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THE WWII Thread (merged)

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Who deserves most credit for winning WWII?

Russia, because it singlehandedly destroyed Hitler and the Third Reich, sacrificing 26 million Russians in the process
33
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The local Resistance movements in France, Belgium, Spain, Italy, etc... for their enormous courage in sabotaging the Nazi war machine locally
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The former 'colonial subjects', because even though they were still being oppressed by the Western world, they fought in a war that was least of all theirs; colonial subjects from North Africa, Black Africa, India, Burma
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Total votes : 41

Unread postby lorenzo » Mon 09 May 2005, 11:53:36

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BiGG', 'N')obody was dirtier

You are forgetting the fact that the USA has been in bed with the Nazis until well into the war. Let's also not forget who financed Adolf Hitler's NSDAP: it was Americans like Prescott Bush, Henry Ford, and lots of American Jewish Bankers.
Let's not make this a tirade of who supported Hitler most. One thing is certain, though, the Catholic Church has formally condemned Hitler and nazism before the war broke out, the Protestants have not.
(Yesterday, when Bush was in the Netherlands, all of us Europeans saw the documentaries about how the Americans financed Hitler and made it possible for him to come to power. I know the story about Bush's family capital coming from Hitler, is getting boring, but it is the historic record. Without Adolf Hitler, there would be no right wing neo-nazi in the White House today. And without Prescott Bush and his American friends, there wouldn't have been an Adolf Hitler in Europe.
We've all seen the documentaries over the past few days. Shocking, truly shocking.)
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Unread postby jaakkeli » Mon 09 May 2005, 12:01:09

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('lorenzo', 'Y')ou are forgetting the fact that the USA has been in bed with the Nazis until well into the war.


And you're conveniently forgetting that the Russians were Nazi allies and they started the war together with the Germans by invading several completely innocent countries, before finally having a big fight-out between themselves.

There's no way you can bash the Americans for having some businessmen who co-operated with the Nazis and completely ignore the fact that at the same time Russia allied with the Nazis to start the whole f***ng war. Not to mention the fact that Russia, too, was headed by a brutal dictator that had already slaughtered even his own people by millions.
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Unread postby lorenzo » Mon 09 May 2005, 12:05:39

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jaakkeli', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('lorenzo', 'Y')ou are forgetting the fact that the USA has been in bed with the Nazis until well into the war.


And you're conveniently forgetting that the Russians were Nazi allies and they started the war together with the Germans by invading several completely innocent countries, before finally having a big fight-out between themselves.

There's no way you can bash the Americans for having some businessmen who co-operated with the Nazis and completely ignore the fact that at the same time Russia allied with the Nazis to start the whole f***ng war. Not to mention the fact that Russia, too, was headed by a brutal dictator that had already slaughtered even his own people by millions.


Oh but I'd have no problem in bashing both the Americans and the Russians. But it's the Americans who think they were cleaner than the rest, while they were obviously not.

Stalin was a tyrant, but he didn't kill "millions" of his own people, certainly not in the 1930s. He eliminated political opponents by the hundreds, not by the millions. I agree, he was a madman. But still a madman who destroyed a bigger madman - for which he must be credited.
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Unread postby gnm » Mon 09 May 2005, 12:32:42

You are incorrect Lorenzo- Stalin wasn't merely a tyrant - he was a butcher.
and YES he DID kill millions.

edited to add another source and this little quote:
SOVIET 39 500 000: To view this double standard from another perspective, both World Wars cost twenty-four million battle deaths. But from 1918 to 1953, the Soviet government executed, slaughtered, starved, beat or tortured to death, or otherwise killed 39,500,000 of its own people (my best estimate among figures ranging from a minimum of twenty million killed by Stalin to a total over the whole communist period of eighty-three million). link
Last edited by gnm on Mon 09 May 2005, 12:37:02, edited 2 times in total.
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Unread postby julianj » Mon 09 May 2005, 12:34:12

Whoa!!! I've seen the light. Lorenzo's converted me!!! I renounce my anglo-saxon status, I shall join the Catholic Church wearing my 'Joe Stalin never killed Millions of his people' tee shirt :)
And they say the standard of debate on this forum is going down. Don't see it myself.
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Unread postby Ebyss » Mon 09 May 2005, 12:54:32

