On the 65th anniversary of D-Day, is it time to let it go?

[Axis Kast]

But 65 years on, is it time to let go of a WW2-centric world view yet? So much of our politics seems to be based on mentalities formed based on WW2. The irredeemable evil of the Nazi regime has coloured our interactions with other nations; we keep thinking that each hostile nation which fails to meet a certain ethical standard is the new Nazis.

Do you really think the convenient black-and-white, all-or-nothing fallacy originated with the Nazis? Demonizing the enemy has been a commonplace of human struggles the world over since the dawn of time. We call them "Nazis." We could easily call them something else. Blackguards. Barbarians. Savages.

For that matter, the Americans' entire view of the world seems to be heavily influenced by WW2. Their view of their own place in it, their view of certain other nations such as Britain and France, the need to make amends for the Holocaust by supporting Israel, these things all seem frozen in time, as if it were still 1950.

Ironically, European nations' views of the world are no less - and perhaps even more - a product of their own experiences during the Second World War, one outgrowth of which was skepticism about both the utility and moral legitimacy of war-making. Thus, George Bush takes it on the nose for his "aggresssive" posture toward Iran when the Europeans were often ahead of the United States in accusing the Iranians of pursuing a nuclear weapon and cheating on their obligations to the international community.

I find it particularly interesting that you believe the "Holocaust guilt" argument is a major source of American support for Israel today. I have always associated that argument with European support for Israel during its youth. The ultimate shift toward general disgust with Israel appears to have developed as a result of Europe's exposure to terrorist violence, which often prompted a feeling of resentment toward Israel rather than the Arab states; the desire to curry favor with oil suppliers; and Israel's preference for military solutions which are no longer in vogue in Europe.

[Steve]

SiegeTank beat me to the punch, as I recall reading from varying sources that the Canadians were primarily responsible for liberating the Netherlands and that long-standing Dutch-Canadian bonds was the result.

As for the subject at hand, I think some of it is our current moral malaise. Since WWII we've had the Cold War, with Korea and Vietnam and Grenada as part of it, Afghanistan, and the two conflicts with Iraq. Korea resulted in stalemate and disappointment, Vietnam played out as a meaningless war that shattered our confidence and helped rip a gulf in society, the Cold War led to us at times backing dictators and the like in the name of the Truman Doctrine. Desert Shield/Storm was the first time we felt like we were in a genuinely good cause - saving Kuwait from Hussein - but even that became sullied at the end when we didn't march on Baghdad due to geopolitical reasons and when we basically let Hussein go to town on his Shi'ite and Kurd enemies. The invasion of Afghanistan was about justice/revenge for 9/11 and Iraq Round 2 was seen as a way to finish the job Bush the Elder didn't do that backfired on us when the immediate post-invasion period was fumbled horribly and the insurgency began. Every conflict America has waged since World War II has been marred in some way from any claim to moral necessity or purity. World War II, the last great defining moment in US History up to the fall of the Soviet Union, stands alone as a war where we can stand and say "We did the right thing. We fought the right war against an unalloyed, unspeakable evil."

Is it accurate? Abso-friggin'-lutely not. Most of America, until December 7th 1941, was steadfastly against directly fighting this evil. Primarily because, well, nobody believed they were that evil, and the popular conception of 1914-1918 was that America had been tricked into joining the war by the "merchants of death" and the wily British. It was only after we realized that the reports of the death camps weren't propaganda in the vein of WWI tracts about the "evil Huns" that we were able to see that the war had truly been a moral cause. And even then I'm sure Poles and Czechs will be quick to point out to us that they were abandoned post-war to be subjugated by a totalitarian machine every bit as ruthless and murderous as Hitler's.

