In which WWII army should you have fought?

[Shaul-Ike Cohen]

Here's a review of a recent book on economy and the Nazis - haven't read the book yet myself.

 

[Twitch]

The books states the Reich's economy was one of war, well duh. That's the whole point which sets it apart from the other countries in times of peace. That doesn't mean that Germany did not put people to work and have a functioning internal economy which was far better than when folks in the 1920s were carrying baskets full of devalued currency to buy 1 loaf of bread.

Any country's war economy is much outgoing and little or nothing incoming. We could make a case that Britians economy was poor because it was based on manufacture of war material. Certainly the outpouring of American aid for FREE didn't hurt. But at the same time GB was certainly not engaged in anything like peacetime economic endeavours. Can we say that the massive amounts of Rubles that the USSR threw away automatically made them victors? They had a lousy peacetime economy since the Revolution and there, like Germany, war production put people to work. Their war production quantities were legendary. To say that yes, producing war material worked in the USSR but didn't in GB or the USSR is just wrong.

Look at aircraft quantities alone

1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 Total
Germany 8,295 10,826 12,401 15,409 24,807 40,593 7,540 119,871
UK 7,940 15,049 20,094 23,672 26,263 26,461 12,070 131,549
USSR 10,382 10,565 15,735 25,436 34,900 40,300 20,900 158,218

There were some years where Germany and GB were relatively equal as well as the USSR. So which country was "making money?"

As mentioned before every time the Germans subdued another country ALL of that state's wealth was Germany's. All of those state's manufacturing facilities became Germany's. All of the citizens became labors. If by no other measure the vaults of the European nations contributed to Germany's wealth in the war.

 

[twobarbreak]

He actually used a sub machine gun to make many of his 500+ kills. The rifle he used most often was a M28 with open iron sights.

True he used a Suomi m-31, But as far as records go its unclear how many kills he was credited with it. Some sources say around 200, others say it was in was in addition to his rifle kills...

Regardless, for his 100 days in service he was no doubt a legend, and will go down in history as one of the best that ever lived.

 

[twobarbreak]

I can only give you some - not very flattering - figures from Denmark 1944.
There were more young danish men fighting with the SS on the eastern front than there were people in the resistance.
And they all volunteered! Nobody or nothing forced them to go.

Many of the young men also came from ultra conservative homes, and they were brought up to be against socialisme and everything beyond that.

A certain percentage of them came for fun, because of the adventure and because they had nothing more important to do with themselves - such as a job, family etc.

And - yes - some came bacause they turned nazis. Simple as that.

Of course in may 1945 there were many more people in the resistance (many joined up in those days!!! ) than there were danish SS soldiers. They suddenly dissapeared.

.

I thought you might like this Photo...Although the Suit is from 1939, the Armband is an authentic Danish Resistance armband...

 

[Spitfire]

Nice, Twobarbreak. I recognice it - my father has one too.
fftopic:
Keeps it with the large army revolver he carried during most of the war.
And the Walther he liberated from a german officer in full daylight on a busy street in Copenhagen.
They were two guys working together. One of them - my father walked up to him and pulled out this huge revolver (looking very dangerous!!!) and asked him politely and in a low voice to keep his hands down, while the othe came up from behind, opened his pistolholster and took the pistol out. Piece of cacke, he told me. Except if the officer was walking with a girlfriend. The girls always screamed and made a lot of fuss. They did it several times in order to get weapons for the resitance.

Other times they simply went into dancingestablishments, where the german officers had left their pistolbelts and caps in the wardrobe. Then they simply asked the girl or man responsible to look the other way and went away with what they could carry.
But that's totally fftopic:

 

[griffer]

But that's totally fftopic:

But totally cool and interesting!

Thanks!

 

[Rob]

You scored as a United States

Your army is the American army. You want your home front to support the G.I.'s in their pursuit to liberate world from more or less evil tyrants.

United States
94%

British and the Commonwealth
88%

Soviet Union
88%

Poland
81%

France, Free French and the Resistance
63%

Italy
63%

Finland
44%

Germany
38%

Japan
25%

 

[Rufus]

Polish...

I have to admit...I didn't expect that! Polski! Still I love cavalry..

My second was UK...

