Talk:World War II/Archive1

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The Nazis weren't the only genociders

It really upsets me how the Holocaust has been discussed to death, yet no one ever mentions the horrific atrocities of the Imperial Japanese. By some estimates, they killed more people than the Nazis, and they were more brutal about it, too. Is everyone that blinded by the Anime tits and chocolate coated pretzels?UncleHo (talk) 22:43, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

No, you just sound like a racist moron.

I know what you mean; it certainly annoys me that the Holodomor is ignored. But were the Japanese slaughters properly "genocide," or just huge massacres? ListenerX^TalkerX 22:49, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Well, Genocide can be a grey area. If you say "KILL ALL JEWS" and then do it, that's genocide. But if you don't have any particular ideology which requires the killing of Chinese, but you do it anyway, is that still Genocide? Millions died. Medical experiments that would make Mengele blush were performed, and worse still, the Japanese Government is still steadfastly pretending it never happened. I would say it's a Genocide, although I would also say the Japanese probably would have done the same to anyone else they invaded.UncleHo (talk) 22:53, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Before this conversation goes any further, can we agree on a definition of "genocide"? I prefer the only one with legal weight, that of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishement of the Crime of Genocide, to whit: Article II: In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. The important thing to remember is that the victims need to be targeted "as such"--because, and only because, of their membership in that group, and that the intent of the perpetrator is to eliminate ("in whole or in part") that group. TheoryOfPractice (talk) 23:04, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

I would say it's unquestionable that the Japanese did all of that during WW2. They didn't have any particular ideology commanding them to do it, but they did it anyway. By that definition, it was genocide.UncleHo (talk) 23:06, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

But was their intent to eliminate those groups "as such," or simply to kill people with no regard to their membership in one of the four protected groups BECAUSE of their mem,bership in those groups? Has anyone made the case that they wanted to kill, say, the Koreans BECAUSE they were Koreans? Intent is KEY when proving the crime of genocide--see the Krstic case for example. TheoryOfPractice (talk) 23:09, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

(EC)Rummel, who is cited in UncleHo's edit apparently prefers "democide". Although I postulate there's a fairly good reason that it's rarely discussed. 1) It's not particularly relevant to Europe or the US and 2) To be fair, Jews are represented by many large, organized publicity savvy preasure groups that promote the Nazi holocaust (to the point where most people forget the millions of other groups and disabled people killed just as much as those in hte East) ^moral 23:11, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

I think they intended to kill them not so much because they were Korean, but because they were not Japanese. Also, Rummel did make up the word democide.UncleHo (talk) 23:18, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

I figured as much, but it does seem to imply something slightly different to "genocide" - namely what you say, that they were killed because they weren't Japanese more than who they actually were. ^moral 23:20, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Well, the Germans did the same thing, really. They killed anyone who was not a straight, "Aryan", faux-pagan Nazi. We still call it a genocide. I also think it's very sad how when people say Holocaust, they think only of Jews. The Nazis were really equal-opportunity murderers.UncleHo (talk) 23:25, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

All because science leads to killing people... anyway, I wouldn't consider it a great injustice that such things aren't that well known. It takes years for people to get their heads around just what happened in Europe in that time. It is sad that people forget, but mass slaughters are nothing new and are probably not just confined to history - some will be remembered and popularised, some won't. That's just the way it works. ^moral 23:29, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

EC: ho, You need to read up on the Nazi attitude toward homosexuals--yes, they imprisoned them and yes, some were killed, but it is a gross exaggeration to say that they were targeted for extermination as were the Jews. Nor did the Naziz intend ever to kill, say, all the French (non-faux pagan Aryans). TheoryOfPractice (talk) 23:30, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

