Why are people so obsessed with WW2?

[BAYLOR]

Baylor, Why did Hitler pull the trigger? Did he really believe Britain and France would let Poland fall? Was he just evil? Was Nazism basically a Ponzi scheme... did he have to just keep going until it crumbled?

In the U.S., there is the idea of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy. It is based upon a bunch of what if's, and "they just had more money", and "we were betrayed", and moral justifications. It ignores the hard facts of disparities in industrialization, slavery (drained manpower for war, killed chances of allying with France, Britain, or Spain), disparities in population, and disparities in cash.

In retrospect, the Nazis could only have maintained the ante-bellum status quo through a bunch of what if's and a complete denial of the economics and demographics.

What if Canaris could have assassinated Hitler early in the war?

When he sent troops into the Rhineland in 1936 in violation of the Versailles treaty France and Britain protested but did nothing, when he took over Austria, again France and Britain didn't Nothing . At Munich in 1938, they broke their pledge to defend Czechoslovakia and handed the Sudatenland because they stupidly believed that by appeasing him they could avoid War and they did nothing when he swallowed up the last of Czechoslovakia . Hitler got cocky and started to believe that he was a genius and second coming of Frederick Barbarossa . What he didn't see was the abyss starting to open up in front of him after Munich. Hie early victories against France and Britain and early success in Russia further inflated his puffed up ego. Hitler was not by any definition a statesman, a diplomat and as events' later proved after 1942 ,1943 and the final outcome for Germany , a military genius at all. His military background was that of a corporal in WWI , when it came to understanding military strategy he was rank amateur and blunderer . Hitler the most evil man in all history though Stalin and Mao are not far behind him in that category. Hlter was also a very mediocre human being with a big mouth who got lucky early on didn't know what to do when his luck ran out. Germany even under the most favorable circumstances was ultimately never going win WWII .

It is possible that had Britain and France stood up to him over Czechoslovakia , Hitler might have been removed from office by his Generals because a number them wanted him gone. but after Muchich all that changed.

There is no what's if about the Confederacy , they were not winning the Civil war for all those reasons.

 

[Nozzle Velocity]

In the U.S., there is the idea of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy. It is based upon a bunch of what if's, and "they just had more money", and "we were betrayed", and moral justifications.

Well, that could be an entire thread on its own. I don't want to derail this one, but briefly, those events actually influenced some of FDR's later decisions in WWII. Like Churchill, he was knowledgeable about military and political history.

The American Civil War sprang from a conflict over the future of slavery in the western territories, and nothing was going to prevent that clash short of a meteor wiping out everything west of Kansas. Lincoln knew if the South was allowed to keep its slaves through conditional surrender, the issue would crop up every time a new state was added - just like it did before the war. So, he eventually demanded unconditional surrender so the slavery issue would be settled permanently. Two years after the surrender, the southern states forgot everything they'd ever said or written about slavery and began promoting the idea that the war was about betrayal and stolen states' rights, etc. They could complain, but the real issue was settled.

Fast forward to 1918. Near the end of WWI, active segments of the German public appeared to be flirting with embracing communism. The Allies didn't want to exacerbate the situation by entering Germany and scaring the communists into toppling the current government, so they began offering terms of conditional surrender. Give up the war now, and you can stay in power. After the war, Germany refused the idea that they were ever beaten on the battlefield and began spreading the myth about "betrayal" and the "stab in the back" on the home front from Jews, communists, etc. Sound familiar?

As I said, FDR was well aware of these events. When faced with the decision on how to negotiate with the Axis powers, he always pushed for unconditional surrender and occupation in the belief that it would forestall cyclical, recriminatory wars with Germany and prevent future Japanese depradations in Asia and the Pacific. Needless to say, this decision was not without controversy at the time.

 

[Nozzle Velocity]

Noz Vel, Hitler declared war on the U.S. four days after the IJN attacked Pearl Harbor.... bet he was waiting for some reciprocity in Manchuria.

Not sure I follow that. Reciprocity from whom? I'm probably missing something.

 

[Boaz]

Germany attacked Russia. Japan did not.

Japan attacked U.S. Germany declared war on U.S.

I assume Hitler thought Japan would come through and declare war on Russia and fight the Russians in Manchuria, Mongolia, and Siberia.

Well, I mentioned the Lost Cause because it's based upon selective memory and what if's.... and I hear and read "What if Germany went full speed into jets in 1940?", "What if Hitler did not invade Russia?", "What if....?"

And to my knowledge, the Germans wholeheartedly bought the idea that their army was undefeated in WWI. Then the Nazis start saying, "If we had not been betrayed by bureaucrats, capitalists, communists, Jews, Gypsies, Poles, Czechs, Serbs, Austrians, Turks, homosexuals, Junkers, liberals, conservatives, the Catholics, Americans, and Mexicans.... we'd have won."

Back to the OP and my previous comments regarding ideology... I think the lack of real Casus Belli for the Axis showed their naked ambitions and the evil they did to achieve them. This allowed the Allies to feel that they held the moral high ground like it's almost never been held in history.... and that makes us feel good about our forefathers and the stand they took against evil.

 

[Nozzle Velocity]

I assume Hitler thought Japan would come through and declare war on Russia and fight the Russians in Manchuria, Mongolia, and Siberia.

That would make sense to a rational person, but Hitler was never concerned about the Soviets. Foolishly, he thought their army was a paper tiger. If Japan attacked Mongolia, then Hitler planned to instantly betray the Soviets and hit them from the west. If the Soviets and Japan signed a neutrality pact, no matter. He could hit the Soviets anyway, take out their Army and be back before winter to finish Operation Sea Lion. Hitler's concern for Japan was that they initiate a war with the U. S., and he pursued that goal consistently through the years. The Soviets were a side issue...until they weren't.

 

[Boaz]

...until they weren't.

 

[Boaz]

I mentioned that my great uncles Gib, Yank, and Junior fought in WWII and that is how it affects my family. But that's my father's side.... my mother was a refugee. She came to the U.S. on a steam ship (so she claimed, I think it's a bit more dramatic/romantic/nostalgic than a diesel engine... and she was only three years old, how would she know).

 

[BAYLOR]

That would make sense to a rational person, but Hitler was never concerned about the Soviets. Foolishly, he thought their army was a paper tiger. If Japan attacked Mongolia, then Hitler planned to instantly betray the Soviets and hit them from the west. If the Soviets and Japan signed a neutrality pact, no matter. He could hit the Soviets anyway, take out their Army and be back before winter to finish Operation Sea Lion. Hitler's concern for Japan was that they initiate a war with the U. S., and he pursued that goal consistently through the years. The Soviets were a side issue...until they weren't.

Stalin saw conspiracies around every corner and feared any potential rivals,. He purged the generals and the officer core of the Red Amy costing them valuable personal and weakening the army it showed when they attacked Finland a few years later. The much smaller Finnish army inflicted some serious damage and causalities on them. The Red Army prevailed but, just barely. Hitler seeing this, erroneously concluded that defeating the Russians would be relatively simple for his military.

 

[Nozzle Velocity]

Interesting. What's amazing is that Hitler and his generals thought the war in Europe was basically over once they took Trondheim. Dealing with Britain and Russia would be mop up operations.

 

[BAYLOR]

Interesting. What's amazing is that Hitler and his generals thought the war in Europe was basically over once they took Trondheim. Dealing with Britain and Russia would be mop up operations.

The problem for Hitler was he left Britain standing , Had he taken out the British Army at a Dunkirk, the loss of the army could conceivably have forced Britain to sue for peace . Fortunately , Hilter was fool. The British evacuation at Dunkirk enabled them to preserve the core of their army and live to fight another day . And then the was the Battle of Britain, The big mistakes include underestimating British aircraft production numbers due to faulty intelligence , failure to knock out the radar installations , Failure to know out the RAF Airfields. But the biggest mistake of all was putting Herman Goering in charge of the Luftwaffe . Yes he was a great pilot in WWI but, running the German Air Force and air industry was quite beyond his rather limited capabilities and in any even't , botching the Battle of Britain for Germany cost them over 3000 of their best pilots and aircrews . After the Battle of Britain, the Luftwaffe while still formidable , was significantly weakened . And having failed to neutralize Great Britain, Hitler decides to launch Barbarossa thus leaving himself open to a two front war.

 

[Lew Rockwell Fan]

they stupidly believed that by appeasing him

Germany even under the most favorable circumstances was ultimately never going win WWII .

There is no what's if about the Confederacy , they were not winning the Civil war for all those reasons.

I think those are all the same basic error - looking back at history through multiple layers of historiographers' condensations, over simplifications, court historian partisanship, and scholarly posing. "Gosh, it was OBVIOUSLY inevitable," we say in blurry hindsight. "All those primitive people must have sure been dumb."

Few if any major wars, had inevitable outcomes, paticularly given the knowledge avaiable to the participants. It the outcomes were truly obvious, those wars wouldn't have been fought. Those 2 wars are actually analogous in one way - a protracted war favored the stronger economy. Both sides (or should I say, all 4) were aware of that and made their plans accordingly. I'm not a student of war, more or the failures of policy that lead to it, but I have read books by those that were.

There isn't much realistic question that Antietam could have gone the other way, and not very much that that would have precipitated British intervention. That battle turned on pretty nearly pure chance. At Gettysburg, it was more a matter of some spectacularly bad decisions made by some normally competent officers. Early was correct in the first part of his famous analysis "It took a great many mistakes to lose that battle. And I myself made most of them." The second part was noble exaggeration. Longstreet took more heat from the general public than was justified & Early was trying to deflect it.

I'll leave the military aspects of the land war to others, but Hitler's grand strategy, in the wider field of diplomacy, was NOT crazy. If the British had looked more coldly to their own self interests, if the French had accepted his offer of a non aggression treaty, it could have turned out very differently. I suspect it would not have turned out better for him, but certainty is folly. No, Stephen Jay Gould had it right, the primary causal agent in history is neither "great men" nor "economic imperatives", but, rather, horseshoe nails.

 

[sknox]

>No, Stephen Jay Gould had it right, the primary causal agent in history is neither "great men" nor "economic imperatives", but, rather, horseshoe nails.

But all three are reductionism at its finest. There is no primary causal agent in history because history is not a result (therefore it doesn't have a cause). "History" is an abstraction, a word we use with typically human malleability. Sometimes it just means "the past." Sometimes it means the discipline and profession. And sometimes, like Humpty Dumpty, it means exactly what we want it to mean (usually when we are imparting some platitude or other).

There was a war. It involved millions of people, so there were millions of motivations, goals, and mistakes. One of many reasons to dislike reductionism is that it does such disservice to those millions of individuals, reducing them all to "just this" or "only that" or, in that repugnant phrase, to "the bottom line." We love summaries, short versions, and bottom lines, so we instinctively search for the "real" reason for events. We also love a mystery, and finding the hidden reason that explains some great thing appeals to us.

If there's a reason why people are so obsessed with WWII, perhaps it lies in the millions. No war--no single event of any kind--has been so thoroughly documented. People can spend their whole life studying the war and still come across new anecdotes and experiences, and that doesn't even count the fictional works based on personal experiences. It's much more difficult to be fascinated by something that has no details.

 

[psikeyhackr]

>No, Stephen Jay Gould had it right, the primary causal agent in history is neither "great men" nor "economic imperatives", but, rather, horseshoe nails.

So the inventor of horseshoes unconsciously rules the world.

Henry Ford is responsible for Global Warming.

In the long run Ford trumps Jobs and Gates.

If the planet goes into Hot House mode all of previous history is relatively irrelevant.

 

[Edward M. Grant]

If there's a reason why people are so obsessed with WWII, perhaps it lies in the millions. No war--no single event of any kind--has been so thoroughly documented. People can spend their whole life studying the war and still come across new anecdotes and experiences, and that doesn't even count the fictional works based on personal experiences. It's much more difficult to be fascinated by something that has no details.

And a lot of the artifacts are still around and widely available. I've fired a friend's rifle that was probably used to defend Moscow against the Nazis in 1941, and his sniper rifle that might have been used in Stalingrad. I'd love to know which poor Russian conscript was handed them and told to go and stop the fascists all those years ago.

