64 year anniversary

[MoonWolf]

Originally posted by Dale


Actually, I think it's not so much the fact they attacked Russia, they were winning very decisively in '40 & '41 till a simple little thing like snow occured.

In '40, snow in Poland and the Ukraine stopped supplys getting to army group centre, and consequently they ran out of fuel and ammo 20 kms from the Kremlin. If Moscow had've fallen, the moral damage to Russia's army would've caused Lenningrad's fall (pressed by both the Germans and Fins) allowing Germany to concentrate on Stalingrad. With those big three cities gone, the tank factories near the Urals are next, and after they fall it's a mopup operation till Hitler shook Hirohito's hand in Vladivostok.

So it all came down to early snow in Poland and Ukraine which stopped army group centre.

Dale

Well, if you ask me, there are two major reasons why Nazi-Germany's expansion halted and path was changed from gaining to defeating:

First, they ordered Luftwaffe to attack targets relative deep inside UK and those targets where not military like radars etc. RAF was very close to extermination, but as military installations weren't that hardly attacked, they manage to strengthen up and fight back Luftwaffe. Also, Luftwaffe sent bombers against more inland targets like London, but their fighters didn't have enough fuel to fly this far. The bombers where than an easy much for RAF when it started to get back in business.

Second, you've already mentioned the city, Stalingrad. Hitler really wanted to take this city cause it was STALINgrad. Instead of being more tactical, the one-way focus on taking this city combined with the fact that the German soldiers weren't equipped for the though winter really broke down the army.

Both of these reasons are caused by a hypocritic attitude by the Nazi leaders instead of showing military skills...

[gilfan]

Originally posted by Dis
You'd think Dec 7 would be more important in Europe. And in all fairness, it really isn't that big in the U.S. You won't see more than one paragraph on it in U.S. high school history books. In fact, WW2 wasn't a big feature of them. School books are moving away from the fun stuff like wars, and into boring stuff like politics and supreme court decisions. .

And there's always the conspiracy theory going around that Roosevelt knew of the attack before it happened. That's always fun to discuss. But that would be off-topic.

But I really thought someone would challenge me on my assertation that germany would have lost ww2 without direct U.S. involvement. I do believe this, but it wouldn't have been easy. But attacking the USSR sealed their fate. And it's possible they wouldn't have lost per se. But just ended the war with their orginal territories.

Had I seen this thread earlier, I would have taken you up on that. I agree Germany made a huge mistake in attacking the soviet union as well while already at war on it's western front, and I don't think they could have won, but I don't think their defeat was inevitable by any means. Without direct US involvement, it's certainly possible they could have ended the war in a draw with the soviet union, possibly holding some of their territorial gains in the east, and keeping all their western conquests. Maybe they could have invaded england, maybe not, but keeping france was likely. Also, without US involvement to shorten the war, jet planes such as the Messerschmitt could have been fielded in significant numbers by the germans instead of being a footnote in the waning days of the war. This sort of shift in the balance of air power could have had huge effect. Maybe not enough to combat the advantage of radar stations in the UK, but it certainly could have assured germain air superiority elsewhere.

Yes, the US was indirectly involved via the lend-lease program, shipments of other supplies, and some us citizens who volunteered as pilots and other duties, but public sentiment and political policy was very strongly isolationist prior to the attack on pearl harbor. There was no way U.S. troops would have entered the war if the attack had not occured. As already pointed out, this had a snowball effect that has rippled through the last 64 years. Without Pearl Harbor to spark anger and pull America into WW2, US Foreign policy over the last 64 years would have been vastly different.

[Meef]

I didn´t even know american history books have more than 20 pages.

what do they start with?

boston tea party, civil war, wwi, wwii.

man, americans are so f****** proud of their brief history. for europeans and asians, ww2 is just 6 years of more than 2000 years of written history.

Why is it americans are so fascinated by the nazis? is it because they don´t know anything about germany, except that they kicked their butts twice? is that what they´re taught?

Oh, my mistake. Sorry, the American textbooks are filled with Pearl Harbor information to the point that there's like just a half page on the liberation of Europe from Germany. I most have missed that being a yank.

btw germany still existst!

