Oberstein did nothing wrong

>>148192803

absolutely, the authors did everything wrong

>>148192803
He died, he did that wrong.

>>148193117
Bittenfeld pls go.

>>148192803

He was a man so good at not doing anything wrong that when he died, people thought he did so intentionally.

>>148193379
True. It's so fucking sad when you think about it. His allies were almost glad it happened.

>>148193379
His death was lol tier 2bh

>>148192803
hero of the empire

Well, he made Westerland fall victim to a nuclear warhead.
Which resulted in the relationship between Reinhard and Kircheis worsening, leading to the death of Kircheis and don't make me remind you of how often "IF ONLY KIRCHEIS WAS HERE" is uttered in the latter half of LOGH.

It is because that mans arguments are so right that they leave no room for discussion.

>>148194306

he saved many more lives, because it shortened the war

>>148194306

If I remember correctly, he did that to stop the war from dragging on, which would almost certainly have meant more casualties and a weaker Empire to stand against the FPA.

>>148192803
Nevah forget westerland

>>148194411
>he saved many more lives, because it shortened the war

That type of argument is fucking retarded.
You could use the same to make Hitler a good guy by saying that he saved many more lives, because he shortened the war by wasting troops on concentration camps.

>>148194306
What would have changed if he really were there anyway?

>>148194535

Not quite.

It's basically the same argument made for the USA dropping the A-bombs on Japan in WWII.

>>148192803

>Alerting Rhinehard of what the enemy is about to do strategically on his wedding day just before they announce their vows

Even I hated him in that moment

>>148194818
I don't know why he had this weird relationship to Hilda. She was basically the perfect fit to actually be the wife of Reinhard and future mother of the heir. If any more selfish/incompetent slut would have taken Kaiser's virginity the empire would have been fucked.

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>>148194818
>emergencies can't be delayed no matter what day it is
He made a valid point through.

>>148194818
It was his duty

>>148194411

He saved the life of soldiers at the cost of civilians.

That's not okay considering it's the soldiers' job to protect the civilians and order of a country.

>>148195000

Is letting 100.000 soldiers die better than letting 50.000 civilians die?

>>148195000
Conscripst man.
They were conscripts.
You can turn those into civilians after the war.

>>148194535
>the classic I can't actually come up with an argument good thing Hitler is always available to use!
neck yourself subhuman

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>>148195027

Their lives are of equal value, but the soldier has the duty of defending his home country. This is a dangerous duty that might put the soldier's life at risk, but it's an acceptable risk since it's part of the soldier's duty towards his country (assuming the order is reasonable).

A country is not merely soil. It's the people that live there and the institutions they create. If you intentionally sacrifice civilian lives for the sake of your soldiers, what "home country" exactly are you protecting? The soldier is no longer performing his duty of protecting his country and has become merely a weapon of destruction.

Destruction for the sake of hurting others is no longer a moral use of force, and thus you've lost your jus ad bellum for participating in the war in the first place.

>>148195000
>it's the soldiers' job to protect the civilians and order of a country.

That's wrong. The job of a soldier is to do what his superior tells him to do.
That USUALLY coincides with what you said, but it often doesn't.

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Nothing wrong at all

New chapter is currently being dumped
>>148192434

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>>148195225

>That's wrong. The job of a soldier is to do what his superior tells him to do.

This is incorrect. For instance if a soldier is ordered to torch a village of civilians, the soldier can't follow his orders from the officer since it's not a legal nor moral order.

>>148195222

I see. And at what point does his cease to be case? How many soldiers can you justify die before a civilian life is sacrificed?

Also, what about the wider context of the "homeland?" It it worth it to leave yourself fatally vulnerable to external enemies in order to protect a group of your civilians? Would you risk the safety of the entire homeland to avoid a number of your people dying?

>>148195234
>this series of pics
I thought it was an ad for something yaoi. But now they have a chick in it. I'm confused.

>>148195399

That's a hard line to draw, and not one I claim to be able to draw. With that said, you should always make a reasonable effort to protect civilians. In the case of Westerland no such effort was made.

I guess one guiding principle to look at is if the action is likely to increase civilian causalities within the foreseeable future (if we send our whole army here we to protect that village, their main army will ravage our city!). Even then reasonable efforts should be taken to minimize causalities, perhaps by trying to negotiate a ceasefire until the civilians can be evacuated.

>>148195363
>This is incorrect.

No, it's not. He is merely not allowed to follow illegal orders.
Otherwise the commands of a superior are absolute.

>>148195445
It's events for the DMM webgame.

Didn't oberstein mention civilians starving because of the civil war?
Then ending the war faster saved civilian lives too.

>>148195590

Yes, "otherwise".

In other words, the actual hierarchy goes as following:
>Laws of war
>Your superiors

So, a soldier's job is to follow the laws of warfare and then to follow his superior's order after the first is accomplished.

If your soldiers aren't abiding to the principles of lawful warfare, you again lose your jus ad bellum for war. Your soldiers are basically just a bunch of raiders and mercenaries.

This matters when we discuss the moral context of Reinhardt's actions of course. Some banana republic won't care if they are morally right when they shoot people.

>>148195642

I'm certain you could at least try to find some other solution to that than "nuke westerland!"

