What is taught in other nations schools about WW1/2?

[Yoda Power]

All we learned was how much the Danish freedom fighters did to win the war, before we were saved by some British dude. Oh and Hitlers and Nazis were evil. Apparently all the important stuff in the war took place in Denmark.

We don't learn about ww1, actually most Danish people think we took part in it, when we were actually neutral.

Needless to say most people who know something about history are self-educated.

 

[Amenhotep7]

Well, it's weird here over in the US of A. Let's see. In my history book, we had 1 or 2 chapters on the things leading up to WWII, and a chapter on the holocaust. This is where it splits. If you live on the west coast, you learn almost entirely about the war in the Pacific, with like a subsection on the war in Europe. For the East coast, it's vice versa. I dunno what they do in Kansas!

 

[North King]

For me in the northern Midwest of the US, WW1 has gotten literally no attention thus far (there are sections in the books, but we never have gone over them), and we focus mainly on the Holocaust for WW2 with perhaps a little devoted to D-Day. Granted, I'm not actually taking Social Studies this year, so it might change.

 

[Volum]

WW1: England declared war on Germany because England wanted to keep the balanse and stay the strongest.

WW2: The British knew about the comming Pearl Harbor costume but didnt warn the Americans against it because they needed them in the war.

 

[Terje]

Just a small addition to Volum's post:
WWI: Basically, we learn the politics behind the war, and the consequenses. Lots of imperialism, arms race, Elsa-Lothringen, etc. Learning about battles aren't seen as proper history; it's kinda old-fashioned, according to my teachers, to just focus on battles and generals and kings and stuff like that. We also had a bit about how WWI greatly helped the liberation of women in the western world.
Norway's part in this war is not very detailed; we mainly learn that Germany and France were competing for Norwegian goods during the war, that England bought all our dry fish so that the Germans wouldn't get it, and how we were called "the Neutral Allied", cos we always supported the Brits.

WWII: This is a bit more thohrough. We start with accounting for what Hitler was doing after WWI, continue with the rise of Fascism and Stalinism, and go on to the Holocaust and the atrocities commited against "retards" (sorry about the loaded word, but my head is empty of synonys at the moment...).
Although we focus on the European parts of the war, we also skim the Pacific, though not as detailed as Europe.
The Norwegian parts of WWII history are mainly about why the Germans invaded us, how the Germans treated us, and how the Germans got their hands on the Norwegian Jews. Also, we learn that it was mainly the Soviet who liberated us, coming in from the Murmansk area, but that one of the main reasons the Germans retreated from Norway was that they needed the 1 million troops they had stationed here to defend the Heimat.

As for WWII battles, the only decent things we had about that was two small presentations I did about the Nord Afrika Korps and the war in the Balkans.

In short, it's mostly reasons and consequenses.

 

[privatehudson]

Short Nationalistic version of British teaching:

WWI: We won, Germany lost America showed up late
WWII: See above

 

[allhailIndia]

The war was a distant thing until the Japs came knocking on the door...

Anyway, there are different syllabi for history in the country and the ICSE (based on the GCSE model) syllabus in which I studied devoted 1 chapter each to the wars, analyzing causes and effects and a little about events of the wars themselves. More importance was given to the period between the wars, and why the Versaillles Treaty led to WW2. I'm not sure about the Central syllabus or the State syllabus, but I expect that it would almost be the same, maybe less.
There was very little about the Indians who fought in the war, and more about the course of the national movement during the war.

 

[stratego]

WWII was covered a lot more than WWI in both high school and in college. WWI we just had to read All Quiet on the Western Front and that was it. We knew it was about colonialism, russian mobilization, and the planned assassination of the archduke.
WWII, we learned about the treaties. Japans initial rise in Asia as Asia's savior. German discontent about WWI. Facism in Italy. Pearl Harbor. The internment camp, and why it applied to only the Japanese, not Italians and Germans. The divisions of US troops along racial lines. Blacks reaction to fighting the war for America. Zimmerman's Telegram. Treatment of German POW. American mobilization, etc.

 

[Ethics]

In the United States, at least where Ive gone to school, we barely get to World War II, much less cover it, and honestly, I don't see where we'd have time to cover such things.

We split US history here from 1877 onwards for highschool. Thats a lot of stuff to cover considering how the topics are usually covered, from the gilded age, populism (Wizard of Oz), Spanish-American War, progressivism (The Jungle), World War I (All Quiet on the Western Front), the Roaring Twenties (The Great Gatsby), The Great Depression (Of Mice and Men, or something equally depressing), World War II, Cold War, McCarthyism, Korea, Vietnam...

as you can see, there just isnt enough time to hit on something as dense as World War II... especially with five generally expected books to be read by apathetic teenagers anyway

I'd much rather see this broken up at 1917, and continued in another class, but with World History and World Geography requirements put in there... its hard to make room.