The Nazis didn't kill ALL the French, because they believed many to be "Aryan" enough, but they did kill an awful lot of them.UncleHo (talk) 23:37, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Right, but they killed them (not counting French Jews, who they killed just because they were Jews) because they were in the Resistance, were otherwise some sort of political enemy, got in the way, in retribution for offenses committed against the Nazi state, etc...but not simply because they were French, and not with the intent to eliminate the French as such. In order for it to (legally) count as genocide, the intent of the perpetrator matters. Again, read the documents from the Krstic case (the first successful conviction of the crime of genocide) TheoryOfPractice (talk) 23:47, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Well, wouldn't killing anyone who is Japanese just be targeting many specific groups instead of a few? That would still make it genocide, if you ask me.UncleHo (talk) 23:49, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

UncleHo, wtf are you on about? "no one ever mentions the horrific atrocities of the Imperial Japanese" - bullshit! It's a pretty well-known fact & has had a lot said & written about it. & If you meant in this article, the comments about the Rape of Nanjing have been in it for a long time. "Anime tits and chocolate coated pretzels" - what's that got to do with the price of fish? Are you suggesting that we should reject modern Japanese cultural exports because of the atrocities of the imperial era? That's a pretty dubious line of reasoning. "They didn't have any particular ideology commanding them to do it, but they did it anyway" - complete horseshit! Japan underwent decades of militaristic religious nationalism leading up to the War era. "The Nazis were really equal-opportunity murderers" - possibly the stupidest comment I've ever heard about the holocaust. Wẽãšẽĩõĩď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 00:24, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

I was pleased and interested to learn that I deny war crimes. No one ever tells me these things. -- Mei (talk) 00:33, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

It's certainly worth knowing. Where was that comment? Wẽãšẽĩõĩď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 00:43, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

'Oddly enough, the Japanese warcrimes are generally forgotten, even by the Japanese, who still officially maintain they never happened' - From the article. I kinda missed the word 'officially' before so disregard my comment. I never get it when people say 'X thinks' instead of 'the government of X thinks'. -- Mei (talk) 00:49, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Mei is Japanese? I did not know this. Wẽãšẽĩõĩď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 00:59, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

I try not to mention it too much, since it makes my mission of imperial conquest much harder. I haven't been to Japan for a long time actually - which is probably why I never heard about the chocolate pretzels thing. -- Mei (talk) 01:20, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

I edited the article to say Japanese government. Also, you've never heard of pocky?UncleHo (talk) 01:27, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

I have looked up 'pretzel' on WP and found that I was greatly ignorant of the usage of the term. I always thought pretzel meant 'that weird shape'. I concede my error. -- Mei (talk) 01:30, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Also, Weasloid, I was saying people ignore the crimes of Imperial Japan because they love their modern cultural exports, not that they should ignore them. Every German and Austrian is drilled with the shame of the Holocaust from their first school days, yet the Japanese government is still incredibly opposed to even admitting they did anything wrong in WW2, let alone educating their people about it. Also, I would wager if you took a survey of Americans, every one of them would know of the Holocaust, but not many would know of Unit 731 or Manilla. Why is this? Are these not serious crimes?UncleHo (talk) 02:39, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

You seem to be blurring the lines between two separate issues here--the alleged lack of popular awareness of Imperial Japan's crimes as compared to the Holocaust and the Japanese government's attitude towards the nation's past. On the first count, I think you're right, to a certain degree; we are far more aware of the Holocaust than Japanese war crimes, in part because of the memory-making apparatus that surrounds the Holocaust, in part because the victims were European and not Asian, and thus more familiar and knowable to many Americans/Europeans, and in part because the Holocaust was a particular event--the targeted destruction of an entire religious/racial/ethnic (the Jews were understood as embodying various types of identities) while the Japanese crimes were not driven--as far as I know--by a similar eliminationist ideology: they were just standard war crimes, albeit on a particularly brutal scale. As for the Japanese govt's response to the past, well, so what? The Germans' response to their own brutal past is pretty exceptional--it's rare to see a country own up to brutality and work to actively shape the memory of that brutality with a message of remorse and prevention. Ask the French about their crimes in Algeria and sub-Saharan Africa; ask the Dutch about Indonesia; ask the Spanish about the Aztecs. TheoryOfPractice (talk) 02:48, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

