World War II, The anti-US version Options

When will Oberiko and his group stop?

He's won just about every argument he's had, and still keeps going.

He's got the article under constant semi-protection.
He's deleted the American picture from the lead montage, and now there are 2 Soviet, 2 Commonwealth, and 2 Japanese.
The Intro and infobox refuse to say that the war started in 1939, and the 1937/39 debate continues.
The Intro and infobox don't list the major combatants
The major commanders aren't listed anywhere in the article. (For fun, try to find "Eisenhower" or "Zhukov" anywhere on the page using Edit --> Find on this Page.)

The entire article is written in Oberiko's weird wiki-summary style where the proper names of events are hidden within Wiki-links. See the Normandy Invasion coverage, in its entirety:

In June, 1944, the Western Allies invaded northern France

And check my favorite passage:

The Soviets decided to make their stand at Stalingrad which was in the path of the advancing German armies and by mid-November the Germans had nearly taken Stalingrad in bitter street fighting when the Soviets began their second winter counter-offensive, starting with an encirclement of German forces at Stalingrad[94] and an assault on the Rzhev salient near Moscow, though the latter failed disastrously.[95

I've been following the article for years now, and seen people come and go but basically anyone who doesn't agree with Oberiko gets frustrated and leaves. He's not afraid to swing his administrator status and have people blocked who edit war with him or Parsecboy.

I could go through line by line and point out not only anti-Western and anti-American bias, but also outright errors. Take the first line of the Background section:

In the aftermath of World War I, the defeated German Empire signed the Treaty of Versailles.[7]

How does anyone not notice this for months and months? I've been watching it as an experiment to see if Wikipedians will ever get a clue, but, well, you see. Later in the background you'll find out that Germany's goal with Austria was to make it a "satellite state". Both of these statements are referenced too?

Insult to injury: the Holocaust is described as "the systematic purging of Jews in Europe". Well I'm pretty sure English isn't Oberiko's first language, but then why doesn't anyone help him? Oh right, because it's so obvious that the article is Owned that you'd be an idiot to try to help.

I know this breaks my rule of thumb not to help Wikipedia myself, but it is the number one search result and I'm feeling a bit of remorse just letting it fester, with it being around D-Day this week and having just recently talked to guy who was a B-29 pilot based in Saipan. I can't believe a generation of kids might be seeing their first encyclopedia article about WWII on Wikipedia.

This post has been edited by Emperor:

Boo hoo, America isn't mentioned enough. There are other countries, too. An encyclopedia article doesn't have to have OMG AMERICA WON THE WAR AND SAVED THE WORLD.

The points about the awkward language are true, though.

In the aftermath of World War I, the defeated German Empire signed the Treaty of Versailles.[7]

How does anyone not notice this for months and months?

Could you help me out here, as I know very little history after 1330 - what is wrong with that?

This article does have a non-American POV, but I did not read anything that would be in my opinion be an error.

It was the Soviets who defeated the Germans. Before June, 1944 that vast majority of the allied forces fighting against Germany were from the Soviet Union and before the Allies opened up another front in Normandy in June, 1944 it was already certain that the Germans were going to be defeated.

This article does have a non-American POV, but I did not read anything that would be in my opinion be an error.

Saying the war started in 1937 is an error, not a POV. Calling the Holocaust "the systematic purging of Jews in Europe" is (to put it mildly) a grotesque error.

This article does have a non-American POV, but I did not read anything that would be in my opinion be an error.

Calling the Holocaust "the systematic purging of Jews in Europe" is (to put it mildly) a grotesque error.

I would contend calling these events a "the systematic purging of Jews in Europe" is a neutral POV, while calling them a Holocaust is POV. The discussion of the correct naming belongs in the Zionist-related debates thread.

I would contend calling these events a "the systematic purging of Jews in Europe" is a neutral POV, while calling them a Holocaust is POV. The discussion of the correct naming belongs in the Zionist-related debates thread.

