Thats not even to mention the deportations of the Greeks, Kalmyks, Turks, Crimean Tatars, Balkars, Chechens, Finns, and Ingush, the mass rapes of German, Austrian and Polish women, murdering civilians, the pillaging, the oppression of the peoples of countries they conquered and occupied, torture of Ukrainian POWs, multiple other massacres they committed, and the largest mass expulsion of a people in history with the millions of ethnic Germans they forced out of Eastern and Central Europe and that's just the tip of the iceberg! American, British, French, and Soviet soldiers committed atrocities in occupied Germany after the war. Last but not least, I would mention the April 29, 1945, Dachau liberation reprisals in which American soldiers and former Dachau prisoners killed 50 SS personnel and Kapos. On the other side of the coin, the Nazi regime in Germany and the Fascist regime in Italy were very popular as they turned around the economies of their respective countries during the worldwide Great Depression of the 1930s. This is how Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini were able to accrue such a zealous following. How were Hitler and the Third Reich able to gain such broad public support? Not with antisemitism, political parties in Germany that were solely just about Jew hatred got a very small percentage of the vote. Furthermore, Jews were two percent of the German population. Most Germans had never met a Jew, were apathic about antisemitism and had no reason to be thinking about Jews one way or another. What got the German public on their side was their rhetoric about making Germany great again in a time when Germany was humiliated in the wake of their defeat in WWI, the punitive terms of the Treaty of Versailles and the economic deprivation of the Great Depression. They convinced ordinary people to help commit genocide on an industrial scale with their propaganda about a superior Aryan race and the German people's starring role in the grand historical narrative. The Nazis after coming to power, restored German national pride and economic prosperity. They did many genuinely good things to substantively improve the lives of ordinary Germans. The Nazis turned the German economy around in just three years, started public works projects to put Germans to work, gave them days off from work, did so-called "strength through joy" cruises that took working class people on the first vacations of their lives to France, Italy, Spain, and Japan, improved the workplace, expanded the role of women in German society, and started social programs that were intended to unlock class barriers. They also created the German Labor Front, which was intended to fight for better conditions, hours and pay for German workers. Its head Robert Ley fought for universal healthcare for the German people and equal pay for equal work for men and women. It should also be known that the Nazis had some legitimate grievances with the countries they invaded such as they held territory that had been taken from Germany in the Treaty of Versailles and discrimination against ethnic Germans. Britain and France weren't always honest actors on the international scene either. French public opinion in the 1930s was very much not in favor of reconciliation with Germany. Furthermore, Poland was just as eager to go to war with Germany as the reverse and Poland wanted to expand and become a great power in Europe. I want to be crystal clear that none of this is to take away from the heroism of the courageous men and women of the Greatest Generation who served in the Allied armies or to whitewash Axis war crimes or the Holocaust. I mean only to show the complexity of WWII and that all sides did bad things. I also wanted to show the story of WWII is not as straightforward or as simple as one might think. If anyone here would like to learn more about Nazi ideology and why they gained such a dedicated following I encourage everyone to check out the incredible and informative book "Hitler's Revolution'" by Richard Tedor. Here is a link to the book: https://www.amazon.com/Hitlers-Revolution-Ideology-Programs-Foreign/dp/0988368234/ref=sr_1_1?crid=352WBCED22IOV&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.1EfzTXopQtcoZZT2hmEX-eFLQ1FWSt9uUm53lGDQ3i8r-JxOZtsNStAQ9sWpX930-0t5aHtfBQq71lK4LF_nStQXJnbajVOpCt4CWQSITs6LKWNXtNGNSv4iOU_L-_83yGM00o5ZGgN0oAAEwKDClHGBDq1Umr0qO_zgXUE3MH3hPc77wQAFxEgaaXWQr8Sc0bQ3YU605HZkxWm4gNUuervOlBQvNeoiThrbDc_AsRM.K5iVm5YshUUhMckC6gq6HeWAaAQxm6JXuOV6crSsTpY&dib_tag=se&keywords=hitler%27s+revolution&qid=1726106845&s=books&sprefix=hitler%27s+revol%2Cstripbooks%2C90&sr=1-1
An incredible article Jake whose topic could not be timelier! It is as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said “there is some good in the worst of us, and some evil in the best of us.” Martyr Made (real name Darryl Cooper) shouldn’t be persecuted for his views. It is absolutely true we should not portray the Allies as saints or the Axis as cartoon-type villains. We need to see them as they really were in all their complexity to understand them and see WWII clearly. You also do a great job pointing out how those who took part in the Nazi regime did so because they believed they were doing the right thing and making the world a better place. Crazy as that sounds it’s true. The Allied powers weren’t perfect by any means. Allied soldiers committed war crimes too (albeit not anywhere near on the scale Axis soldiers did.) I will give a few examples. The War Department had to start cracking down on American soldiers for human trophy collecting in the Pacific Theater as American soldiers were taking the body parts of dead Japanese soldiers such as their skulls, ears, teeth, and testicles as trophies. Racism against Japanese people was rampant in America at that time. Wartime propaganda portrayed them with bright yellow skin, buck teeth and exaggerated facial features. There were also many cases of American soldiers shooting Japanese soldiers who had already surrendered. The bombing of the historic city of Dresden by the USAF and RAF on February 13-15, 1945, was a case of the Allies going WAY too far and 25,000 people were killed via incineration. French Moroccan Goumier soldiers surrounded the homes of German women and then brutally raped them. The Goumiers also murdered, raped and pillaged their way across the Italian countryside. Now we come to the Soviets. The Russians were on another level when it came to atrocities in wartime! Let’s not forget about the 1943 Katyn Forest Massacre where the Soviets “liquidated” the Polish intelligentsia with stunning efficiency.