This is not a zero sum game, man. I've launched significant rants here about the British Empire and their crimes, which dwarf those of any other culture, and I'm well aware of what the other Colonial nations did. It's all wrong, and we should be educated about it to ensure it never happens again. The Japanese aren't blameless in this, the British wouldn't think about feeling sorry for even one second about what they did in India, and the Spanish don't seem too keen on talking about their campaigns. We need to be educated on all these crimes, not just the ones that happened to people who now have substantial lobbying groups in Congress.UncleHo (talk) 03:10, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Fine. But the word "genocide" has a very specific legal meaning, and not all of the crimes you refer to fit the strict legal definition of the term--just like all instances of someone taking a single human life are not murder. You don't need to misuse a particular term in order to make a moral/historical point, and in the end you end up weakening the meaning and weight of the word by trying to use it as a catch-all for every bit of mass horror that you find. I urge you to read some of the foundational texts on genocide history--Chalk and Jonasshon, Leo Kuper, Ben Kiernan, Gurr, Levene, Weitz, and then come back and talk about this stuff...TheoryOfPractice (talk) 03:20, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

To be honest, I could give a shit less about what you or the law calls it, when millions are murdered, it's a tremendous crime, and one that should not be forgotten by future generations. Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.UncleHo (talk) 03:29, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Somebody who speaks about being concerned about a "crime" but who cannot be bothered to learn the first thing about the law, and someone who rails about history but is dismissive of it and its implications in the same breath is of no use to the people who are trying to do something about that crime in the first place. TheoryOfPractice (talk) 03:34, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

So the murder of 30 million by the British East India Company is not a crime? Should we just forget it and scream ISRAEL UBER ALLES because the Israelis have more lobbyists?UncleHo (talk) 03:37, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

I never said those types of events were not a crime. I said that they do not necessarily fit the legal definition of the crime of genocide simply because lots of people died. These types of events may very well--depending upon the intent of the perpetrators and the historical circumstances surrounding the atrocity, fit the definitions of other types of crime against humanity. Now stop moralizing and start engaging with a topic that you're obviously passionate about with critical readings of the canonical historical and legal texts. TheoryOfPractice (talk) 03:41, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

As I said before, I don't really care what the law calls them, these sorts of events should be discussed and taught so they are not repeated. In my American High School, I had a whole chapter in history about the holocaust, yet not one mention of The Devil's Wind, which claimed the lives of millions in India, and only a few whitewashed pages on America's treatment of the Native Americans. Why do you think this is? I want a real answer.UncleHo (talk) 03:44, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

I answered that question about "why I think this is" with my post that begins with "You seem to be blurring the lines..." or at least I pointed to some possible amswers. But at the end of the day, if you are completely disinterested in the law, your moralizing about crime is so much well intended pathetic bullshit. Law is what we have to fight crime. You want to talk about crime, you have to engage with the law. If you think your passion trumps decades of historical, political, sociological, legal and psychological scholarship on the topic, because you just know what's right, man, your opinion on the topic is of zero value. TheoryOfPractice (talk) 03:50, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

So do you think it's some latent racism then? Really. I want to know in plain terms why we endlessly talk about Europeans murdering Europeans, but seem to pay no mind when whites murder those ruddy heathens, or when they turn the guns on themselves.UncleHo (talk) 03:53, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Nobody is writing or talking about the links between colonialism and violence. TheoryOfPractice (talk) 03:58, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Gawd, UHo, you are not just an ass (to LX), you are dense. Genocide =/= mass murder or barbarity. The holocaust was relatively unique in that it almost managed to succeed, and was horribly abetted by so many parties. Feel free to write a halfway decent article on any of man's other inhumanities to man and see also it. Nobody will mind. But this is a silly talk page to choose to make yourself look stupid. ħuman 04:01, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Your snarky response didn't answer my questions. I asked what you thought, Theory. I would ask the same of you, Human. Why is Nazi a household name, and Unit 731 is forgotten? Why do you, Human, think the discussion of it is "silly?" These are questions we SHOULD be asking ourselves as a society.UncleHo (talk) 04:05, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

So ask and answer them in articles you might need to write! Sheesh... ħuman 04:07, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

