [also run by Jews, e.g. Romania] and a 50-year Cold War? No thanks. I'll side with Hitler, thank you.

[1] [url]http://wsi.matriots.com/Versailles.html[/url]

Quantrill

2004-06-04 13:21 | User Profile

[QUOTE=Franco] As far as Hitler ending any certain religion in Europe, does the entire West not come before a religion? Would Tex trade a religion for the sacking of European culture [both via communism and via leftism]...[/QUOTE] This is a false choice, since the West (also known as Christendom) is inextricably bound up with Christianity. If you destroy that, there is no truly European culture left to conserve.

"Europe is the Faith, and the Faith is Europe" -- Hillaire Belloc

Franco

2004-06-05 00:06 | User Profile

This is a false choice, since the West (also known as Christendom)

Gee, I did not know that ancient Greece and ancient Rome [the pillars of Western Civ.] were Christian.

Mentzer

2004-06-05 05:55 | User Profile

Friedrich braun

A truthful and correct post. I congratulate you on your intellect and understanding of European history.

And whereas others lack knowledge due to inadequate education, and/or, prejudice, you have stated fact.

Impressive work.

Good regards.

Suomi Finland Perkele

2004-06-06 11:52 | User Profile

...to Elbe. To end result of the War it didn't effect. Germany was in fact already defeated, Soviet army was unstoppable to germans, and with or without D-Day it would have crushed German forces.

Normal Russian strategic assault was quite devastating at those days. That kind of operation started with massive artillery barrage, which lasted and lasted, also usually very many airstrikes againsts all kinds of targets were done. After that came hundreds or thousands of tanks, and vast hordes of infantry, which attacked not caring its own losses. Hundreds of Stormovik land attack planes attacked against supply and reserve movements, making all movements nearly impossible. If first try was unsuccesfull, they started artillery barrage and bombings again. Usually first strike shattered enemy first line units, and drived them to disorganized run, which made even more confusion to enemy.

Usually normal offensive meant that german lines were moved about at least 300 kilometers backwards. Biggest hindrance to getting bigger breakthroughs were Russian doctrine of tank-usage, which prevented tanks making big and deep breakthroughs, by binding them near infantry.

edward gibbon

2004-06-10 17:49 | User Profile

[QUOTE=il ragno]Sobering and shameful.[/QUOTE]It was even worse than what you may think. Belton Cooper wrote [I][B]Death Traps: The Survival of an American Armored Division in World War II[/B][/I] with a foreword by Stephen Ambrose, who mentioned not one of the deficiencies noted by Cooper in the book. Ambrose stated he quoted extensively from it in his own [I][B]Citizen Soldiers[/B][/I]. Ambrose believed that was the highest compliment he could give.

Cooper wrote of all of his friends assigned to combat positions- in the infantry, tanks, combat engineers, or as artillery forward observers - not one made it from Normandy to Germany without being killed or severely wounded.(page xiv) [QUOTE]Bocage Normandy countryside had deep rich topsoil without stones and to mark fields rows of trees or hedges were planted. Erosion left the hedgerows, 6 to 8 feet high and 10 to 12 feet wide at the base. Reinforced by roots these natural fortifications could not be penetrated by tanks. These fields extended inland from 10 to 40 miles. German generals had a formidable defense against armored and infantry troops. Even the vaunted Maginot and Siegfried lines paled in comparison.[/QUOTE]P2[QUOTE]Pp20-1 Isolationist Congress refused to fund tank development. A brilliant engineer name J. Walter Christie developed a new suspension system for the hull and took it to Russia where its genius was appreciated. They used it and later so did the Germans.[/QUOTE] Early in the war Cooper recognized German tanks were far superior after seeing a demonstration in England. Many Americans would die for this. A half-century later when visiting this post the local historian told him they only had records that the demonstration took. place. The inadequacies of American tanks and demonstrated superiority of the German ones had been carefully omitted. [QUOTE]George Patton favored the lightly armored M4 tank over the more mobile, yet heavier M26 tank. This resulted in one of the most disastrous decisions of World War II. The effect on American casualties would be catastrophic.[/QUOTE] [QUOTE]The vastly inferior M4 medium tank had horrendous losses. Its abysmal performance placed an onerous burden on the other combat arms.[/QUOTE]Tremendous losses in tanks and men necessitated training of men who never been exposed to tanks before. They were then thrown into battle. This tragedy would be repeated many times. Cooper wrote the most damaging of all his assessments [QUOTE][COLOR=Red]German tanks had a qualitative superiority over the M4 Sherman as much as 5 to 1. [/COLOR] [/QUOTE]With Memorial Day fading and the 60th anniversary of D-day receding a cold, hard look at American performance in World War II is long overdue. Yet I doubt if we will get it.