That's a pretty strong POV. It's the first (or more than the first) step on a nasty slippery slope. And what does it have to do with Zionism?

Could you help me out here, as I know very little history after 1330 - what is wrong with that?

Nothing that I can see, and I used to have a pretty strong amateur interest in all matters WWII.

Saying the war started in 1937 is an error, not a POV.

Were I to wish to be a dingus about this, I'd suggest that there's a POV that says that the 1937 Marco Polo Bridge incident and subsequent occupation of major Chinese cities by the Japanese was really the beginning of the war, and that it's only a western bias that waits until the European powers got involved. That said, according to the NPOV policy as currently written, the article should clearly have 1939 as the starting date.

Were I to wish to be a dingus about this, I'd suggest that there's a POV that says that the 1937 Marco Polo Bridge incident and subsequent occupation of major Chinese cities by the Japanese was really the beginning of the war, and that it's only a western bias that waits until the European powers got involved.

What about the Italian invasion of Abyssinia in 1935?

What about the Italian invasion of Abyssinia in 1935?

Silly Guy - hostilities in Africa count even less than hostilities in Asia.

Saying the war started in 1937 is an error, not a POV.

Were I to wish to be a dingus about this, I'd suggest that there's a POV that says that the 1937 Marco Polo Bridge incident and subsequent occupation of major Chinese cities by the Japanese was really the beginning of the war, and that it's only a western bias that waits until the European powers got involved. That said, according to the NPOV policy as currently written, the article should clearly have 1939 as the starting date.

There is even a POV that says the war began with the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931. All of these POVs should be included. Wikipedia is at its worst when it promotes an orthodoxy in any discipline.

In the aftermath of World War I, the defeated German Empire signed the Treaty of Versailles.[7]

How does anyone not notice this for months and months?

Could you help me out here, as I know very little history after 1330 - what is wrong with that?

The Kaiser abdicated and the German Empire ceased to exist in November 1918. The Treaty of Versailles was signed over six months later.

The Kaiser abdicated and the German Empire ceased to exist in November 1918. The Treaty of Versailles was signed over six months later.

Point: you.

This article does have a non-American POV, but I did not read anything that would be in my opinion be an error.

It was the Soviets who defeated the Germans. Before June, 1944 that vast majority of the allied forces fighting against Germany were from the Soviet Union and before the Allies opened up another front in Normandy in June, 1944 it was already certain that the Germans were going to be defeated.

Is it not equally obvious that had the war involved only Germany and Russia, leaving Germany access to world trade, that Russia would have been soundly defeated?

This post has been edited by Proabivouac:

Boo hoo, America isn't mentioned enough. There are other countries, too. An encyclopedia article doesn't have to have OMG AMERICA WON THE WAR AND SAVED THE WORLD.

The points about the awkward language are true, though.

Thanks for that. Do you think that non-Americans are better off learning three times that there was fighting around Stalingrad, and that there was a "Rzhev salient" near Moscow, but never knowing that the largest amphibious invasion in history happened in Normandy?

If you really do, then please, go edit the article and make it even more unreadable so people eventually learn to stay away from it and other Wikipedia articles. Google will either drop it from #1 search results or people will stop using Google.

This article does have a non-American POV, but I did not read anything that would be in my opinion be an error.

It was the Soviets who defeated the Germans. Before June, 1944 that vast majority of the allied forces fighting against Germany were from the Soviet Union and before the Allies opened up another front in Normandy in June, 1944 it was already certain that the Germans were going to be defeated.

Is it not equally obvious that had the war involved only Germany and Russia, leaving Germany access to world trade, that Russia would have been soundly defeated?

The Russians get the credit for doing a large fraction of the fighting and most of the military dying in the European theater of WW II. But yes, if the Germans had captured Moscow and the oil fields, it would have been all over for the USSR, and with those oil fields, the Germans would have (temporarily) won the game of RISK.