So you can't answer me?UncleHo (talk) 04:08, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

You haven't asked a question that hasn't been answered 17 times on this page. Just write some articles about mass inhumanity you are familiar with and stop bitching. ħuman 04:29, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

I hate to sound like Jermey Paxman, but you haven't answered the question. What do you think of this situation? "Make your own article" is not a valid answer.UncleHo (talk) 04:32, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't think you even have a point. I've heard of lots of awful mass killings, I've written about some on this site. "The situation" is one of your own imagination, I hear about these things all the time. ħuman 04:35, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

So then you'd deny that the Holocaust gets far more attention than any other?UncleHo (talk) 04:37, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Now you are just being an ass. I said no such thing. ħuman 04:39, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm being an ass because I want to know why you think this is so? You must have a very broad definition of this word.UncleHo (talk) 04:42, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

You didn't ask why "I" think this is so. You asked "Is everyone that blinded by the Anime tits and chocolate coated pretzels?" Which to me is not a very productive way to start an intelligent discussion of anything, except perhaps anime tits and modified pretzels (are they the same thing?). I merely joined in the discussion a bit to point out what an ass you were making of yourself, which is a theme I am trying to ignore in your editing habits. Keep in mind that you have made death threats to other editors here. Nice moral high ground, that. ħuman 05:12, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

So then you're not willing to answer me, despite your claimed familiarity with the subject? As far as ListenerX goes, I shall refer to Lenin: ".The proletariat should not ignore peaceful methods of struggle—they serve its ordinary, day-to-day interests, they are necessary in periods of preparation for revolution—but it must never forget that in certain conditions the class struggle assumes the form of armed conflict and civil war; there are times when the interests of the proletariat call for ruthless extermination of its enemies in open armed clashes. This was first demonstrated by the French proletariat in the Commune and brilliantly confirmed by the Russian proletariat in the December uprising." UncleHo (talk) 05:55, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

You have yet to ask me an intelligent question, you moron/troll/murder threatener. ħuman 08:44, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Handy fricking edit button

EC: I was snarky to you because you are displaying a remarkable amount of ignorance --"wah wah wah, nobody talks about colonial violence! wah wah wah! nobody writes about colonialism and violence," Dude, I spend sixty hours plus reading about imperial/colonial history, and an overwhelming amount of that material has to do with the violence of colonialism, and my research has little to do with the topic of violence. But the question of it is bloody well inescapable. Get your head out of your ass and start reading. TheoryOfPractice (talk) 04:12, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

You aren't answering the question. Why do YOU think we discuss the Holocaust to death, but hardly learn a word about the Devil's Wind, the Trail of Tears or other horrific events in human history? Lobbyists? Racism? You say the question is inescapable, but you won't give me an honest answer.UncleHo (talk) 04:14, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

I did. As I said before, see above. TheoryOfPractice (talk) 04:15, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Ho, is your problem that you don't know how a search engine works? TheoryOfPractice (talk) 04:16, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, there have been some books written about these topics. I have read a great deal of them, because I wanted to be educated as opposed to brainwashed. I work with Lakotah Sioux every day in my job, so I am keenly aware of what happened to them. However, I asked why you think these topics are not as discussed as the Holocaust, to which you only said that the Colonial nations do not admit it, and I agreed to that. I want to know WHY YOU think this happens.UncleHo (talk) 04:19, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Asked and answered see above. TheoryOfPractice (talk) 04:21, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

So then, you think it's racism? Lobbying? This is the answer I want.UncleHo (talk) 04:27, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Move the above off-article discussion to a debate page?