Vive la Chindits!

rufus

 

[Edward]

An interesting quiz. Flawed, of course, as all are (I suspect held back by rather a stereotypical picture of the average German soldier in particular- I'd love to have seen a list of what answers were attributable to which forces), but interesting. I do realise that's something of an oddity in these parts, but I'm certainly by ideals a conscientious objector. I can't honestly say what I would have done faced with Hitler - maybe, like Dietrich Bonhoeffer I might have eventually found some form of violence something that I would regard as the lesser evil. I certainly couldn't have justified doing nothing in the face of Auschwitz/Birkenau. I don't think any of us who haven't been in a situation like that can honestly say what we'd have done. As it was, I came out tied for Finland and Britain / Commonwealth, and following the tie breaker, Britain. My answers were all along the lines of efficiency, use of tactics and strategy rather than sheer weight of numbers, no automatic and unquestioning respect for authority, willingness to give up territory in order to preserve life. I indicated a preference for fighting on after invasion, also. I was 88% for both Finland and Britain; all others were significantly far behind those.

I emailed this quiz to my good friend who is currently serving in the Army. He's in his mid-30s and has been in the Army since he was 18. A "gung-ho" kinda guy.
His result was the French. HAHAHAH. man was he mad about that. I couldn't stop laughing for a good 10 min.

lol

Part of Hitler's allure was the fact that the Allies sought to punish Germany at the end of WW I. The conditions that festered were stimulated by the Allied want to get monetary retribution and keep Germany down. Rampant inflation and poverty swept Germany well into the 1920s. The very conditions the Allies created and fostered allowed Hitlerean ideas to propagate. It made logical sense to many that Hitler's way offered a way up and out of the misery.

It is important to remember all the conditions which led to the war then, I agree. Hopefully we can learn something from that to save us from future conflict on such a scale. Of course, a big part of the problem as well as 1919 vengeance was also that the mechanism of government in the Weimar Republic was such a new and alien thing to the German people, and something imposed from outside, not an organic development. When things went sour with the Wall Street Crash and the unrest of 1929 onwards, people looked to stability in the form of what appeared to be something more familiar - a strong leader figure, offering a defined ideology and a way out. There has to be a lesson in there too.

Some questions are hard to answer. I mean, my willingness to fight beyond being invaded might depend on how the invaders treated me. And weather I save the last bullet for myself has nothing to do with bravery or shame, but with how I expect to be treated. Torture, kill myself. Prisoner of war in a decent camp I could live with.

Good points, all. My primary school headmaster was in the RAF - a bomber pilot (he became a teacher after the war in order to try to do something for children, his conscience always troubling him about how many he was responsible for killing in the bombing raids over Germany). He was once branded LMF by his superior officers because he turned back on a raid when he was sent out with a plane with a defective engine, it being probably that the plane and crew would otherwise have been lost. He was shot down and imprisoned in a POW camp; did what he believed to be his duty, and escaped. Apparently the British treated him worse than the Germans with repeated nightime interrogations, sleep deprivation and so on just to make sure that he wasn't a spy. It left him very angry, I know - he never would have anything to do with Remembrance Sunday, nor would he buy anything from Robinsons, the jam company (one of his commanding officers that had been responsible for this treatment was one of the family who owned that company). A shame.

Regardless of the fact that France would be speaking German if it wasn't for the U.S.A. and the U.K.

Do people actually still believe this? Did Occupied France suddenly start speaking German? And was it only the UK, and the US later on that beat Hitler? what about Russia, the French Resistance, the Resistance in other occupied states..... Someone has had a little too much John Wayne, methinks!

The President/King/Duce/F?ºhrer needs to work for my respect, and i'm not going to obey a general just because he ponces around with some stars on his hat.

Damn right!

Or the author speaks a different language and used Babelfish to Anglicize it...

Unlikely..... Babelfish (and all other automatic translation programs I've encountered) would not be capable of coming out with something near so intelligible. It'd be more along the lines of:

"If in 1939 to do war with Hitler against, you would fire a Swiss?"

When it meant: would you have decalred war on Hitler in 1939 on hearing of the invasion of Poland?

lol

I don't know much about it, but isn't it also posible that many younge men bought into the heavy, carefully crated propeganda same as Germans did? I mean, take a young man and tell him he can join a new vision of the future of law and order and prosperity, especialy those of german descent, german greatness and all) throw in anti comunism and anti russian, anti britan and france, who wee not considered any more good or special than germans. And yes, even if you were portraying jews as a bad element that is hurting your country We did it to jews, blacks, japanese, germans etc. It is done by every country) back then people often did not think as loftily about as us about tolerance. It isn't like you had to align yourself with pure evil to join the germans. It may well have seemed like a reasonable idea to some average farmer who did not know much about the bigger picture.