Until we atom bombed them sometime after August 1945, that is. But that was a wild joker nobody really knew would or could be played, until the previous month.

As it was, the USSR came within a hair's breadth of losing it. And that's with massive Allied material aid, and a fair amount of Allied pin-down of German armies in Africa and Italy, which otherwise would have been decisive in the East. Much as in WW I, it really did take everybody to beat the Germans in "conventional" war.

Unlike WW I, however, if everybody had not been able to win conventionally, the US still would have atom bombed the Germans into glowing embers, no matter how well they'd done, sometime in 1946. The Germans just could not reach the US with anything damaging, and would not have been able to, for some years. They had no aircraft carriers, and their plans for ultralong-range bombers were going to carry what? Nothing of consequence can be carried 3000 miles, except a nuke. But with an atom bomb, you can reach a long way and touch someone. If we assume Germany had totally won in Europe (including against the UK), we could not have used the B-29 against them (no place to base it), and the bombs of 1945 couldn't be dropped from anything else. But smaller bombs dropable from carrier-launched B-25s would have been available within another year, and that would have been it, for Germany. It's well that it didn't end that way, but it could have. And certainly would have.

This post has been edited by Milton Roe:

If we assume Germany had totally won in Europe (including against the UK), we could not have used the B-29 against them (no place to base it), and the bombs of 1945 couldn't be dropped from anything else. But smaller bombs dropable from carrier-launched B-25s would have been available within another year, and that would have been it, for Germany. It's well that it didn't end that way, but it could have. And certainly would have.

The fire-bombing of Dresden was pretty awful, and as close to atomic weaponry as conventional bombs can be. I drove through there right after the wall fell, and it was still pretty much of a mess, as were the highways which didn't see repairs the entire 50 year period.

Is it not equally obvious that had the war involved only Germany and Russia, leaving Germany access to world trade, that Russia would have been soundly defeated?

You mean if they were the only two countries in the world? Really, you cannot conjecture thus, or you have an entire new framework to add to ex post facto history. The US entry to the war was incredibly important. This was the frame of reference for the first 50 years after the war's end.

If there are anti-American, or US-minimization elements on those articles, my guess is that they are twenty-somethings. There seems to be a sort of generational Euro-youth backlash against the pro-American gratitude of their parents. I've seen that myriad in the past 10 or so years.

This article does have a non-American POV, but I did not read anything that would be in my opinion be an error.

It was the Soviets who defeated the Germans. Before June, 1944 that vast majority of the allied forces fighting against Germany were from the Soviet Union and before the Allies opened up another front in Normandy in June, 1944 it was already certain that the Germans were going to be defeated.

Is it not equally obvious that had the war involved only Germany and Russia, leaving Germany access to world trade, that Russia would have been soundly defeated?

That is not at all obvious.

If we assume Germany had totally won in Europe (including against the UK), we could not have used the B-29 against them (no place to base it), and the bombs of 1945 couldn't be dropped from anything else. But smaller bombs dropable from carrier-launched B-25s would have been available within another year, and that would have been it, for Germany. It's well that it didn't end that way, but it could have. And certainly would have.

The fire-bombing of Dresden was pretty awful, and as close to atomic weaponry as conventional bombs can be. I drove through there right after the wall fell, and it was still pretty much of a mess, as were the highways which didn't see repairs the entire 50 year period.

For sure, but in my alternate history, I'm assuming US is out, as was the premise. Germany doesn't declare war on the US right after Pearl Harbor, so we don't enter the war in Europe (having no excuse). By the time we do, Germany has captured the USSR and subsequently invaded England (or starved it to death). Both events as it was coming within a month of happening, even with the US involved and sending supplies like crazy.