Speaking of which, being a history major in college, I've noticed quite the complaint in general of lack of study in mid 20th century events. Its only been 50-60 years and everything of World War 2 has yet to be fleshed out... perhaps it will trickle down as more and more focus is placed on the subject... theres not even a WW2 or Vietnam class for my college... but we have two Civil War classes!

 

[Longasc]

One thing I can understand but that is very alien to me:

How about the Antique Era or the Middle Ages?

I know the US did not exist at this time, but at least one thing Americans emphasize so much ("democracy") and the style of major American buildings (Roman/Greek inspired) relates to these eras that never took place in that form on the American continent.

 

[BananaLee]

Oh...
Here, you'd have the textbooks glorifying and harping about the 'greatness' of Melaka..

Well, I guess that since it was larger than Srivijaya and Majapahit.....

 

[Scuffer]

I was taught little about the contribution of commonwealth countries in WWII. Should really have been taught more about that.

 

[Wolfe Tone]

WWI: Very little about WWI. Really just references to it and how it saved Asquith from the Home Rule Crisis. Also about the 1916 rising which occured when England was more occupied with the war. There was also a little on England's attempts to introduce conscription in Ireland, and how it was resisted. The Versaille treaty is also taught to explain some of the causes of WWII

WWII: Mainly just the build up to it, very little from the actual war. We done great detail on the causes such as the, German Foreign policy. ineffectiveness of the League, Italy, Japan, The Great Depression etc. This is bringing me back to the days of planning an A-Level history essay.

 

[Bugfatty300]

One thing I can understand but that is very alien to me:

How about the Antique Era or the Middle Ages?

I know the US did not exist at this time, but at least one thing Americans emphasize so much ("democracy") and the style of major American buildings (Roman/Greek inspired) relates to these eras that never took place in that form on the American continent.

Well in my high school you have a class called World History wich covers those.

After completeing that class you take the standard US History and if you still want to learn more there is European History and US History II WWII-Present and such.

 

[Mrogreturns]

China:

World War II:
Tons of material devoted to it, especially Japanese aggression and atrocities from since the 1930s up until the end in 1945. So effective was this indoctrination there are teenagers today who still hate the Japanese with a passion.

I have heard that the Chinese government, concerned at the level of anti-Japanese feeling in China, is planning to greatly tone-down mention of Japanese atrocities during the war and occupation. Do you know anything about that?

 

[Dann]

I have heard that the Chinese government, concerned at the level of anti-Japanese feeling in China, is planning to greatly tone-down mention of Japanese atrocities during the war and occupation. Do you know anything about that?

About time they did!

Those things took place half a century ago! They should be taught to serve as a lesson but not to forment hatred. China and Japan need to cooperate now.

And it should be done on both sides. The Japanese also need to revise the way they teach their history.

Anyway the next generation here might do better. They're growing up with daily doses of anime on TV.

 

[Kan' Sharuminar]

In Scotland we were taught over and over about Britain in the war - specifically about the cursed blitz, and barely anything else. We were taught about the Phoney War, the children being moved around and lots of bombing - only the bombing. Nothing about why the war was happening or even about the Battle of Britain. All we knew was that Hitler was a nasty man who felt like invading Britain and France and gave up when the American arrived.

We weren't taught anything about any of the other countries (I wasn't even aware of Russia/Italy/China etc being involved until taking an active interest by myself) nor anything about the other European fronts or specific events like Pearl Harbour or even D-Day. While I appreciate the fact that it's good to know what your country did during the war, surely it would make sense to talk about some of the others? Even Germany would be a good start

I've done ranting. In good news the education system completely failed to destroy any possible interest in history I might have, and I've developed a keen interest in WW2 in the past few years (just as long as it doesn't involve the blitz).

 

[unexplained]

Australia, schools, and the two world wars:

WW1: Gallipolli, Gallipolli, Gallipolli. Oh, and nasty, incompetent British Generals getting all the brave Aussie diggers killed.
WW2: How the ANZAC's continued the fine tradition of Gallipolli.

Never let the fact we lost badly at Gallipolli get in the way of a good story.

New Zealand was hardly mentioned in all that, despite providing two letters of our army name.

 

[Immortal]

The History of Europe unit I teach sounds like University level content compared to some of this stuff

 

[McManus]

In Finland we get the main jist of both wars, but obviously we concentrate a bit more on our involvment, and how the world dealt (or rather, didn't deal) with us in our plight.

McManus