8 ms·

World War II Is Full of Plot Holes (2010)

151 points by mblevin 12y ago

herge 12y ago
> middle of the war the Germans attacked their allies the Russians, starting an unwinnable conflict on two fronts, just to show how sneaky and untrustworthy they could be? Sneakily, except for the reams and reams of writing the National Socialists had written about conquering Russia to use their land as Lebensraum, and how that was the whole point of their war.
- SideburnsOfDoom 12y ago
  Ah, that sub-plot from the book that didn't make it into the TV adaptation.
- caycep 12y ago
  I always wonder about the History Channel...the programs are a good piece of entertainment but it's never seemed to be well researched/thought out enough to act as a serious academic resource of any kind.
  - Igglyboo 12y ago
    It's researched enough for 99% of the people to not call them out on their BS.
  - maxerickson 12y ago
    http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-idiocy-fabrications-and-lies-of-ancient-aliens-86294030/?no-ist http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-idiocy-fabr... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nostradamus_Effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nostradamus_Effect http://www.history.com/shows/ufo-hunters http://www.history.com/shows/ufo-hunters It's unambiguously entertainment.
    - mcguire 12y ago
      "Bird wasn’t the first person to notice the dinosaur tracks, and selling the sauropod and theropod tracks was a cottage industry in the vicinity of Glen Rose. And a few local people carved fake human tracks in the same stone. Bird actually saw a pair of such forgeries at a trading post in Gallup, New Mexico, along with dinosaur tracks removed from the Glen Rose area, shortly before he left to investigate the site himself." That's completely ridiculous! I'm surprised the Smithsonian is putting it's good name behind this sort of trash. Do you know how far Gallup, NM, is from Glen Rose? It's nearly a thousand miles! Certainly, no trading post dealer is going to travel that sort of distance to tote some rocks around! Not even the most dedicated 12-year-old tourist would do it. I'm sorry, what was the question? "Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-idiocy-fabrications-and-lies-of-ancient-aliens-86294030/#Grp0TFZfLeW7kDSy.99 http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-idiocy-fabr... Give the gift of Smithsonian magazine for only $12! http://bit.ly/1cGUiGv http://bit.ly/1cGUiGv Follow us: @SmithsonianMag on Twitter" Thank you, Smithsonian!
      - maxerickson 12y ago
        I think your premise about the rocks moving around is flawed. I was in a touristy rock shop near here a few weeks ago: https://www.google.com/maps/@47.2474164,-88.4525903,12z https://www.google.com/maps/@47.2474164,-88.4525903,12z It had junk from all around the world. I imagine they utilized package delivery services (further sarcasm omitted) as much as they carried stuff around themselves. But sure, let's be more cynical about Smithsonian Mag than History.
- trhway 12y ago
  Drang nach Osten! starting from the times of Teutonic order, and some time before if we remember the Polabian Slavs. The story didn't start with Hitler and didn't end with him. 200 years from now comparing Eastern Europe political maps of 1984 vs. 2014 it would be pretty obvious that the Eastward expansion has greatly succeeded this time, surprisingly [relatively] peaceful this time and only the most eastward end of the push caused a mild local military conflict - Ukraine-Russian war in Donbass.
- VLM 12y ago
  At a small liberal arts college, a long time ago, our senior year capstone class topic was "The Holocaust" where all 750 or so of us, took the same class from different liberal arts instructors as a synthesis across all branches of liberal arts. So we all had a little art and a little lit and a little philosophy and ... although my specific section was taught by a lit prof who thought my thesis about nazi era architecture was really boring but still worth a "B" (in those days before grade inflation that "B" wasn't even all that bad) Anyway Hitler's book was VERY creepy to read because virtually the entire book rhymed with what later happened in WWII but was slightly off key, making it really weird, like a hazy memory. What I'm getting at is they telegraphed pretty much exactly what they actually did everywhere, its not unique to double crossing Russia. There were some differences. From memory more than a decade ago he had peculiar ideas about the Americans, for example.
PeterisP 12y ago
It's the same reason why fictional commandos like Rambo and buddies have less kills and not so daring achievements as some historically documented cases. Fiction writers try to push the limits of what readers will [try to] believe, while reality simply ignores those limits.
