re-accessing WW2

papasha408

Active member
After reading James Bacque's 'Other Losses' and David Irving's Churchill biography I'm beginning to wonder if we were truly on the right side during World War Two. Also, It has been over seventy years since the end of that war. Why is it so important to retain a high rate of propaganda with this particular war when many historians today state that contrary to popular opinion, it was not a good war and much of the history is outright lies and preposterous propaganda.

Any thoughts
 
The US, the USSR and Britain and her common wealth defeated Nazi Germany a racist totalitarian state responsible for the murders of ~ 25 million people in less than 6 years and responsible for a war (using updated Russian stats) in which as many as 60 million people died. Hitler was almost solely responsible for this war of aggression and murder.
The allies and to a greater extend the Soviets were also responsible for human rights abuses as it was a total no holds barred war. However these paled when compared to the crimes of the Nazi's.
Also in the Far East the imperial Empire of Japan was responsible for > 10 million murders in their war of conquest and murder. Again the allies fought a no holds barred war in which prisoners were not taken and civilian casualties were high. Again every possible measure was taken to defeat the aggressors.
Had not the Allies and Soviets fought as they did the war would have been lost.
 
I certainly wouldn't believe anything the Soviets professed. And, I sort of feel the same way about Russia today. Hitler's racial policies were a direct response to the Balfour declaration. He believed the Zionists got the U.S. into the great war and were paid off by the treaty. Their pay off would eventually be Palestine which would eventually become Israel. That is the reason for the stab in the back theory promulgated by the Nazi's in the twenties and thirties. Let us not forget, it was Great Britain and France who declared war against Germany, not the other way around. Hitler wanted a corridor to Danzig. The Poles refused and the rest is what, history or propaganda.
 
I certainly wouldn't believe anything the Soviets professed. And, I sort of feel the same way about Russia today. Hitler's racial policies were a direct response to the Balfour declaration. He believed the Zionists got the U.S. into the great war and were paid off by the treaty. Their pay off would eventually be Palestine which would eventually become Israel. That is the reason for the stab in the back theory promulgated by the Nazi's in the twenties and thirties. Let us not forget, it was Great Britain and France who declared war against Germany, not the other way around. Hitler wanted a corridor to Danzig. The Poles refused and the rest is what, history or propaganda.

Hitler wanted Poland, the Ukraine, Belorussia, European Russia for slave laborers until the unwanted Slavs could all be exterminated or exiled to Siberia to make room for Lebensraum and an ethnically cleansed east. As it was 14 to 20+ million Soviet civilian died - murdered, as well as 3 million non Jewish poles. Himmler planned to immediately exterminate (30 to 50) million Soviets had the USSR lost. You are citing BS revisionist bunk.
 
After reading James Bacque's 'Other Losses' and David Irving's Churchill biography I'm beginning to wonder if we were truly on the right side during World War Two. Also, It has been over seventy years since the end of that war. Why is it so important to retain a high rate of propaganda with this particular war when many historians today state that contrary to popular opinion, it was not a good war and much of the history is outright lies and preposterous propaganda.

Any thoughts

Were we on the right side during WW2?
For a start any German, Japanese or Italian members may have an issue with that question, but assuming "we" means the allies then I would suggest trying to imagine a world under Axis rule and you would soon agree that we were on the right side.
The allies were not the choir boys they were/are painted as but the right side won WW2.


As for the level of propaganda that has become enshrined in our history yes it is worrying to find but we now live in a world where we are bombarded by religious, political and ideological propaganda constantly and fact means very little.

Sadly history is now pretty much what the guy with the most money wants it to be.
 
Were we on the right side during WW2?
For a start any German, Japanese or Italian members may have an issue with that question, but assuming "we" means the allies then I would suggest trying to imagine a world under Axis rule and you would soon agree that we were on the right side.
The allies were not the choir boys they were/are painted as but the right side won WW2.


As for the level of propaganda that has become enshrined in our history yes it is worrying to find but we now live in a world where we are bombarded by religious, political and ideological propaganda constantly and fact means very little.

Sadly history is now pretty much what the guy with the most money wants it to be.

As mentioned Monty the Allies fought a no holds barred war which may have resulted in upwards to 1 million civilian deaths in the European theater. The allies usually softened up a town - city with heavy artillery prior to attacking. Such shelling cost civilian lives throughout northwest Europe and Italy. They also carried out an extensive bombing campaign against Germany and some other key industrial centers in the Reich such as the Shoka industrial works and Ploesti oil area. One key difference is except for the execution in the field of a handful of SS troops, the allies did not symmetrically murder execute civilians - POW's. These are no great secrets here no propaganda.
Nazi Germany did, as mentioned in my previous post and the new German government accepted responsibility for these crimes and rebuilt a new high tech industrial Germany out of the ashes that was not militaristic in nature.
By accepting their guilt and putting it behind them they were able to move ahead fairly rapidly. The only ones who didn't accept the Nazi crimes against the Jews, Slavs, POW's, Gypsies, Yugoslavs, Greeks, etc., were those who refused to see Adolf Hitler and the Nazi leadership for the criminals they were and are in denial. We are talking only about the people deliberately murdered by the Nazis, not killed by bombing, shelling, etc. This is why Eisenhower made news reels of the camps saying one day someone is going to try and say this just never happened.
The only thing that has changes in the last ~20 years is since the fall of the iron curtain the full extent of Hitler's crimes in the East has been reveled (looses which embarrassed the communist regimes and were kept secret in large part). Losses which put as many or more Ukrainians murdered than Jews for example. These figures were greatly downplayed by the communist.
 
