Was the British Empire worse than the Nazis?

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chris1989
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03 Feb 2020, 3:39 pm

I like history but I do at times find it problematic. I do think it quite ridiculous that the British Empire was as worse the Nazi Third Reich. I know Britain was involved in the slave trade and there were horrible incidents involving racism, mistreatment and killings of people in places under British control and the British had concentration camps for the Boers in Africa but the weren't extermination camps like the Nazis had to deliberately murder Jews and other people deemed inferior to them. I don't British did the same thing to the purpose wiping out people they didn't like and inferior to them. I myself don't always agree with everything about Britain's empire. But would the world be a better place if the Nazis had won the war or if Britain and its allies had won the war, which they did. You may say 'Well, we wouldn't have had a choice and history would have been written differently.' I just find it quite irritating some people try to make other figures like Churchill, Blair and Bush look and seem worse than Hitler and the Nazis, when really there is nobody more worse and controversial than him, and seem more focused on trying make other people's lesser known genocides from other parts of the world in history seem much worse because to them it is being ignored when they are all bad and should be remembered like the Holocaust in schools around the world. They say we are not taught the terrible stuff we in Britain did, which is in some way is true and it is not taught enough and I think we should, but I seem to remember at school talking about some stuff about the slave trade.



Fnord
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03 Feb 2020, 3:45 pm

What with everything from "The Irish Problem", to the establishment of the North American slave trade, to the exploitation of India, and their policy of global imperialism by conquest and genocide, I would say that the Nazis were the successors to British Imperialism well before the end of the "British Empire" in 1997.



Wolfram87
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04 Feb 2020, 8:34 am

The Brits figured out that slavery was bad years before the US was its own thing, much less had had a whole war over it. I don't think it's a fair standard to compare what the Brits did in 1640 to what the Nazis did in the 1940s.

As for India, I'll hardly call its conquest a justified and moral thing, but I think India would not be one country and the region would much more resemble the middle east today if not for British influence.


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Fnord
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04 Feb 2020, 9:56 am

Wolfram87 wrote:
I don't think it's a fair standard to compare what the Brits did in 1640 to what the Nazis did in the 1940s.
True, one or two cherry-picked incidents do not make the case, but when you look at British history from the Norman invasions of Ireland (1169-1175) to the Irish Troubles (1968-1998), and throw in a thorough examination of what the British did to indigenous peoples they conquered in-between (including India), and you'll see a pattern reminiscent of Nazi Germany (1930-1945).

We Yanks seem to have inherited most of our arrogance and pride from our British ancestors.



Wolfram87
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04 Feb 2020, 10:37 am

Well sure, but all that's saying is that the British Empire was imperialistic (and so was Nazi Germany), and compared to several of their contemporaries not even a particularly vicious one compared to, say, the Ottoman Empire or the Kingdom of Belgium (Congo being an example that stands out).


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kraftiekortie
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04 Feb 2020, 11:20 am

The British Empire was not a "nice" Empire.

But their atrocities do not match the Nazis' atrocities in most aspects.

But try telling that to someone who was smothered in the Black Hole of Calcutta, or stampeded during the Sepoy Rebellion.



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04 Feb 2020, 11:35 am

kraftiekortie wrote:
... try telling that to someone who was smothered in the Black Hole of Calcutta, or stampeded during the Sepoy Rebellion...
... or lined up and shot for being "Too Irish" ... or sold into slavery for indebtedness ... or beheaded for being on the losing side of a military conquest ... or exiled to a colony in Australia or America for stealing bread ... or being forced to raise meat, grain and vegetables for British families while watching your own family starve to death ... or being forced to sign one's freedom away to labor in British-owned mines and factories because of indebtedness ... or finding relief from all of this only by emigrating to America in steerage on over-crowded "coffin ships" ...



Wolfram87
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04 Feb 2020, 2:35 pm

kraftiekortie wrote:
The British Empire was not a "nice" Empire.


I'm not sure I think there can be such a thing as a "nice empire".

Quote:
But their atrocities do not match the Nazis' atrocities in most aspects.


Exactly my point.


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kraftiekortie
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04 Feb 2020, 3:04 pm

I was being facetious.....



Wolfram87
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04 Feb 2020, 4:05 pm

Okay? So you do think the British Empire was a "nice" empire?


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kraftiekortie
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04 Feb 2020, 5:04 pm

It was probably "nice" to a middle-class to rich Great Britain resident----but no one else.



naturalplastic
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04 Feb 2020, 5:27 pm

peaches to pears.

The Britain became an empire around 1600, grew, had its high plateau from maybe 1870 to 1945. Then it gradually disappeared after WWII as its colonies became independent, and when Britain became eclipsed by the US and the USSR as powers.

Four centuries of the British Empire vs the 12 years that the Third Reich existed.

Hitler managed to cram a lot of evil into those 12 years. You might argue that the evil he did was about the same as the amount of evil done by the Brits over their 400 years as an empire. But the Brits did a lot of good as well. Hitler didn't cram very much good into his 12 years to offset the evil.



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04 Feb 2020, 5:57 pm

At least the Brits gave us Petula Clark and Dr. Who.



chris1989
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09 Feb 2020, 1:45 pm

naturalplastic wrote:
peaches to pears.

The Britain became an empire around 1600, grew, had its high plateau from maybe 1870 to 1945. Then it gradually disappeared after WWII as its colonies became independent, and when Britain became eclipsed by the US and the USSR as powers.

Four centuries of the British Empire vs the 12 years that the Third Reich existed.

Hitler managed to cram a lot of evil into those 12 years. You might argue that the evil he did was about the same as the amount of evil done by the Brits over their 400 years as an empire. But the Brits did a lot of good as well. Hitler didn't cram very much good into his 12 years to offset the evil.


But was the British Empire worse than any other empires in history like the Romans, the Spanish, Alexander the Great's empire, Persians, Ottomans, Napoleon's empire, Russians or the Mongols ? Where do you drawn the line ?



Kiprobalhato
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09 Feb 2020, 2:00 pm

well you know, winners write history and all that.
churchill was a despicable person.

Wolfram87 wrote:
region would much more resemble the middle east today if not for British influence.


the middle east was under british (and french) influence too. :)


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Karamazov
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09 Feb 2020, 2:09 pm

Kiprobalhato wrote:
guess what...the middle east was under british influence too. :)


Be fair: we had help from the French on that one.
:wink: