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WW2 is still my favorite thing to talk about. Thanks to the previous thread, I've learned a lot about the largest war in the 20th century and just how convoluted, exciting, and downright horrifying it was. Like many things glorified by the media, I think the war has been totally oversimplified especially in the American perspective. Lets talk about WW2 and learn some things! (I don't really know how to build an awesome OP. History is pretty subjective, and some of my favorite posts from the other thread can also be debated or challenged. Feel free to make suggestions so we can make it look cool!)  I do know one indisputable fact. If you're going to educate yourself on the war and want something to watch: If you have even a passing interest in World War II, please please please watch The World at War (1973). Its one of the best documentaries on the war, spanning 26 episodes. They interview a ton of people, from the people who routinely worked with Hitler in person, the dude who led the first wave attack against the US at Pearl Harbor, all the way to Soviet citizens who survived the siege of Leningrad and German Dresden firebombing survivors. It puts History channel's work to shame, in part because they interviewed all these people before they died. I'm still probably underselling the documentary, but totally watch it.
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Apr 22, 2017 06:21
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I think a couple things. You, look — we didn't use chemical weapons in World War II. You know, you had someone as despicable as Hitler who didn't even sink to using chemical weapons. So you have to, if you're Russia, ask yourself, is this a country that you and a regime that you want to align yourself with? You have previously signed international agreements rightfully acknowledging that the use of chemical weapons should be out of bounds by every country. To not stand up to not only [inaudible] but your own word should be troubling. Russia put their name on the line. So it's not a question of how long that alliance has lasted. But at what point do they recognize that they are now getting on the wrong side of history in a really bad way really quickly? And again, look at the countries that are standing with them. Iran, Syria, North Korea. This is not a team that you want to be on. And I think that Russia has to recognize that, while they may have had an alliance with them, the lines that have been crossed are ones that no country should ever want to see another country cross. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Apr 22, 2017 06:30
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 Though Finland did actually charge some of its former leadership for pursuing a conflict after the war, so maybe the British cartoonist had a point  Not Marski himself, of course.
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Apr 22, 2017 07:09
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I hear that hitler guy was a bad dude.
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Apr 22, 2017 07:21
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Al-Saqr posted:I hear that hitler guy was a bad dude. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAMgT8LuZaw
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Apr 22, 2017 07:23
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the atomic bomb was militarily unnecessary and was dropped to gain political capital and because of institutional inertia
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Apr 22, 2017 07:23
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The World at War is excellent but also a product of the Cold War and largely dismissive of the Soviet Union. It is best mostly because of its ample use of primary source interviews. Another good one about the pacific war is victory at sea, but it being made even closer to the end of the war is practically a propaganda piece. Still enjoyable.
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Apr 22, 2017 07:26
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Ron Jeremy posted:The World at War is excellent but also a product of the Cold War and largely dismissive of the Soviet Union. It is best mostly because of its ample use of primary source interviews. I'm sorry did you not watch the episodes 'barbarossa' 'stalingrad' 'Kursk' and what is probably the best and most affecting episode of the entire series ' Red Star'? They did not dismiss the soviet union at all in fact the Red Star episode is the arguably the best one!
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Apr 22, 2017 07:41
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Uncle Joe is my homeboy.
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Apr 22, 2017 07:45
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Ron Jeremy posted:The World at War is excellent but also a product of the Cold War and largely dismissive of the Soviet Union. It is best mostly because of its ample use of primary source interviews. I had the impression that the Soviets were always on Team Communism despite being lumped in with Allies. Stalin's relationship with Churchill, Roosevelt, Truman always seemed incredibly tense at best since he had his own best interests to worry about and didn't appear interested in external affairs especially since Nazi Germany was being stamped out by the time they were having the Big Three meetings.
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Apr 22, 2017 07:49
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WWII was good, better than the original, but I'm waiting to see how the final episode of the trilogy will warp things up. We've had a few solid minisodes in between, but I think the real sequel is gonna blow everyone away.
