Why are people so obsessed with WW2?

[Edward M. Grant]

Yeah, and yet for some reason we still argue about whether or not it was actually about slavery.

Probably because, at the time, it was for some people and not for others. Just as there were many reasons for people fighting in WWII.

 

[DelActivisto]

Probably because, at the time, it was for some people and not for others. Just as there were many reasons for people fighting in WWII.

Yeah, in any war, there are people who wind up fighting and realistically - they have no real idea why they're fighting.

 

[Caledfwlch]

IIRC Harry Patch only spoke about his experiences in WW1 in the last couple of years of his life, he had always refused to speak about it.

Earlier this year, at the Passchendaele Memorial event in Ieper, one of the projections onto the Cloth Hall was of Harry Patch speaking.
I was really pleased to see Uniformed members of the Irish Defence Forces speaking and attending, as for many, many years of course, Eire refused to have anything to do with Remembrance Day etc, despite the many thousands of Irishmen who died.

This clip has him at around 22:00

 

[Caledfwlch]

12/13 years Ago, I lived in the grounds of a Chateaux with accomodation blocks, in a village called Ebblinghem, near Saint Omer, in what is now Hauts-de-France, but back then was Nord Pas de Calais.
School Groups from the UK would stay in the dorms, and we would accompany them on tours of the Battlefields, graveyards, museums etc, in both the Somme, and around Ieper.

I used to watch the Last Post at the Menin Gate in Ieper at least once a week, and it was amazing, seeing the teenagers, who would be all giggly, and messing around all day suddenly go quiet, just before, as the crowd gather and they realised something important was going to happen. I saw many a big teenage lad get "something in their eye"

Once, there was an amazing scene, some Hipster Home Counties type was stood there, loudly declaiming to his friends "oh yes, you see, this event is to commemorate the dead of all wars, regardless of size.
This tiny elderly Flemish Woman went absolutely crazy, she marched over, looked up at him and said "No!!! This is our way of saying thanks to the brave British and Irish Soldiers who came here to little Flanders and protect us, and fight for our freedom!! this has nothing to do with any other war, we are a friendly, welcoming people, but if you are going to disrespect this event by making such stupid claims, please leave!"
And people started clapping her, was one of those wonderful little moments. The Flemish even now, when there is nobody left alive from that time period are still tremendously thankful. In France, Commonwealth graves are often vandalised by hooligans daubing swastikas etc, in Flanders, if someone was caught doing that, they would probably be lynched!

 

[Randy M.]

Sorry if I'm repeating something I missed mention of ...

Along with WWII being a rare and reasonable instance of good vs. evil in the real world, it was one of the few times when people of several countries banded together with countrymen to fight a common enemy. Yes, there were profiteers and people pushing their own agendas, but the prospective consequences of losing this war were horrifying for many.

In the U.S., once we were attacked it became essentially the people's war. This wasn't about economics (not that that wasn't involved, just that in the public mindset it wasn't an issue) or abstract philosophies in conflict (though there was that), it was about fighting back against those who had attacked us when we hadn't provoked them. For the U.S., it was probably the one time when the majority of our country saw something the same way: You don't allow anyone to hit you without hitting back. And the more we learned about the Germans and the Japanese and how they treated prisoners and how they treated the people they conquered, the more that feeling of good vs. evil grew, the greater grew a sense of teamwork across the country. For several years people sacrificed their luxuries and comfort to aid the war effort; that's not something many people now would be willing to do, I don't think. As a consequence, those people felt good about themselves and their country: For all the terrible things that happened in the war, many people stateside who lived through it found it one of the most exciting and satisfying times of their lives because they felt the country was working toward a common goal.

Note too, WWII may not have been the start of the struggle for equal rights in the U.S. for women and for African-Americans, but it probably pushed that forward by at least a decade. Women working in the factories were dissatisfied when they were forced back into the homes, and while it took time to boil over, that was an underpinning of the upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s. And I wonder if the movement against segregation would have been as potent in the 1950s if WWII hadn't left the U.S. both wealthier than it had been and with a supreme confidence that it could achieve any good it set its mind to. (Flip side of that was, of course, Vietnam.)


Randy M.

 

[sknox]

The biggest world-wide cataclysm in all human experience, and the OP wonders what people are on about. Sorry, but I'm sort of stunned why anyone would wonder this. Good replies on the thread.

My modest contribution is a memory of a history lecture. The professor took the time in what was all of U.S. history crammed into ten weeks, to devote one entire lecture to the effects of WWII. Not the war itself, just what happened because of it. It went well beyond the obvious stuff like the Cold War, development of atomic weapons, or the Baby Boom. He talked about for how long veteran benefits would be paid out (long after the combatants had passed away), the change in social relations for women and for blacks, the creation of the U.N., the CIA, and a host of other organizations born of that conflict. It ended empires. I'm a medievalist, but the lecture resonated deeply with me.