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While the scales are very different we are really just arguing semantics, we did not systematically round up civilians and execute them instead we firebombed their cities and specifically targeted residential parts of cities so while the magnetude of the crime is vastly different the intent was still the same.
 
I firmly believe had we not fought Germany that is the US, Britain and the USSR in the all out fashion we could have lost. It was this no holds barred spirit that likely won us the war. The Germans in my opinion had the best army in the world. I do agree that some of the late war bombing was excessive. But picture yourself in their mindset during that era. It's easy to see the mistakes in hindsight but in the heat of battle. However I remember some said Harris should have been relived of his command near wars end. Also remember that Germany was in taters but refused to surrender and still but up substantial resistance in pockets right up until the end. Even though the war had long since been lost.
 
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From what I have read about the bombing of Germany, they RAF tried to hit valuable targets in the early years with a minor success. The RAF lost several of airplanes and crews with more or less nothing in return. That forced the RAF to shift to hit the workforce and the residential areas of the cities. When the Americans entered the war, they tried also to hit valuable targets with the same result as what the RAF had experienced earlier. Another aspect of the bomb command and the tools they had to their disposal, the capability to hit what they wanted couldn't be done with the technology they had.
 
From what I have read about the bombing of Germany, they RAF tried to hit valuable targets in the early years with a minor success. The RAF lost several of airplanes and crews with more or less nothing in return. That forced the RAF to shift to hit the workforce and the residential areas of the cities. When the Americans entered the war, they tried also to hit valuable targets with the same result as what the RAF had experienced earlier. Another aspect of the bomb command and the tools they had to their disposal, the capability to hit what they wanted couldn't be done with the technology they had.

Once again it is a matter of semantics and little else, Germans roll into town round up 1000 civilians and gun them down, allies fly over town and firebomb it killing 1000 civilians, in neither case are they legitimite targets and in each case they are just as dead.

Germans say we were forced to do it because a couple of soldiers were killed by partisans, Allies say we were forced to do it because we couldn't hit anything else.

The only real difference between the two sides is that the Germans killed civilians on an industrial scale and the allies killed them with indifference.
 
Once again it is a matter of semantics and little else, Germans roll into town round up 1000 civilians and gun them down, allies fly over town and firebomb it killing 1000 civilians, in neither case are they legitimite targets and in each case they are just as dead.

Germans say we were forced to do it because a couple of soldiers were killed by partisans, Allies say we were forced to do it because we couldn't hit anything else.

The only real difference between the two sides is that the Germans killed civilians on an industrial scale and the allies killed them with indifference.

The Germans murdered millions as deliberate policy, but aside from that they also killed millions via indiscriminate bombing, shelling, etc. of towns - cities as well: such as the 40K killed by bombing Stalingrad > than a week.
One of the tactics used by the Germans against population centers under attack was to bomb - shell it to clog up the enemy's roadways with refugees so as to interfere with the defending army's supply's and logistics.

By far and away most of the people in Italy, Belgium, France, Holland were glad to see the allies despite having lost 10's of thousands of civilians to bombing, shelling and having their backyards become battlegrounds. In Caen alone over 10K French men women and children were killed.

This would really been a good topic for the World War category.
 
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The Germans murdered millions as deliberate policy, but aside from that they also killed millions via indiscriminate bombing, shelling, etc. of towns - cities as well: such as the 40K killed by bombing Stalingrad > than a week.

And so did the Allies.

Of the 10 most devastating bombing campaigns of WW2 in terms of civilian deaths 9 of them are allied and that excludes the atomic bombs we are simply talking the bombing of civilian areas.

The exception is the German bombing of London.

As I have said a world where the Axis won WW2 would not be a world worth living in however that does not mean our methods of winning it were any better than those employed by the Axis powers.
 
We are sstating similar viewpoints. I'm standing on that if the Allies - Soviets hadn't of fought the all out war they did, they wouldn't have won. With the exception of some late war excesses the nature of the war called for this type of struggle. As for artillery which took the lives of countless civilians as well, this was one of the major sources of casualties for all sides. A fact that is often overlooked.
 
Maybe we can ask one of the Mods to move the thread to the world wars section so maybe more people see it.

I see this from two sides, when two armies are fighting the civilians will be caught in the middle. The behavior on the eastern front and the German perception of the Slavic people increased the atrocities. The same occurred when the allies reached Italy and later when they fought through France and the low countries. Then we have deliberate atrocities by the German forces in France when a unit of the 2nd SS in the village of Orador killed almost all inhabitants. They could have chosen another option, but they didn't.