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Apr 22, 2017 08:01
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Starving Wolf posted:WWII was good, better than the original, but I'm waiting to see how the final episode of the trilogy will warp things up. We've had a few solid minisodes in between, but I think the real sequel is gonna blow everyone away. it was vietnam 
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Apr 22, 2017 08:13
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ny6FngFt2w
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Apr 22, 2017 08:19
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It's been a while but from what I remember it was "soviets suffered a great deal" "Stalin murdered his own men" "heroic western allies came to the soviets rescue" "soviets because bloodthirsty in revenge"
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Apr 22, 2017 08:28
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Ron Jeremy posted:It's been a while but from what I remember it was "soviets suffered a great deal" "Stalin murdered his own men" "heroic western allies came to the soviets rescue" "soviets because bloodthirsty in revenge" It's not that lacking in nuance at all, but you have to remember that attitudes only really fully shifted even in the historiography once the Soviet archives opened and the wall fell and resultantly everything was tainted by inherited German attitudes.
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Apr 22, 2017 08:35
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Starving Wolf posted:WWII was good, better than the original, but I'm waiting to see how the final episode of the trilogy will warp things up. We've had a few solid minisodes in between, but I think the real sequel is gonna blow everyone away. Honestly, the whole MAD plot device just seems like a really contrived & desperate way to up the stacks, but it has the side effect of writing yourself into the corner of everybody-dies-from-nuclear-apocalypse, and no one likes an bad ending.
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Apr 22, 2017 09:10
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The details of how much the Soviet Union suffered at the hands of Nazi war machine is easily some of the most horrifying poo poo in recorded human history. They lost 27 million people—both military and civilian—by concentration camps, chemical weapons, famine, mass executions, etc. you name it. It does not receive the attention it deserves in the West due to how much of a piece of poo poo Stalin was, which is sad. The U.S. lost 400k by comparison, and that was just military deaths.
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Apr 22, 2017 09:12
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Also the effects of lend-lease tend to be overstated, in order for the US to take credit for the victories of the red army. Truth is that domestic tank production of the soviets eclipses everyone by the end of the war.
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Apr 22, 2017 09:14
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Alienwarehouse posted:The details of how much the Soviet Union suffered at the hands of Nazi war machine is easily some of the most horrifying poo poo in recorded human history. They lost 27 million people—both military and civilian—by concentration camps, chemical weapons, famine, mass executions, etc. you name it. It does not receive the attention it deserves in the West due to how much of a piece of poo poo Stalin was, which is sad. People mostly care about events their own countries were involved in. 15-20 million died in China and Westerners don't care about that either - nor do Russians, I suspect.
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Apr 22, 2017 09:28
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It's hard to overstate the scale and the horror of the eastern front. But also the story of the red army reeling from the invasion rebuilt itself into a modern form and pushed the maxis back, practically on its own. Then, after fighting and winning all the way to Berlin, they turned around, railed their army halfway across the globe and invaded China and utterly destroyed the Japanese army.
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Apr 22, 2017 09:53
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Ron Jeremy posted:It's hard to overstate the scale and the horror of the eastern front. But also the story of the red army reeling from the invasion rebuilt itself into a modern form and pushed the maxis back, practically on its own. Then, after fighting and winning all the way to Berlin, they turned around, railed their army halfway across the globe and invaded China and utterly destroyed the Japanese army. How does that mesh with "nuking two cities full of civilians was the only way to end the war"?
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Apr 22, 2017 09:57
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Weatherman posted:How does that mesh with "nuking two cities full of civilians was the only way to end the war"? Maybe it was "the most efficient way to win the war while protecting US interests". The US wanted the war to end quickly (very quickly) in order not to have to suffer causalities/waste time trying to take the Islands by force while the Soviets had the opportunity to consolidate control in Northern China/Korea/possibly Hokkaido. While the bombs were dropped before the Soviets could get into action, I think it was pretty clear that the Soviets were going to win that fight and the US needed to wrap up the war fast. Also, it was a demonstration to the Soviets that we had a weapon that could "tip the scale" in Europe since the Red Army vastly outnumbered the Western allies (especially in 1945) and almost certainly would have won a conventional fight. The more we know about the Cold War (including the now open Soviet archives), the more it is clear it was all geopolitical maneuvering. It was "right or wrong" depends on dozens of factors that are endlessly debatable (especially depending on your opinion of the Soviets/US).