Heck, people in Russia are digging up old battlefields and selling rusty bits of metal on ebay.

 

[Boaz]

psikeyhackr, I've always had a very soft spot for Mr. Reed. He sponsored my sixth grade football team in Nashville... Jerry Reed's Green Hill Commodores... kind of a mouthful, but Jerry could've sung it.

 

[BAYLOR]

And a lot of the artifacts are still around and widely available. I've fired a friend's rifle that was probably used to defend Moscow against the Nazis in 1941, and his sniper rifle that might have been used in Stalingrad. I'd love to know which poor Russian conscript was handed them and told to go and stop the fascists all those years ago.

Heck, people in Russia are digging up old battlefields and selling rusty bits of metal on ebay.

For the poor Russian Soldier, they not allowed the option of retreating . There were snipers in back of the main troops contingents with orders to shoot any soldiers that tried to retreat or dessert . Advance or die and if the solider died, they had 10 more to replace him . Joseph Stalin and his Generals had little if any regard for the solider's lives . The irony is they called it the Great Patriotic War . The Russian soldiers fought not so much because they were necessarily committed patriots, though some of them probably were. They fought because , they were dead men, either at the hands of the Nazis or the hands of their own countrymen. So , they really had no choice in the matter.

 

[Overread]

Don't forget WW1 the UK had a similar general policy of shooting deserters and those who refused to go over the top of the trenches. I forget what the WWII policies were, but in general very few armies tolerate disobedience with any degree of leniency. Heck the Romans would even Decimate their own legions if a legion was found to be unloyal.

It strikes me that our attitude toward soldiers today is very very different to even in the semi-recent past. Part of that is big shifts in human rights and the breakdown of many social structures that once held people of different stations in very different regard.

 

[sknox]

For the poor Russian Soldier, they not allowed the option of retreating . There were snipers in back of the main troops contingents with orders to shoot any soldiers that tried to retreat or dessert . Advance or die and if the solider died, they had 10 more to replace him . Joseph Stalin and his Generals had little if any regard for the solider's lives . The irony is they called it the Great Patriotic War . The Russian soldiers fought not so much because they were necessarily committed patriots, though some of them probably were. They fought because , they were dead men, either at the hands of the Nazis or the hands of their own countrymen. So , they really had no choice in the matter.

I wonder about this. If true, it would seem to belittle the bravery of the many partisans who fought behind the lines, and the innumerable acts of courage and patriotism displayed by ordinary soldiers. I mean, there were soldiers in engineering corps, medics, pilots, tank commanders. Were there sniper planes flying behind the bombers? And what does one make of the sniper in Stalingrad who shot not his own men but Nazis in record numbers and at great risk?

This is miles from my field of knowledge, but just in plain numbers it doesn't make any sense that several million men fought the enemy only because there were ... well, how many snipers does it take to urge on five million? I can't make the logistics work, and it flies in the face of all I know of human nature. I don't doubt there were plenty of soldiers who desperately wished they weren't there. It's likely because we can document that for Western soldiers. But doesn't it seem equally likely there were plenty of Russian soldiers who fought to defend the motherland?

 

[Lafayette]

There is another aspect I wonder about that hasn't (to my mind anyway) been touched upon because they belong to a group that was known for being cruel, vicious, and merciless: the bravery of the WWII German soldiers. Is it possible to be courageous while being cruel and rotten?

As writers, most of us know that the 'Good Guys' aren't always pure or fight for the noblest reasons. Could the reverse be said of 'The Bad Guys?'

Perhaps, I'm being naive in believing that we should give the devil his due, but I believe that we should keep people and events in their proper perspective or we will end up labeling people and events as black and white and miss the truths that are important. Labeling can be another form of prejudice.

Please understand, this wonder of mine doesn't excuse the Nazis for their atrocities or any other group that practices genocide. My wonder or curiosity is on the individual, not the group.

 

[Montero]

@ Lafayette - read Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front for one German's take on WW1 and A Time to Love and a Time to Die for his take on an eastern front soldier from WW2. All available in English.

And having looked up Erich Maria Remarque on Fantastic Fiction, there are a whole lot more on the aftermath of WW1 and other parts of WW2. Erich Maria Remarque