- rglovejoy 12y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Churchill http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Churchill tldr: He once killed a German with a longbow and would carry a broadsword with him into battle. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Medicine_Crow http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Medicine_Crow tldr: Last war chief of the Crow nation. Still alive at age 101, because Death is afraid of him.
  - cremno 12y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Carton_de_Wiart https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Carton_de_Wiart >He served in the Boer War, First World War, and Second World War; was shot in the face, head, stomach, ankle, leg, hip, and ear; survived two plane crashes; tunnelled out of a POW camp; and bit off his own fingers when a doctor refused to amputate them. Describing his experiences in World War I, he wrote, "Frankly I had enjoyed the war." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simo_H%C3%A4yh%C3%A4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simo_H%C3%A4yh%C3%A4 | http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1517044/The-long-view.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1517044/The-long-view... >Using nothing more than an iron-sighted, bolt action standard rifle, Simo killed 505 Russians during a three-month period
    - presidentender 12y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Whittemore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Whittemore Veteran of the French and Indian wars. At the age of 78 he participated in the Battle of Lexington and Concorde, where he was bayoneted, beaten and shot in the face. He recovered and died of old age at 96.
      - 12y ago
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
TehCorwiz 12y ago
It's funny; I was just sitting here thinking about dropping software dev to become an anthropologist and then I run across this. I have to give the author credit in that anything viewed in the right light is absurd, but I think he misses the point that that "show" invented the tropes he accuses the show of having.
xxxyy 12y ago
Well, knowing this is intended to be just funny I have to point out a few things: > All this from a country that was ordinary, believable, and dare I say it sometimes even sympathetic in previous seasons. Germany was drowned in serious economic depression that was deep enough to trigger a huge social response. Plus we cannot forget about the humiliating Versaille Treaty. > they instantly forget about all the racism nonsense and become best buddies with the definitely non-Aryan Japanese Holocaust was not intended to wipe out all other races, only those that stood in the way. This includes Jews and Romani people for inhabiting "incorrect" lands, East European nations for inhabiting fertile lands. Hitler was happy to jump into one bed with Hungarians or Italians for example, although it is not obvious what would happen later had he won. > Apparently we're supposed to believe that in the middle of the war the Germans attacked their allies the Russians, starting an unwinnable conflict on two fronts (...) And Hitler was not far from taking over Moscow in 1941. Of course the failure of Operation Barbarossa was huge, but there was a point when Stalin must have been really afraid about the future his capital (end of July 1941, before Nazi troops diverted north for Leningrad and south for Kiev, following an order from the Furer himself; his generals strongly opposed this order).
- jonnathanson 12y ago
  Hitler was willing to be opportunistically flexible with his definition of the "Aryan race." For instance, he recognized Iranians, Arabs, and Turks as "Aryans"[1] in so far as they supported his war efforts. He also dubbed the Japanese "Honorary Aryans," whatever that's supposed to have meant. (Hirohito was about as fanatical over "racial purity" as Hitler was, and perhaps Hitler saw in him a kindred spirit, in addition to a military ally. Extant records and writings suggest that Hitler viewed the Japanese as more reliable allies than the Italians, whom he was planning to double-cross at some point down the road. This is probably because Italy shared a border with Hitler's Germany, by way of Austria, and hence, was "in the way," while Japan was not. Hitler's writings and track record suggest that, had he won the war, he'd have turned on pretty much any country at any time, should they have proved inconvenient for any reason). [1] Leaving aside the obvious, of course, which is that Iranians are arguably more "Aryan" than Middle-European Caucasians. That is to say, if we use the historically accurate definition of the term, and not the Nazi-racist-mythological definition of the "Aryan" people.
ctdonath 12y ago
"Plot holes" - brilliant term I've been looking for to explain conspiracy theorists' obsession with finding ludicrous explanations in mundane/petty inconsistencies normal in the real world.
- notahacker 12y ago
  Conspiracy theorists are the people that come up with the inept cash-in "non-canonical" sequel and dreadful fanfic that make the official story seem quite compelling by comparison.