The problem, really, is the myth. The myth is that America was brought into the war by treacherous attack and quickly rallied and built the greatest force seen in the history of the world to thwart evil across the globe, and that in leadership of the Allies we threw open the gates of the concentration camps and thwarted an attempt at world domination. That we were on the side of angels, in the moral crusade to destroy evil. Part of this may simply come from the euphoria of having liberated people in France, the Low Countries and sections of Asia from clearly evil, barbarous regimes. Part likely comes from the language used by Roosevelt, Churchill, and their admirers to describe the war. Roosevelt, who proclaimed the war a battle to assert freedom globally, to give to all the security of the Four Freedoms. Churchill, who declared the war a crusade to save Western liberty and Christian civilization from Nazi cruelty and Japanese barbarity. Whatever the causes, we in America particularly remember the war as this bright, shining moment when America, starting to find its way out of the darkness of the Great Depression, leaped into battle and forged the most powerful force the world had ever seen to thwart Hitler and Tojo. As a prior poster put it, we got to be the "Big Damn Heroes".

I can say, from personal experience, that this impression can be intoxicating in its power. It appeals to that part of us that believes in manifest good, the little hero in all of us that wants to stand for Truth and Justice. We want to be part of such a thing. We take pride in thinking that we as a people once climbed to such a height. And we look around at our history of the past few decades and see that we have nothing similar to take pride in. All we see is shame, ambiguity, and uncertainty as to the causes we upheld. We hunger for something far more noble than this and so we clasp onto our vision of what WWII was all the more strongly. And thus we continue to perpetuate this myth of what WWII was, and our place in it, to fill the vacuum we, as a people, feel in our collective heart.

Maybe further education would dispel these myths. Maybe it won't. What's important is understanding it is there and striving to make sure the myth does not drown out the truth, as painful or unflattering as it can sometimes be. This we owe to our posterity.

[ray245]

Is it accurate? Abso-friggin'-lutely not. Most of America, until December 7th 1941, was steadfastly against directly fighting this evil. Primarily because, well, nobody believed they were that evil, and the popular conception of 1914-1918 was that America had been tricked into joining the war by the "merchants of death" and the wily British. It was only after we realized that the reports of the death camps weren't propaganda in the vein of WWI tracts about the "evil Huns" that we were able to see that the war had truly been a moral cause. And even then I'm sure Poles and Czechs will be quick to point out to us that they were abandoned post-war to be subjugated by a totalitarian machine every bit as ruthless and murderous as Hitler's.

Are you really comparing the soviets to Hitler?

[Steve]

They did kill a comparable amount of people. The mechanisms were different; a Soviet gulag wasn't a Nazi death camp after all. But ultimately both regimes were about ruling people through terror via the monopoly of power in the State.

[ray245]

They did kill a comparable amount of people. The mechanisms were different; a Soviet gulag wasn't a Nazi death camp after all. But ultimately both regimes were about ruling people through terror via the monopoly of power in the State.

Just wondering if any statics to back up those claims? From what I understand from Stas Bush, this isn't the case.

[MKSheppard]

The problem, really, is the myth. The myth is that America was brought into the war by treacherous attack and quickly rallied and built the greatest force seen in the history of the world to thwart evil across the globe, and that in leadership of the Allies we threw open the gates of the concentration camps and thwarted an attempt at world domination. That we were on the side of angels, in the moral crusade to destroy evil.

You need to get your eyes checked. I'm not seeing any myth here.

[Patrick Degan]

They did kill a comparable amount of people. The mechanisms were different; a Soviet gulag wasn't a Nazi death camp after all. But ultimately both regimes were about ruling people through terror via the monopoly of power in the State.

And that view is even more simplistic than the one you're condemning about the view of World War II. Because the comparison between the Nazis and the Soviets is not about bodycount.

The Stalin regime racked up a huge death toll over decades. The Nazis, however, in six years made the practise of genocide into a scientific and industrial enterprise; almost tried making it into an artform. Their victims were specifically targeted on the basis of racial and religious ideology and, once tagged, subjected to a process which not only steadily stripped them of their humanity before the killing but was specifically designed to extract the maximum economic value from each prisoner before their usefulness was finally expended. Every aspect of the subject was catalogued for material value: expense per prisoner per day per camp, value of all personal property confiscated from each prisoner, value of the gold in the teeth, amounts of hair and body fat that could be recycled into useful material, which subjects were suitable for slave-labour and which were better suited for experiments of the most vile and hideous "research" into the limits of human endurance and all of it conducted quite clinically. Methods of more efficient killing were researched even as the effort was being executed. It was not only extermination which was the object but also to render a profit in the process. Genocide, Inc. —run by the SS as an empire within an empire. Some of the finest minds of Nazi engineering and industrial management were tapped to bring this enterprise into full, hideous flower, and to carry it out to the fullest extent practicable even as Nazi Germany was going down to defeat. The extermination project was always more important than the war.