I think we should. ħuman 04:40, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

I already had one spun off about the British Empire's horrible history. I don't think it's a bad idea, if people would actually give answers to what I asked.UncleHo (talk) 04:43, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

But you are asking "us" (me and ToP? RW?) why the world is a bad bad place. Why not write an essay about what you think about it? What was the question again? "Why is the holocaust a big fucking deal and no other genocidal/cleansings are?" If that's it, again, I disagree with the premise based on what material I consume. You want to right the balance a bit? Write a fucking article here on RW about every mass murder that pisses you off!!! It's on-mission, productive, and might even increase awareness of them. ħuman 05:08, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

The "materials you consume" are not related to those the majority consumes, I'm afraid. I could write articles (That ListenerX would soon vandalize with "HURF DURF LEFTISTS ARE DOODOOHEADS!) but I'm really curious why you cannot answer simple questions, especially when you claim to have consumed much material related to them. Are you afraid to face the ugliness of your own culture?UncleHo (talk) 05:28, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Now you are just being a moron. Please kindly go gently fondle yourself, as they say on uncyclopedia. I am curious why you are such a loser as to be afraid to write articles when the OWNER OF THE WIKI has said to go ahead and do so. Chicken that you can't write a coherent sentence? ħuman 08:47, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Chinese casualties

See the reference here (I'll update the article's link to the right chapter): "From the invasion of China in 1937 to the end of World War II, the Japanese military regime murdered near 3,000,000 to over 10,000,000 people...". The total death toll of the whole Sino-Japanese war is included in this statistic. The "omission" the next paragraph refers to means that there's no detailed breakdown of the Chinese casualties in the table, but the number is included on line 386. The total given in the article is the right one. Röstigraben (talk) 19:11, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Mission?

I was going to {{Mission}} this but there's been so much work on it that it'd be laughed out of court.

Mission:

1. Analyzing and refuting pseudoscience and the anti-science movement.
2. Documenting the full range of crank ideas.
3. Explorations of authoritarianism and fundamentalism.
   

Which of the mission statements is this in line with? If it's a history text then Wikipedia does it so much better. There doesn't appear to be any relevance. Him (talk) 20:07, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

It's more of a meta-level article - many things that occurred before, during, and after WW2 (the before and after relating to it) are on-mission - genocide, racism, fascism, etc., that this ties them all together. I think. ħuman 21:07, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

"wp:Deutsche Physik (literally: "German Physics") or Aryan Physics was a nationalist movement in the German physics community in the early 1930s against the work of Albert Einstein, labeled "Jewish Physics" (German: Jüdische Physik)." Good example. ħuman 04:33, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

What is this?

"Clueless Americans shall not be forgiven if they persist in thinking that the war began in late 1941, with the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor."

Not true. Very few Americans think that. In fact, you could argue that mit is the Russians who think that the war started on June 22, 1941 since they call it the "Great Patriotic War".

They only give that name to the Eastern front. -- DasRationalpersone (Annoy me!) 09:00, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, yes. But they are selective about which "Eastern front" they are talking about. Most people think the Eastern front started in June 1941 and ignore what happened in the period of August 1939 to June 1941. The Soviet invasions and occupations of Poland, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Bessarabia. The several German–Soviet trade agreements. The mass killings and deportations by Soviet troops. And the fact that Stalin wanted to join the Axis. The Soviets were not the "good guys" in WW2. Far from that. Moonshot926 (talk) 06:37, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