pjc50 12y ago
There's a similar page around somewhere on the implausibility of the Falklands War, starting with the absurdity of the conflict over tiny resourceless islands, through things like the transatlantic bombing run and putting all the helicopters on one ship which was sunk immediately. Then there's Thatcher ringing up Mitterand in the middle of the night to demand the remote disarm codes for the Exocet missiles France had sold Argentina, involving threats to nuke Buenos Aires. And the War of Jenkins' Ear, which is just silly.
imanaccount247 12y ago
The sarcasm falls flat when you realize that a lot of what he is talking about really is wrong. That is not what happened, that is a collection of misconceptions people gathered which are only loosely based on actual history. Germany was not simply racist, they had declared jews to be their enemies. Not "people who aren't white". The German military was the most racially and religiously diverse military force involved in WW2. There were plenty of Wehrmacht soldiers with brown skin, wearing turbans, or carrying copies of the Quran given to them by Hitler as gifts. A shocking number of people are under the impression that the US joined the war because Germany attacked France and was killing jews. It is no wonder that people have a comic book view of WW2 given how little actual history they've been taught.
- foldr 12y ago
  Although Nazi Germany did co-operate with various (for want of a better term) brown people, Hitler and the rest of the Nazis certainly held racist attitudes towards them. It would be misleading to suggest that the Nazis were "only" racists with regard to Jews. (Of course virtually everyone on the allied side was also racist.)
  - Tloewald 12y ago
    Even in the eyes of racist Europeans, the Japanese held a privileged place, having defeated the Russians -- a "white" race -- in a war in 1905. (Later, South African apartheid would also make a special exemption for the Japanese.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honorary_whites http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honorary_whites
  - imanaccount247 12y ago
    >Hitler and the rest of the Nazis certainly held racist attitudes towards them Why is that certain? I'm not aware of anything that would support that claim. High ranking nazis and even Hitler himself made positive statements towards plenty of other ethnic and cultural groups. A belief that ethnic groups should have pride in their culture and stay "pure" by only breeding with other members of the same ethnic group may not be popular now, but it is not racist.
pessimizer 12y ago
If Churchill is the hero, he's a monstrously flawed one: https://www.quora.com/Was-Winston-Churchill-a-racist https://www.quora.com/Was-Winston-Churchill-a-racist That should make the war a bit more believable. Also, the part where the US wouldn't take Jewish refugees: http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007094 http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007094
- mikeash 12y ago
  Heavy-handed attempts by the writers to insert some "balance" into the story. Hmm, we show these guys as so good, it's not believable, how can we show them as flawed? Oh, I know, let's have them refuse to take in some refugees for no apparent reason, the very same people they later fought to save. It's just amateur hour in the writers' room.
nsajko 12y ago
I totally agree with all the other explanations posted, but here's another one: popular history as a retelling of real events gets the same tropes applied to it as fiction does.
Tycho 12y ago
Hmm, this made me think: do people who believe America was right to drop the atom bombs on Japan also believe they should have been used in subsequent wars? If not, why not?
- bostonpete 12y ago
  I don't think this is the right place for such a debate, but if you google "did the atomic bomb save lives", you'll find people that make the case that it was the right choice. I suspect the response to your "why not?" would be that we haven't had any war since then where the threat was significant to warrant the horrific impact of their use (which nobody seems to deny). Plus, ever since shortly after WWII, there was always the possibility of nuclear weapons triggering a nuclear response.
- mikeash 12y ago