Against that, in terms of sheer evil, the Soviets don't even rate.

[Steve]

I concede the point that the Nazis were more evil than the Soviets. I do not concede my position that the Czechs and Poles have every reason to have felt betrayed yet again by the West for being left to Stalin's "mercy".

To Shep, you say it's not a myth. But consider for a moment that as moral as the cause of the Allies is considered, before December 7th most Americans were against going to war. Isolationist groups were superbly powerful (one holding a rally on the fated Sunday even booed a Colonel who stood to inform them of the Pearl Harbor attack, accusing him of being a liar, and one of the leading isolationists grumbled about the "convenience" of the attack) and most Americans believed the war was not our fight.

Oh sure, once in the war we proclaimed our cause the moral one and talked about fighting for freedom, but before Japan dragged us kicking and screaming into the war we were perfectly content to sit out this grand crusade of freedom and let the British Commonwealth (and the Soviet Union) do all the fighting and dying.

We proclaim now that we were on the side of angels and deserve full credit for the glorious triumph of Good over Evil, but from a more central POV we were a bunch of fools who refused to fight until we were forced to because of our hurt feelings over the outcome of the last World War, then suddenly decided that we were the reason the war was won on the side of Good. More practically, I simply think we were the reason the Red Army didn't reach the Pyrenees and Brittany.

Do we deserve credit for where we helped win the war against Hitler and the Japanese Empire? Yes, emphatically yes. But we also deserve to take criticism for where our own moral failings and arrogance, perhaps even a measure of cowardice, kept us from joining the fight before the Japanese brought us into it.

[Uraniun235]

I think it's a bit harsh to cast the American public as fools for being reluctant to trust the government and not being enthusiastic about joining WW2, considering how grossly they had been bullied and lied to about WW1.

[Steve]

Maybe, but we can't have our cake and eat it too. If WWII was a grand crusade to free the world from Hitler and Tojo, then we deserve some criticism for refusing to get involved until we were dragged into it.

[MKSheppard]

at steve's long winded screed.

The Red Army would never have reached as far or as fast as it did in 1944-45 if it wasn't for the 433,967 trucks of all types we gave them.

Here's a hint: that's TWICE the amount that the Soviets produced during the entire war.

Another hint:

USAAF Aircraft inventory:
31 July 1939: 2,402 aircraft (16 heavy bombers and 494 fighters)
30 August 1945: 63,715 aircraft (2,865 very heavy bombers, 11,000 Heavy bombers, and 16,799 fighters)

By the way, the luftwaffe's total peak a/c strength was in 1944; and was a mere 4,928 machines.

Additionally, WWII (at least in Europe) would have ended a whole year earlier if it hadn't been for the British fucking about with their "prick the Hun at the periphery of Europe" insanity. The US wanted to simply go in and invade France at the first chance it had, and a 1943 invasion would have been slaughter on the germans -- while the Luftwaffe is still a threat to be reckoned with, the rapid attrition over the battlefield will ruin them; and the M4 Sherman is king of the battlefield, since Panthers are in very limited prototype numbers.

[Patrick Degan]

Maybe, but we can't have our cake and eat it too. If WWII was a grand crusade to free the world from Hitler and Tojo, then we deserve some criticism for refusing to get involved until we were dragged into it.

Well, you can blame one Thomas Woodrow Wilson for the public's reluctance to get into the fight. The FDR administration and Congress, however, weren't so isolationist: passing the Neutrality Act of 1937 with the "cash-and-carry" loophole, then later repealing the Neutrality Act altogether, passing Lend-Lease, and the beginnings in 1938 of the military buildup which brought forth the war machine which crushed the Axis on two sides of the globe —that didn't happen overnight or even in two years. Plus, we were already convoying war materiel across the Atlantic to Britain in 1941 and our destroyers had shoot-on-contact orders against German U-Boats. So we were hardly uninvolved in the run-up to war.

