What made WWII more contraversial than WWI

Pawnless Endgame · 7 Jun 2018 at 21:06

Serious question, because my history classes only covered WWI. At the end of the term, the history teacher treated us to Black Adder, some of the WWI episodes.

Now who doesn't like a spot of Black Adder? Especially the war episodes? A lot more people died in WWI, also known as the Great War. Black Adder made a mockery of this and nobody batted an eyelid. I guess it's before the Twitter era, but surely common sense anyway, no?

Yet if you turn up to a fancy dress party in a Nazi outfit (which is related to WWII), at best you will get kicked out and at worst you'll get arrested. Take some other evil leaders such as Ghengis Khan, Vlad The Impaler, Ivan the Terrible or Attila The Hun, and dressing up as one of those wouldn't be a problem. I just don't understand why WWII is so politicised. Is it because it's still recent history and people are still alive from it (in their 80s and 90s now)?

The Labour party is being swamped with accusations of late, mainly to do with the Nazi logo, like this one they compared the Nazi logo with the fur trade. Then all of the whingers flock to Twitter to make the 'offenders' bow down. Surely though, the fur trade is just as bad as a logo, even worse imo. In all honesty, a lot of people wouldn't know the connection with the fur trade in that news article.

What about the usage of other 'evil' logos like the pentagram?

Dis86 · 7 Jun 2018 at 21:10

More died in WW2. WW1 had the Armenian genocide which a lot of people seem to forget about because it was perpetrated by the religion of perpetual peace whereas WW2 had the final solution which was against one of the historically most oppressed peoples in the world.
WW2 also saw the dawn of the atomic age and the horrors of the pacific (look up what the lovely Japanese did in Nanking).
It was truly more of a global war than WW1.

WW1 was to some extents just a senseless and pointless waste. WW2 changed the world entirely.

Irish_Tom · 7 Jun 2018 at 21:20

What @Dis86 said.

WW1 was more of a “traditional” conflict (for want of a better word) where the majority of casualties were military.

WW2 saw civilians as acceptable targets (by all sides), combined with the systematic extermination of “Untermensch” by the Nazis which led to a much higher death toll.

Minusorange · 7 Jun 2018 at 21:45

Pawnless Endgame said:
Yet if you turn up to a fancy dress party in a Nazi outfit (which is related to WWII), at best you will get kicked out and at worst you'll get arrested.

I too don't understand why we feign such disgust towards the Nazi's when they're or no better or no worse than any other evil regime to ever exist in human history

It's worth mentioning that more people died under the rule of communism than both WW1 and WW2 combined while we stood idly by purely because it was inside their own borders and thus no concern to us

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Book_of_Communism

Yet most would not bat an eyelid if one went to a party dressed as one of the members of the communist party

Dis86 · 7 Jun 2018 at 22:00

Minusorange said:
I too don't understand why we feign such disgust towards the Nazi's when they're or no better or no worse than any other evil regime to ever exist in human history

It's worth mentioning that more people died under the rule of communism than both WW1 and WW2 combined while we stood idly by purely because it was inside their own borders and thus no concern to us

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Book_of_Communism

Yet most would not bat an eyelid if one went to a party dressed as one of the members of the communist party

I think part of the issue is people didn't quite realise how bad communist regimes were until long after the fact. It was only really the fall of the USSR that made it clear how bad things had been. Plus you only have to look at this forum to see how many people seem to have a raging penile extension for Russia cos it's cool to hate on the west innit.

Irish_Tom · 7 Jun 2018 at 22:21

Plus the fact that we were allied with them against the Nazis during the war.

mmj_uk · 7 Jun 2018 at 22:33

There's no counter to the propaganda under a Communist regime so the truth of the genocide is never really known, countries outside have no idea and people on the inside are spun a lie. I'd imagine if the west ever falls to Communism it'll be the Conservative/Capitalist/Pro-Constitution/Trump type supporters who are all slaughtered and the so called 'progressive' left will be celebrating the culling of all of the racist Nazi's while waving candles and chanting about unity.

Ugley_Matt · 7 Jun 2018 at 22:35

Irish_Tom said:
What @Dis86 said.

WW1 was more of a “traditional” conflict (for want of a better word) where the majority of casualties were military.

WW2 saw civilians as acceptable targets (by all sides), combined with the systematic extermination of “Untermensch” by the Nazis which led to a much higher death toll.

WW1 was still fought in the traditional way of lining up and walking towards each other. Then it created the machinery of war, planes, tanks and chemical weapons. Then there was the way that WWI started, an assignation and then various treaties came in to play which meant countries one by one declared war.