So, yeah, people continue to be fascinated.

 

[KGeo777]

The major media and its related apparatus has kept it in the spotlight.
For them it was a "good" war and they
used it for various propaganda purposes-and still do. This is the main reason (though when I was a kid there was a lot of WW 2 model kits--the German tanks were the most popular items-no one wanted the Allied tanks).

Anyone who wants to rise above the propaganda slant of Western media should check out the Goebbels' supervised Munchhausen film from 1943-especially if you had been told, as I was, that Germany was brainwashed and living under a thought control dictatorship. That film puts to rest a few propaganda claims (plus it is an amazing and bizarre fantasy film).

HG Wells' The Fate of Man is also a good read to get a grasp on European attitudes about warmongering.

Germany's December 1941 Declaration of War Against the US is also a shocking read-to hear Hitler speaking without the western media filter.


"The crazy thing is not what Adolf wants, but the way he sees it & starts out to get it. I know he’s a clown, but by God, I like the boy! He has all the blind, bull-headed qualities of force & persistence which cause tribes & nations to pull out of hopeless impasses & muddle through seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Common sense ought to show people that no utter ass could wield the power he wields. It is not merely the flighty who are with him—he is supported by thousands of intelligent, scholarly, & patriotic Germans who fully recognise his comic aspect & grotesque extravagances, yet who nevertheless see in him an amorphous force constituting the least of all available evils." HP Lovecraft, 1933

 

[Toby Frost]

no utter ass could wield the power he wields

The ban on current politics prevents me from suggesting an example of an ass wielding great power!

So, there you are, god-king of central Europe. You've just picked a fight with the world's biggest empire, having miscalculated that they'd just roll over and let you kick them to death. In fact, they seem to be rearming and organising themselves pretty quickly, and their men are turning out to be just as tough and determined as yours. Worse, they're getting a lot of help from a huge nation overseas, which is also turning against you. What to do now? Divide and conquer, perhaps? No, invade another vast nation that hates you, in breach of a treaty, opening up a second front and guaranteeing your doom! I don't know if that's insane, stupid, suicidal or some amazing combination of all three.

 

[Caledfwlch]

The UK has had its own issues with race/racism, not just with the highly visible Ethnic Minorities, such as Africans, Asians, but as a Welshman, my fellow Celts, have also faced discrimination, though, like the US, things are much better now, but in modern history, our racial problems have never been anywhere near as extreme as in the US, so it remains truly shocking to most Brits, to watch a WW2 film or TV show, and see black servicemen, fighting for a Nation that has not only never given them a single thing, but only ever taken off them, being treated so poorly. My Mamgu was as I said, in the Royal Artillery, and she spent a few months on ack ack guns in the City of Hull, in Yorkshire's East Riding, and, one morning going to get breakfast at a cafe, she and her friends witnessed the aftermath of a Lynching during the night, white GI's went crazy in some bar, and hung several Black GI's from lamposts in the street. That was one of the things she used to get nightmares about, the first time she told me, she was in tears, and, she was a tough old chick who used to blow Nazi planes out of the sky, so I very rarely ever saw her cry.

In WW2, were US Generals and politicians genuinely of the belief that Black/Ethnic American's were incapable of being soldiers, and would run away etc?
I know there were plenty of damned fools in the British Officer Corps, with exactly the same sort of stupid beliefs, but regardless of them, The British Army had, and had had for something well over 100 years+ Regiments raised and recruited throughout the Empire, not just the Crown Dominions (Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa & technically Eire, until the Republic was formally established in 1949) but the Colonies and "possessions" too, such as India, Burma, the West Indies islands etc.
When you start examining the inscriptions listing the WW1 dead on the walls of the Menin Gate in Ieper, the Regiment names soon start jumping out, and always surprised the kids I was with as the British Schools History Curriculum didn't exactly have much in it really. The Kingston Rifles, the Bengali Lancers, the Ghurkas etc, etc.

 

[Caledfwlch]

The ban on current politics prevents me from suggesting an example of an ass wielding great power!

So, there you are, god-king of central Europe. You've just picked a fight with the world's biggest empire, having miscalculated that they'd just roll over and let you kick them to death. In fact, they seem to be rearming and organising themselves pretty quickly, and their men are turning out to be just as tough and determined as yours. Worse, they're getting a lot of help from a huge nation overseas, which is also turning against you. What to do now? Divide and conquer, perhaps? No, invade another vast nation that hates you, in breach of a treaty, opening up a second front and guaranteeing your doom! I don't know if that's insane, stupid, suicidal or some amazing combination of all three.

