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Celts were cool in H's book. The Bretons in France had a resurgence with fabulously kitsch paramilitary parades (and of course Vichy, like the Republic before, saw itself as Gallic in heritage).
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Apr 18, 2014 19:22
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OctaviusBeaver posted:It's kind of funny Stalin was totally fine with killing millions of people out of hand, but when it comes to the Nazis who were actually in charge of everything he wanted them to get a trial. Did'nt the Russian judges at Nuremberg vote death penalty for everyone anyway on principle ? It was more about putting a good show than anything else.
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May 5, 2014 07:51
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Yes, it actually sounds pretty cool if tasteless. Springtime for Hitler in book form?
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May 6, 2014 22:47
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Frostwerks posted:I like the one where the Israelis invade texas. I think Indians got involved. I have it. It's pure genius. (At one point the Texans lack firepower so they dig a canal to bring a battleship to Dallas)
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May 7, 2014 06:02
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Kemper Boyd posted:Off the top of my head, Germany imported most of its copper. During the war, Sweden, Finland, Turkey and Spain were important trading partners for Germany in this regard (since they had no access to overseas imports anymore) by 1944, these sources had dried up. Nickel was a similar material that the Germans needed to import and when Finland peaced out in 1944, the Finnish nickel mines at Petsamo ended up on the Soviet side of the border. Also Vichy initially controlled Noumea, which is the nickel capital of the world, and the Americans made a point to get there ASAP. But whether they just wanted the thing for the Allies or Vichy actually managed to ship nickel to Europe and the Third Reich I don't know. I once read a funny story but I can't find it anywhere again : when the Americans got there de Gaulle annouced it was cool of them to have started liberating France and so he was allowing them to use the nickel 
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May 8, 2014 08:13
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Seven Hundred Bee posted:One of my favorite anecdotes from WWII involves Italian incompetence: That's absolutely hilarious, is any of this stuff online?
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May 13, 2014 18:29
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Say what you want about Hitler, he was not as bad as this thread (has become I guess).
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May 14, 2014 23:29
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Rookersh posted:Also what do French kids get taught. In Poland we got told the French are cowards who loved becoming Vichy France, and how Charles de Gaulle was a pompous gloryseeker. I believe the way my history teacher phrased it was "They loved the taste of the German boot until the Americans arrived, then suddenly they couldn't take their mouth off that.", with the implication being the French just switched allegiance to save face rather then actually caring about what was going on in their country. While we got taught about how the Polish Government in exile did everything it could to save people in labor/concentration camps, we got told the French Resistance just "chased skirts and blew up trains" rather then anything important. So I'm a French 28 year-old. WW2 came up four times in the syllabus I had. Caveat that this is what I remember and while I did pay attention, well. I may not remember with 100% accuracy. What I learned in elementary school I can't really remember but it was very barebones and I did not really get it. It focused on Italy of all things, or maybe it's just what struck me more. Second times was when I was 10-11. I remember absolutely nothing of the lessons themselves but there was a field visit to a Holocaust museum. Very graphic pictures, very emotional presentation. I felt physically sick on the way back. With hindsight I do think it was inappropriate for a boy my age. I did not seem to affect the others much (whether it actually did and they were better at hiding it than me I will never know) but I got actually mocked and it thoroughly convinced they were a bunch of sociopaths. Third time was when I was 14-15. That I remember well. The issue of French guilt was mostly about the pre-war period, basically France/England should have attacked Germany over the Rhineland/the Anschluss/Munich but instead they sat back and voted themselves paid vacations and 40-hour work week while the Germans beefed up their war industry. The war itself was mostly about military operations. This time the focus was the Fall of France and the North African theater. It was the standard nazi propaganda with svatiskas painted over, as in ruthless German efficiency, comically inept Russians, comically inept Italians, wunderwaffen and BLITZKRIEG BLITZKRIEG BLITZKRIEG BLITZKRIEG (this is the real money shot : Charles de Gaulle had actually invented Blitzkrieg but Hitler copied it on him. Yeah.)(double money shot : two weeks before it was WW1 and all about the myth of the breakthrough was absurd and wasted lives useless. Complete cognitive disconnect) Speaking of Charlie, he's presented as a positive figure but beleaguered and opposed by more mediocre men. The story is less "and then he came and saved us all with a flaming sword" and more "if only he'd been in charge he would have come and saved us all with a flaming sword." There was something about war in the Pacific too. Holocaust comes up, but mostly as one German exaction among many. The last time was when I was 16-17. Focus was on totalitarianism so there Vichy came up a lot. The key notion was that the average Frenchman had no choice, with nods toward the "sword and shield" concept. Totalitarianism fostered a paranoid atmosphere that made any organized resistance impossible except within established structures, and that's were the commies come in. De Gaulle completely sidelined by the commies this time, except in the context of his power struggle with Giraud. There is no real solution of continuity between democracy and totalitarianism so people go along until it is too late. The holocaust is given a lot of time. Its purpose was to destroy the Jewish and Slavic race, as a race, from the get-go. Forced labour was merely a "bonus". Eugenics T4 program had been a prototype. As I see it the big absent was war in Asia. When I focus I half-remember half-imagine a few mentions of China and Japan, but there was definitely nothing about Burma, nothing about the Dutch East Indies and nothing about French Indochina. The Indochina war was seen as completely disconnected from WW2. Another thing was that French were unique in collaborating as a government and not as individuals. We heard nothing of Quisling, Hungary, Finland and such. So that's for what I was taught. The issue of what French people actually think I'll maybe get back later if it interests people. quote:I'm guessing the French get taught something else. Also I don't think Poland likes France much. You're possibly not going to like that part. The French view of Poles is that they were terrible antisemites and collaborated with Germans to a greater extent than other people. They do get white-washed out of their participation in Munich though.