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('lorenzo', 'S')talin was a tyrant, but he didn't kill "millions" of his own people

Obviously you never heard of Stalin's Five Year "everybody dies" Plan [/sarcasm]. Although the exact number of deaths attributed to Stalin is in dispute, it's estimated to be between 8-20 million. Here's the wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalin

A few little facts: $this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')bout one million people were shot during the periods 1935–38, 1942 and 1945–50 and millions of people were transported to Gulag labour camps
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'O')n March 5, 1940, Stalin himself and other Soviet leaders signed the order to execute 25,700 Polish intelligentsia including 14,700 Polish POWs. It became known as Katyn massacre
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'S')hortly before, during and immediately after World War II, Stalin conducted a series of deportations on a huge scale which profoundly affected the ethnic map of the Soviet Union. Over 1.5 million people were deported to Siberia and the Central Asian republics. Separatism, resistance to Soviet rule and collaboration with the invading Germans were cited as the main official reasons for the deportations.
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Unread postby threadbear » Mon 09 May 2005, 13:13:51

Hitler. The American and British fascists won, they just transferred head office to a different continent.
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Unread postby lorenzo » Mon 09 May 2005, 13:54:04

I said Stalin did not kill millions of people in the 1930s. The Great Terror campaign cost thousands of lives, not millions.

Anyway, it's not a question of choosing between Hitler or Stalin if you have General De Gaulle as a third option.
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Unread postby lorenzo » Mon 09 May 2005, 13:55:24

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ebyss', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')bout one million people were shot during the periods 1935–38, 1942 and 1945–50 and millions of people were transported to Gulag labour camps

Indeed, about one million people. Not millions. Thank you.
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Unread postby lorenzo » Mon 09 May 2005, 13:59:05

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('threadbear', 'H')itler. The American and British fascists won, they just transferred head office to a different continent.

If you look at it that way, I'd have to agree, certainly knowing that the USA was the country that generously welcomed more nazis after the war than any other country (besides Argentina).
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Unread postby heyhoser » Mon 09 May 2005, 14:28:46

BTW, I'm refusing to vote on this (for an obvious lack of understanding on Lorenzo's part concerning WWII), so could somebody tell me what the poll is saying? I can't figure out how to 'view results' without actually having to vote.

Thanks.
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Unread postby Ebyss » Mon 09 May 2005, 14:50:09

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('lorenzo', 'I')ndeed, about one million people. Not millions. Thank you.

You didn't read the wiki I posted. I merely took a few quotes, not all. Anyway, here's another few:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'S')talin's regime moved to force collectivisation of agriculture. The theory behind collectivisation was that it would replace the small-scale un-mechanised and inefficient farms with large-scale mechanised farms that would produce food far more efficiently
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')n the first years of collectivisation, agricultural production actually dropped. Stalin blamed this unexpected drop on kulaks (rich peasants), who resisted collectivisation. Therefore those defined as "kulaks", "kulak helpers" and later "ex-kulaks" were to be shot, placed into Gulag labor camps or deported to remote areas of the country, depending on the charge.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'M')any historians agree that the disruption caused by forced collectivisation was largely responsible for major famines which caused up to 5 million deaths in 1932–33, particularly in Ukraine and the lower Volga region.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', ' ')Comparison of the 1926–37 census results suggests 5–10 million deaths in excess of what would be normal in the period, mostly through famine in 1931–34
You said 1930's? Well, there you go.. 5-10 million deaths due to famine caused directly by Stalin's Collectivisation policy.
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Unread postby bruin » Mon 09 May 2005, 15:00:11

Albert Einstein won WWII.
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Unread postby PenultimateManStanding » Mon 09 May 2005, 15:00:22

One has to wonder what makes someone such as lorenzo, presumably of southern European racial stock, conceive such a visceral hatred for the fair skinned blue eyed northerners which is what 'anglo saxon' really means. I'm reminded of that old Lina Wertmuller movie where the ragged and dirty Italians get a glimps of the clean and elegant fair skinned blue eyed blond haired Swiss young people cavorting in a mountain glade. These Swiss looked like gods to the Italians who were clearly nursing feelings of inadequacy and inferiority. Something like this seems to be going on here, why else all the time and energy on lorenzo's part bashing 'anglo-saxons' and nursing his racial animosities?
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Unread postby Tyler_JC » Mon 09 May 2005, 15:09:24