I think you are slightly mistaken here - War with the British Empire was the absolute LAST thing Herr Hitler wanted!! He hoped Great Britain would either not risk War for Poland, or that he could appease her in some way and keep her out, his fondest dream was that Britain would join him in his "Crusade"

Out of your final choices, I would go for "amazing combination of all three"
It's still shocking to this day, that the Russians most feared and respected senior officer - "General Winter" came as an utter shock to Berlin and the Wehrmacht. Not least because, prior to breaking the treaty and launching Barbarossa, plenty of German Officers where sent over to work with the Red Army, teaching them skills, and how to fight during winter and so on - IIRC, German Technicians and Scientists even developed cold weather uniforms, coats and so on for Russian Troops, and developed tech and techniques to stop fuel in tanks and vehicles from freezing, to drive in snow, yet when General Winter came storming in, the Wehrmacht had no cold weather gear for the men or the vehicles, it's truly astonishing.

 

[Toby Frost]

I don't think he wanted war with Britain, he just wanted all its stuff. His view seems to have been that he could just keep taking what he wanted without repercussions. As you say, the (deluded) aim was that Britain would eventually join Germany as a client state. I expect Hitler would sooner or later have tried to take direct control of the UK, either militarily or through a puppet government. The overall impression on both fronts (and also with Japan) is of colossal arrogance born out of racism and early victories against badly-prepared enemies.

 

[KGeo777]

Stated reasons for WW 2 was to preserve the British Empire and liberate Poland. Neither happened.
The Soviets got Poland. The BE fell apart.

The Western media never mentioned how Estonia fared under the Soviets (the teenage girl who blew up a Soviet monument sounds like it is worthy of a movie--but Hollywood has always had a soft spot for Communism, Holodomor? Who cares!).
Another bit of historical oversight was how Patton felt about it. I knew he didnt like communism-that much was revealed, but no idea until recently he felt it was a bigger problem than national socialism.

Another area left out was the "America First" movement. Charles Lindbergh, Walt Disney, John Kennedy--totally unaware how these people felt about war with Germany (or for that matter, Japan's energy supply being cut off by the US in summer 1941).

 

[Amelia Faulkner]

My Mamgu was as I said, in the Royal Artillery, and she spent a few months on ack ack guns in the City of Hull, in Yorkshire's East Riding, and, one morning going to get breakfast at a cafe, she and her friends witnessed the aftermath of a Lynching during the night, white GI's went crazy in some bar, and hung several Black GI's from lamposts in the street. That was one of the things she used to get nightmares about, the first time she told me, she was in tears, and, she was a tough old chick who used to blow Nazi planes out of the sky, so I very rarely ever saw her cry.

I remember stories like this, too. Apparently white GI's, used to segregation, would utterly lose their sh*t that black GI's were served in pubs here and weren't expected to squat in a shithole out back. Not that we weren't racist, but holy sh*t this was a whole new level of bonkers.

 

[Edward M. Grant]

Stated reasons for WW 2 was to preserve the British Empire and liberate Poland. Neither happened.
The Soviets got Poland. The BE fell apart.

Yes. WWII was a disaster for Britain and Eastern Europe. The only real question is whether it would have been more of a disaster if they hadn't fought it.

My guess is that it probably would have been worse that way for Britain, and we'd have lost the Empire either way. By the eve of WWII, Britain was a burned-out, fading power more interested in growing the welfare state than growing the Empire, and rapidly losing its desire to cling on to what it had.

For Eastern Europe, it was basically a choice between being ruled by Hitler or being ruled by Stalin. Neither was a good option.

 

[Edward M. Grant]

I remember stories like this, too. Apparently white GI's, used to segregation, would utterly lose their sh*t that black GI's were served in pubs here and weren't expected to squat in a shithole out back.

Yes, my father always disliked Americans, and their treatment of black GIs in Britain was one of the main reasons he gave. He was also in Libya for a few years in the army after the war, and complained about the way the American GIs there treated the Arabs.

I did wonder what would happen if he met my American girlfriend, but she dumped me before that could happen .

 

[Caledfwlch]

I remember stories like this, too. Apparently white GI's, used to segregation, would utterly lose their sh*t that black GI's were served in pubs here and weren't expected to squat in a shithole out back. Not that we weren't racist, but holy sh*t this was a whole new level of bonkers.

It would be an interesting subject for a documentary or non fiction work to explore - did seeing both visibly Ethnic US Service people, as well as British Service people helping to protect the UK from such a military and existential threat as Nazi Germany have any impact on attitudes amongst at least some people in Britain towards race?

