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I would like to nitpick a little here. WW2 was an existential threat to the Soviet Union. It was so existential that this became the largest part of the identi

I would like to nitpick a little here. WW2 was an existential threat to the Soviet Union. It was so existential that this became the largest part of the identity of Russians. But WW2 was not an existential threat to UK. UK could have exited from the war at any time. No battle took place on the soil of UK mainland. I am not saying the people in UK did not suffer - they just did not suffer comparably to the people in the middle of the conflict. In a way the war was rather distant to the people living in UK.

jacquesm 9y ago
> No battle took place on the soil of UK mainland. Well, that's because the battle eventually took place in (mostly) France. But it's not as if that battle would not have eventually happened in the UK if the Germans had managed to gain air supremacy over the UK or if they had managed to pull a reverse Normandy. The UK could not have exited from the war at any time at all, their shipping would have been sunk and they would have been under siege from the moment they did so. The larger cities were receiving a good number of aerial bombardments and V2's (ok, also a form of aerial bombardment). And then there was the shipping tonnage sunk with all hands. War very much came to the UK, even if the eventual battle took place in France, Belgium, NL and eventually Germany (where whole cities had been obliterated).
- int_19h 9y ago
  UK could have negotiated unilateral peace with Germany, and it's likely that such negotiations would have succeeded. Hitler didn't actually want to fight the Brits - indeed, in "Mein Kampf" it's clear that he saw them with somewhat akin to an admiration, and a potential ally. Not so for the USSR, since it had been designated as "Lebensraum".
- eveningcoffee 9y ago
  Exactly, and this was my point - people in UK share somewhat disconnected experience from WW2.

jacquesm 9y ago

> No battle took place on the soil of UK mainland. Well, that's because the battle eventually took place in (mostly) France. But it's not as if that battle would not have eventually happened in the UK if the Germans had managed to gain air supremacy over the UK or if they had managed to pull a reverse Normandy. The UK could not have exited from the war at any time at all, their shipping would have been sunk and they would have been under siege from the moment they did so. The larger cities were receiving a good number of aerial bombardments and V2's (ok, also a form of aerial bombardment). And then there was the shipping tonnage sunk with all hands. War very much came to the UK, even if the eventual battle took place in France, Belgium, NL and eventually Germany (where whole cities had been obliterated).

int_19h 9y ago
UK could have negotiated unilateral peace with Germany, and it's likely that such negotiations would have succeeded. Hitler didn't actually want to fight the Brits - indeed, in "Mein Kampf" it's clear that he saw them with somewhat akin to an admiration, and a potential ally. Not so for the USSR, since it had been designated as "Lebensraum".
eveningcoffee 9y ago
Exactly, and this was my point - people in UK share somewhat disconnected experience from WW2.