  I'm not fully decided on the question of the atomic bombings of Japan but I think I qualify as one of the people you refer to. I do not think they should have been used in subsequent wars. First, the war against Japan and Germany was about as close to an unambiguous fight against evil as you can find in the real world. The post, while trying to paint them as unrealistic caricatures, still manages to understate it. Ultimately, the war was justifiable and winning it was the best outcome for everybody. If we accept that the war had to be won, then winning it in the most efficient way possible, in terms of time and lives, is best. I think the atomic bombings accomplished that. It's debatable and can probably never be known for sure, but it seems likely that Japan would have held out much longer without them. Even with them, there was a nearly successful palace coup aimed at preventing the surrender. Even ignoring the Allied lives that would be lost in an invasion, many more Japanese would have died by the time the war was over. That establishes the (fairly standard) reasoning for using the atomic bombs on Japan. How about afterwards? None of the subsequent hot wars were anywhere close to being as black and white. The post mentions Vietnam as an example where the lack of atomic weapons made for a glaring plot hole. But really, are you going to use atomic weapons on a country that poses no threat to you whatsoever, in a conflict which is basically a war of independence where you're fighting on the side of the colonial oppressors? I'm not going to argue that Communism was a good thing for Vietnam or that victory by North Vietnam was a good outcome, but it doesn't look like our side was particularly in the right. Would lives have been saved by nuking Hanoi? Would evil have been defeated? I don't think so. And even ignoring all that, the practical realities of the world order prevented it. Maybe you could win Vietnam by nuking Hanoi (although I'm not sure how the one follows from the other exactly) but it's hard to see a scenario where that doesn't quickly turn into an all-out nuclear war between the superpowers, where nobody wins and everybody loses big. The only time it was remotely feasible was for a few years after 1945 until the Russians had enough nuclear capability to make it an unwise choice, roughly 1955 or so. What does that leave us with, using nukes in Korea like MacArthur wanted to? I don't know if that wins the war either. (Mao was famously welcoming of nuclear war, believing that China's massive population meant they would weather it and win it.) And even if it did, would it be worth it? I don't see the balance of lives working out in favor of dropping a hydrogen bomb on Beijing the way it did with Japan. One more thing to consider: if WWII had been won without nuclear weapons (either because the choice was made not to use them, or the project took a little longer than it did in reality) then my guess is that we wouldn't have seen the subsequent restraint in using them afterwards. Rather than the first (and so far only) use in war being two small bombs, it might have been an exchange of hundreds, with the participants realizing what a terrible idea that is only too late. This has no bearing on justifying the decision in 1945 (how could they be expected to know all these future consequences?) but it's interesting to consider that the timing of the development and use of nuclear weapons may have been extremely lucky.
VLM 12y ago
If you want to discuss ridiculous stories, he claims he watched this WWII historical stuff on "the history channel" but I checked the schedule for tonight (honest!) and tonight is a three hour "Pawn Stars" marathon, tomorrow has more pawn stars followed by what appears to be a horror-reality crossover called "the curse of oak island" and wednesday night has a marathon of "american pickers" and thursday is, I kid you not, another marathon of "pawn stars". So I suspect he never saw anything other than blue collar workers screaming at each other and at customers on this so called "history channel". Its the same pablum on TLC, discovery, syfy, etc. The only way to tell TV channels apart in 2014 is to check the name, there's really only one channel. (That said, I'd recommend the 60s era BBC WWII series if you can find it in the usual locations, legal or otherwise)
- cbd1984 12y ago
  Maybe he originally wrote it during the Hitler Channel era.
Vanayad 12y ago
Well, considering the Japanese actually tried to surrender before the bombs fell to the Russians is totally not important... and that they found out about the 2 N-Bombs only after they surrendered to the Americans. /s
bladedtoys 12y ago
And a particular division even had little skull and crossbones on their hats for heaven sake. One wonders if Hugo Boss actually got ideas from comic books bad guys.
will_asouka 12y ago
I thought this was making the point that WW2 is often reduced to a simple coherent narrative for the purpose of documentaries concerned more with their viewing figures than historical rigour/the truth. These simplifications are distorting the mainstream collective memory of these events. This is particularly prevalent in the UK with regard to the First World War; a popular satirical comedy series has shaped a widely held view of mindless muddy bloodbath which does not do justice to the complexity of reality (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackadder_Goes_Forth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackadder_Goes_Forth). It'd be nice to see the History Channel et al delve a little deeper. Edit: I'm not totally sure if he's making this point or not frankly.

