Steping back in time: WWII

[panzer104]

After my random ten facts some interest has been shown in perhaps a WWII thread, and though I still feel weird posting this thread on this site, here goes...

Not the sexiest of topics, but kinda fun...

Just a spot, perhaps, for people, like me, who enjoy this time period to discuss their favorite aspects of the "Second Great War"... From Pearl Harbor and D-Day to VE and VJ Day and all points in between.

 

[joninliverton]

After my random ten facts some interest has been shown in perhaps a WWII thread, and though I still feel weird posting this thread on this site, here goes...

Not the sexiest of topics, but kinda fun...

Just a spot, perhaps, for people, like me, who enjoy this time period to discuss their favorite aspects of the "Second Great War"... From Pearl Harbor and D-Day to VE and VJ Day and all points in between.

Panzer your screen name gives your hobby away lol. But it's a good subject and this side of the forum is non membership related so you can talk about anything. I was not a good history student because mid way through our education the school lost it's history teacher and they took ages to find a replacement so I took another subject instead. I do on occasions however, watch the History Channel on Sky TV which I find very interesting.

I'm sure that some of the older members will interact on this thread with memories of their own.

 

[carking1]

I have never been a history buff, perhaps I should take more time to learn about it, but I thought I would share with you that my father was a B-17 pilot in WWII, shot down over Germany, and was a POW at Stalag Luft 1 in Barth, Germany. He was liberated by the Russian army and reunited with his unit in Kettering, England before being shipped home.

 

[tampa24]

Wow Carking. That's quite a family history.

I am eager to post on this thread and see which aspects of the war appeal to the most people. Alas... My personal life has been extremely busy as of late. And I am too tired to get into any subjects that require very many brain cells to fire at the same time. lol So I will have to wait till tomorrow to post something a little more coherent.

But thank you Panzer for starting the thread!

 

[gwr19569424]

I am a history buff, but know very little about ww1 and ww2. I am sure as this thread continues by some of the other members that know more than I do, I will learn something for a change. lol.
My interest is in the Civil War, Revolutionary War, the Lois and Clark Expedition and of course my family history. That has been interesting to say the least.

Gary

 

[tampa24]

What do you guys think of the revisionist British historian who postulated a few years back that Britain should have sued for peace with Nazi Germany in 1940, after the fall of France? His view was that Britain itself would have been better off after the war because it would have retained its colonies and would have been in a better economic position. I'm oversimplifying his logic and assumptions of course. His belief was that a war between the Third Reich and the Soviet Union was inevitable. (Which I agree with on that point of course.) And that both sides would have been so exhausted from the effort that neither would have decisively won. Or that at least Germany would have been so beaten down that it would have been of little military threat after the battle in the East.

I think his point was that even if Germany had won in the East ( a big IF) that it would have been heavily pinned down trying to occupy and rule the largest country on the planet. He glosses over what a Soviet victory might have looked like. I must admit though that I have not read his book. Only excerpts that I read about in print media.

Of course this is only from the British standpoint and not the broader Western standpoint. He felt that Britain could have avoided coming out of WW II a bankrupt, bombed out, economic basket case that was forced to let go of India and many colonies. And of course in his eyes I'm sure he thought that it might have avoided such a heavy British dependence both economically and militarily on the United States.

Of course what his revisionism ignores is that it would have given Hitler plenty of time to fully implement the "Final Solution" of the Wansee Conference. The planned extermination of all the Jews living in Nazi occupied Europe. Including Soviet Jews...All the way up to the Ural River. Whether the Wansee Conference would have happened at all under these other circumstances is irrelevant. Because the extermination of the Jews was already part of the national and war policy goals of the Nazis. It was just articulated more forcefully at that point.

What this historian tried to envision though was how Britain could have avoided the fate of the late 40's and the 50's. In which it saw itself drop from a superpower to a nearly bankrupt medium sized power wedged between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.

I'm eager to talk to anyone who has other interests of WW II they would like to discuss. I'm just trying to get some conversation started and see where it goes.

 

[panzer104]

First, carking, that is a great piece of family history. Thanks for sharing...

Second, Tampa, WOW...Had not heard this point of view before. Simply put (but nothing about WWII can be "simply put") the historian is neglecting the true Napoleonic nature of Hitler. As laid out in "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" Hitlers intent was to extend his Nazi Empire as far as was possible (which is a flawed view in it self. Though the Roman Empire flourished for many, many years, the further it grew from the central point, the more unstable it became. The same can be said about the Nazi Empire).

Without knowing a more detailed account of this historian, I will say little more, but I am very interested to read this work. Tampa, thanks for that.

Thoughts as to how Operation: Overlord (D-Day) could have been better executed with this simple fact: The only recon done of the Atlantic Sea Wall was in 1942. Rommel, on a visit to the Normandy beach head in 1943, had the entire length of beach defense beefed up saying it was "prone to an amphibious Allied Assault".

 

[hot4cock]

I will try my best to recall my thesis on Hitler and the Rise of the Nazi Party but I wrote the paper some 20 yrs ago. I also did a semester abroad in Germany and "European History" was one of the classes I took. Let's just say that even as late as 1986 there was still a lot of misguided truths and information about Germany's/Hitler's role in World War II, especially among the older generation that just refused to even acknowledge WWII took place. I found my studies on WWII & Hitler in particular to be very interesting. Don't recall a lot about strategic or battle information, I was drawn more to the psychology of the man, the Nazi party and the German populace at that point in time. All fascinating to me so Panzer I'd be happy to discuss my theories and knowledge w/ you.

 

[mikeyank]

I will try my best to recall my thesis on Hitler and the Rise of the Nazi Party but I wrote the paper some 20 yrs ago. I also did a semester abroad in Germany and "European History" was one of the classes I took. Let's just say that even as late as 1986 there was still a lot of misguided truths and information about Germany's/Hitler's role in World War II, especially among the older generation that just refused to even acknowledge WWII took place. I found my studies on WWII & Hitler in particular to be very interesting. Don't recall a lot about strategic or battle information, I was drawn more to the psychology of the man, the Nazi party and the German populace at that point in time. All fascinating to me so Panzer I'd be happy to discuss my theories and knowledge w/ you.

I love this site. Only on Broke Straight Boys, would you find someone named "hot4cock" ready to discuss his theseis on World War II. I love it.

 

[tampa24]

I will try my best to recall my thesis on Hitler and the Rise of the Nazi Party but I wrote the paper some 20 yrs ago. I also did a semester abroad in Germany and "European History" was one of the classes I took. Let's just say that even as late as 1986 there was still a lot of misguided truths and information about Germany's/Hitler's role in World War II, especially among the older generation that just refused to even acknowledge WWII took place. I found my studies on WWII & Hitler in particular to be very interesting. Don't recall a lot about strategic or battle information, I was drawn more to the psychology of the man, the Nazi party and the German populace at that point in time. All fascinating to me so Panzer I'd be happy to discuss my theories and knowledge w/ you.

Please do discuss your thoughts H4C. All of that history fascinates me also. The ideology of the Nazis. Their later denial of the Holocaust, and so on. I lived in Europe from 84-85. And I visited West Germany at that time.

I was very surprised that the Soviets let go of the DDR. I was less surprised that they let the Berlin Wall fall. I thought that the Soviets could have easily made the case that East Germany belonged under their sphere of influence as war reparations of sorts. Even if they let the rest of the old Warsaw Pact go their own way. But of course they were broke and couldn't afford to hold on to even the Soviet Union itself. They did manage to hold on to the easternmost sliver of East Prussia though. And Silesia and Danzig are once again in Polish hands.