World War II Is Full of Plot Holes (2010)

Hitler was willing to be opportunistically flexible with his definition of the "Aryan race." For instance, he recognized Iranians, Arabs, and Turks as "Aryans"[1] in so far as they supported his war efforts. He also dubbed the Japanese "Honorary Aryans," whatever that's supposed to have meant. (Hirohito was about as fanatical over "racial purity" as Hitler was, and perhaps Hitler saw in him a kindred spirit, in addition to a military ally. Extant records and writings suggest that Hitler viewed the Japanese as more reliable allies than the Italians, whom he was planning to double-cross at some point down the road. This is probably because Italy shared a border with Hitler's Germany, by way of Austria, and hence, was "in the way," while Japan was not. Hitler's writings and track record suggest that, had he won the war, he'd have turned on pretty much any country at any time, should they have proved inconvenient for any reason).

[1] Leaving aside the obvious, of course, which is that Iranians are arguably more "Aryan" than Middle-European Caucasians. That is to say, if we use the historically accurate definition of the term, and not the Nazi-racist-mythological definition of the "Aryan" people.

> Stalin must have been really afraid about the future his capital

After French took Moscow in 1812, and then subsequently lost the war, it was not such a big deal. Everyone knows, the further you invade Russia in summer, the longer is the way back in winter.

I'm also dubious that Germany was "sympathetic" prior to WWII. Prussia and Imperial Germany were aggressive, conquering states for decades.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Churchill tldr: He once killed a German with a longbow and would carry a broadsword with him into battle.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Medicine_Crow tldr: Last war chief of the Crow nation. Still alive at age 101, because Death is afraid of him.

Well, to be fair, Rambo was tasked with taking photographs and not engaging the enemy at a time when there was supposedly no active military action against Vietnam.

Frederich Zoller.

Ah, that sub-plot from the book that didn't make it into the TV adaptation.

I always wonder about the History Channel...the programs are a good piece of entertainment but it's never seemed to be well researched/thought out enough to act as a serious academic resource of any kind.

Drang nach Osten! starting from the times of Teutonic order, and some time before if we remember the Polabian Slavs.

The story didn't start with Hitler and didn't end with him. 200 years from now comparing Eastern Europe political maps of 1984 vs. 2014 it would be pretty obvious that the Eastward expansion has greatly succeeded this time, surprisingly [relatively] peaceful this time and only the most eastward end of the push caused a mild local military conflict - Ukraine-Russian war in Donbass.

At a small liberal arts college, a long time ago, our senior year capstone class topic was "The Holocaust" where all 750 or so of us, took the same class from different liberal arts instructors as a synthesis across all branches of liberal arts. So we all had a little art and a little lit and a little philosophy and ... although my specific section was taught by a lit prof who thought my thesis about nazi era architecture was really boring but still worth a "B" (in those days before grade inflation that "B" wasn't even all that bad) Anyway Hitler's book was VERY creepy to read because virtually the entire book rhymed with what later happened in WWII but was slightly off key, making it really weird, like a hazy memory.

What I'm getting at is they telegraphed pretty much exactly what they actually did everywhere, its not unique to double crossing Russia. There were some differences. From memory more than a decade ago he had peculiar ideas about the Americans, for example.

Conspiracy theorists are the people that come up with the inept cash-in "non-canonical" sequel and dreadful fanfic that make the official story seem quite compelling by comparison.

Heavy-handed attempts by the writers to insert some "balance" into the story. Hmm, we show these guys as so good, it's not believable, how can we show them as flawed? Oh, I know, let's have them refuse to take in some refugees for no apparent reason, the very same people they later fought to save. It's just amateur hour in the writers' room.

Maybe he originally wrote it during the Hitler Channel era.

I don't think this is the right place for such a debate, but if you google "did the atomic bomb save lives", you'll find people that make the case that it was the right choice.

I suspect the response to your "why not?" would be that we haven't had any war since then where the threat was significant to warrant the horrific impact of their use (which nobody seems to deny). Plus, ever since shortly after WWII, there was always the possibility of nuclear weapons triggering a nuclear response.

I'm not fully decided on the question of the atomic bombings of Japan but I think I qualify as one of the people you refer to. I do not think they should have been used in subsequent wars.

First, the war against Japan and Germany was about as close to an unambiguous fight against evil as you can find in the real world. The post, while trying to paint them as unrealistic caricatures, still manages to understate it. Ultimately, the war was justifiable and winning it was the best outcome for everybody.

