This thread is dedicated to the discussion of all things World War II. If you have a question on the politics, battles, weaponry, just about anything WWII, ask away here. This thread isn't about the promotion of any propaganda but merely an academic discussion. Yes you can discuss about nazi propaganda and the transformation of Germany. Just keep away from stereotyping groups of people and look at things in the context of that time period.

Let me start with this amazing propaganda film from propaganda master Goebbels. The famous Totaller Krieg(Total War) speech that inflamed the National Socialist party and plunged the world into a World War.

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Added on March 22, 2010, 6:41 pmWinston Churchill's Battle of Britain speech.

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Added on March 22, 2010, 6:51 pmA little documentary about the Spanish Civil War which was the prelude to World War II.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7aEG__LZ3g

Essentially a proxy war between the fascists, nationalist socialist party and communists.

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Added on March 22, 2010, 7:08 pmHere are a few iconic photos of WWII.

The raising of the flag over Mount Suribachi at Iwo Jima


The day which will live in infamy(Pearl Harbour)


A famous photo of a Russian soldier raising the Soviet flag over the Reichstag after that Battle of Berlin


This photo was identified as a doctored image much later:



An MG42 gunner(German soldier) possibly taken in the Eastern Front campaigns.

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Added on March 22, 2010, 8:00 pm



Source: http://www.stevenlehrer.com/paris.htm

This post has been edited by frags: Jun 4 2010, 09:33 PM

i love hitler for his character but not his actions

I seriously think Pearl Harbour is a conspiracy.
Intended to allow fellow AM3R1CAN0s to allow them to go to war with their allies.

I think they actually could've avoided it but...

I always see that Western Front has the most attention, I blame it on media.

Eastern Front (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Front_(World_War_II))

EF features some of the brutal battles and few mistakes made by both Hitler and Stalin. However I can't help but feel amazed how the Soviet beat back the Blitzkrieg from the Krauts parked their army right in front of Moscow's door step in winter all the way to Berlin to end the war.

North Africa Campaign (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_African_Campaign)

Another lesser known campaign that pit British Commonwealth against the Afrika Corps.

Last but not least.

Pacific Campaign (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_campaign)

With US leading against the Imperial Japan. BTW HBO new mini series The Pacific, brought to you by makers of Band of Brothers, is now airing, currently on part 2.

The raising of the flag over Mount Suribachi at Iwo Jima

^ this should be the "fake" flag raising event. The real flag raisers were off deeper into the island killing each other by now. The new recruits raised this backup flag and kept the real one.

how to avoid the war, Japan will be attacking other US target just three day later when the offensive in south east asia started.

The eastern front also featured the largest tank battle ever(I can't verify this though), Battle of Kursk.

German : 435,000 men
3,155 tanks
9,966 guns and mortars
2,110 aircraft

Russians: 1,087,500 men
3,275 tanks
25,013 guns and mortars
2,792 aircraft

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kursk

On the Russian strategy, they employed encirclement. Superior logistics, mobility to encircle and cut off German supply lines. The most famous and brutal demonstration of this was the Stalingrad battle in which they starved the Germans out.


German Infantry men and a Tiger I tank.

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Added on March 22, 2010, 10:28 pmYes I think this has been covered well enough. This was the dramatised version. There is the first flag picture floating somewhere in cyberspace. I'll post it up when I have found it.

This post has been edited by frags: Mar 22 2010, 10:45 PM

The eastern front have more impact in turning the tide of the war, Hiltler obsession to gain living space for the master race in the east ultimately cause defeat for germany. and also he chosen the useless italian as his alien in europe, he need to bail out the italian several time.

BTW, The Pacific is awesome

There's the arguments that the entire Pearl Harbor disaster could have been prevented, all the way down to arguments that the disaster was allowed to happen and so forth. But it still does not change the simple fact that the Japanese had been the ones making the attack. Whether the Pearl Harbor disaster as we all know it could have been avoided or not, war would have started anyways.

This is said to be the first raising of the flag over Mt Suribachi



Source : http://www.angelfire.com/ca/dickg/IWO.html

This post has been edited by frags: Mar 22 2010, 10:49 PM

Ah yes Stalingrad. Anyone who is interested in the WW2's turning point, I recommend Antony Beevor's Stalingrad (Published by Penguin). So far I am halfway done, but it features extensive details of the war surrounding Stalingrad.

eastern front the most brutal war

Enemy at the Gates captured the scenes pretty well. Vassili Zaitzev hmm.

In Eastern Front, the so called invincible pan-European army led by the Nazi Germany become defeat-able. Thanks to the ferocity of the Soviet's resistance and counter-attack. Also inactivity of Imperial Japan against Soviet Union.


Hope people don't forget or belittle the role of the Soviet's heroic Red Army....

And also, we shouldn't forget the role Stalin played in the extermination of Polish prisoners of war. All of them murdered on the order of Stalin himself. One of the many atrocities during WWII.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre

Wonder why you bring this up....Any reason? Any motives? The usual steps of trying to negate the contribution of the Soviet Red Army in defeating the Axis? Or you dislike the truth that it was actually the heroic and notorious Soviet Red Army are the deciding factor of the Axis downfall?

Never let atrocities over-shadowed contribution and vice versa. Remember both of them. Soviet Red Army major contribution in defeating the Axis should not be brush a side just because of some atrocities committed by them. American GI also did terrible things but I don't see you post them up here.


Also, a decision of a sadistic man over-shadowed the contribution of the soldiers fighting for their motherland in the battlefront......tragic.

