Was World War II Worth It?

[gmc]

Originally Posted by pbobryk

i think your a missing the point here .its true that wwi was still fresh memory but westen powers such as Britain or France had noillusions especially after anexation of Czechslovakia by Hitler.

I don't miss your point I happen to think it's a bit simplistic. Most europeans did not want another war and there would have been little support for invading Germany and another war. You might as well say if the league had stood up to Mussolini when he invaded Ethiopia, or taken sides in the Spanish Civil war. If America hadn't had an oil embargo on japan mabe they wouldn't have attacked at pearl harbour. Or if the western powers had stopped Japan invading China.

You can go on and on but you are not talking about a chess game that could have been won with different moves, it's not that simple. Bolshevism was viewed as being a major threat, more so than Nazism. Germany seemed likely to go the same way with Hitler coming along as a saviour to save germany from the bolsheviks.

Why did the Czechs not put up a fight when Hitler annexed them or refuse to comply with the sudetenland was handed over? One of the reasons they got Sudetenland was to give them a strong frontier but they stood back and let them walk in unopposed. Yes they were sold down the river but they didn't have to take it they could have fought but didn't. They had a strong enopugh army in moutainous terrain to make it difficult forr the germans.

[pbobryk]

The member countries were not communist by choice citizens of those countries did oppsed the regimes installed by soviets. as every one know the communist idology controled all aspects of life. so people who lived under communism were in fact eslaved against their own will

[gmc]

Originally Posted by Jives

Hitler was only a couple of months behind the U.S. in the production of nuclear weapons. If a group of commandos had not sunk his supply of heavy water into a fjord, he would have completed them before the U.S. in fact.

With his V2 rockets and nuclear weapons, he would have quickly subdued the world.

Next would have come his extermination of everyone non-aryan.

It was worth it....oh yes....completely, unequivocably worth it. And if your hair is not blonde, and your eyes are not blue, then you should thank the Lord that World War Two was fought and won because otherwise, you and your entire family....

would not exist.

Very well put. You tend to forget that aspect and how desperate things really were for a time.

[Scrat]

Hitler was only a couple of months behind the U.S. in the production of nuclear weapons. If a group of commandos had not sunk his supply of heavy water into a fjord, he would have completed them before the U.S. in fact.

With his V2 rockets and nuclear weapons, he would have quickly subdued the world.

Next would have come his extermination of everyone non-aryan.

It was worth it....oh yes....completely, unequivocably worth it. And if your hair is not blonde, and your eyes are not blue, then you should thank the Lord that World War Two was fought and won because otherwise, you and your entire family....

would not exist.

Talk about exaggeration. The Nazis did not intend to destroy everyone in the world, merely make a upperclass out of the Aryan peoples to rule the world and all of its people.

As a teacher Jives you should think more critically instead of repeating what is essentially hype and propaganda. If the Aryans destroyed all of the other races who would they have to rule over?

The objective (with exceptions) was to lead, not to exterminate everyone non-Aryan. Much like what America is doing now, "leading the world" or so it is said.

[Scrat]

The member countries were not communist by choice citizens of those countries did oppsed the regimes installed by soviets. as every one know the communist idology controled all aspects of life. so people who lived under communism were in fact eslaved against their own will

So you are speaking for all of the people that were in all of the countries? I am quite sure that the elites and aristocrats of the occupied countries were (and their descendants are) very much anti communist considering that they lost all of their power and most of their wealth. I know this to be a fact in Romania and other places. The peasants benefitted in many ways from the presence of the Soviet Union as did the rest of the common people.

I do not think that after WWII that if the Soviets had left the lot of everyday people in the Warsaw pact would have improved significantly. I certainly know that the peoples lot has not improved since they left.

[gmc]

posted by scrat

Talk about exaggeration. The Nazis did not intend to destroy everyone in the world, merely make a upperclass out of the Aryan peoples to rule the world and all of its people.

On the way to achieve that wipe out anyone not racially pure and enslave what was left of the lesser races. Perhaps you think the lesser races should have accepted their fate because the nazia weren't that bad after all.

Believing that your particular race or culture is somehow morally superior and should therefore rule is not exactly a rational belief. Unless of course you think muslim fundamentalists, and perhaps also the more extreme of their christian equivalent, are rational and just want to rule the world and make an upperclass to rule over their infidel brethern for their own good making the best of all possible worlds.

posted by scrat

As a teacher Jives you should think more critically instead of repeating what is essentially hype and propaganda. If the Aryans destroyed all of the other races who would they have to rule over?

The germans sent between 8,000 to 9,000 V1 rockets in to southern England and about 1,000 V2 weapons were dropped as well-yes the UK has the dubious distinction of being the first victim of ballistic missile attack in history, luckily they only contained conventional explosives. If you seriously believe that Hitler wouldn't have used nuclear weapons if he had them then I would suggest you are kidding yourself.

They recently found the wreck of the ferry sunk by those Norwegian commandos-despite what you may think the hollywood film was actually based on a true story there just weren't any americans involved in the actual event. The containers DID contain heavy water. Hitler was close to having nuclear weapons. You seem to assume he was still rational and would have just dropped a couple to persuade people to give in.

Of course compared to Stalin, Hitler was not so good at killing his own people although I do now wonder if you are suggesting that dear old uncle Joe is just the victim of a bad press. I suppose the hungarian upprising in 1957 and in Czechoslovakia in 1968 were the ungrateful people of the soviet bloc just being a nuisance and the existence of the Gulags were a myth made up by malcontents and were really just rest homes for disenchanted.

posted by scrat

The objective (with exceptions) was to lead, not to exterminate everyone non-Aryan. Much like what America is doing now, "leading the world" or so it is said.