Thats not even to mention the deportations of the Greeks, Kalmyks, Turks, Crimean Tatars, Balkars, Chechens, Finns, and Ingush, the mass rapes of German, Austrian and Polish women, murdering civilians, the pillaging, the oppression of the peoples of countries they conquered and occupied, torture of Ukrainian POWs, multiple other massacres they committed, and the largest mass expulsion of a people in history with the millions of ethnic Germans they forced out of Eastern and Central Europe and that's just the tip of the iceberg! American, British, French, and Soviet soldiers committed atrocities in occupied Germany after the war. Last but not least, I would mention the April 29, 1945, Dachau liberation reprisals in which American soldiers and former Dachau prisoners killed 50 SS personnel and Kapos. On the other side of the coin, the Nazi regime in Germany and the Fascist regime in Italy were very popular as they turned around the economies of their respective countries during the worldwide Great Depression of the 1930s. This is how Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini were able to accrue such a zealous following. How were Hitler and the Third Reich able to gain such broad public support? Not with antisemitism, political parties in Germany that were solely just about Jew hatred got a very small percentage of the vote. Furthermore, Jews were two percent of the German population. Most Germans had never met a Jew, were apathic about antisemitism and had no reason to be thinking about Jews one way or another. What got the German public on their side was their rhetoric about making Germany great again in a time when Germany was humiliated in the wake of their defeat in WWI, the punitive terms of the Treaty of Versailles and the economic deprivation of the Great Depression. They convinced ordinary people to help commit genocide on an industrial scale with their propaganda about a superior Aryan race and the German people's starring role in the grand historical narrative. The Nazis after coming to power, restored German national pride and economic prosperity. They did many genuinely good things to substantively improve the lives of ordinary Germans. The Nazis turned the German economy around in just three years, started public works projects to put Germans to work, gave them days off from work, did so-called "strength through joy" cruises that took working class people on the first vacations of their lives to France, Italy, Spain, and Japan, improved the workplace, expanded the role of women in German society, and started social programs that were intended to unlock class barriers. They also created the German Labor Front, which was intended to fight for better conditions, hours and pay for German workers. Its head Robert Ley fought for universal healthcare for the German people and equal pay for equal work for men and women. It should also be known that the Nazis had some legitimate grievances with the countries they invaded such as they held territory that had been taken from Germany in the Treaty of Versailles and discrimination against ethnic Germans. Britain and France weren't always honest actors on the international scene either. French public opinion in the 1930s was very much not in favor of reconciliation with Germany. Furthermore, Poland was just as eager to go to war with Germany as the reverse and Poland wanted to expand and become a great power in Europe. I want to be crystal clear that none of this is to take away from the heroism of the courageous men and women of the Greatest Generation who served in the Allied armies or to whitewash Axis war crimes or the Holocaust. I mean only to show the complexity of WWII and that all sides did bad things. I also wanted to show the story of WWII is not as straightforward or as simple as one might think. If anyone here would like to learn more about Nazi ideology and why they gained such a dedicated following I encourage everyone to check out the incredible and informative book "Hitler's Revolution'" by Richard Tedor. Here is a link to the book: https://www.amazon.com/Hitlers-Revolution-Ideology-Programs-Foreign/dp/0988368234/ref=sr_1_1?crid=352WBCED22IOV&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.1EfzTXopQtcoZZT2hmEX-eFLQ1FWSt9uUm53lGDQ3i8r-JxOZtsNStAQ9sWpX930-0t5aHtfBQq71lK4LF_nStQXJnbajVOpCt4CWQSITs6LKWNXtNGNSv4iOU_L-_83yGM00o5ZGgN0oAAEwKDClHGBDq1Umr0qO_zgXUE3MH3hPc77wQAFxEgaaXWQr8Sc0bQ3YU605HZkxWm4gNUuervOlBQvNeoiThrbDc_AsRM.K5iVm5YshUUhMckC6gq6HeWAaAQxm6JXuOV6crSsTpY&dib_tag=se&keywords=hitler%27s+revolution&qid=1726106845&s=books&sprefix=hitler%27s+revol%2Cstripbooks%2C90&sr=1-1
An incredible article Jake whose topic could not be timelier! It is as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said “there is some good in the worst of us, and some evil in the best of us.” Martyr Made (real name Darryl Cooper) shouldn’t be persecuted for his views. It is absolutely true we should not portray the Allies as saints or the Axis as cartoon-type villains. We need to see them as they really were in all their complexity to understand them and see WWII clearly. You also do a great job pointing out how those who took part in the Nazi regime did so because they believed they were doing the right thing and making the world a better place. Crazy as that sounds it’s true. The Allied powers weren’t perfect by any means. Allied soldiers committed war crimes too (albeit not anywhere near on the scale Axis soldiers did.) I will give a few examples. The War Department had to start cracking down on American soldiers for human trophy collecting in the Pacific Theater as American soldiers were taking the body parts of dead Japanese soldiers such as their skulls, ears, teeth, and testicles as trophies. Racism against Japanese people was rampant in America at that time. Wartime propaganda portrayed them with bright yellow skin, buck teeth and exaggerated facial features. There were also many cases of American soldiers shooting Japanese soldiers who had already surrendered. The bombing of the historic city of Dresden by the USAF and RAF on February 13-15, 1945, was a case of the Allies going WAY too far and 25,000 people were killed via incineration. French Moroccan Goumier soldiers surrounded the homes of German women and then brutally raped them. The Goumiers also murdered, raped and pillaged their way across the Italian countryside. Now we come to the Soviets. The Russians were on another level when it came to atrocities in wartime! Let’s not forget about the 1943 Katyn Forest Massacre where the Soviets “liquidated” the Polish intelligentsia with stunning efficiency.
You know a lot more about the details of the war than I do! Very interesting.