Oh yes of course. But we must also remember all the atrocities. I do plan to post about all the atrocities done, Americans included. Hey they dropped the bomb remember. Sure we must remember the heroic as well as the those that died valiantly or tragically.

That's WWII. And hopefully we learn something from all this. Well we can hope.

PS : Some of the images I might post later might be NSFW, so a fair warning.

Funny you tried to equate a single comment about Stalin's background to the act of attempting to fully negate the contribution of the Soviet Red Army?

Whether you like it or not, Stalin does have his shares of atrocities way before WW2 even started, regardless of the role of the Soviet army in WW2.

It just so happened that Stalin's regarded as the lesser of the 2 evils when compared to Hitler. And in a way, you can also say that Hitler got more attention too because he decided to go WAAAAAARGH! (to borrow the Warhammer 40k Orks expression) first and rampage across Europe.

I hate it when it comes to war and the allies killed some POWs, or innocent civillians they'll just say 'hey, it's war. people die.'

Operation Market Garden

One of the major epic fails of WWII. Bernard Montgomery spurred by his victory against the Desert Fox(Erwin Rommel), oversaw this operation.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Market_Garden


The site below has a really good pictorial account of operation market garden.
http://www.rememberseptember44.com/rs44.htm



This post has been edited by frags: Mar 25 2010, 04:49 PM

Just wonder why frags suddenly post Soviet's atrocities just after I said people should also remember the role of the Soviet Union in WWII instead of remembering only the role of American in WWII. Maybe I've seen and met far too many people that blindly reject the important role of the Soviets and championing how "important and decisive" the American in WWII. So yeah, maybe a hasty and rash respond from me

Hope in this thread, we can get to share the bad and good side of all the nation that struggle in WWII

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Operation Market Garden another parallel failure of German's airborne invasion of Crete.

I think that was what frags did, perhaps it just the timing. I did mention that Stalin and Hitler made alot of mistakes in Eastern Front. As in Stalin's case, ordering his soldier not to react to German's invasion was just epic face palming. He even couldn't trust his source, moreover that time he just finished The Great Purge. The purge also left alot of inexperience officers confused, that was why the German can reach until Moscow's doorstep.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Purge

A little short history of the Nazi Party:







Src: http://www.johndclare.net/Weimar6.htm


Mein Kampf



Src: http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/timeline/kampf2.htm




This post has been edited by frags: Mar 27 2010, 04:47 PM

Good video, frags

Remembering Dunkirk

The Battle Of Dunkirk begined on 26th May 1940 marked the beginning of Hitler's dominance of Europe. The British, French and allied forces having failed to defend France against the Nazi invasion, fell back to the beaches of Dunkirk. There they were seiged by Hitler's forces and rescue boats were attacked by the Luftwaffe. A desperate moment in British history, many civilians joined together with the navy to help bring back the boys.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunkirk_evacuation


The evacuation was spun as a major victory and British propaganda labeled it as the Dunkirk Spirit.




Still the best damn WWII documentary:


Of course this was the time also when Churchill delivered his famous speech 'We shall fight on the beaches'.

This post has been edited by frags: May 27 2010, 04:58 PM

imma just put this here:

The 5 Most Widely Believed WWII Facts (That Are Bullshit)

Pretty obvious stuff. I find it hard to imagine anyone would say any one of those is a fact. Maybe people who are ignorant and have no idea about WWII.

interesting thread
liking it

just watch this movie Days of Glory, interesting movie about the often forgotten french north african troop, the troop from these colony go to france to fight for a country they never seen and receive discriminatory treatment by the french commander. even though they make up large part of the free french force that liberated france.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Days_of_Glory_%282006_film%29

Haha, my favorite site too. That is of course, until people accuse us of falling into the conspiracy trap by the Americans in a form of a comedy web site! LOL!

Wow, surprisingly there's a history thread here esp WWII hahah



Guys, here's an interesting book to recommend for all the history lover =)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C5%82awomir_Rawicz

http://www.amazon.com/Long-Walk-True-Story...m/dp/1558216847


Quick Summary

"A story of one man and his seven companions escaping a Russian work prison and walking to freedom. The book covers their trek of over 3000 miles to India. This book is epic in scope even though it's only 240 pages long. "
Anthony Harris, Resident Scholar



"This story was written by one man who with six other prisoners escaped from a Soviet prison camp in Siberia. They walked thousands of miles to escape through harsh wasteland. Half the group perished."
, Resident Scholar



"The trek from Moscow to the upper India border lasted over eighteen months. Slav and his fellow escapees went through torturous degrees of human degradation. Through help and friendship, the men come together and make it out of the Russian prison camp to freedom. Over three thousand miles and harsh conditions made the going very tough.
These men crossed the Gobi dessert and the Himalayan Mountains and survived the frigid temperatures of the Siberian wilderness. Lice were a major problem to the men. Language barriers in Mongolia and Tibet were cumbersome. Slav and his companions had to rely on the kindness of strangers to provide them with a roof and food sometimes.

In the desert land of the Gobi, they went up to twelve days without drinking water, when they finally found liquid to drink, it was muddy and rancid, giving the men diarrhea. The men were toughened by the amount of grief they went through. "




I read through this article at Discovery Channel Magazine back few issues. Found it quite interesting, then I bought it at Borders Time Square for about rm7x. I don't know whether it's expensive or not as for me it is coz i'm not a regular book buyer.

It's D-DAY!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normandy_landings