[The Yosemite Bear]

you know I was having an arguement with Fundyboy at work about WWI the other day. He brought out the usual French Bashing, Germans were eeeeevil incarnate, and were going to dominate the US if the US hadn't joined the game (in the last year), so on.

I looked at him, and said "Do you know ANYTHING about what WWI was about? You do realize that the US supplied both sides with weapons, food, and oil, We invented the desiel/electric Sub, and did other things and came within two votes of declaring war on England & France as well for their attacks on our merchant ships heading to Germany and Turkey."

[Steve]

Yeah, I'm aware of Roosevelt trying to get involved as much as possible despite the isolationist sentiment, Patrick.


Hey, Shep, did I say anything about the US being removed from the equation completely in the "Red Army gets to Brittany" remark? I was presuming the more logical idea of the US not joining the war but still giving out Lend-Lease aid, which means the Soviets still get motorized thanks to the US auto industry.

It was a bit of dramatic license in that, realistically, I'm sure the Brits would try to get back on the Continent if the Soviets were pushing past the Elbe and into western Germany. Churchill wasn't Roosevelt with some rose-tinted view of the Soviets as future partners in a peaceful international security arrangement. I'm just not sure they had the manpower to do much unless the Germans let them by throwing everything they have east at the Soviets.

Also I'm not sure that Roundup going off in 1943 would've had a better result than Overlord. Yes, the Germans don't have the Panther in appreciative quantities yet and the Sherman's a better match for the existant PzIIIs and PzIVs. OTOH, Kasserine Pass proved that the US Army had a lot to learn about fighting the Germans. OTOH, I do grant that the British infatuation with peripheral attacks proved a colossal waste of time and manpower. It's one thing to secure southernmost Italy as part of the Italian armistice and to push up the peninsula as far as could be done, but to continue to waste lives and materials in fucked up operations.....

Then again, the Anzio debacle might be a necessary lesson for the Allies when it comes to amphibious operations against the Germans.

[Steve]

Maybe, but we can't have our cake and eat it too. If WWII was a grand crusade to free the world from Hitler and Tojo, then we deserve some criticism for refusing to get involved until we were dragged into it.

Well, you can blame one Thomas Woodrow Wilson for the public's reluctance to get into the fight. The FDR administration and Congress, however, weren't so isolationist: passing the Neutrality Act of 1937 with the "cash-and-carry" loophole, then later repealing the Neutrality Act altogether, passing Lend-Lease, and the beginnings in 1938 of the military buildup which brought forth the war machine which crushed the Axis on two sides of the globe —that didn't happen overnight or even in two years. Plus, we were already convoying war materiel across the Atlantic to Britain in 1941 and our destroyers had shoot-on-contact orders against German U-Boats. So we were hardly uninvolved in the run-up to war.

Oh, don't get me started on Wilson. Don't get me God damned started. Reading the history books you'd think Wilson was some great and noble President who was betrayed by cynical Europeans and vicious isolationist Republicans. That man is one of the most overestimated, overhyped "great Presidents" in American history. At least Andrew Jackson has the Nullification Crisis as a positive point to his Presidency. "Wilson the Just" indeed. *spits*

[K. A. Pital]

Ouch... what a discussion!

The Red Army would never have reached as far or as fast as it did in 1944-45 if it wasn't for the 433,967 trucks of all types we gave them.

Here's a hint: that's TWICE the amount that the Soviets produced during the entire war.

A small correction (not to undermine the importance of automotive lend-lease, but to correct a faulty comparison: wartime production is not everything there is - the pre-war stock of automobiles is also very important (and it was also a greater source of automobile input into the Army). Production of the lend-leased stuff fell to very low levels in the USSR as usual (trains, phone wire for example), however that does not mean most of the material the USSR used in the war was from the LL - on the contrary, most of it was from pre-war stocks.

