Tagaziel

Hey, I hate wonky interfaces too.

This is one of the few games where I cried at the end. It was amazing.

Rewatched Inglourious Basterds with my wife. That was awesome.

You're just jealous.

I think he was more referring to the fact that the Great War was fought between brutal colonial regimes, rather than the godly white British knights and demonic German proto-Nazis.

The difference being that the Soviet Union was a brutal, totalitarian regime well known for its secrecy and tendency to bury evidence of anything contrary to its ideology. Even the worst of the western empires pales when compared with the SovUnion's "accomplishments." Agree with the general point, though.

No, but the skull does. Plus, the trauma might not cause you to lose consciousness immediately.

What do you feel when you shoot yourself in the head?

Especially if they were from the penal battalion.

I'm partial to discussing Czeka and the NKVD, though it'd be pretty one sided.

Just because they potentially could participate in war crimes doesn't make them automatically bad. I assume you're male. I am too. Does that mean we're both evil rapists, because we can use our penises for nefarious purposes? Sarcasm aside, I'd like to ask you to show a source that shows that the Legions were predominantly formed out of existing SS auxiliaries. Given the size of the Legions in Estonia and Latvia (over 75,000 men), I find that rather incredible. Especially since the sources I can find indicate the formations were small (Arajs' was about 300 men) and were subordinated to German Einsatzgruppen. That said, I'm not sure why we should even use the binary scale for a region with such a complex history. Or it was because the majority of the Legions was conscripted into service and forced to serve, but never followed the Nazi ideology. Anything can be construed as an expression of Realpolitik, but in this case, Occam's Razor offers a simpler solution.

While I can understand your position, I don't think you're right in dismissing the entirety of the Baltic Legions as "just as bad as the SS." Again, the Latvians and Estonians had no choice and served in the military of the Third Reich either because it was their only option to do so or were pressed into service by German draft. For example, over 80% of Latvian members of the SS Legions were conscripts, not volunteers. When you consider the fact that the Peronkrust, the far right nationalist party that advocated segregation and persecution of non-Latvian minorities had a little over 5,000 members nationwide, the conclusion should be pretty clear. You are also ignoring completely the difficult situation in the East, where people were between a rock and a hard place. It's very easy to judge people and condemn them where you do so with the benefit of hindsight, treating the very association with the Nazi authorities as enough to write people off as antisemites and bloothirsty war criminals. Unfortunately, this also means that you have to write off every German policeman off as well, no matter whether they were Orpo, Kripo, or Sipo. While the latter is understandable, the former two are pretty silly, considering that policemen had no choice in the matter when the police was folded under SS command. By extension, you're also condemning every single German, up to and including children that were mandatory members of Hitlerjugend or Bund Deutsche Madel, because they were affiliated with Nazi organizations. Back on the topic of the Legions, you're also ignoring citations I provide. One, the Germans themselves understood that Latvians and Estonians had no love for them. Two, the U.S. recognized the Baltic Legions as a special case and did not condemn them along with the rest of the SS. In fact, former Latvian and Estonian SS legionnaires served as guards of Nazi war criminals during the Nuremberg trials and subsequently worked for the Western Allies, eg. during the Berlin Airlift. In general, the consensus among historians and governments is that the Baltic Legions were a distinct entity that did not take part in war crimes, had a different ideology, motivation, and even equipment. The soldiers of the Legions from Latvia and Estonia were exempted from Nuremberg rulings. They were not accused of war crimes (some isolated accusations were levied, but were never proven, such as in Podgaje). The problem stems from the fact that people (including you, unfortunately) fail to realize how the Latvian and Estonian forces were structured. The Legions were a military front line unit, not intended for police actions that resulted in war crimes. These were the domain of Hilfspolizei (Auxiliary Police) units and other paramilitary units operating in the Baltic States, which did include psychopaths like Konrad Arajs, but were not the Legion. While they were eventually folded into the Legion, the prevalent majority of the Legion troops were not psychopaths supporting a failed ideology and did not participate in atrocities. Bottom line, unless you are smarter than historians, investigators, lawyers, and governments that handled the matter, I'll reject your black-and-white point of view.