151 points by mblevin 12y ago

herge 12y ago

> middle of the war the Germans attacked their allies the Russians, starting an unwinnable conflict on two fronts, just to show how sneaky and untrustworthy they could be? Sneakily, except for the reams and reams of writing the National Socialists had written about conquering Russia to use their land as Lebensraum, and how that was the whole point of their war.

SideburnsOfDoom 12y ago
Ah, that sub-plot from the book that didn't make it into the TV adaptation.
caycep 12y ago
I always wonder about the History Channel...the programs are a good piece of entertainment but it's never seemed to be well researched/thought out enough to act as a serious academic resource of any kind.
- Igglyboo 12y ago
  It's researched enough for 99% of the people to not call them out on their BS.
- maxerickson 12y ago
  http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-idiocy-fabrications-and-lies-of-ancient-aliens-86294030/?no-ist http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-idiocy-fabr... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nostradamus_Effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nostradamus_Effect http://www.history.com/shows/ufo-hunters http://www.history.com/shows/ufo-hunters It's unambiguously entertainment.
  - mcguire 12y ago
    "Bird wasn’t the first person to notice the dinosaur tracks, and selling the sauropod and theropod tracks was a cottage industry in the vicinity of Glen Rose. And a few local people carved fake human tracks in the same stone. Bird actually saw a pair of such forgeries at a trading post in Gallup, New Mexico, along with dinosaur tracks removed from the Glen Rose area, shortly before he left to investigate the site himself." That's completely ridiculous! I'm surprised the Smithsonian is putting it's good name behind this sort of trash. Do you know how far Gallup, NM, is from Glen Rose? It's nearly a thousand miles! Certainly, no trading post dealer is going to travel that sort of distance to tote some rocks around! Not even the most dedicated 12-year-old tourist would do it. I'm sorry, what was the question? "Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-idiocy-fabrications-and-lies-of-ancient-aliens-86294030/#Grp0TFZfLeW7kDSy.99 http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-idiocy-fabr... Give the gift of Smithsonian magazine for only $12! http://bit.ly/1cGUiGv http://bit.ly/1cGUiGv Follow us: @SmithsonianMag on Twitter" Thank you, Smithsonian!
    - maxerickson 12y ago
      I think your premise about the rocks moving around is flawed. I was in a touristy rock shop near here a few weeks ago: https://www.google.com/maps/@47.2474164,-88.4525903,12z https://www.google.com/maps/@47.2474164,-88.4525903,12z It had junk from all around the world. I imagine they utilized package delivery services (further sarcasm omitted) as much as they carried stuff around themselves. But sure, let's be more cynical about Smithsonian Mag than History.
trhway 12y ago
Drang nach Osten! starting from the times of Teutonic order, and some time before if we remember the Polabian Slavs. The story didn't start with Hitler and didn't end with him. 200 years from now comparing Eastern Europe political maps of 1984 vs. 2014 it would be pretty obvious that the Eastward expansion has greatly succeeded this time, surprisingly [relatively] peaceful this time and only the most eastward end of the push caused a mild local military conflict - Ukraine-Russian war in Donbass.
VLM 12y ago
At a small liberal arts college, a long time ago, our senior year capstone class topic was "The Holocaust" where all 750 or so of us, took the same class from different liberal arts instructors as a synthesis across all branches of liberal arts. So we all had a little art and a little lit and a little philosophy and ... although my specific section was taught by a lit prof who thought my thesis about nazi era architecture was really boring but still worth a "B" (in those days before grade inflation that "B" wasn't even all that bad) Anyway Hitler's book was VERY creepy to read because virtually the entire book rhymed with what later happened in WWII but was slightly off key, making it really weird, like a hazy memory. What I'm getting at is they telegraphed pretty much exactly what they actually did everywhere, its not unique to double crossing Russia. There were some differences. From memory more than a decade ago he had peculiar ideas about the Americans, for example.