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May 18, 2014 11:30
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Kopijeger posted:That's not the best comparison. Quisling was not part of the legitimate government before the war, he was merely the head of the German-appointed puppet government from early 1942. The elected government went into exile in Britain and never collaborated with the occupiers. As for Hungary and Finland, unlike France they hadn't been invaded and militarily defeated by Germany, so they did not "collaborate" as such. Instead they acted as Germany's allies until their defeat by the Soviet Union. Yes, I was thinking and typing at the same time, which seemed to have been over-ambitious. My point is, for us schoolboys the Axis was Germany, Italy, Japan and Vichy France. Every other place, to the extent we thought about it at all, was supposed to be some kind of dystopian military directly under German control. Rookersh posted:I'd actually be fascinated to hear more about the average French persons thoughts on WW2. It's something that's never really shown in any sort of history books I can find, and it's not exactly a question you can bring up while wandering around France. I'll make an effortpost about that later, then, but not tonight. Busy.
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May 18, 2014 17:30
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There is a considerable amount of Nazi propaganda that still gets parroted today. See also the Bismark, Blitzkrieg, the Versailles Diktat etc.
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May 23, 2014 00:12
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Versailles was not only not too harsh, it was way too lenient (for Germany. Turkey got all but destroyed and, surprisingly, learned its lesson and did not start WW2. Austria got ripped into pieces too and too kept its head more or less down pre-Anschluss). Compare with the post-WW2 peace which effectively shattered any chance Germany would have at even European hegemony for the foreseeable future. With lasting peace in Europe as a result.
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May 26, 2014 23:20
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Alekanderu posted:So you're saying that the fact that no major war broke out in Europe until 1991 was thanks to the division of Germany? That's... highly questionable. That is one of the reasons, yes. JaucheCharly posted:Ok, where to start? You have heard of the 14 points, right? Austro-Hungaria was dissolved, because this was politically and strategically prudent from the Allies perspective, and also because the state would have fallen apart no matter what. So instead of creating a potentially explosive situation and a civil war, the state was dissolved orderly. The same goes for the Ottoman Empire. That's true but mostly unrelated to my post, so I'm not sure why you're quoting it.
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May 27, 2014 22:46
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OK, this derail is useless so I'm falling on my sword: I was wrong to suggest however unwittingly that ripping Germany apart after WW2 was the one, single reason they did not start any European war since. That changes nothing to the comparative leniency of Versailles.
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May 28, 2014 11:15
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His death and the flight to England were supremely  though. I have a hard time believing we have the whole history.
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Sep 14, 2014 00:17
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What were the Nazi view on ethnic German emigrants outside Europe? Like in America, Australia and such? Overall was emigrating encouraged/discouraged? Talking about economic emigration of "proper" Nazi Germans, not undesirables fleeing the regime.
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Jan 3, 2015 00:54
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If you want to be very (too) generous maybe they were talking of the troops Italy sent to oppose the first Anschluss attempt?
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May 6, 2015 20:50
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That's a genuinely cool story.
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May 9, 2015 19:50
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Probably selection bias, they don't write stuff about Hans Sixpack and how he was stuck for twelve years pushing papers for the vaterland in a Bielefeld office under a dick boss. Unless he was remarkable in some other way.
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Jun 24, 2015 23:19
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