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Apr 22, 2017 10:08
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I've almost finished reading Mein Kampf and my god is it a slog, despite that it's interesting to hear Hitlers ideas on how he thinks a nation should run (I have no doubt if Germany never went to war it would have ended up like any other dictatorship run by a madman). After always hearing how eloquent and how great a speaker Hitler was it was a bit of a surprise to see that this great holy tome of fascism is just the ramblings of a thuggish stooge who thinks he is gods gift. There is a lot to unpack in it but it's very clear that he was living in a very different world to everyone else.
Tarantula fucked around with this message at 10:12 on Apr 22, 2017 |
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Apr 22, 2017 10:09
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Yan Xishan was a pretty big piece of poo poo.
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Apr 22, 2017 11:25
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the atomic bomb was good but america was too weak to cleanse the world with nuclear hellfire and solve that humanity problem once and for all
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Apr 22, 2017 12:27
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blowfish posted:the atomic bomb was good but america was too weak to cleanse the world with nuclear hellfire and solve that humanity problem once and for all lol don't worry you might actually get your wish in the next four years.
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Apr 22, 2017 13:49
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The entire war in Europe summed up in one image: Each symbol = 100,000 dead people. Skulls are non-jewish civilians. Teriyaki Hairpiece fucked around with this message at 14:00 on Apr 22, 2017 |
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Apr 22, 2017 13:58
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I'm shocked that Hungary only has 1 skull and Czech and the Baltics have none and only 40,000 civilians died in the Battle of Britain it shouldn't have a skull.
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Apr 22, 2017 14:20
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Baron Porkface posted:I'm shocked that Hungary only has 1 skull and Czech and the Baltics have none The map has a lot of problems and glosses over a lot of things but it gets its main job done, which is to beat people over the head with the fact that the Soviets did almost all of the fighting and dying.
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Apr 22, 2017 14:33
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Baron Porkface posted:I'm shocked that Hungary only has 1 skull and Czech and the Baltics have none The stars are Jewish dead. Still doesn't add up for the Baltics though.
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Apr 22, 2017 14:41
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You can pedantically pick apart its finer points all day: the author himself points out the wrongness of the UK flag in North Africa, for example. The map still does a fine job of making its point as bluntly as possible.
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Apr 22, 2017 14:58
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Teriyaki Hairpiece posted:You can pedantically pick apart its finer points all day: the author himself points out the wrongness of the UK flag in North Africa, for example. The map still does a fine job of making its point as bluntly as possible. It's a very nice map but while we're waiting for someone to dispute that the USSR did the bulk of the fighting it's ok to chat about other things.
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Apr 22, 2017 15:14
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I went to the National WW2 Museum in New Orleans yesterday and it was pretty cool. They had veterans there that you could talk to. They also had a ton of weapons on display with a whole lot of uniforms. Coolest part was realizing just how gigantic a M4 Sherman was (I always pictured tanks in general smaller). Had a few gripes with the museum using so much modern Nat Geo/History Channel documentary material. And even in the museum setting, I think there was some oversimplification going on (no explanation as to why the U.S avoided war so long, Stalin and Allies being ~bffs~) But also like, its a museum and I assume most people don't go in with a ton of prior knowledge of the war other than the turning points and associated atrocities.
