History questions not worth their own thread

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I suspect you'd have to ask each individual person to get an answer to that one. It interests me because of personal connections - two relatives I knew first hand fought in it. The only other war I know one of my relations fought in was WW1 but he died long before I was born. My home town and nearby city were heavily involved in it and I can go and visit events from it without having to travel anywhere. I also find it easier to obtain source materials about WW2 than many earlier conflicts. Its become more common in the last 20 or 30 years for veterans of any rank and even civilians to record their experiences.
 
This one guy said that history should be written as it actually happened. I don't remember who he was, but even less I understand what's the big idea behind this. Isn't it pretty much the standard idea people have about the issue?

I've become irritated when people allude to this quote by putting it in the normal text written in italics, especially as the sentence in which it's used often seems to serve only the purpose of having this quote in it. I hope to become less irritated by understanding deeper meaning of this sentence.
 
Atticus said:
This one guy said that history should be written as it actually happened. I don't remember who he was, but even less I understand what's the big idea behind this. Isn't it pretty much the standard idea people have about the issue?

I've become irritated when people allude to this quote by putting it in the normal text written in italics, especially as the sentence in which it's used often seems to serve only the purpose of having this quote in it. I hope to become less irritated by understanding deeper meaning of this sentence.
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You're probably referring to Ranke. That quote originates in the early 19th century, and the attitude towards history before that wasn't as obvious as you'd think today. Try to get some of the books mentioned on this other thread and you'll understand.
 
On another side: Why does WW2 interest people so much?
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There are many reasons why it could interest people, but each person will have slightly different reasons.

Some, in no particular order:
It was fairly recent, so many people have a personal connection to it.
So many people were affected by it that it is very easy to find people connected to it.
It was one of the most devastating events in recent history (nothing gets interest like millions upon millions dead).
Video. It is the first major war with a significant quantity of decent video footage, and colour too.

But from my perspective, the most important reason is simply its popularity. There are so many games, movies, books, ect based on it due to its popularity that they draw more people in. So in a way it is self supporting.


On another forum the question "What got you interested in WWII?" was posed, and it was very common for people to either start with stories from family members or look up the history of those family members, else they watched a movie/played a computer game.
 
Frankly, it did interest me, before I started watching History Channel documentaries. Now, I find it astonishingly boring.
 
Because it's a clear struggle between good and evil; with the exception of the Soviets, who were only allied by circumstance.
 
That's a great oversimplification.

If so, then why does everyone want to play the Germans in online games? :lol:
 
Yeah, people like playing as Soviets and Germans. I have never been able, therefore HOI is pretty limiting Paradox game for me:sad:
 
I was reading through this RPG sourcebook on China and I saw this most interesting line:

"The Chinese script contains many thousands of characters. Scholars keep it hard to learn on purpose, to maintain their monopoly on learning."

Is this true?
 
I don't know, but I was told by a French diplomat, who is completly fluent in Chinese, that when he went to China, he made a lot of mistake on purpose.

He explained that the Chinese like westerners who try to speak Chinese, but they don't like it when they succeed to well.

Apparently, they consider Chinese to be very difficult, and they are the only one smart enough to master it. So they are a bit upset when proven wrong...
 
I hope he chose at least to make sexually orientated, vulgar and offensive mistakes, so that he was at the end the one who was condescending.
 
Which unit does these germans in wwII belong to? Doesn't look SS, but the skull on their helmet? They look young and lightdressed so its probably late in the war and in the summer/early autumn/late spring. The uniform seems very simple, so I guess its not any of the elite part of the german army.
The knife of one of the kids could be the typical hitlerjugend knife , but the colour on the handle doesn't match. The thing that caught me with the pic was the skull on the helmet. I thought it was only the totenkopf that wear something like that. Perhaps its just a training uniform?

Dunno if anyone here knows anything about it, but I post it anyway :)
 

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Looks like they're fighting on the Eastern Front in the summer months, due to the light, Afrika-Korps style tunics. Will have a quick shufti.

However, the lack of any discernable insignia may mean theya re not, in fact, members of the German army at all, but rather a country that has adopted the M35 Stahlhelm.
 
Doubt that they are from outside german, as all western-european got their own uniforms that had their own look, far from these simple examples. They might be eastern though, but trying to define their ethnisity on these two faces is nearly impossibly. One look 100 % german (on the right), while the other could be eastern, as well as german. Looks like the one on the left is holding a compass or a watch, probably the latter.

They dont seem to have much equipment though, no extra mags on the belt, it seems totally stripped apart from the one knife. So I guess its a training kit, and the helmet signs only show what side they are on in the training or something.

Wearing that on the easternfront would be invinting the sovjets to massacre them if they got captured. No german soldiers outside the SS would wear anything like that late in the war voluntarely I guess.

EDIT: Oh thanks! Guess its after the first finnish-sovjet war as that was only fought during wintertime. After operation barbarossa then.
 
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