Absolutely. In WW1, many young men went to their senseless deaths in the trenches following propaganda from the likes of the famous Kitchener image. none of them went fully aware of the reality of the war (at least not in the early stages - probably why conscription became necessary in 1917) - I think even Wilfred Owen went out there a jingoistic idealist. Experience soon taught them otherwise. I still often wonder when you see the "join the army, see the world" type recruitment advertising these days how many of the kids who sign up for that have any idea what they're letting themselves in for.

 

[Twitch]

Germany's economy was in the toilet long before 1929's Wall St. crapped out.

Most here are knowledgeable enough to realize that single, simplistic events aren't the "cause" for war or economic upheaval. There are a vast number of things that are borne from synchronicity which combine to create atmospheres and conditions that are ripe for sequences of events to unfold. Here is a short synopsis on post WW I economics that may make sense to some.

http://econ161.berkeley.edu/TCEH/Slouch_Restoring11.html

 

[nobodyspecial]

Pack up the long underwear and cross country skis - off to Finland.

 

[Italian-wiseguy]

I scored POLAND!

It asked me a final question, to choose between "desperation madkes me stronger" and "uniforms are cool", probably cause I gave both the same rating.
I choose the first, and so I got Poland instead of Italy

 

[Edward]

Germany's economy was in the toilet long before 1929's Wall St. crapped out.

Hyperinflation.... my rusty memory, that was pre-Stresseman, I know, though my understanding was always that Germany was back on an even keel prior to '29...

Certainly the whole thing is far from simplistic - that's what always riles me when some folks try to pin the blame for it all on Chamberlain. Hell, we might as well blame those who released Hitler after such a short sentence following the Munich Putsch. In many other states at the time, that would have gotten him the death penalty (not that I'm in favour of that per se, but...).

 

[LadyStardust]

Scored highest in British and the Commonwealth. Only got 56% for Russia, about 5th place. Though I think I have a pretty good idea of what answers I would needed to have chosen in order to get that as number one, but I decided to answer honestly.

 

[Vladimir Berkov]

What the heck is the deal with Poland?

I got Finland first then Poland almost tied. I can't think of any answers I gave which really apply to Poland.

 

[SamMarlowPI]

Italy...guess i better stay open minded as to which side ill take least im part italian to go with it...

 

[Badluck Brody]

I suppose...

Your army is Poland's army. Your tenacity will form a concept in the history of your nation and you're also ready to continue fighting even if your country is occupied by the enemy. Other nations that are included in this category are Greece, Norway, Belgium and the Netherlands.

My grandfather on my mother's side was 100% Polish. He served the US in the Phillipines while my grandmother worked as a telephone operator and volunteered with the USO.

What I remember was that he was a helluva scrapper!!!!

My second was the US. Followed by France and the French Resistance...

 

[carebear]

Dead tie - Finland and Poland

Being a US Marine, and not having that option available, I don't feel bad about the company I'd be keeping.

Resourceful and successful with great esprit. When beaten, it was due to being outnumbered, not outfought.

"Russia won the Great Patriotic War, but spunky little Finland came in a close second."

 

[Mustang]

You scored as a British and the Commonwealth
Your army is the British and the Commonwealth (Canada, ANZAC, India). You want to serve under good generals and use good equipment in defense of the western form of life.
United States
75%
Poland
75%
British and the Commonwealth
75%
France, Free French and the Resistance
69%
Finland
56%
Italy
56%
Soviet Union
56%
Germany
50%
Japan
38%

It's weird that I had the same percentage for the U.S., Polish, and British, but was "drafted" by the British. [huh]

 

[Spitfire]

Took the test once again. The result was very certain:

100% British/Commonwealth
With Poland (88%) and Finland(56%) as second and third.

So it looks like I am on my way to either a RAF Polish squadron ("Repeat please!") or maybe the Long Range Desert group.

USA was only 25% as was Soviet Union.
With Japan (19%) and Germany (6%) at the bottom.