[gilfan]

Right, because the big moving force of the last 65 years has been French foreign policy, right?


Get over your bruised ego. The dominant driving factors of most world events in the 2nd half of the 20th century were US and Soviet foreign policy. The dominance of nations rise and fall, this just happens to be the U.S. century.

[Shogun Gunner]

Originally posted by Meef
I didn´t even know american history books have more than 20 pages.

what do they start with?

boston tea party, civil war, wwi, wwii.

funny! But also a bit hostile...

man, americans are so f****** proud of their brief history. for europeans and asians, ww2 is just 6 years of more than 2000 years of written history.

I think Americans do have a right to be proud of their history - brief or otherwise. Many important world events have involved Americans and America's influence has been a mostly positive event around the world in that time.

Why is it americans are so fascinated by the nazis? is it because they don´t know anything about germany, except that they kicked their butts twice? is that what they´re taught?

It doesn't happen that often that situations are so cleanly defined that there are "good guys" and "bad guys". From an American point of view, WW2, with the nazis and imperial japanese, it was clear they were the "bad guys". In all American conflicts prior and since, it has not been that crystal clear. Even the American Revolution and War of 1812, there were sizeable British sympathizers in the country. These folks took up arms against neighbors in the milita units in both conflicts. American civil war was America's most bloody conflict and it was fought internally.

So, here comes a fight that America wasn't looking to get involved in, started by dictators looking to militarily conquer most or all of the world - and are having success in doing that (Japan has really beaten down China; Germany blitzed France, Poland, Norway and has England on the ropes; Huge initial success against Russia in 1941). America is attacked, enters the war, and reverses the "bad guys" successes ultimately defeating - in a complete manner - both opponents which looked unbeatable to everyone in the world.

You don't think Americans should be proud of that? Why not?

btw germany still existst!

Thank you to the US Marshall Plan and the sophistication of the American government and people that recognized that the entire nation of Germany wasn't fully responsible for the actions of a crazy military dictator. Germany deserved to be reinstated - and has proven the wisdom of the US decision by it's actions post world war 2.

[Nikolai]

I agree with you to a large degree SG, but do not forget that the Soviet Union had a large role in bringing down Germany. Had they not given millions of lives, there would have been no D-day, at least not when it happened, and it would have been a much harder and bloodier fight to bring the nazis down.

[Meef]

guys, don´t get me wrong!

i do not think americans shouldn´t be proud of their history. the problematic aspect is that it´s all about wars. if a nation defines itself by the wars it lead, it might become megalomaniac. America is lucky to have won all it´s wars so far and didn´t have to take the humiliation of loosing a war.

edit: oops, so sorry almost forgot. there was that one in that asian country....what´s it called. starst with V i think.
and look what traumatic impact that had on american selfconfidence.

Thank you to the US Marshall Plan and the sophistication of the American government and people that recognized that the entire nation of Germany wasn't fully responsible for the actions of a crazy military dictator. Germany deserved to be reinstated - and has proven the wisdom of the US decision by it's actions post world war 2.

hmm, the allies have learned their lesson well in consideration of what happened after ww1. if the´re had been a marshall plan at that time, there would have been no world economy crisis and no ww2. letting the germans pay most of their gnp as reparations and leaving them alone with establishing a republic on a weak economic base was the worst mistake.
before ww1 germany was the most productive and and most populated country in europe. afterwards there was a vacuum right in the haert of europe. 80 million people living in poverty! imagine what great base that is for extremists! red or brown.

It doesn't happen that often that situations are so cleanly defined that there are "good guys" and "bad guys". From an American point of view, WW2, with the nazis and imperial japanese, it was clear they were the "bad guys".

it s not been that clear in the beginning. the nazis earned a lot of sympathy among the americans and were claimed to be a bulwark against bolshevism. the bad guy is always the one you want it to be.
in retrospective there´s nothing good about the nazis. but ask the islamic world what they think about america and ask yourself after they´ve won.

