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Why do people care so much about this? If they knew about D-Day, were they the best soldiers, could they have beaten Russia?
I think you're misplacing 'fixation on Germany' where instead you should see 'interest in the European theater of World War II'.
That conflict was the greatest/largest/worst (pick your metric) in history, and it occurred relatively recently. The European theater saw the most action and - for rather obvious cultural reasons, as well as political and strategic ones - was more important for people from the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada, who surely make up the vast majority of posters on this forum.
I mean, is it that hard to figure out why
Beyond that...
*There is a curious elemental evil about the Third Reich. It's the same reason the likes of Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy are infamous and the tens of thousands of other people who committed murders in the same years as those two are almost entirely forgotten. Why are their more movies about vampire than there are about computer programmers? Same reason.
*The Germans produced cutting edge machinery of war. This was partly their downfall, as they tended toward spectacular devices that were some combination of impractical and hard to produce in the necessary numbers to win the war. Think of the Stuka, the Tigers, the Me-262, the V-2. There are many other examples.
*There's also a cultural undercurrent of admiration and reverence for Naziism that percolates to the social surface now and then (like now).
Even a lot of WW II stuff doesn't get much note; how many people know about General William Slim and his Indian troops and their campaigns? Slim was probably the best General in the entire war, but I would bet few have even heard of him or his accomplishments. Most of the American and British press corps preferred to cover stuff a lot closer to home.
For that matter how many know about Krueger and Eichelberger, who commanded armies for MacArthur? Both were very capable and Eichelberger was arguably the best American army commander of the war.
Hell, the average American knucklehead probably thinks the United States Army didn’t even fight the Japanese.
For some people its just fascinating that they put together this concerned effort to conquer half the world. And the body count ratio were usually so much in their favor (not the case against Americans though), thus adding to the mystique. Beyond that, how could so many people be so inhuman to take up arms, fight and die to conquer and enslave people in the modern age?
It is the extremes of life that are most interesting, that is why you never see a headline which reads "Plane Lands Safely And On Time." The Third Reich represents extremes..far, far right fascism, radical racial theories, absolutist doctrines, utter suppression of dissent, strutting, preening, shrieking dictator at the top, the colossal scale of their war with the Soviets, the incredible cruelty of the extermination camps..it had it all.
Why do people care so much about this? If they knew about D-Day, were they the best soldiers, could they have beaten Russia?
There were similar ones about Germany and WWI also.
I get that this is the history forum but it's odd that people fixate so much on one participant in these struggles when the roles of the others offer at least as many what-ifs, etc.
I found myself studying the progression of Nazis in Europe to better understand what my great aunts and cousins went through in Rivne, Ukraine in WW2.
….Beyond that, how could so many people be so inhuman to take up arms, fight and die to conquer and enslave people in the modern age?
For me, it's "this". I believe that Hitler's rise to power holds many lessons that we must never forget. I picture 1930 Germany as being very "civilized", and the idea that a small group led by one guy could gain power so quickly, build and command a huge military force, and launch the takeover of the rest of Europe to be fascinating. What scares me, is that people today think it couldn't happen again, that we have become too "enlightened". Not a chance, a repeat of WWII Germany, or even what happened between the Hutu's vs. the Tutsi's in recent history is a whole lot more possible than most people think. And it could happen anywhere. All I can tell you about the next U.S. Presidential election, is that no matter who wins, they will be despised, and I mean truly hated, by approximately 50% of voters. And it seems to get worse with each election cycle.
Morbid is your opinion. It's the history forum and the discussions range over a wide variety of topics. World War II was an event of great consequence in world history and like it or not the Germans were a major participant.
I get the feeling people are sort of groping around for "If only Germany had done this.." or "If they had/had not attacked (fill in the country)..." things would have gone the other way. As if this would have been a good thing!
Of course, no one would come right out and say, "I only wish Germany hadn't/had attacked Russia because then they would have won" or "The Germans were better because, well, they're Germans." But it seems to lurking right below the surface.
That's the morbid part.
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