So when it comes time to deal with Germany in 1946 we have no English base from which to mount an invason or firebomb cities (which takes hundreds of airplanes only flying a few hundred miles). Festung Europa really is that, without North Africa or England to launch from. Nobody creates firestorms from across the Atlantic, without nuclear weapons. Even firebombing Tokyo (which, was as bad as Dresden with twice the death toll) took 300 really big B29 planes from (as I remember) Saipan. Couldn't have done that from a carrier, nor from across an ocean. Nah, if you have no base, B-25s from carriers, with A-bombs, is about all you get.

For sure, but in my alternate history, I'm assuming US is out, as was the premise. Germany doesn't declare war on the US right after Pearl Harbor, so we don't enter the war in Europe (having no excuse). By the time we do, Germany has captured the USSR and subsequently invaded England (or starved it to death). Both events as it was coming within a month of happening, even with the US involved and sending supplies like crazy.

There are several other plausible alternate histories. One is that England and France fail to declare war on Germany following the invasion of Poland - it wouldn't be the first time they'd backed down, and really not a bad move, as the war was a disaster for both empires, and of course France was eliminated nearly outright. Then Germany and Russia come to blows on their own schedule.

Another is that England and Germany make a deal following the fall of France, with German withdrawal from Norway, Belgium and France, excepting Alsace-Lorraine, and some kind of protectorate in Denmark and Holland, in exchange for favorable terms of trade within the British Empire - a completely sensible deal on its face which would have benefited all concerned. Then Germany and Russia come to blows on their own schedule.

There are several other plausible alternate histories. One is that England and France fail to declare war on Germany following the invasion of Poland - it wouldn't be the first time they'd backed down, and really not a bad move, as the war was a disaster for both empires, and of course France was eliminated nearly outright. Then Germany and Russia come to blows on their own schedule.

I've got to read Pat Buchannan's Churchill, Hilter, and the Unnecessary War which has that premise. But I've no doubt Barbarosa would still have happened, even with France intact, and then the USSR would have been toast without Allied help. Would the Allies have sat that one out, too? But the Nazis really were evil, so we would have had to fight them eventually. WW II was necessary so long as Hitler was in power. Just a question of when. The longer we wait, the stronger he gets...

By the way, does anyone else think that parts of the intro were cribbed from Encarta?

Encarta: "global military conflict"
Wikipedia: "global military conflict"

Encarta: "...the commitment of nations’ entire human and economic resources, the blurring of the distinction between combatant and noncombatant"
Wikipedia: "erasing the distinction between civil and military resources"

Encarta: "in terms of lives lost and material destruction, was the most devastating war in human history."
Wikipedia: "making it the most costly war in capital as well as lives." (The phrase "human history" has been edited out over time.)

This post has been edited by Emperor:

I've got to read Pat Buchannan's Churchill, Hilter, and the Unnecessary War which has that premise.

Oh Gawd. He wrote a book on that premise? (And you'd read it?)
Why not save the money and... spend it on anything else

But I've no doubt Barbarosa would still have happened, even with France intact, and then the USSR would have been toast without Allied help. Would the Allies have sat that one out, too? But the Nazis really were evil, so we would have had to fight them eventually. WW II was necessary so long as Hitler was in power. Just a question of when. The longer we wait, the stronger he gets...

The US would have been dragged into the war eventually. Both of the major axis powers were on-the-move until they mopped it all up, or until someone stopped them. Eventually, England and France would have been attacked, Poland, or no Poland. From the German perspective, that war was all about overcoming the shame/stimga of signing the economy-crushing Treaty of Versailles (Keynes actually wrote a thesis one how German repayment of the financial obligations was impossible to complete without wiping out the national budget). I forget the exact circumstances, but when France capitulated to Germany after the WW2 invasion, signatory was in the same place, or the same pen, or something meaningful, as in "payback time." Poland was simply easy to attack, and the Germans considered it lost property, i.e. Prussia, as they also did the Sudetenland (then-Czechoslovakia), both of were populated with significant levels of ethnic German. Hitler 'picked off' the countries he could attack more easily, then swung at the big fish later. Recall that Russia was an ally for a while, then got attacked. If Axis-Germany had mowed the world down, and the US (etc) didn't exist, Axis-Germany would have taken out Japan in the end, in a horrific-bizarro-world situation. Axis-Germany had no allies, just temporary partners. (reminds me of some person... oh never mind)

This post has been edited by Disillusioned Lackey:

The fire-bombing of Dresden was pretty awful, and as close to atomic weaponry as conventional bombs can be.