So, here comes a fight that America wasn't looking to get involved in, started by dictators looking to militarily conquer most or all of the world - and are having success in doing that (Japan has really beaten down China; Germany blitzed France, Poland, Norway and has England on the ropes; Huge initial success against Russia in 1941). America is attacked, enters the war, and reverses the "bad guys" successes ultimately defeating - in a complete manner - both opponents which looked unbeatable to everyone in the world.

isn´t that what the US do? they already own a whole continent. how many american natives and mexicans had to die for that purpose?
just because america does it in the name of freedom, doesn´t make it right! whose freedom is it?

I´m not hostile, i just wanna say that history is written by the winner.

thx for attention.

[Bill3000]

Regarding okay: I seriously doubt that the term was invented in World War II as you said, as it had been used far before that.

In the presidential election of 1840, the term "OK" was further popularized by use as an slogan by the O.K. Club, New York boosters of Democratic president Martin Van Buren's 1840 re-election bid; it was an allusion to his nickname Old Kinderhook, from his birthplace Kinderhook, New York. Van Buren lost, but the word stuck.

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

[Dis]

jeez talk about hostile. Get over your anti-american attitudes dude. America is here to stay (until internal collapse 50 years from now), get used to it.

The fact that you brought up Vietnam is all I need to know about your post. That's a huge threadjack. And has nothing to do with this thread.

[platypotamus]

Originally posted by gilfan
The dominance of nations rise and fall, this just happens to be the U.S. century.

Actually no, the 20th century was probably the U.S. century. This (the 21st century) is probably going to be the Chinese century (again).

[Nikolai]

That is a claim that is strongly contested.

[Dis]

It probably will be China's century. But that remains to be seen. It's clear U.S. dominance is falling. I can see the cracks everywhere in society. The only thing holding the U.S. on top is immigration.

We wouldn't even have enough doctors if we didn't bring in people from other countries. Americans just simply aren't smart enough to fill these high skill/ high education jobs.

edit: (to get back on-topic). It would be nice if Civ games could model immigration better. I know it's a difficult concept to implement. But like religion, one that just seems like it should be in a civ game.

[Caenis hilaris]

To Dis:

First, I agree. Immigration is not modelled well in Civ games. In Civ, an entire city (area) leaves one civ for another, but that's not really what happens. I can't, off the top of my head, think of situations other than Greek city-states that just up and switched allegiances. I think a more interesting model would be a population drain from a poorly performing civ to a better performing, more culturally dominant civ. Something like pop immigration in Paradox's Victoria, which is one thing they got right in that game.

At this risk of being off-topic (which this thread is becoming), the crack about too few American doctors and scientists bothers me, because it is untrue . I'm an American doctor and scientist with over half a dozen peer-reviewed, technical papers in both North American and international journals. Americans continue to be disproportionately represented in many of the sciences. Here's the deal - medical personel are recruited to large public and private hospitals because many American-born and US-educated immigrant (they might sound foreign, but many internationals are actually planning on staying in the US so they de facto, if not de jure Americans) doctors pursue specialties that allow them to pursue higher salaries as hospital specialists or private practice rather than general practice. With a lack of American interest in general practice and internal medicine, the doctors typically encountered in a regular check-up are the lower-paid general practicioners recruited from other countries. It is a perception issue, rather than actually true, particularly because many of the recruited doctors and nurses either have or will settle in the US. The Hindi-speaking, English as a second language doctor who performed your last physical is as much an American as the Caucasian from Iowa who practiced medicine on your grandfather, which was part of your point anyway.

[gilfan]

Originally posted by platypotamus


Actually no, the 20th century was probably the U.S. century. This (the 21st century) is probably going to be the Chinese century (again).

I wasn't referring to 2001-2100, I was referring to a roughly 100 year span (guesstimating) following world war two. I agree the next world power appears likely to be China.

[Diadem]

I think the 20th century was Germany's century actually.

There isn't a single important 20th century event that Germany or Germans weren't involved in.

Sure, military the USA have ruled this century. But events never revolved around them, they just got involved into them, and then kicked butt.