Interesting post PenultimateManStanding, maybe this thread should be moved into the Psychology forum. :P
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Unread postby smiley » Mon 09 May 2005, 15:12:29

I believe the question is about who we should credit. Stalin obviously was a quite horrendous person. However he wasn't fighting in eastern Germany, he wasn't among the hundreds of thousands who lost their life in the streets of Berlin. Those acts where performed by Russian soldiers. They were the ones who made the ultimate sacrifice and we should remember them and honor them, regardless of the cruelty of their leaders.

I think it is also not fair to say who deserved the credit the most. Thousands of Moroccan soldiers died during the liberation of western Europe. Should they deserve less credit than their British, American or Canadian allies, simply because they had a different nationality and their influence was less pronounced? I think not.
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Unread postby lorenzo » Mon 09 May 2005, 18:29:50

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('smiley', 'I') believe the question is about who we should credit.

Stalin obviously was a quite horrendous person. However he wasn't fighting in eastern Germany, he wasn't among the hundreds of thousands who lost their life in the streets of Berlin.

Those acts where performed by Russian soldiers. They were the ones who made the ultimate sacrifice and we should remember them and honor them, regardless of the cruelty of their leaders.

I think it is also not fair to say who deserved the credit the most. Thousands of Moroccan soldiers died during the liberation of western Europe. Should they deserve less credit than their British, American or Canadian allies, simply because they had a different nationality and their influence was less pronounced? I think not.


That's a valid point, but that's a bit like stating the obvious. You can always say that the individual gets precedence over the nation or the political body to which he belongs.

But that's only part of the story. You don't win a war with individuals, you win it on leadership, and with political means. Stalin had the courage to not only destroy the nazis in Russia, but to destroy their grip over Europe. That was a policy choice. Not a mere group of individuals getting together.

So that's the real question: which political actions and choices were decisive during the war. And here, we must urgently revise the role of the Anglosaxons. They came in very late, this lateness bordering on cowardice, while all the while they turned their actions into a mythical discourse on how they liberated Europe.

I've had to hear this so many times, coming from Americans: "if it weren't for us, you'd be speaking German". Well, we now see the truth and it reads: "if it weren't for the Russians, you Americans would now be speaking Japanese. And if it weren't for the Europeans, you Brits would now be singing the Internationale in some Siberian gulag, clapping your Stalinist boots while you salute us."

That's all we really want. That the Anglosaxons stop terrorizing the world with their false readings of history. They deserve credit for what they did. But the credit should be proportional to their actions. Which means: a few pennies, not millions.
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Unread postby erl » Mon 09 May 2005, 19:54:49

I wonder Lorenzo, do you also believe that Hitler never killed any Jews?
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Unread postby ubercynicmeister » Mon 09 May 2005, 20:17:58

In the interests of peace. let me remind you of good ole Pol Pot, supported ably by the Yanks and the Chinese at the same time - he murdered about 45% of Cambodia (then Kampuchea).
HECK, y'mean it's not only Joe Stalin & Adolf & 'Anglo-Saxons' who butcher people?

After all, Pol Pot was a Cambodian (started out as a vegetarian Buddhist Monk, he did...mebbe we should round up all the vegetarians?). Hang on, wasn't Chairman Mao a chinese fellow? And how many did he kill? HMMM, mebbe he wuz a Anglo Saxon, but with plastic surgery.

And then, there's the marvellous Aztecs, a more bloodthirsty lot you could not imagine. (So, you're a male, are you? Got external genitalia? Not after visiting the Aztec Temple, you won't have...where's the blunt knife?) There is not ONE single "people" (or race, or whatever) on Earth that has not spent it's time massacring someone else - with the possible exception of the Tarahumara Indians in N.E Mexico.

Indeed, Hitler's exermination rate was (sadly) exceeded in the massacre in Rwanda, recently. And what hi-tech weaponry did the perpetrators use? Machetes.... You're telling me the Hutu's and Tutsi's are ANGLO-SAXONS? I'm sorry but that is BLATANTLY untrue.
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