If we accept that the war had to be won, then winning it in the most efficient way possible, in terms of time and lives, is best. I think the atomic bombings accomplished that. It's debatable and can probably never be known for sure, but it seems likely that Japan would have held out much longer without them. Even with them, there was a nearly successful palace coup aimed at preventing the surrender. Even ignoring the Allied lives that would be lost in an invasion, many more Japanese would have died by the time the war was over.

That establishes the (fairly standard) reasoning for using the atomic bombs on Japan. How about afterwards?

None of the subsequent hot wars were anywhere close to being as black and white. The post mentions Vietnam as an example where the lack of atomic weapons made for a glaring plot hole. But really, are you going to use atomic weapons on a country that poses no threat to you whatsoever, in a conflict which is basically a war of independence where you're fighting on the side of the colonial oppressors? I'm not going to argue that Communism was a good thing for Vietnam or that victory by North Vietnam was a good outcome, but it doesn't look like our side was particularly in the right. Would lives have been saved by nuking Hanoi? Would evil have been defeated? I don't think so.

And even ignoring all that, the practical realities of the world order prevented it. Maybe you could win Vietnam by nuking Hanoi (although I'm not sure how the one follows from the other exactly) but it's hard to see a scenario where that doesn't quickly turn into an all-out nuclear war between the superpowers, where nobody wins and everybody loses big. The only time it was remotely feasible was for a few years after 1945 until the Russians had enough nuclear capability to make it an unwise choice, roughly 1955 or so. What does that leave us with, using nukes in Korea like MacArthur wanted to? I don't know if that wins the war either. (Mao was famously welcoming of nuclear war, believing that China's massive population meant they would weather it and win it.) And even if it did, would it be worth it? I don't see the balance of lives working out in favor of dropping a hydrogen bomb on Beijing the way it did with Japan.

One more thing to consider: if WWII had been won without nuclear weapons (either because the choice was made not to use them, or the project took a little longer than it did in reality) then my guess is that we wouldn't have seen the subsequent restraint in using them afterwards. Rather than the first (and so far only) use in war being two small bombs, it might have been an exchange of hundreds, with the participants realizing what a terrible idea that is only too late. This has no bearing on justifying the decision in 1945 (how could they be expected to know all these future consequences?) but it's interesting to consider that the timing of the development and use of nuclear weapons may have been extremely lucky.

Although Nazi Germany did co-operate with various (for want of a better term) brown people, Hitler and the rest of the Nazis certainly held racist attitudes towards them. It would be misleading to suggest that the Nazis were "only" racists with regard to Jews.

(Of course virtually everyone on the allied side was also racist.)

It's a bit of fun

> That is not what happened, that is a collection of misconceptions people gathered which are only loosely based on actual history.

The fact that the folk history many people think they know may be distant from our best substantiated histories doesn't really detract from the point that folk history of WWII may be kindof incredible.

Plus, there's certainly enough incredible but apparently accurate stuff in our best histories.

Also... "actual history?" By which we mean "what actually happened" or by which we mean "the best substantiated narratives we have"?

Because as far as I can tell, "what actually happened" is pretty elusive. Some histories are better substantiated from recorded observation and evidence than others, but all of them are interpolations of one degree or another from a set of evidence that's always more limited than the larger picture we try to paint.

Let's see:

1) the US contemplated using its mythical superweapon (a) against the Russians after WWII, (b) against the Chinese and North Koreans during the Korean war. By the time the Vietnam war was going badly, the Russians and Chinese had their own superweapons.

2) The Germans allied with the Russians with betrayal in mind.

3) When the Germans attacked the Russians, they didn't have a second front (unless you consider North Africa a second front). There had been an abortive landing at Dieppe, which if anything had bolstered German confidence that their western front was secure. Bear in mind that the US had not entered the war and England's collapse seemed inevitable (and if Rommel had taken the Suez that would have been it for Britain).

4) Every one of Hitler's major offensives had been thought insane by Hitler's own high command (e.g. the British and French outnumbered the Germans in both men and tanks at the outset of the invasion of France), so their very reasonable objections to the Barbarossa campaign fell on deaf ears. Is there anything more plausible than hubris?

My favorite example of implausible actions in WWII was Hitler's declaration of war on the US after it declared war on Japan. That never made sense to me until I read A World At Arms -- a history of WWII that emphasizes politics, diplomacy, and intelligence over battles. The Germans relied desperately on Japan for rubber (even synthetic rubber required a certain amount of real rubber as an ingredient). A fleet of u-boats was dedicated to transporting rubber from Japan to Germany, and Germany needed Japan on side or it was in deep trouble (fighting the Russians with no rubber).