The death toll was substantially greater than Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Any articles involving Eastern European history are an absolute minefield. The Iron Curtain is still very much alive in the minds of many editors.

For another example, have a look at the occasional shitfights that break out at the article on the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Here, editors from ex-Soviet states still stick to the near 50-year USSR doctrine that the Pact never existed and was a Western fabrication.

But for the worst example of strawman racial drama that I have seen, see the "humourous" http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Poles_are_evil. The fact that it is on Meta and not on WP makes it totally independent from WP - at least, that's what some Polish editors say when the page is attacked after said editors refer to it as the ultimate defence against any objections (however slight) come their way.

The death toll was substantially greater than Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Yes. That doesn't get a lot of historical attention as it is somehow overshadowed by other events (Normandy, atom bombs, etc). I saw a documentary on it for the first time when living in Europe, and I thought I'd read tons on WW2 and seen tons of biopics when back in the US. I had no idea what the firebombing did there. Apparently anyone in some certain radius got fried. There was simply no place to hide. If you were in a bomb shelter underground, that wasn't safe. The only way to survive was to not be there, period.

When I drove through there immediately post wall-came-down, the town was so undeveloped that there was only one hotel for like 400 dollars a night, and really nothing else in terms of small hotels. And the city was still a mess. I've been back and it's totally different. The post-unification German government poured millions into reconstruction in the past 10 years.

Here, editors from ex-Soviet states still stick to the near 50-year USSR doctrine that the Pact never existed and was a Western fabrication.

Thats strange. I wonder what is the editor demographic of that ilk. I've never met an Eastern European who had that position. Maybe a Russian or two, but they were hooked in to the old appararichnik system by family (usually parents), and they were somehow obligated to speak so, and so arguing with them would have been almost rude. You know, those just-nod-and-smile-why-argue conversations.

This post has been edited by Disillusioned Lackey:

Yes. That doesn't get a lot of historical attention as it is somehow overshadowed by other events (Normandy, atom bombs, etc). I saw a documentary on it for the first time when living in Europe, and I thought I'd read tons on WW2 and seen tons of biopics when back in the US. I had no idea what the firebombing did there. Apparently anyone in some certain radius got fried. There was simply no place to hide. If you were in a bomb shelter underground, that wasn't safe. The only way to survive was to not be there, period.

A major reason why there is little attention to this in the Allied countries is because it was a deliberate attack on a civilian population, and widespread recognition of that would sully the idea that our side was always fighting the good fight.

Thats strange. I wonder what is the editor demographic of that ilk. I've never met an Eastern European who had that position. Maybe a Russian or two, but they were hooked in to the old appararichnik system by family (usually parents), and they were somehow obligated to speak so, and so arguing with them would have been almost rude. You know, those just-nod-and-smile-why-argue conversations.

Don't get me wrong. Not all Eastern European editors are like that. But you know how it is with WP: those who yell the loudest tend to outlast all the sensible editors, especially when under the protective wing of an admin or two.

A major reason why there is little attention to this in the Allied countries is because it was a deliberate attack on a civilian population, and widespread recognition of that would sully the idea that our side was always fighting the good fight.

Yes, but by that metric, Hiroshima and Nagasaki should also be unmentionables. I had the impression that at that point, strategic attacks such as the three aforementioned were not politically-incorrect, given the vast desire to end the war. Or.... if that's true, then why were N and H ok, but D not?

Don't get me wrong. Not all Eastern European editors are like that. But you know how it is with WP: those who yell the loudest tend to outlast all the sensible editors, especially when under the protective wing of an admin or two.