Indeed. There were millions of Soviet POWs that could be set loose on Stalin. Maybe we should be grateful that Hitler was a military moron.

You have to consider the fact that unlike Finland, Latvia and Estonia ceased to exist when the Soviet Union invaded in 1939 and suffered brutal Soviet occupation and extermination of the society's elite. Finland managed to maintain sovereignty.

Poe's Law, I guess.

That's a pretty asinine stance to take, Zoraptor, uncharacteristic of your usually reasonable stance. What other options did the Balts have? The Soviet occupation of the Baltic states was brutal and instituted widespread terror, enough to make the Nazi occupants seem like liberators. Dismissing the Baltic legions as all antisemites and bloodthirsty freaks is a pretty ridiculous oversimplification and an insult to everyone who served honorably with the Baltic legions. You have to consider the unique situation of the Baltic legions. Latvians and Estonians who served with the SS did so for Latvia and Estonia, not Nazi Germany. Even the Germans recognized that fact: From Adolf Ax, Obergruppenfuhrer, 15th Division. After the Soviet Union were defeated, they wanted independence, like they broke off from the failing Russian Empire in 1918. The plausibility of such an action is debatable, but cannot be ignored. Especially when you consider the fact that while Waffen-SS was declared a criminal organization, both the Latvian and Estonian Legions were treated as an exception. That's not to say that there weren't **** among the Latvian population, like the utter psychopath Konrad Arajs and his goons. However, that fact shouldn't obscure the unique nature of the Baltic SS Legions. Also, don't forget that the SS was a very large organization and it's easy to confuse the Legions with one of a myriad of organizations operating under its aegis, like the aforementioned Hilfspolizei. Do you think oby will let a little thing like facts stand in the way of his agitprop efforts?

Ownership is the right to do what you want with a given item, be it physical or not, and the legal obligation for others to respect your right. It's pretty simple. Control is a facet of ownership, but synonymous with it. I find it funny that, in my experience, people who dispute the concept of intellectual property are often people who never created anything that would qualify as IP, they only consume it.

(Some) Latvians and Estonians may beg to differ, seeing how it was their only option for fighting for a free country. Even the Germans knew that they were hated by the Baltic states and the only reason they fought alongside the SS was because the Soviets were worse. I'm generally against making absolute statements. Michael Wittmann had a very respectable career as a tank commander. Or projection: More here. Cue oby barging in and screaming that Stalin was a gentle ruler and the Soviet Union was the freedomest nation on Earth until 1953.

Aliens vs. Predator 2 was great.

See, oby, that's why you are the source of perpetual hilarity. Wigforss served with the Wiking and wasn't in any way imaginary. You're clinging to some misguided notion that he is imaginary because he got the details wrong. No one in this thread ever treated his work as factual, objective, or photorealistic. The ape-headed Soviets are enough, especially when they're juxtaposed with Nordic ubermenschen. The only person claiming Wingforss' work might not be propaganda is you, in order to push some kind of weird agenda.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nk2wViKSh_M Only thing that can be construed as relevant. On the topic of mods: http://www.weltvolk.de/index.php?link=computerspiele Dead Space armors ported to Skyrim. Love my new avatar.

Ah yes, oby demonstrates his ignorance once more. A Google search would tell you that Finn Wigforss was a Norwegian volunteer serving in the 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking, which saw heavy action on the Eastern Front. Furthermore, the uniforms are a pretty close match to real ones as far as I can see. But, of course, a page without incessant Soviet propaganda and revisionism wouldn't be complete, eh obs? Note: And before you start complaining, note that no one disagreed that it wasn't propaganda. Only to you can that seem factual and accurate. To us, it's simply an interesting example of front art.

The drawings? As far as I can tell, they were made by a member of Waffen-SS on the Eastern Front. I don't know why, but it feels like someone from the foreign legions of the SS.

What's with the ****-string from the last thread?

I just noticed that. And the expression. Good thing I wasn't drinking. "IT IS SO WRONG, BUT FEELS SO GOOD~" Isn't this Mel Brooks' mission in life?