More practically, I simply think we were the reason the Red Army didn't reach the Pyrenees and Brittany.

Shep already dealt with that. Think about it that way - everything before the meeting on the Elbe did more to further the Red Army's advance than it ever did to hinder it. Almost everything (excluding the North African and Italian detours which were really irrelevant in the grand scheme).

As for trying to compare the Allies to the Nazis and "letting go" of the moral superiority view of the war - how is that possible? The Nazis wanted to cleanse out territories on such a scale and with such industrial enthusiasm that you won't find anywhere in recent history. Nothing the Allies did in the past or during the war comes even remotely comparable to that. How did it happen that dead Allied civilans outnumber the dead Axis civilians several times over? And not just several times over: the difference would probably be of an order or close to that. Think about it when you think the official view of the war is a "myth". That myth is closer to reality than any other war description in recent history, because the consequences of Nazi rule in Europe and Eastern Europe would be hard to grasp even in a hundred of years. We should be thankful it didn't happen.

The Nazi regime was never about "ruling people" - it was about exterminating people massively to let the "Aryans" inherit the land. That's not a rule of terror. That is not a political goal, but a demographic one. It's not surprising that the Germans always stressed the racial and demographic approach; they did not deal with "nationstates", but only with nations and their territories.

Of course, looking at every war like World War II is stupid and shoudl never have happened in the first place; but that is a poor excuse to "rewrite" the history of World War II as one sees fit for the new political goals.

[Steve]

I'm not saying that it wasn't a good cause or even that the belief of WWII as a moral war to destroy ultimate evil is a "myth", I'm saying that there's a particularly American view of WWII that is mythic and simplistic and has resulted in our continual attention to it because we haven't been able to find a cause quite like that again. Every time we use military force in a situation that proves more gray than WWII was, it makes us long for the moral clarity of our cause in WWII, and that IMHO feeds America's continued attention to WWII even as the world moves onward and further from the conflict.

[K. A. Pital]

Who moves further away? Nations which weren't really touched by World War II.

Russia? Never moved, and will never move. Germany? Not really; their whole nationstate comes out of WWII political decisions, most importanly denazification. China? Japan? Um... no. Maybe the former Soviet republics? Definetely no - some even have a resurgence of pro-Nazi movements and virulently nationalistic politicians rising in their parliaments.

World War II is a defining moment in the history of the world; only those who were remote or didn't truly face perspective of destruction in that war could really "move away". Actually, America probably could move away, but it's role in World War II was quite important.

Legacy of World War II is actually very important to the current political order, from the decisions in the Middle East to the fall of British Empire, Japanese Empire and the rise of the Second World. Almost every major foreign political development in the greater powers today is linked to World War II, including the old animosities and likewise old alliances.

[Steve]

I agree that we're not the only country that still thinks of the war, but I think it's the way we think about it that's in discussion, and I was making my point about that in conjunction with the OP and Mike's question about if it's "time to let it go".

I suspect there are some people who might never really let it go. The Jews, for obvious reasons, aren't going to easily forget a war that was fought in part because the people who started it wanted to grind them into the dust and exterminate them. Poles are unlikely to forget it given how badly Poland was worked over, though they've proven willing to try and move on (IIRC they've become one of Germany's leading trading partners and a veritable ally). Russia will take a long while to forget it for obvious reasons.

Some countries in Western Europe are moving on from it now, but that's because the memories of the Nazi Occupation are fading and they have little reason to want to remember it - they were overrun quite swiftly after all, and a number of those countries have varying legacies of shameful collaboration by various factions and parties.

Ultimately I think there's a difference between recognizing the lingering effects of the Second World War on our world - geopolitically, socially, demographically, etc. - and dwelling upon the war. Americans think about it a lot because, for us, it was this glorious conflict where we came, we saw, and we kicked bad guy ass to make the world safe for democracy and open the gates of the concentration camps, and we cling to this image, this memory, because our more recent efforts to make the world safe for democracy or to kick bad guy ass haven't turned out so well.