What is fascinating about the nazis is how a small group with extreme views can take control of a political system and use it for their own ends and in the pocess convince everyone that opposing or criticising is somepow unpatriotic and almost treasonous. But while there is a great deal of American foregn policy I heartily disapprove of-the EEC and WTO as well come to that-but it is a heck of a stretch to compare GW with Hitler.

[Scrat]

Back later, no time now.

[Scrat]

The containers DID contain heavy water. Hitler was close to having nuclear weapons. You seem to assume he was still rational and would have just dropped a couple to persuade people to give in.

I remember watching or reading something about the heavy water program the Nazis used. Apparently they were going down the wrong path and there was another more efficient method of making the bomb which we used followed by the Soviets.

I have no doubt he would have used it had he had it. Especially on Russia who turned the tide of the war in late 1942.

Of course compared to Stalin, Hitler was not so good at killing his own people although I do now wonder if you are suggesting that dear old uncle Joe is just the victim of a bad press. I suppose the hungarian upprising in 1957 and in Czechoslovakia in 1968 were the ungrateful people of the soviet bloc just being a nuisance and the existence of the Gulags were a myth made up by malcontents and were really just rest homes for disenchanted.

First off what does the term "Gulags" mean? Since you don't know what it means or how to use it in a sentence it simply tells me that all you have to go on is what you have had fed to you in the western media.

There are many things laid at the feet of Uncle Joe that to me, are suspect. The question of the Kulaks for instance .

"Kulak" is the Russian word for "fist". I really wonder why they got that name. Could it have been something to do with the methods used to aquire the lands from the wives of soldiers that died in WWI?

Of course if the paper has a signature on it that's all that matters correct? How that signature was gotten and whether or not it was signed in blood or ink isn't relevant is it?

I think the Kulaks got what they deserved. I won't fault Uncle Joe and company for putting a pack of greedy thieving animals in their place. Or tossing them out of it.

As for the uprisings in 57 and 68 I sympathize with the people.

Unfortunately due to the fact that Russia felt that it could not trust the west not to attack it again as had happened in WWII independance for these countries was out of the question.
It took the will of Europe as almost a whole to throw off the enslavement of both the Soviet Union and the USA.

Pbobryk said the Soviets enslaved these countries, in a way he is correct. I think a better way to say it would be to say they were used as a shield against their will. I think it would be foolish and naieve to think that America would have treated the people any better if the roles were reversed.

[randall]

randall here,
As someone who was both bombed and machine gunned. albeit randomly, as a child, and as a surviver, I have no other choice than say that WWII was well worth it
It is said that the great empires of pre 1914 sleep walked into a needless war - which also started in the Balkans (A coincidence?) . Most of our politicians had been on the front lines of the western, middle eastern fronts themselves during WWII and they and the public were very reluctant to get involved in another bloodbath.
Many of the young men who flew the Hurricanes and Spitfires in the Battle of Britain had actually, a few years previous, voted that they would not support the government in another war and would all refuse to fight.
Britain practically lost a generation in each war and it said that, statistically, we have never made it up yet.
My mother used to tell us of the long lists of causalities pinned up on the jute mill gates in Dundee, where she worked, and the hundreds of young women turning away heartbroken because they had found out that their husband, sons or boy friends had been killed - many of these women refused EVER to get married after that.
My mother refused to allow me to join the Boy Scouts, the Air Scouts, Sea Cadets, etc. twenty years later and would not allow my father to join the Royal Naval Reserve. In her mind they were ALL related to the military!
Both my father and my sister served in the Royal Navy during WWII and survived.
Even the GREAT Eisenhower just could not understand that every man woman and child in Britain was engaged in war work of some sort and simply could not comprehend that we had no more fighting men to produce when he asked for them.
He was blinkered by the practically unlimited supply of young innocent boys from the USA.
When one of our torpedo experts went to San Diego to examine torpedoes that had been captured intact by the US Forces.
The commander told him he could not understand his fascination with them.
"They sank two of our biggest fighting ship, the "Prince of Wales" and the "Repulse" off Singapore from a range of over sixteen miles. That cost us two valuable ships and thousands of seamen. We have never sen torpedoes with such a range. They were dropped by Japanese torpedo bombers outside the range of even these ships big guns.""
"So what," Came the reply. "You can always build new ships and call up more men,"
"We have neither the capacity to built two ships such as those quickly and there are no more men left to call up."
The US naval officer literally called him a liar.
That gap in understanding has never been closed between our two nations and I doubt if it ever will going on my own experience of many visits to the US in the past ten years.
Only today the British authorities are threatening to pull out of the Joint Stealth Fighter venture with the USA because they refuse to share secret information with Britain.
Even during the war the US demanded to know every secret we had because they had so much resources that they were engaged in almost every area of known and possible research but on the other hand they only told us what we "NEEDED TO KNOW" depending upon what research we were doing.
This "Need to Know" has bee a very big thorn in the flesh in our inter national relations.
And it is still being twisted with that film about the German coding machine being captured off a German submarine which was sinking at very grave risk of losing his life by a British naval officer - the US has made a film showing that IT WAS THE US NAVY THAT CAPTURED THE MACHINE.
Questions in the house, I say!
All in all, as the Duke of Wellington said, WWII was a close run thing.
God bless.

[Scrat]

I think you are attributing Asian values and effort to America. I think you are mistaken in many ways.

Going to work.