PeterisP 12y ago

It's the same reason why fictional commandos like Rambo and buddies have less kills and not so daring achievements as some historically documented cases. Fiction writers try to push the limits of what readers will [try to] believe, while reality simply ignores those limits.

rglovejoy 12y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Churchill http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Churchill tldr: He once killed a German with a longbow and would carry a broadsword with him into battle. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Medicine_Crow http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Medicine_Crow tldr: Last war chief of the Crow nation. Still alive at age 101, because Death is afraid of him.
- cremno 12y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Carton_de_Wiart https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Carton_de_Wiart >He served in the Boer War, First World War, and Second World War; was shot in the face, head, stomach, ankle, leg, hip, and ear; survived two plane crashes; tunnelled out of a POW camp; and bit off his own fingers when a doctor refused to amputate them. Describing his experiences in World War I, he wrote, "Frankly I had enjoyed the war." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simo_H%C3%A4yh%C3%A4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simo_H%C3%A4yh%C3%A4 | http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1517044/The-long-view.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1517044/The-long-view... >Using nothing more than an iron-sighted, bolt action standard rifle, Simo killed 505 Russians during a three-month period
  - presidentender 12y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Whittemore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Whittemore Veteran of the French and Indian wars. At the age of 78 he participated in the Battle of Lexington and Concorde, where he was bayoneted, beaten and shot in the face. He recovered and died of old age at 96.
    - 12y ago

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

TehCorwiz 12y ago

It's funny; I was just sitting here thinking about dropping software dev to become an anthropologist and then I run across this. I have to give the author credit in that anything viewed in the right light is absurd, but I think he misses the point that that "show" invented the tropes he accuses the show of having.

xxxyy 12y ago

Well, knowing this is intended to be just funny I have to point out a few things: > All this from a country that was ordinary, believable, and dare I say it sometimes even sympathetic in previous seasons. Germany was drowned in serious economic depression that was deep enough to trigger a huge social response. Plus we cannot forget about the humiliating Versaille Treaty. > they instantly forget about all the racism nonsense and become best buddies with the definitely non-Aryan Japanese Holocaust was not intended to wipe out all other races, only those that stood in the way. This includes Jews and Romani people for inhabiting "incorrect" lands, East European nations for inhabiting fertile lands. Hitler was happy to jump into one bed with Hungarians or Italians for example, although it is not obvious what would happen later had he won. > Apparently we're supposed to believe that in the middle of the war the Germans attacked their allies the Russians, starting an unwinnable conflict on two fronts (...) And Hitler was not far from taking over Moscow in 1941. Of course the failure of Operation Barbarossa was huge, but there was a point when Stalin must have been really afraid about the future his capital (end of July 1941, before Nazi troops diverted north for Leningrad and south for Kiev, following an order from the Furer himself; his generals strongly opposed this order).

jonnathanson 12y ago
Hitler was willing to be opportunistically flexible with his definition of the "Aryan race." For instance, he recognized Iranians, Arabs, and Turks as "Aryans"[1] in so far as they supported his war efforts. He also dubbed the Japanese "Honorary Aryans," whatever that's supposed to have meant. (Hirohito was about as fanatical over "racial purity" as Hitler was, and perhaps Hitler saw in him a kindred spirit, in addition to a military ally. Extant records and writings suggest that Hitler viewed the Japanese as more reliable allies than the Italians, whom he was planning to double-cross at some point down the road. This is probably because Italy shared a border with Hitler's Germany, by way of Austria, and hence, was "in the way," while Japan was not. Hitler's writings and track record suggest that, had he won the war, he'd have turned on pretty much any country at any time, should they have proved inconvenient for any reason). [1] Leaving aside the obvious, of course, which is that Iranians are arguably more "Aryan" than Middle-European Caucasians. That is to say, if we use the historically accurate definition of the term, and not the Nazi-racist-mythological definition of the "Aryan" people.

ctdonath 12y ago

"Plot holes" - brilliant term I've been looking for to explain conspiracy theorists' obsession with finding ludicrous explanations in mundane/petty inconsistencies normal in the real world.