[Darth Hoth]

I agree with mike. WW2 and D-day really do color the worldview of some Americans, but As much as we need to let the WW2 mentality go, we also need to better educate ourselves about the reality of that war. Modern America's viewpoint of World War 2 is one of the British appeasing, the French surrendering, the Russians loosing, and RAR TEAM AMERICA coming in to save everyones collective asses. This couldn't be further from the truth. The U.S. involvement with WW2 certainly sped up the defeat of the Axis, but the war would have been won without our aid.

Defining "American aid" how? Are you counting only armed intervention? It is doubtful that Britain could have held out for as long as it did without American aid, and it certainly would not have been able to make the same contribution. How much lesser would the impact from strategic bombing be without American bombers and escorts? The Soviets, likewise, though to a lesser extent; their production peaked in 1943/44, and then they benefited from Lend-Lease. The majority of their avgas was imported, for one thing (Shep can probably give exact figures, if they are needed); leaving that out alone should make a noticeable impact.

It is probable that Germany would eventually have been defeated, as in not being able to fulfil its grandiose and unrealistic war aims. But it would most certainly not be the "auto-win" from overwhelming power that it essentially was after America became involved, and might well include a separate peace between Germany and an overstretched Soviet Union, with the imaginably horrible consequences for European recovery. At the very least, the war would be that much longer and more destructive to everyone.

Hmmm, could you give examples of what you are talking about? I was racking my brain, but all the older sci-fi I can remember generally involved a one or at most a handful of main characters going on a mission of some sort, I can't think of any big battle stories I have read beyond some WH40k books, and I think that falls under "modern sci-fi authors".

The origional Star Trek, Heinland, etc.

Heinlein, assuming that it was him that you were talking about, was not a combat veteran as far as I know. Although of course, he did military service.

[Darth Hoth]

The Stalin regime racked up a huge death toll over decades. The Nazis, however, in six years made the practise of genocide into a scientific and industrial enterprise; almost tried making it into an artform. Their victims were specifically targeted on the basis of racial and religious ideology and, once tagged, subjected to a process which not only steadily stripped them of their humanity before the killing but was specifically designed to extract the maximum economic value from each prisoner before their usefulness was finally expended. Every aspect of the subject was catalogued for material value: expense per prisoner per day per camp, value of all personal property confiscated from each prisoner, value of the gold in the teeth, amounts of hair and body fat that could be recycled into useful material, which subjects were suitable for slave-labour and which were better suited for experiments of the most vile and hideous "research" into the limits of human endurance and all of it conducted quite clinically. Methods of more efficient killing were researched even as the effort was being executed. It was not only extermination which was the object but also to render a profit in the process. Genocide, Inc. —run by the SS as an empire within an empire. Some of the finest minds of Nazi engineering and industrial management were tapped to bring this enterprise into full, hideous flower, and to carry it out to the fullest extent practicable even as Nazi Germany was going down to defeat. The extermination project was always more important than the war.

While I would not disagree with your overall point, I do believe that there is some amount of exaggeration there. The Intentionalist school in Holocaust studies has generally been discredited; there was no one grand "Master Plan of Evil" for carrying out the Judaeocide that was decided on in 1939, minutely directed and supervised from the highest echelons of command. Rather, the shift to genocidal policy was gradual and relied to a large extent on improvisation. There were also several inherently conflicting aims within its various branches (for example, exploitation vis extermination). The "system" as such was only developed as and when it was needed, and continued to mutate as it went along.

As for trying to compare the Allies to the Nazis and "letting go" of the moral superiority view of the war - how is that possible?

I thought he was comparing the Soviets to the National-Socialists . . .

The Nazi regime was never about "ruling people" - it was about exterminating people massively to let the "Aryans" inherit the land. That's not a rule of terror. That is not a political goal, but a demographic one. It's not surprising that the Germans always stressed the racial and demographic approach; they did not deal with "nationstates", but only with nations and their territories.

