3 ms·

Lol history absolutely hasn't been written by Victors. Not always at least. As an example, most "folk knowledge" that is widely spread about WW2 come from post

Lol history absolutely hasn't been written by Victors. Not always at least. As an example, most "folk knowledge" that is widely spread about WW2 come from post war books by German generals. They spread tons and tons of myths and outright lies that permeated WW2 discussions for like 70 years now. Slowly we are starting to see that disappear but for the most part, allied narratives have taken a back seat in comparison. Especially on anything related to equipment, performance, troop competence etc.

tivert 3y ago
> They spread tons and tons of myths and outright lies that permeated WW2 discussions for like 70 years now. Slowly we are starting to see that disappear but for the most part, allied narratives have taken a back seat in comparison. Especially on anything related to equipment, performance, troop competence etc. Do you have examples? Does that include whole memeplex about the Nazis being somehow far better at advanced technology than the Allies?
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  Pretty much everything about the Nazis, about Germany, about the war in general, is written by the not victors. If you grew up watching the Discovery Channel, everything you know about WWII was written about former Wehrmacht generals in semi-autobiographical stories. Things like "If it hadn't been for Hitler being such a terrible leader, we would have won" or "The King Tiger was an Uber tank that could have won the war" to "That flying wing Heinkel made was a STEALTH BOMBER", or "Those damn Soviets were sending meat waves at us armed only with a single shovel!" Don't forget the entirety of the "Clean Wehrmacht" myth, that the whole Nazism thing was mostly contained to Hitler and the SS and the normal German army was mostly clean from the desire to gas all the jews.
  - poulsbohemian 3y ago
    I get what you are saying - but there are also elements of truth in the examples you cite. Yes, much of OKW were synchophants, but there were plenty of competent generals and opportunities that were missed because of meddling. The Tiger had major technical challenges (as did much of German armor) but it had elements of superiority over US armor. That Heinkel was certainly interesting - like so many German weapons programs, they had fascinating ideas, but they were short on resources to make them functional. And on and on - so you aren't "wrong" but I think to say all of these things are propaganda written by the losers is also not really the whole story either...
  - tivert 3y ago
    > Pretty much everything about the Nazis, about Germany, about the war in general, is written by the not victors. If you grew up watching the Discovery Channel, everything you know about WWII was written about former Wehrmacht generals in semi-autobiographical stories. > ... > Don't forget the entirety of the "Clean Wehrmacht" myth, that the whole Nazism thing was mostly contained to Hitler and the SS and the normal German army was mostly clean from the desire to gas all the jews. Thinking about this a bit more, couldn't that even be thought of as history being written by the victors? In this case the victors (Allies) wanting to write history to rehabilitate the losers (Germany) to fight the next enemy (the Soviets), and allowing defeated elements of the German forces (former Wehrmacht generals) to do so? IIRC, there was an period where the Allied consensus was to reduce Germany to a nation of disarmed farmers, but that was quickly reversed once the Americans realized they needed a reasonably powerful Germany to oppose the Soviets.

tivert 3y ago

> They spread tons and tons of myths and outright lies that permeated WW2 discussions for like 70 years now. Slowly we are starting to see that disappear but for the most part, allied narratives have taken a back seat in comparison. Especially on anything related to equipment, performance, troop competence etc. Do you have examples? Does that include whole memeplex about the Nazis being somehow far better at advanced technology than the Allies?

mrguyorama 3y ago
Pretty much everything about the Nazis, about Germany, about the war in general, is written by the not victors. If you grew up watching the Discovery Channel, everything you know about WWII was written about former Wehrmacht generals in semi-autobiographical stories. Things like "If it hadn't been for Hitler being such a terrible leader, we would have won" or "The King Tiger was an Uber tank that could have won the war" to "That flying wing Heinkel made was a STEALTH BOMBER", or "Those damn Soviets were sending meat waves at us armed only with a single shovel!" Don't forget the entirety of the "Clean Wehrmacht" myth, that the whole Nazism thing was mostly contained to Hitler and the SS and the normal German army was mostly clean from the desire to gas all the jews.
- poulsbohemian 3y ago
  I get what you are saying - but there are also elements of truth in the examples you cite. Yes, much of OKW were synchophants, but there were plenty of competent generals and opportunities that were missed because of meddling. The Tiger had major technical challenges (as did much of German armor) but it had elements of superiority over US armor. That Heinkel was certainly interesting - like so many German weapons programs, they had fascinating ideas, but they were short on resources to make them functional. And on and on - so you aren't "wrong" but I think to say all of these things are propaganda written by the losers is also not really the whole story either...
- tivert 3y ago
  > Pretty much everything about the Nazis, about Germany, about the war in general, is written by the not victors. If you grew up watching the Discovery Channel, everything you know about WWII was written about former Wehrmacht generals in semi-autobiographical stories. > ... > Don't forget the entirety of the "Clean Wehrmacht" myth, that the whole Nazism thing was mostly contained to Hitler and the SS and the normal German army was mostly clean from the desire to gas all the jews. Thinking about this a bit more, couldn't that even be thought of as history being written by the victors? In this case the victors (Allies) wanting to write history to rehabilitate the losers (Germany) to fight the next enemy (the Soviets), and allowing defeated elements of the German forces (former Wehrmacht generals) to do so? IIRC, there was an period where the Allied consensus was to reduce Germany to a nation of disarmed farmers, but that was quickly reversed once the Americans realized they needed a reasonably powerful Germany to oppose the Soviets.