notahacker 12y ago
Conspiracy theorists are the people that come up with the inept cash-in "non-canonical" sequel and dreadful fanfic that make the official story seem quite compelling by comparison.

pjc50 12y ago

There's a similar page around somewhere on the implausibility of the Falklands War, starting with the absurdity of the conflict over tiny resourceless islands, through things like the transatlantic bombing run and putting all the helicopters on one ship which was sunk immediately. Then there's Thatcher ringing up Mitterand in the middle of the night to demand the remote disarm codes for the Exocet missiles France had sold Argentina, involving threats to nuke Buenos Aires. And the War of Jenkins' Ear, which is just silly.

imanaccount247 12y ago

The sarcasm falls flat when you realize that a lot of what he is talking about really is wrong. That is not what happened, that is a collection of misconceptions people gathered which are only loosely based on actual history. Germany was not simply racist, they had declared jews to be their enemies. Not "people who aren't white". The German military was the most racially and religiously diverse military force involved in WW2. There were plenty of Wehrmacht soldiers with brown skin, wearing turbans, or carrying copies of the Quran given to them by Hitler as gifts. A shocking number of people are under the impression that the US joined the war because Germany attacked France and was killing jews. It is no wonder that people have a comic book view of WW2 given how little actual history they've been taught.

foldr 12y ago
Although Nazi Germany did co-operate with various (for want of a better term) brown people, Hitler and the rest of the Nazis certainly held racist attitudes towards them. It would be misleading to suggest that the Nazis were "only" racists with regard to Jews. (Of course virtually everyone on the allied side was also racist.)
- Tloewald 12y ago
  Even in the eyes of racist Europeans, the Japanese held a privileged place, having defeated the Russians -- a "white" race -- in a war in 1905. (Later, South African apartheid would also make a special exemption for the Japanese.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honorary_whites http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honorary_whites
- imanaccount247 12y ago
  >Hitler and the rest of the Nazis certainly held racist attitudes towards them Why is that certain? I'm not aware of anything that would support that claim. High ranking nazis and even Hitler himself made positive statements towards plenty of other ethnic and cultural groups. A belief that ethnic groups should have pride in their culture and stay "pure" by only breeding with other members of the same ethnic group may not be popular now, but it is not racist.

pessimizer 12y ago

If Churchill is the hero, he's a monstrously flawed one: https://www.quora.com/Was-Winston-Churchill-a-racist https://www.quora.com/Was-Winston-Churchill-a-racist That should make the war a bit more believable. Also, the part where the US wouldn't take Jewish refugees: http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007094 http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007094

mikeash 12y ago
Heavy-handed attempts by the writers to insert some "balance" into the story. Hmm, we show these guys as so good, it's not believable, how can we show them as flawed? Oh, I know, let's have them refuse to take in some refugees for no apparent reason, the very same people they later fought to save. It's just amateur hour in the writers' room.

nsajko 12y ago

I totally agree with all the other explanations posted, but here's another one: popular history as a retelling of real events gets the same tropes applied to it as fiction does.

Tycho 12y ago

Hmm, this made me think: do people who believe America was right to drop the atom bombs on Japan also believe they should have been used in subsequent wars? If not, why not?