>Our civilians are starving!
>Nuke westerland!
>???
>Now everyone has food

There's a few problems with this chain of logic. For starters there was no guarantee that nuking westerland would actually shorten the war. That was just speculation on the part of Oberstein.

>>148195804

Obviously, Oberstein cannot predict the future. He determined that this was the course that would most efficiently end the conflict so the Empire could focus on the FPA again. He took decisive action to achieve this. Was the other side willing to negotiate? How long would these negotiations have taken? You've also now established that you are willing to meet with reactionary insurrectionists.

>>148195203
Godwin's law isn't an actual fallacy

>>148195804

Effectively removing the enemies' capability to wage war is not "pure speculation". That is preventing your enemy from being able to keep up the fight. It is winining in my book.

>>148195956
>le godwin's law
get off the internet sometime you fucking idiot anyone with a brain can read that argument and realize comparing those two isn't a valid argument

>>148195891

Oberstein's factual basis determining this is extremely weak and only works because of movie magic. He has no proof whatsoever for his conclusions.

In reality, it was probably as likely that this might have just cornered the noble faction and made them resist even harder. Oberstein just got lucky.

>>148195588
Not that guy, but stopping the nukes would have likely increased civilian casualties. It's civil war, civilian's always take casualties. More, specifically, Reinhard would have continued his siege and the civilians of the Lippstadt-aligned planets would have taken the hit. Pretty sure Westerland happened because civilians were getting tired of their ever-deteriorating conditions.

Oberstein did plenty wrong. He's not ill-intentioned, but his character shows the limits of pragmatism and political machiavellanism. The worst shit falling on the Empire are always consequences of Oberstein fuck-ups.

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>>148196010

"Civilians always take causalities" isn't a defense for letting civilians take even more causalities because of negligence and propaganda power play.

I mean, don't get me wrong, it was a winning play by Reinhardt. It just wasn't a moral one, which means Reinhardt's reign wasn't built on moral right.

In other words we can conclude that Reinhardt was a dictatorial warlord who took control of the galactic empire by force. His dynasty has no legal right to rule the galactic empire.

tl;dr democracy rules, Reinhardt drools and the sooner the Lohengrams are replaced by legally elected rules the better.

Yang was right when he said that the pen of historians can condemn a crime long after the crime has been committed.

>>148196248

Getting bogged down in a discussion of whether Oberstein was justified in his analysis and execution of action is not something I am interested in. The point I think the anons in this thread are trying to make is that morality does not always survive the encounter with practical neccesity. And should someone be condemned for not acting morally, if his hands were effectively tied? You will of course argue that Oberstein or Reinhardt's hands were NOT tied, that there were other options, but this is not something I am interested in discussing again.

>>148196248
I mean, that's cool and all, but not what I'm talking about. "Civilians always taking casualties" isn't the defense, it's "A protracted war would likely have caused even more casualties than Westerland".

>>148195991
Nope, he's actually correct.
You used:
X saved more lives than it cost
Therefore X is more correct

If Y saved more lives than it cost, then Y must be more correct given your logic. It's a necessary side effect of act consequentialism, if your measure is number of human lives since actions are separate from actors and motivations.
He's incorrect to say it would make Hitler a good guy, it would simply be more morally correct than not having concentration camps

Is new manga good?

>>148196407

In the case of Westerland their hands were obviously not tied. They could've easily intercepted the missiles and they already had a massive military advantage over the nobles and political support from both the people and the imperial government. There was no need to bloody their hands with Westerland, it was just that there was a benefit to doing so for Reinhardt since it seemed like it would allow him to minimize causalities to his own loyal forces and to stop him from getting bogged down by the conflict. Good risk/reward odds for him since failure wouldn't have any strategical consequence.

The problem is just that Reinhardt lost moral ground by actually using Westerland, because his only claim to legitimacy as a ruler is that he would do a better job at ruling than the Goldenbaums. The Westerland incident from this perspective is problematic, because it shows were the line was drawn between the benefits of Reinhardt and the benefits of the people.

It's a pity that the show didn't do more about it, I'd loved to see an alternate scenario where Reinhardt's sacrifice of Westerland would have become public knowledge. Would he still have kept popular support? Or would people have turned on him?

Not to mention, what would Reinhardt/Oberstein done if things hadn't gone as planned? What would have happened if they'd started losing ground to the FPA? Would they have committed atrocities to protect their own reign?

Luckily for Reinhardt's sense of self, these questions weren't answered. These questions does give Yang's argument against dictatorship added weight though. Reinhardt was a low odds gamble that worked out for the empire, but that doesn't mean dictators are a good idea.

>>148193225
Bittenfield would say him dying was the best thing he ever did

>>148196593

That goes back to:
"There's no proof that nuking Westerland would have shortened the war."

Reinhardt just got lucky that everything worked out for him in the end.

>>148192803
Reminder that Oberstein's death was intentional because he knew that he outliving Reinhard would be bad for the Empire

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>>148196749
See for yourself, are you into shota?

>>148192803
It's been a while since I watched LotGH, and while I think he did a lot of good, he really messed up when he had control of the democracy planet (can't remember the name). He was extremely tactless, using brute force to get his way, instead of trying to win over the civilian population. Military force is good for a time, but having the people love you is much cheaper and more sustainable.