That and the "all the whackjobs tend to gravitate to the internet because they have no social skills (friends, family, etc)" theory mesh nicely. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/rolleyes.gif)

The death toll was substantially greater than Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Yes. That doesn't get a lot of historical attention as it is somehow overshadowed by other events (Normandy, atom bombs, etc). I saw a documentary on it for the first time when living in Europe, and I thought I'd read tons on WW2 and seen tons of biopics when back in the US. I had no idea what the firebombing did there. Apparently anyone in some certain radius got fried. There was simply no place to hide. If you were in a bomb shelter underground, that wasn't safe. The only way to survive was to not be there, period.

The most horrifying feature was that Dresden had no military significance. The bombing was carried out as a macabre experiment in psychological warfare, by the Strategic Bombing Survey (see this article.)

A major reason why there is little attention to this in the Allied countries is because it was a deliberate attack on a civilian population, and widespread recognition of that would sully the idea that our side was always fighting the good fight.

Yes, but by that metric, Hiroshima and Nagasaki should also be unmentionables. I had the impression that at that point, strategic attacks such as the three aforementioned were not politically-incorrect, given the vast desire to end the war. Or.... if that's true, then why were N and H ok, but D not?

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not "OK," either. The emperor of Japan had already made a back-channel offer of surrender, under the same terms that were later agreed to on the USS Missouri. His overture was rebuffed, because a faction in the civilian leadership of the US was eager to try out atomic weapons, on civilian targets, in order to create a certain psychological effect on the rest of the world.

Oh.

This post has been edited by Disillusioned Lackey:

As an interesting note, the US Veterans Association a few years ago managed to stop the Smithsonian from presenting an exhibition on the Hiroshima/Nagasaki bombings, for fear that displaying the true carnage that was unleashed by the bombings would sully their good name. I haven't looked at the WP article on the bombings, but I wouldn't be surprised if similar movements were afoot there too.

Go to Hiroshima one day and have a look around. I highly recommend it.

This post has been edited by House of Cards:

As an interesting note, the US Veterans Association a few years ago managed to stop the Smithsonian from presenting an exhibition on the Hiroshima/Nagasaki bombings, for fear that displaying the true carnage that was unleashed by the bombings would sully their good name. I haven't looked at the WP article on the bombings, but I wouldn't be surprised if similar movements were afoot there too.

Go to Hiroshima one day and have a look around. I highly recommend it.

Carnage was the point.

Ah, sorry. Not just the carnage, but everything else that involved the bombing: the desire to test the weapons on a civilian population, the total lack of necessity of the bombing in terms of finishing the war, the long-lasting effects of the bombing, etc.

This post has been edited by House of Cards:

The death toll was substantially greater than Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Yes. That doesn't get a lot of historical attention as it is somehow overshadowed by other events (Normandy, atom bombs, etc). I saw a documentary on it for the first time when living in Europe, and I thought I'd read tons on WW2 and seen tons of biopics when back in the US. I had no idea what the firebombing did there. Apparently anyone in some certain radius got fried. There was simply no place to hide. If you were in a bomb shelter underground, that wasn't safe. The only way to survive was to not be there, period.

The most horrifying feature was that Dresden had no military significance. The bombing was carried out as a macabre experiment in psychological warfare, by the Strategic Bombing Survey (see this article.)

A major reason why there is little attention to this in the Allied countries is because it was a deliberate attack on a civilian population, and widespread recognition of that would sully the idea that our side was always fighting the good fight.

Yes, but by that metric, Hiroshima and Nagasaki should also be unmentionables. I had the impression that at that point, strategic attacks such as the three aforementioned were not politically-incorrect, given the vast desire to end the war. Or.... if that's true, then why were N and H ok, but D not?