They didn't occupy Finland. But yeah, they were bad guys, just on the "good guys" side. -- DasRationalpersone (Annoy me!) 09:58, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Ever hear of the "Winter War"? They planned to take all of Finland and invaded in November 1941. But the Red Army had been weakened by Stalin's purges so they lost over 320,000 men and 5,000 tanks in the 5 month war. The Finns lost only 70,000 men and 50 tanks. After the peace treaty in March 1940, Finland was forced to give 11% of its pre-war territory and 30% of its economic assets to the Soviet Union. So i guess you can say it was partly occupied. But that would be wrong also. The Soviets never really occupied any territory under the Molotov-Ribbentrop. They annexed it. The Byelorussian and Ukrainian SSRs were made bigger and 5 new SSRs were formed out of the other taken lands. The Lithuanian, Latvian, Estonian, Moldavian and Karelo-Finnish SSRs. You can look at this map.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Ribbentrop-Molotov.svg Moonshot926 (talk) 12:05, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Finnish really fucked Russians up, didn't they? -- DasRationalpersone (Annoy me!) 12:36, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Yeah. Stalin had executed or imprisoned 30,000 of his senior army officers the year before. So the ones that were left didn't really know what they were doing. The Finns used the winter frozen terrain to great advantage which is why they were able to defeat a much-largeer force. They knew the territory well and refused to retreat. Finnish ski troops were highly mobile and encircled Soviet troops many times. The Finns wore white camouflage and ambushed Soviet troops in the forests. The war lasted 100 days and the Soviets lost over 3,000 men each day. The Soviets had a huge number of tanks but nearly all of them were obsolete. They were destroyed and abandoned in huge numbers. At the end, the Soviets only gained 11% of Finnish territory. The war was one of the greatest blunders Stalin ever made. It exposed to Hitler how weak the Red Army was and made him more confident that he could easily overrun Russia. Moonshot926 (talk) 13:38, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Finland, it seems, were good guys on the bad guys' side. I mean, they were axis and yet they preserved democracy throughout WWII. -- DasRationalpersone (Annoy me!) 14:00, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Yeah. The Finns did not like the NAZIs but Germany and Finland were united by a common enemy, the Soviet Union. The Finns wanted to retake the territories lost in the Winter War and were bombed by the Soviets on June 25, 1941. So they sided with Germany and invaded the USSR in 1941. The Finns went back on the defensive in December 1941. There was a relative calm in the front line for 2.5 years until June 1944 when the Red Army launched a massive attack. The Finns were outnumbered 3 to 1 but still fought the Soviet offensive to a standstill just like they did in the Winter War. A ceasefire and armistice was signed with the Soviet Union in September 1944. Finland then had battles with Germany known as the "Lapland war". Finland managed to end the war with no foreign troops occupying their country. Quite an achievement. Moonshot926 (talk) 15:52, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

What kind of of utter rubbish is this!

"Clueless Americans shall not be forgiven if they persist in thinking that the war began in late 1941, with the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. They will also not be forgiven for thinking America swooped in and singlehandedly won the war in the time of a 14 episode miniseries, saving the world from Fascism. Britons tend to be as clueless as their American cousins, thinking that the U.K. largely defeated Nazi Germany. In reality the winning weapon in the European Theatre was the Soviet Red Army. Without the Red Army the Germans would have won the war. Without the British Army or the American Army, the Soviet Union would still have defeated Germany."

The British won the Battle of Britian in 1940. What was the great Soviet Red Army doing from September 1939 to June 1941?

The Soviet Union signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact with Nazi Germany on 23 August 1939.

They Soviet Union invaded Poland on 17 September 1939.

The Soviet Union invaded Finland on 30 November 1939.

The Soviet Union annexed Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia in June 1940.

The Soviet Union annexed Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina and Hertza in July 1940.

The Soviet Union also supplied Nazi Germany with 65-70% of their imports from June 1940 to June 1941.

This included:

1,600,000 tons of grains 900,000 tons of oil 200,000 tons of cotton 140,000 tons of manganese 200,000 tons of phosphates 20,000 tons of chrome ore 18,000 tons of rubber 100,000 tons of soybeans 500,000 tons of iron ores 300,000 tons of scrap metal and pig iron 2,000 kilograms of platinum

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pact http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German%E2%80%93Soviet_Commercial_Agreement_(1940) Moonshot926 (talk) 17:03, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

and?il'Dictator Mikal 21:56, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

This is common knowledge, Moonie. That still doesn't deny that if Hitler took Stalingrad, we'd all be fucked. Osaka Sun (talk) 22:01, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Depends on how much you look at things really; he could have taken stalingrad but holding it with how spread he was..--il'Dictator Mikal 22:13, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

The USA Lend-lease act was vital to USSR victory on the East Front. Why do i see no mention of this?

Read "Accounting for War" by Mark Harrison. Very good book.

1. Raw materials – Lend-lease provided 55% of aluminum, 45% of copper, 40% of lead, 28% of tin, 52% of tungsten and 73% of molybdenum. How can you build T-34 tanks and Yak fighters without raw materials?