WWII was different in the sense that it was more "straightforward", an evil mad, evil ideology that needed to be stopped.

Irish_Tom · 7 Jun 2018 at 22:52

Ugley_Matt said:
WW1 was still fought in the traditional way of lining up and walking towards each other. Then it created the machinery of war, planes, tanks and chemical weapons. Then there was the way that WWI started, an assignation and then various treaties came in to play which meant countries one by one declared war.

WWII was different in the sense that it was more "straightforward", an evil mad, evil ideology that needed to be stopped.

Very true. And of course, many of the technological developments from WW1 helped make WW2 so much more distructive.

a1ex2001 · 7 Jun 2018 at 22:58

WW1 was a terrible waste millions sent to certain deaths by commanders who never visited the front lines in a war that had no meaning or purupose.

dowie · 7 Jun 2018 at 23:10

I remember back when Prince Harry dressed up as a Nazi and it was apparently a heinous crime... an "insult" to our war dead etc.. I also remember seeing online a picture from Sandhurst taken in like 1970 or something with an entire parade of officer cadets in fancy dress nazi uniforms. Now I think back then (25 years from the end of the war) you'd perhaps find the Academy Sergeant Major and the Commandant were WW2 veterans and I doubt either would have any hesitation in making their feelings very well known if they found it offensive rather than funny.

Interestingly no one cares much about the use of communist insignia, or pictures of mass murdering communists.

Skunkworks · 7 Jun 2018 at 23:13

Minusorange said:

Needs to have Corbyn added.

cheesyboy · 7 Jun 2018 at 23:28

Because Naziism is a lasting symbol and rallying point of some pretty extreme and nasty beliefs which are still held, among some, even today.

dowie · 7 Jun 2018 at 23:29

cheesyboy said:
Because Naziism is a lasting symbol and rallying point of some pretty extreme and nasty beliefs which are still held, among some, even today.

So is communism.

cheesyboy · 7 Jun 2018 at 23:34

dowie said:
So is communism.

'communism' is rather wider than Naziism. Being more comparable with fascism as a concept.

I'm not convinced that your point really works.

dowie · 7 Jun 2018 at 23:46

cheesyboy said:
'communism' is rather wider than Naziism. Being more comparable with fascism as a concept.

I'm not convinced that your point really works.

OK inset specific symbols relating to USSR, pictures of Stalin etc.. instead then.

Pudney · 8 Jun 2018 at 00:01

dowie said:
OK inset specific symbols relating to USSR, pictures of Stalin etc.. instead then.

Was the cause the USSR or Stalin? Because from my limited understanding it was Stalin's rule that saw the mass killings rather than a "policy" of the USSR throughout the course of its existence.

dowie · 8 Jun 2018 at 00:11

Pudney said:
Was the cause the USSR or Stalin? Because from my limited understanding it was Stalin's rule that saw the mass killings rather than a "policy" of the USSR throughout the course of its existence.

you could also perhaps try the same thing re: national socialism, perhaps explain away the holocaust as the policy of Nazi party leadership

Pudney · 8 Jun 2018 at 00:17

dowie said:
you could also perhaps try the same thing re: national socialism, perhaps explain away the holocaust as the policy of Nazi party leadership

Leninism and Stalinism were sufficiently different to each other. The purges and genocide occurred due to the Stalinist version of Communism.

If you're right, then you'd expect the mass murders to have occurred throughout Communist rule of the USSR. My understanding, and I'm happy to be corrected, is that they occurred under Stalin. "Communism" isn't a single ideology, just as "democracy" isn't. So feel free to correct me, but my understanding is that the issue was Stalinism and not Communism as a whole.

dowie · 8 Jun 2018 at 00:24

Pudney said:
Leninism and Stalinism were sufficiently different to each other. The purges and genocide occurred due to the Stalinist version of Communism.

If you're right, then you'd expect the mass murders to have occurred throughout Communist rule of the USSR. My understanding, and I'm happy to be corrected, is that they occurred under Stalin. "Communism" isn't a single ideology, just as "democracy" isn't. So feel free to correct me, but my understanding is that the issue was Stalinism and not Communism as a whole.

But I'm not saying your argument re: communism is wrong in an historical sense per say. I'm highlighting that you could also make the argument re: national socialism that blames the atrocities on Nazi leadership in Germany and just supports the general ideology (in fact there are modern day "national socialists" who actually try to do this).