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not "OK," either. The emperor of Japan had already made a back-channel offer of surrender, under the same terms that were later agreed to on the USS Missouri. His overture was rebuffed, because a faction in the civilian leadership of the US was eager to try out atomic weapons, on civilian targets, in order to create a certain psychological effect on the rest of the world.

I'm sure I have heard it suggested (is that vague enough sourcing?!) that one of Hitler's biggest errors was the switch to the wide-scale bombing of Britain, which freed Churchill from any ethical concerns he had.

My father was in Burma*, and after a long wait in India and a bout of malaria as well, eventually went into action against the Japanese. The next stop was Malaya and they were due to land on the beaches a few days after The Bomb was dropped. He is certain, having seen the sandy beaches with trees lining the shore, that it would have been an unsurvivable experience for most. He therefore believes that the dropping of the bomb, even if it only shortened the war by a few days, saved his life and those of his comrades. He landed those few days later as a member of an occupying force.


*As it was known then (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif)

The most horrifying feature was that Dresden had no military significance. The bombing was carried out as a macabre experiment in psychological warfare, by the Strategic Bombing Survey (see this article.)

Sorry, I stopped reading that article when I saw this: "hit the nation's that might sponsor them". What motivates writers to put in a possessive apostrophe when they simply mean to construct a plural noun?

Not so fast on Dresden. It all depends on what you consider "military significance". That is disputed. I'm not trying to gloss over the human disgraces that took place at Allied hands during World War II -- quite the contrary. But it is also worth considering that some portion of the Dresden story is based on a heap of post-war mythology.

That being said, my undergraduate honors thesis on the broader subject is available for reading if you're ever in the stacks at Woodruff Library at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. (U4.5 .K65) Maybe you can get it through inter-library loan. It's only "magna" cum laude quality, though. Don't knock yourself out.

Not so fast on Dresden. It all depends on what you consider "military significance". That is disputed. I'm not trying to gloss over the human disgraces that took place at Allied hands during World War II -- quite the contrary. But it is also worth considering that some portion of the Dresden story is based on a heap of post-war mythology.

All cities almost everywhere during the war had some military significance. It's a question of proportion.

From that link: He also notes that Dresden was a hotbed of Nazi sympathy and anti-Semitism. Is that really a good enough excuse to firebomb it? Going only from that article, the whole thing sounds too apologetic to me.

There is some post-war mythology involved, for sure. But don't forget that some of it comes from the Allied side, who excuse Dresden with "well, they deserved it"

As I recall, wasn't Dresden firebombed a] in return for Coventry, which was both revenge and as a moral boost for the British people, and b] as a demonstration of power?

This post has been edited by Neil:

As I recall, wasn't Dresden firebombed a] in return for Coventry, which was both revenge and as a moral boost for the British people, and b] as a demonstration of power?

There was a lot of revenge and moral justification happening during WW2.

I should also add that, based on the military and civilian death tolls on Okinawa (the Japanese lost 90,000 troops on an island only 460 square miles in area), the U.S. estimates for Japanese home island casualties (were the war brought to a conclusion through traditional amphibious invasion (Operation DOWNFALL)) numbered at least in the several millions. Certainly far fewer died at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

All of it was sad and certainly needless, as over 60 years of peace and alliance between the US and Japan since have proven.

I am always troubled by the equating of Hitler and Stalin. It is often stated that Stalin's forced collectivization and purges resulted in as many deaths to Soviet citizens as Hilter's invasion. I'm not certain of the numbers but that does seem possible. What it ignores is that Hilter failed in carrying out his intentions and Stalin succeeded. If Hitler had prevailed the Slavic people would have faced outright genocide, with the entire area east of the Urals depopulated and resettled with Germans. This would have meant losses an entire order of magnitude greater than those suffered. The Soviet narrative of the Great Patriotic War has much truth in it. The Slavic peoples owe a great debt to the Red Army, irrespective of the role of Stalin's regime in any other matters.

Google and Yahoo think that Wikipedia has the best page regarding World War II available.