Depending on what plans one looks at, some preferred to talk about "resettlement", simply expelling non-"Aryan" Slavs (Aryan used in Nazi pseudo-scientific racialist context, hence scare quotes; the Slavic languages belong to the Indo-Aryan group, of course) further eastwards beyond the conquered territories. One may also question the feasibility of Generalplan Ost, in its various incarnations; experiences might show that there would likely be a larger degree of assimilation than predicted. Of course, the consequences would still be horrifying, even once diluted by practical reality.

[CJvR]

The Nazis and the Soviets had far more in common than either of their supporters are comfortable in admitting. There were some differences as well, the communists were intent on a revolutionary reorganization of Russia while the Nazis were content with reforming what existed in Germany. Also while the Nazi genocide on the Jews effectively was carried out in about three years the longer reign of the Soviet communists tends to even out their own horrible peaks over longer periods. If Stalin hadn't died when he did the Soviets and Nazis might even had had a Jewish holocaust each in common since Stalin was busy planning his own solution to the Jewish problem.

[ray245]

The Nazis and the Soviets had far more in common than either of their supporters are comfortable in admitting. There were some differences as well, the communists were intent on a revolutionary reorganization of Russia while the Nazis were content with reforming what existed in Germany. Also while the Nazi genocide on the Jews effectively was carried out in about three years the longer reign of the Soviet communists tends to even out their own horrible peaks over longer periods. If Stalin hadn't died when he did the Soviets and Nazis might even had had a Jewish holocaust each in common since Stalin was busy planning his own solution to the Jewish problem.

Source or any sort of evidence to back up your claims?

[Darth Hoth]

Yes, sorry, but this is stupid in the extreme. Now, my view of the Soviets (and present-day Russia, for that matter) is considerably dimmer than that of most people around here, but the notion that Stalin was planning a Judaeocide to rival that of Hitler is grounded in ignorance and propaganda. Persecution, perhaps, after the "Doctors' Plot", but not organised, ideologically fuelled genocide on a grand scale.

National Socialism and Communism have in common that they are both revolutionary, totalitarian movements that desire major social transformations and are prepared to use appalling methods in producing them. The exact aims they have are, however, different, and most would argue that those of Communism are less dangerous to the public welfare.

[CmdrWilkens]

I do not wish to devalue or undermine the courage and sacrifice of the brave Allied soldiers who threw themselves into the meat grinder against the Nazis 65 years ago. They should always be remembered with the gratitude that they deserved.

But 65 years on, is it time to let go of a WW2-centric world view yet? So much of our politics seems to be based on mentalities formed based on WW2. The irredeemable evil of the Nazi regime has coloured our interactions with other nations; we keep thinking that each hostile nation which fails to meet a certain ethical standard is the new Nazis.

For that matter, the Americans' entire view of the world seems to be heavily influenced by WW2. Their view of their own place in it, their view of certain other nations such as Britain and France, the need to make amends for the Holocaust by supporting Israel, these things all seem frozen in time, as if it were still 1950.

There are two sides to this equation, and I wanted to go back to the OP because I think its worth bringing the discussion back to the point, the first being whether its time to let go of the WWII centric view but the second, and perhaps more critical, is whether that view is correct to begin with.

On the first count I don't think letting go of the WWII view is worthwhile as, and Stas made the point well a few posts above, that it still defines huge swaths of Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Southeast Asia. The relationship between conqueror, liberator, opressor, whoever as the battle lines shifted still informs and sets the basis for what we think of as the modern geopolitical world. Everything from the modern tensions in the Balkans to the rise of the various nations which once made up French Indo-China and the involvement of the US and the USSR in those same nations has roots (not total cause but roots) in the conduct and conclusion of WWII.

On the second count I think the US has a ways to go in changing HOW we teach and learn from WWII. While any decent post-secondary course will treat the entirety of the war period (usually 1935ish) the secondary education curicula does gloss over so much in the process of making the war seem very US centric. I think the attitude of "WE Saved the World" stems from the heavily US-centric way it is taught to middle and high schoolers. If you actually gave kids to understanding that the US was one cog in a giant wheel that on a couple occasions came very damn close to not turning, then you would have a better informed public who could draw better lssons from WWII.