Many people are so unaware or ignorant about the history of this Island, that they appear to believe the West Indians, Africans, Indians, Pakistani's etc all arrived en-masse in the late 40's/early 50's. When I was living in Yorkshire, an English Democrat came canvassing to the door, peddling the usual anti immigration rubbish. He didn't like it, when I pointed out there have been Black guys living in Britain for longer than there have been English people Plenty of Black Soldiers were in the Legions and Auxiliary Cohorts under the Imperial Eagle of Rome. And it seems incredibly unlikely that some didn't take Britons for Wives, and stayed.

I always thought it a shame that in Bernard Cornwall's Warlord Chronicles, he made the Moorish character Sagramor somebody who either met Arthur in Armorica and joined his War Band, or who found his way across to Britannia - it would have been really cool to instead have him the descendent of a Legionary who took a Briton Wife, or who settled with a Wife who had followed him to Europe from Africa.

 

[Caledfwlch]

Yes. WWII was a disaster for Britain and Eastern Europe. The only real question is whether it would have been more of a disaster if they hadn't fought it.

My guess is that it probably would have been worse that way for Britain, and we'd have lost the Empire either way. By the eve of WWII, Britain was a burned-out, fading power more interested in growing the welfare state than growing the Empire, and rapidly losing its desire to cling on to what it had.

For Eastern Europe, it was basically a choice between being ruled by Hitler or being ruled by Stalin. Neither was a good option.

One major reason that ensured, and was intended to ensure that the British Empire was finished, and that Britain was no longer a Global Power (though that second bit failed) was the crippling War Debt the United States inflicted upon the UK.

It is not an accident, that 1945 saw the begin of the British Empire collapsing, and the Star of the United States rising, as it became the economic and global dominating Imperial Power and Empire it remains.
They had to do it, otherwise, the Citizens of the Empire and the Crown Dominions would likely have continued buying British, not American.

Never understood why a lot of Americans seem to get aghast or upset at the suggestion they are an Imperial Power, no different to the British Empire, the French Empire, 1st or 2nd, the Roman Empire etc.
The US is a powerful Nation State that dominates global trade and military power, it has client/tributary States and most importantly of all, it has actual Colonies, places it rules or "owns" often with an indigenous population who's wishes do not matter, it has taken, and attempted to take other Nations by aggressive military force, in order to gain itself colonies, and annex other places.
Just because it is a Republic does not stop it being an Imperial Empire - the 2 French Empires were both Republics that were ruled by a Monarch, an Emperor, and the Roman Empire itself was often a Republic.

 

[Edward M. Grant]

Before WWII, being racist in Britain was kind of pointless, because most people outside London would never see someone who wasn't white. Even as a kid, I only remember seeing one non-white person in my town, and he was another kid at my school who was probably from Pakistan: I don't know for sure, because I never bothered asking.... to us, he was just another kid.

Whether it was true or just his memory of his experience, my father used to say that no-one ever treated black GIs any differently to anyone else during the war. If my aunt was still alive, I'd ask her if she dated any, because she had a bit of a reputation with the soldiers .

 

[Edward M. Grant]

One major reason that ensured, and was intended to ensure that the British Empire was finished, and that Britain was no longer a Global Power (though that second bit failed) was the crippling War Debt the United States inflicted upon the UK.

That too. But Britain had lost the will to maintain an Empire by the 30s, and America was beginning to overtake it as the source of new technologies and industries. It was really just a question of how long it would be before the people living in the Empire demanded a divorce, so they could hook up with America instead. The British government wasn't going to conscript an army for years to fight to hold on to India or Rhodesia against popular opposition.

Just look at the political change during WWII, where the voters threw Churchill out before the war was even over, and voted in a Labour government whose entire policy was more welfare and more nationalization. That's not the behaviour of an energetic, expansionist nation, but an inward-looking and fading one.

 

[KGeo777]

Y

For Eastern Europe, it was basically a choice between being ruled by Hitler or being ruled by Stalin. Neither was a good option.

Not Stalin alone-the bolsheviks too. They were murdering people before Stalin came to power then the Western media blamed it all on him--- Alexander Solschenitsyn confirmed the Bolshevik role (Hergé did TinTin cartoons on the effects of collectivization) .

The murder rates under the Soviets is something like 10 million --50 million into the 80s--which is astounding--and at the very least because the western compassionate media had no interest in the story.

Munchhausen was interesting, not just because of the cavalier attitude towards nudity, or the not-so veiled criticism of Hitler, but the black people in it. I had been told Hitler hated other races but this was not shown in this German movie. They had Africans in Germany. Shocker! Only later did I read that Jesse Owens said Hitler treated him fine, it was FDR and Truman who were not respectful.
I think the era of media control is reaching its end thanks to the internet and unfiltered access to historical documents.
Not to mention, globalist art and literature just isn't as compelling as the old fashioned kind where there is some homogeneous heritage element involved.