That was certainly the case for me. It just didn't interest me in the slightest. But that's probably got more to do with the way it's taught than the subject itself.
Lack of awareness on WW1/2
- Thread starter Pawnless Endgame
- Start date
I remember one time when me and a friend were at an old ww1/ww2 gun emplacement on the coast, and he asked me ''who was it that invaded us in ww2 again? was it France?''.
I just walked away, swearing.
You'd be amazed at how little the general public knows about such things.
I just walked away, swearing.
You'd be amazed at how little the general public knows about such things.
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Soldato
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I am no expert but I feel that doing modern history for GCSE and studying WW1,2 and the Cold War helped me understand a few things about the world.
Where as my friends at another school learnt about the Irish potato famin. Haha.
Wouldn't mind it being compulsary for all GCSE students.
Where as my friends at another school learnt about the Irish potato famin. Haha.
Wouldn't mind it being compulsary for all GCSE students.
Soldato
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When Paulus was captured, he insisted that he wasn't going to surrender and that the Russians "caught him by surprise". It seems however that this was something that he thought of in the spur of the moment, not wanting to feel like he let his country down and is probably not his true thoughts.
General Schmidt was really the underlying power in Paulus' 6th Army. He is regarded as having greatly influenced Paulus, in particular on his decisions to surrender or not. It is widely believed that Scmhidt was the one who turned Dyatlenko (Russian captain in the intelligence services, possibly NKVD but that is unclear) away in the first Stalingrad surrender effort.
For all of the anecdotes I have read about Paulus being sympathetic to surrender, he really prolonged the suffering in the Kessel, even when the situation was plainly hopeless, one only needs to read about the conditions at Pitomnik Airfiend and Gumrak to find this out. It was clear after the first few days that the airlift was never going to get them the supplies in the quantities they required to operate, especially fuel. Additionally, any counter attacks to break the encirclement by General Hoth/Hube (I forget which) were futile and compounded by Hitlers orders that the 6th Army should not attempt to break encirclement by retreating.
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One of the best storys of how fanatical the japanese infantry were was the story of this bloke.
Second Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda
30 years after the end of the 2nd world war, he was still holding out.
The only way they convinced him it was over, was by dragged his commanding officer out of retirement to ask him to surrender. There was anrticle on him in one of the sunday papers a few months back. Amazing story.
True, i was nitpicking your statement of Facist Dictator though. Playing devils advocate.
I suppose there's an argument that "just because they're a fascist dictator, as long as you fit in their model, then there's no reason for things not to be ok."
But that's not what you said initially is it? you said that a life where we'd lost the war to Hitler would likely be better. Which, especially considering the sentiment in this thread, is fairly insulting to those who laid down their lives to prevent that from happening.
B@
Soldato
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Stalin killed off his military command shortly before war broke out as he viewed them as a threat to himself. Maybe if he had not killed them the war would have been totaly different, would you as a soldier put up much of a fight if you knew your command elements had been killed of for political reasons? Maybe they looked at the fall of france and thought maybe losing that war would not be so bad?
Soldato
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Armageddon by Max Hastings is definitely worth a read for more info on the Eastern Front, and makes for some horrifying reading when the enormity of some of the numbers sinks in. Take one example. A census conducted in the Soviet Union just before the war revealed there were circa 800,000 males born in 1923, who would have been of age for conscription in 1941, and would have faced the brunt of the German onslaught in July of that year when they launched operation Barbarossa. A census conducted just after the war revealed the number of males born in 1923 still alive was down to four figures. Literally, an entire generation wiped out almost in entirety. Sobering stuff. Apparently Russia still struggles with a high female-male population imbalance to this day.
Totally agree, the pervading view of WWII in the UK and America is a very western centric view. We often think that the battles we fought were the decisive ones, when in fact 80% of German battles casualties were incurred in the east.
i know its fictional but try "the war of the rats" http://www.amazon.com/War-Rats-David-L-Robbins/dp/055358135X
or
stalingrad http://www.amazon.co.uk/Stalingrad-Antony-Beevor/dp/0140249850 (if it hasn't been recommended already)
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We were doing the equal opportunities section of the induction, not being racist, sexist etc. The question on the questionnaire was asking when equal pay was introduced. The answer was 1946. Some of my group knew that it was around the year that WW2 ended. This prompted the uninformed into asking when the war ended and went from there.