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Apr 22, 2017 16:16
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Rappaport posted:
Uhh, Finland didn't pursue the war with the Soviets. Stalin literally had to invent a reason to go grab the parts of Finland he wanted by having his own guys shell a Soviet village. At that point Finland's side in the whole thing was pretty much set for them - either ally with the Nazis they didn't like or ally with the former Nazi ally (aspiring ally?) who literally just invaded them. After the war they were effectively a Soviet client state and didn't have much say in who got hosed over. Shockingly this included people who had opposed the USSR. Warbadger fucked around with this message at 16:46 on Apr 22, 2017 |
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Apr 22, 2017 16:29
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lol it must be awesome to be a ww2 vet or a holocaust survivor and find out that nobody has learned anything and in the end all it takes is for you to start dying of old age and snap nazis, antisemites and people like that won the White House and will win many European countries and old Timey race science and nazism is cool and with it for basement dwelling kids.
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Apr 22, 2017 16:38
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Al-Saqr posted:lol it must be awesome to be a ww2 vet or a holocaust survivor and find out that nobody has learned anything and in the end all it takes is for you to start dying of old age and snap nazis, antisemites and people like that won the White House and will win many European countries and old Timey race science and nazism is cool and with it for basement dwelling kids. It's a slow process, but the same conditions that allowed it to happen in the 30's are back again. Extreme inequality and people feeling left out with no one listening to them leads to anger, fear and hate. Someone charismatic comes along and tells them it's <group of people>'s fault and off we go.
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Apr 22, 2017 16:51
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Alienwarehouse posted:The details of how much the Soviet Union suffered at the hands of Nazi war machine is easily some of the most horrifying poo poo in recorded human history. They lost 27 million people—both military and civilian—by concentration camps, chemical weapons, famine, mass executions, etc. you name it. It does not receive the attention it deserves in the West due to how much of a piece of poo poo Stalin was, which is sad. Exactly. Furthermore the Russians always try to turn these Soviet casualties into "Russian" casualties, thereby eliminating the massive contribution of non-Russian soldiers and citizens. This is also the near-total erasure of Indian troops in the North African campaign. I guess my point here is that FPS games are mostly made in the US.
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Apr 22, 2017 17:01
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Agag posted:Exactly. Furthermore the Russians always try to turn these Soviet casualties into "Russian" casualties, thereby eliminating the massive contribution of non-Russian soldiers and citizens. This is also the near-total erasure of Indian troops in the North African campaign. The impact of lend-lease is also usually ignored or downplayed. I guess the USSR (or SUPER STRONG PUTIN-RUSSIA) didn't like to talk about how much help they got and during the Cold War the US didn't like to talk about how they bankrolled a huge expansion of industry and military capability in the USSR. I guess it could also be that most education on the subject focuses on the battles, less on stuff like infrastructure/resources/equipment. You see mention of airplanes shot down and bombs hitting factories w/r/t allied bombing campaigns, but stuff like "tied up a shitload of AAA guns, a huge chunk of the airplanes, and millions of troops attached to them" don't get mentioned. Russia does a lot of FPS games as well. The ones that end up doing well globally are mostly from the US, though. Warbadger fucked around with this message at 17:35 on Apr 22, 2017 |
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Apr 22, 2017 17:12
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uhhhh no if anything lend lease is usually overstated as a reason for the soviet military strength
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Apr 22, 2017 17:41
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Ardennes posted:Maybe it was "the most efficient way to win the war while protecting US interests". The US wanted the war to end quickly (very quickly) in order not to have to suffer causalities/waste time trying to take the Islands by force while the Soviets had the opportunity to consolidate control in Northern China/Korea/possibly Hokkaido. While the bombs were dropped before the Soviets could get into action, I think it was pretty clear that the Soviets were going to win that fight and the US needed to wrap up the war fast. The development of the atomic bombs was a four year long process that cost billions of dollars, that happened to bear fruit at the time and place it did. There was no way that a President wouldn't use them if he thought there was any chance they might bring the war to a swifter conclusion. (Also, no one was worried about the Soviets invading Hokkaido, because Soviet amphibious capability in the east could best be described as "lol.")
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Apr 22, 2017 17:50
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