2. Rail cars, railroad rails and railroad equipment – The Soviets produced 48,990 rails and Lend-lease provided 622,100, which is 93% of the total. Lend-lease provided 11,075 railcars which were very important and over 80% of railroad equipment.

3. Aviation fuel – Lend-lease provided 59% of Soviet aviation fuel. Including over 90% of the high-octane aviation fuel. How can you fly the Red Air Force without fuel?

4. Motorized transport – The Soviets produced 198,100 military trucks. Lend-lease provided 433,967 military trucks and 47,000 Willys jeeps. This transport played a crucial role in the Soviet offensives of 1944 and 1945. By the end of the war in May 1945, 67% of Soviet military trucks were from Lend-lease.

5. Machine tools – The Soviets produced 115,400 machine tools and Lend-lease provided 44,704 which is 28% of the total. However, Lend-lease contribution is considerably more important than the figures would suggest. American machine tools were considerably more complex and versatile than Soviet machine tools.

6. Explosive material – Most of the Soviet explosives factories were concentrated on the Donets Basin in Ukraine. It was overran by the Germans in July 1942 during the advance on Stalingrad. To make up for this, Lend-lease supplied the Soviets with 317,000 tons of explosive material. Total Soviet production was 600,000. 33% of Soviet explosive material was from Lend-lease.

7. Canned beef – Lend-lease provided enough canned beef to feed the entire Soviet Red Army every day of the war. 24.189.254.24 (talk) 22:06, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

because that isnt in the scope of our wiki.

You should still change that crap because it is garbage. 24.189.254.24 (talk) 20:29, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for your valuable contribution. P-Foster Talk ""Santorum is the cream rising to the top."" 20:33, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Learn to read. -- Seth Peck (talk) 20:32, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Date

I note that the article says that WW2 started in 1937, not 1939.

Are there any references for this date? I've never come across anyone or read anything that says that the Japanese invasion of China was the start of WW2, only the German invasion of Poland. D-Notice 08:31, 3 June 2008 (EDT)

Call me Eurocentric and politically incorrect, but for me it started September 1, 1939. And for my grandfather a few months later thanks to Stalin. But as long as it doesn't coincide with Pearl Harbour, anything goes for me. (Editor at) CP:^{no intelligence allowed} 09:16, 3 June 2008 (EDT)

I might have the same problem (I'm a Limey) D-Notice 09:27, 3 June 2008 (EDT)

It's Pearl Harbor ;) and, yes, as long as people don't think WW2 started in 1941 we're doing ok... ħuman 15:01, 3 June 2008 (EDT)

There are people (it might be in the article, I've not checked) who consider the Spanish Civil War a trial for WWII.   ^Contribs_Talk 15:13, 3 June 2008 (EDT)

I was going to mention that as we're including the Sino-Japanese war. Oddly Wikipedia's article also says it started in 1937 D-Notice 15:16, 3 June 2008 (EDT)

Periodization is just a big mental construction anyway. You could make a pretty strong case for lumping both WW1 and WW2 plus the interwar period together in one big World War Period - or even the whole period 1905-1945, for that matter. --AKjeldsen^{Potential fundamentalist!} 15:24, 3 June 2008 (EDT)

Nice point re: the two WWs. Or you could just say that the second half of the second millennium was the Battle for Global Domination (unfinished, while the US makes a mess of things). Someday perhaps historians will just cut the 20th into two parts - Hot World War and Cold World War, ignoring the post-USSR-collapse decade. I predict the 21st century will be the struggle between India and China for global dominance, while the Western nations struggle to stay warm. ħuman 00:48, 4 June 2008 (EDT)

Eric Hobsbawm has written a book about "the short twentieth century" (1914-91) so that process could continue. Despite Japan vs China, the conflict only became a world war with the invasion of Poland - from this point there were combatants from more than one continent. I think this is why the Napoleonic wars aren't called a World War, despite various Caribbean and Indian Ocean engagements - all the combatants (France, Britain, Russia, Prussia etc) were European. Totnesmartin 19:14, 26 July 2008 (EDT)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ I did a mammoth info dump into wikipedia's talk page twice regarding the various references to WWII starting in 1931: May 2012 and again in September 2014; they are long but the information is there in great (perhaps mindnumbing detail)--BruceGrubb (talk) 12:14, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