Soldato
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It's no longer cool to study ww1/2 anymore....working for the uni the amount of tutors that scoff when an applicant mentions an interest in the wars is shocking in itself...they would rather an applicant knows more about the American civil war or heck even the Mexican one (which was this years test essay for potential applicants at the interview stage) it's education that's doing it really , there simply not teaching it anymore and favouring other lesser conflicts/moments in history that are deemed this years new fad.
Associate
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The wars have to be the most interesting parts of history for me, GCSE history does not cover the Second World war Only south africa and the Cold war.
IF anyone is interested there is an awesome site with photos of various abandoned vehciles, not necessarily from the war era buts ome are.
http://www.artificialowl.net/
And im not sure if this has already been posted but a russian T34 Beiing pulled out of a German lake :
http://www.rense.com/general75/germ2.htm
Well a captured one i think.
Arcimbaldo
IF anyone is interested there is an awesome site with photos of various abandoned vehciles, not necessarily from the war era buts ome are.
http://www.artificialowl.net/
And im not sure if this has already been posted but a russian T34 Beiing pulled out of a German lake :
http://www.rense.com/general75/germ2.htm
Well a captured one i think.
Arcimbaldo
I didn't do GCSE history, but we did spend some time on WW2 in the first 3 years of senior school. However, all we actually did was 'the home front' and related stuff - how the little kiddies got sent away to the country, and the people got rations and stuff... I think the only mention I heard of the actual fighting was a passing reference to 'Blitzkrieg', and Stalin moving his factories behind the Urals to avoid capture by the advancing Germans or something when we were doing Russia. So if I had not learnt anything outside of school, then I wouldn't know anything about the actual fighting at all.
This is all down to the syllabus, and part of the reason I disliked history lessons - you learn about a certain aspect of a certain time period in a certain country, but you get NO sense of how the world was generally at a certain point in history, and you don't get a sense of how events might come to pass. There is no continuity. This style of syllabus also means that children can leave school with even A level history, and have absolutely no idea about major events in history, if they weren't on their syllabus. I think going into some topics in detail is useful in terms of the skills required, but for me, as a child, a much broader syllabus would be more interesting, and provide a better education.
This is all down to the syllabus, and part of the reason I disliked history lessons - you learn about a certain aspect of a certain time period in a certain country, but you get NO sense of how the world was generally at a certain point in history, and you don't get a sense of how events might come to pass. There is no continuity. This style of syllabus also means that children can leave school with even A level history, and have absolutely no idea about major events in history, if they weren't on their syllabus. I think going into some topics in detail is useful in terms of the skills required, but for me, as a child, a much broader syllabus would be more interesting, and provide a better education.
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Man of Honour
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Was that because they were yet to happen and you were just learning about the Crimean War instead?
At secondary school we learned a little about WWI and WWII, always fascinating although such a tragic loss of life on all sides.
Was that because they were yet to happen and you were just learning about the Crimean War instead?
If it wasn't for my artificial hip and severe arthritis I would see to you sonny! (waves zimmer frame angrily).
My dad was a soldier so I tended to do a lot of reading around the subject of war and military in my spare time. I think I may even still have a GPMG field manual around somewhere!
Thats why WWI and WWII should be studied. We should never forget how much pain, death and suffering wars bring.
Broadie;18062392 -To quote Santayana (a name mentioned earlier) "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [url said:
Thats the great tragedy of these wars: both were avoidable, and the causes of the second are very much rooted in the end of the first.
Unfortunately this is true. History is written by the victors, and there is no way they're going to portray themselves in anything other than a favourable light. Too many people do not look past the dates and stories of the major battles in order to analyse the actual causes of the war and see the manor in which leaders, on all sides, made mistakes, stuffed things up and didn't hesitate when it came to putting someone else's life on the line!