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: Tue 10th June 2008, 9:40pm

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: Tue 10th June 2008, 9:48pm

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: Tue 10th June 2008, 10:11pm

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.