For the record here is a list of that material:

"Although we didn't realize it at the time, World War II started in the night of Sept. 18, 1931, when a small clique of Japanese officers secretly issued orders for Japanese toops to move from their barracks in Manchuria and Korea,..." (The China monthly review: Volume 98 1941:SEP-NOV pg 353)

"You think World War II began in 1933, by Hitler's seizing power, but the Chinese people shall insist that World War II began on Sept. 18, 1931 by Japan's invasion of Manchuria." - LIFE - Sep 21, 1942 - Page 6 letter to the editor

"remember that date: Sept 18, 1931 a date you should remember as well as Dec 7, 1941. For on that date in 1931 the war we are now fighting begun." - Prelude to War (1942)

"He knew the story well, because it had been he who transmitted the orders for the Japanese troops to march that snowy September 18, 1931, which is actually the date when World War II started." - Lee, Clark (1943) They Call It Pacific

"World War II began along a stretch of railroad track near the northeastern Chinese city of Mukden (now Shenyang). There, on Sept. 18, 1931,..." - Polmar, Norman; Thomas B. Allen (1991) World War II: America at war, 1941-1945 Dover Publications (part of the Dover Military History, Weapons, Armor series) ISBN-13: 978-0394585307

"Chronology September 18, 1931 — Japan invades Manchuria, a region of China. ... Some historians consider the invasion of Manchuria to be the actual start of World War II." - Stein, R. Conrad (1994) World War II in the Pacific: "Remember Pearl Harbor" Enslow Publishers Page 117

"He remembers being transfixed by the idea that 18 September 1931 was the real start of World War II" - Rollins, Peter (2008) Why We Fought: America's Wars in Film and History University Press of Kentucky Page 246

"A clash between Japanese and Chinese soldiers north of Mukden in Manchuria on the night of September 18, 1931, has come to be perceived as the opening shot of World War II" - Leuchtenburg, William E.; ‎Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., ‎Sean Wilentz (2009) Herbert Hoover: The American Presidents Series: The 31st President, 1929-1933 Macmillan pg 122

"When Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931, World War II officially began, at leasts in the minds of some historians" - James Stuart Olson (2001) Historical Dictionary of the Great Depression, 1929-1940 Greenwood Publishing Group pg 160.

"Years later many Asian scholars and civilians pointed to 1931 as the actual start of the Second World War" By Flage, Thomas R. (2012) The History Buff's Guide to World War II pg 9

"World War II Began in Manchuria, 1931" Harry Brinton Henderson, ‎Herman Charles Morris (1942) "War in Our Time: A Comprehensive and Analytical History in Pictures and Text of the First Eleven Years of World War II, Beginning with the Invasion of Manchuria by the Japanese..." 1942-11 is indeed 1931.

Just show you get a snapshot of the sources.--BruceGrubb (talk) 19:06, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

El Alamein irrelevant

Quote Winnie

“”Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end, but it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.

or

“”Before Alamein we never had a victory. After Alamein, we never had a defeat.

I'm pretty sure it Winnie didn't see it as "irrelevant" - but then we Brits weren't really major players in WWII. Bad Faith (talk) 15:04, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

Fine, it boosted morale, but the entire Axis force in North Africa was less than 10 divisions; there were a couple of hundred in Russia at the same time. The campaign lets us have a great British-only success plus makes great films, but it was far, far from being a war-changing event. rpeh •T•C•E• 15:09, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

This article does not mention the 1938 German occupation of Austria or Chechoslovakia. AJP Taylor has questioned when WW2 actually Dirk Steele (talk) 00:06, 31 October 2012 (UTC)started.

Czech, mate. Генгис^{Is the Pope a Catholic?} 00:09, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Chinese generally think it started in 1937 when Japan moved out of Manchuria to attack the rest of China, mid-1937. Pashley (talk) 23:38, 23 January 2014 (UTC)