The bombing of industrial and communication hubs is something else, the option was to leave these valuable targets alone and maybe letting the Germans to produce without any disturbance at all. The technology wasn't there to only take out the valuable targets without hitting a lot of other things. The bomber command had also a perception of it might influence the German morale, that seemed to be wishful thinking of the Harris and his staff
 
We are sstating similar viewpoints. I'm standing on that if the Allies - Soviets hadn't of fought the all out war they did, they wouldn't have won. With the exception of some late war excesses the nature of the war called for this type of struggle. As for artillery which took the lives of countless civilians as well, this was one of the major sources of casualties for all sides. A fact that is often overlooked.

Yes, I have read something about 80% of the casualties during the war was caused by indirect fire.
 
And so did the Allies.

Of the 10 most devastating bombing campaigns of WW2 in terms of civilian deaths 9 of them are allied and that excludes the atomic bombs we are simply talking the bombing of civilian areas.

The exception is the German bombing of London.

As I have said a world where the Axis won WW2 would not be a world worth living in however that does not mean our methods of winning it were any better than those employed by the Axis powers.

AJP Taylor believed Hitler only wanted the parts of Poland which once belonged to Germany. He only wanted a small regional war to get this territory back. Of course it blew up in his face with Britain and France declaring war on Germany. It is an action which also bankrupted the British empire. Certainly A German victory would not have had much effect on North America. As for the Soviets, Hitler ruined Stalin's plan of attacking Germany first. He may even have saved western Europe from Soviet rule. And who started the bombing of civilians first? It was not Germany. There is my devil's advocacy for the day.
 
AJP Taylor believed Hitler only wanted the parts of Poland which once belonged to Germany. He only wanted a small regional war to get this territory back. Of course it blew up in his face with Britain and France declaring war on Germany. It is an action which also bankrupted the British empire. Certainly A German victory would not have had much effect on North America. As for the Soviets, Hitler ruined Stalin's plan of attacking Germany first. He may even have saved western Europe from Soviet rule. And who started the bombing of civilians first? It was not Germany. There is my devil's advocacy for the day.

I am not sure I will ever see Hitler as a misunderstood peacnik I certainly don't believe he wanted a world war but I do think he planned to continue to conquer Europe in small chunks while claiming he only wanted the German bits back.

I will certainly never see Hitler as a potential savior of Europe when all that came out of WW2 in eastern europe was to replace a brutal dictatorship with a paranoid one.

As for bombing civilians first it is a tough one as the Italians were doing it in Ethiopia, the British were doing it in Iraq and the Germans did it in Spain.
 
I am not sure I will ever see Hitler as a misunderstood peacnik I certainly don't believe he wanted a world war but I do think he planned to continue to conquer Europe in small chunks while claiming he only wanted the German bits back.

I will certainly never see Hitler as a potential savior of Europe when all that came out of WW2 in eastern europe was to replace a brutal dictatorship with a paranoid one.

As for bombing civilians first it is a tough one as the Italians were doing it in Ethiopia, the British were doing it in Iraq and the Germans did it in Spain.

No, he certainly was not a peacenick. But, I do not believe he was the power mad monster the West and the old Soviet empire made him out to be. Would he have attacked France if France hadn't declared war on Germany? The East was Hitler's desire. And many in the Eastern territories would have suffered terribly. But, then and again, Hitler and Stalin may have exhausted each other. And Stalin was just as homicidal as Hitler and maybe even more so.
 
No, he certainly was not a peacenick. But, I do not believe he was the power mad monster the West and the old Soviet empire made him out to be. Would he have attacked France if France hadn't declared war on Germany? The East was Hitler's desire. And many in the Eastern territories would have suffered terribly. But, then and again, Hitler and Stalin may have exhausted each other. And Stalin was just as homicidal as Hitler and maybe even more so.

You need to but a lot more study into the European conflict. Hitler states early on in Mein Kampf that about his plan to eliminate the subhuman Slavs in order to create living space in the east. This living space would have continued all the way to the Urals had he of had his way, with the eventual elimination of the largest ethnic group in Europe the Slavs. Also he deeply desired revenge for the Treaty of Versailles. Hitler was elated with the fall of France and the low countries. To say he goal was not to build a new Germanic empire named Germania is nonsense.
 
No, he certainly was not a peacenick. But, I do not believe he was the power mad monster the West and the old Soviet empire made him out to be. Would he have attacked France if France hadn't declared war on Germany? The East was Hitler's desire. And many in the Eastern territories would have suffered terribly. But, then and again, Hitler and Stalin may have exhausted each other. And Stalin was just as homicidal as Hitler and maybe even more so.

I am not anywhere near agreeing with that, Hitler was a power mad monster and no matter how much you look for his good points and I have no doubt he had some, the fact that he incarcerated and murdered 14 million people for racial, religious, medical or ideological reasons make him a power mad monster.

Was Stalin as bad, there is no doubt he was and I am not really sure Churchill or Tojo were all that far behind either but being almost as bad as Hitler does not mitigate Hitlers actions or legacy in any way.
 
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