3 ms·

"It's kind of how the Soviet Union and the west divided up Europe after WWII." - first question: "define Europe", 2nd question: "who exactly is west?", 3rd ques

"It's kind of how the Soviet Union and the west divided up Europe after WWII." - first question: "define Europe", 2nd question: "who exactly is west?", 3rd question: "did you just compare WWII to what exactly?"

mcguire 5y ago
Europe. The funny-shaped land between the Urals and the Atlantic. Here's a map of the Allied offensives in the last two years of the war. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f5/Second_world_war_europe_1943-1945_map_en.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f5/Second_w... Note how the western allies (The US and UK, mostly, plus France, Belgium, Netherlands, and so forth) controlled Italy, France, the Low Countries, and the western half of Germany. The USSR controlled Finland through the Balkans and eastern Germany. The general agreements of how everything would settle down were set by the Potsdam conference (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potsdam_Agreement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potsdam_Agreement), generally along the lines of countries' pre-war borders (although the USSR presented a fait accompli annexing part of East Prussia and attaching parts of east Germany to Poland (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Oder-neisse.gif https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Oder-neisse.gif) because they had troops there). This result hardened into what eventually became NATO (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO#/media/File:History_of_NATO_enlargement.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO#/media/File:History_of_NA..., the 1949 version) and the Warsaw Pact (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Pact#/media/File:Iron_Curtain_map.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Pact#/media/File:Iron_C...). And that's how Europe ended up divided into East and West. (Modulo the invasion of Hungary (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungary#Communism_(1945%E2%80%931989) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungary#Communism_(1945%E2%80%...) in 1956 and Czechoslovakia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czechoslovakia#Communist_Czechoslovakia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czechoslovakia#Communist_Czech...) in 1968[1] when those countries flirted with being insufficiently Red.)

mcguire 5y ago

Europe. The funny-shaped land between the Urals and the Atlantic. Here's a map of the Allied offensives in the last two years of the war. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f5/Second_world_war_europe_1943-1945_map_en.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f5/Second_w... Note how the western allies (The US and UK, mostly, plus France, Belgium, Netherlands, and so forth) controlled Italy, France, the Low Countries, and the western half of Germany. The USSR controlled Finland through the Balkans and eastern Germany. The general agreements of how everything would settle down were set by the Potsdam conference (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potsdam_Agreement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potsdam_Agreement), generally along the lines of countries' pre-war borders (although the USSR presented a fait accompli annexing part of East Prussia and attaching parts of east Germany to Poland (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Oder-neisse.gif https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Oder-neisse.gif) because they had troops there). This result hardened into what eventually became NATO (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO#/media/File:History_of_NATO_enlargement.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO#/media/File:History_of_NA..., the 1949 version) and the Warsaw Pact (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Pact#/media/File:Iron_Curtain_map.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Pact#/media/File:Iron_C...). And that's how Europe ended up divided into East and West. (Modulo the invasion of Hungary (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungary#Communism_(1945%E2%80%931989) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungary#Communism_(1945%E2%80%...) in 1956 and Czechoslovakia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czechoslovakia#Communist_Czechoslovakia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czechoslovakia#Communist_Czech...) in 1968[1] when those countries flirted with being insufficiently Red.)