What's so intriguing about WWII?

[Lord Baal]

I know. But Back In The Day the in-vogue thing on WH was the multi-thread argument between the semi-rational apologists for the Soviet Union and the semi-rational loathers of the Soviet Union.

Which ended up being reason number 3 as to why virtually all history past 1920 or so is not worth getting into.

Sounds like when I joined.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

I find the big appeal of World War II is that we can see it, and if you are old enough you lived it. We can read about Napoleon and see paintings of him, but World War II has thousands of hours of film footage of pretty much everything that happened in the war. It makes it far more personal. You can't pop in a DVD and see the Battle of Austerlitz the same way you can for the Battle of the Bulge.

 

[innonimatu]

Oh, for the days when this would have started flaming

But Nazi Germany destroyed itself in a few years. The Soviet Union was eventually dismantled generations later amidst a bloodless palace coup and (generally...) popular apathy. That comparison of outcomes alone should make short work of any such discussion.

 

[Dachs]

I don't really see what either of those has to do with good or evil!

 

[Lord Baal]

I don't really see what either of those has to do with good or evil!

The more evil you are, the quicker you disintegrate from within. Or is that only for Sith?

 

[Tee Kay]

Edit: never mind

 

[Domen]

The more evil you are, the quicker you disintegrate from within. Or is that only for Sith?

Decays of evil civilizations are faster. But this doesn't apply to Siths.

 

[Virote_Considon]

I do agree with this. The contrast is especially strong when comparing The Soviet Union to Nazi Germany.

Yes. Truly the bad guys won this war

 

[Lord Baal]

Decays of evil civilizations are faster. But this doesn't apply to Siths.

That explains why Poland was conquered so quickly in WWII.

 

[ParkCungHee]

The more evil you are, the quicker you disintegrate from within. Or is that only for Sith?

No, the more evil you are the more you stick around, because you've been elevated to Archnemesis. I mean, after they killed off the Soviet Union the plot floundered for ten years and now we have this "terrorists" nonsense.
Still, I suppose it had to happen, after forty years they started suffering villain decay, so maybe Nazi Germany never stuck around just to prevent that from happening. Looking back on some of the older stories, they've aged poorly. I mean, theres giant plot holes in their plans about how they were supposed to beat Britain, and looking at there economy from today, the whole thing seems kind of cheezy and feels rushed.

 

[LiquidCommander]

Well aside from being the most devastating conflict in recorded history and involving more nations than any other war in history, it's also the most recent significant conflict and its aftereffects are still felt to this day.

Also, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany had awesome officer hats. That is all.

 

[GoodGame]

WWII is so unaesthetical, with all these barbaric metallic tanks and airplanes, boring-looking uniforms, and yawn-inspiring leaders (okay, Stalin's moustache isn't that bad, but it isn't enough). Why so many threads on that forum discuss it? Surely, other eras are a lot more pleasing. The colonial wars of 18-19th century are so interesting - attractive uniforms (love the British red!), exotic locations (Spicy Seringapatam sounds so much cooler then boring Moscow or even El-Alamein), interesting economic and social dynamics of colonialism. Napoleonic wars are very nice, too - the uniforms are much sexier, the image and story of Napoleon can be presented as very romantic. While Zheng He references are very annoying, Chinese history isn't limited to him only. And the Middle Ages - all that romanticism of Western Europe (owning much to Romantic movement of later centuries, but whatever), the Byzantine imperial bling.

I don't see much to discuss if you want to gripe about the lack of gaudily colored tanks in WW2, or lack of romance in mass murder and attacks against civilians.

 

[Disgustipated]

*deleted*

 

[Camikaze]

I find WWII intriguing both because it was important and because there was a lot to it. That is, there's always something new to find out about it, and the rest of it is shocking enough to grab my attention.

 

[Plotinus]

As I mentioned above, this could be the only case where there has truly been total war. Not just men were affected here, but also women and children. People not directly fighting in the war were very adversely affected. Populations were raped and decimated. It was tragic and heartbreaking.

There have been plenty of wars far worse than WWII from that point of view. Look up the Thirty Years' War for starters.

 

[GoodGame]

There have been plenty of wars far worse than WWII from that point of view. Look up the Thirty Years' War for starters.

But not much of the modern population is aware that that war ever existed. A failure of hollywood and the mass media really.

 

[Japanrocks12]

If you're looking for utter civilian devastation, look no further than the War of the Triple Alliance

 

[ParkCungHee]

Again, the Nine Years war is vastly more interesting then WWII by that standard.

Did I mention I really like the Nine Years War?

 

[TheBladeRoden]

some of us like our barbaric metallic tanks and airplanes

 

[Tee Kay]

Again, the Nine Years war is vastly more interesting then WWII by that standard.

Did I mention I really like the Nine Years War?

I had no idea what that was so I looked it up. Looks interesting enough.

It's hard to beat the Paraguay Treatment though.