bostonpete 12y ago
I don't think this is the right place for such a debate, but if you google "did the atomic bomb save lives", you'll find people that make the case that it was the right choice. I suspect the response to your "why not?" would be that we haven't had any war since then where the threat was significant to warrant the horrific impact of their use (which nobody seems to deny). Plus, ever since shortly after WWII, there was always the possibility of nuclear weapons triggering a nuclear response.
mikeash 12y ago
I'm not fully decided on the question of the atomic bombings of Japan but I think I qualify as one of the people you refer to. I do not think they should have been used in subsequent wars. First, the war against Japan and Germany was about as close to an unambiguous fight against evil as you can find in the real world. The post, while trying to paint them as unrealistic caricatures, still manages to understate it. Ultimately, the war was justifiable and winning it was the best outcome for everybody. If we accept that the war had to be won, then winning it in the most efficient way possible, in terms of time and lives, is best. I think the atomic bombings accomplished that. It's debatable and can probably never be known for sure, but it seems likely that Japan would have held out much longer without them. Even with them, there was a nearly successful palace coup aimed at preventing the surrender. Even ignoring the Allied lives that would be lost in an invasion, many more Japanese would have died by the time the war was over. That establishes the (fairly standard) reasoning for using the atomic bombs on Japan. How about afterwards? None of the subsequent hot wars were anywhere close to being as black and white. The post mentions Vietnam as an example where the lack of atomic weapons made for a glaring plot hole. But really, are you going to use atomic weapons on a country that poses no threat to you whatsoever, in a conflict which is basically a war of independence where you're fighting on the side of the colonial oppressors? I'm not going to argue that Communism was a good thing for Vietnam or that victory by North Vietnam was a good outcome, but it doesn't look like our side was particularly in the right. Would lives have been saved by nuking Hanoi? Would evil have been defeated? I don't think so. And even ignoring all that, the practical realities of the world order prevented it. Maybe you could win Vietnam by nuking Hanoi (although I'm not sure how the one follows from the other exactly) but it's hard to see a scenario where that doesn't quickly turn into an all-out nuclear war between the superpowers, where nobody wins and everybody loses big. The only time it was remotely feasible was for a few years after 1945 until the Russians had enough nuclear capability to make it an unwise choice, roughly 1955 or so. What does that leave us with, using nukes in Korea like MacArthur wanted to? I don't know if that wins the war either. (Mao was famously welcoming of nuclear war, believing that China's massive population meant they would weather it and win it.) And even if it did, would it be worth it? I don't see the balance of lives working out in favor of dropping a hydrogen bomb on Beijing the way it did with Japan. One more thing to consider: if WWII had been won without nuclear weapons (either because the choice was made not to use them, or the project took a little longer than it did in reality) then my guess is that we wouldn't have seen the subsequent restraint in using them afterwards. Rather than the first (and so far only) use in war being two small bombs, it might have been an exchange of hundreds, with the participants realizing what a terrible idea that is only too late. This has no bearing on justifying the decision in 1945 (how could they be expected to know all these future consequences?) but it's interesting to consider that the timing of the development and use of nuclear weapons may have been extremely lucky.

VLM 12y ago

If you want to discuss ridiculous stories, he claims he watched this WWII historical stuff on "the history channel" but I checked the schedule for tonight (honest!) and tonight is a three hour "Pawn Stars" marathon, tomorrow has more pawn stars followed by what appears to be a horror-reality crossover called "the curse of oak island" and wednesday night has a marathon of "american pickers" and thursday is, I kid you not, another marathon of "pawn stars". So I suspect he never saw anything other than blue collar workers screaming at each other and at customers on this so called "history channel". Its the same pablum on TLC, discovery, syfy, etc. The only way to tell TV channels apart in 2014 is to check the name, there's really only one channel. (That said, I'd recommend the 60s era BBC WWII series if you can find it in the usual locations, legal or otherwise)

cbd1984 12y ago
Maybe he originally wrote it during the Hitler Channel era.

Vanayad 12y ago

Well, considering the Japanese actually tried to surrender before the bombs fell to the Russians is totally not important... and that they found out about the 2 N-Bombs only after they surrendered to the Americans. /s

bladedtoys 12y ago

And a particular division even had little skull and crossbones on their hats for heaven sake. One wonders if Hugo Boss actually got ideas from comic books bad guys.

will_asouka 12y ago

I thought this was making the point that WW2 is often reduced to a simple coherent narrative for the purpose of documentaries concerned more with their viewing figures than historical rigour/the truth. These simplifications are distorting the mainstream collective memory of these events. This is particularly prevalent in the UK with regard to the First World War; a popular satirical comedy series has shaped a widely held view of mindless muddy bloodbath which does not do justice to the complexity of reality (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackadder_Goes_Forth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackadder_Goes_Forth). It'd be nice to see the History Channel et al delve a little deeper. Edit: I'm not totally sure if he's making this point or not frankly.