Monday 12 October 2020

Horrors

"...the horrors and stupidities of the twentieth century should be well known to everyone alive, though often they don't seem to be -"
-Poul Anderson, "The Discovery of the Past" IN Anderson, Past Times (New York, 1984), pp. 182-206 AT p. 201.
 
I have sometimes found World War II veterans unsympathetic. Trying to inform them of the literally Nazi antecedents of some current political movements, I have been told, "You can't tell us anything about Nazism! We fought it!" To this I could only reply, "If that is your attitude, then, yes, I can tell you something about what is happening now!"

However, with the mere passage of time, no one left alive is a veteran of any particular war and, meanwhile, the problems continue.

17 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Needless to say, not all veterans of WW II were so simplistic in either the UK or US. But there can't be many of them left by now, 75 years after the surrender of Germany and Japan.

I do wish the UK and US had not allied with the nauseating USSR! We did not NEED Stalin's help in the war against Germany after Operation Barbarossa began and Hitler foolishly attacked his quondam ally.

Some speculative what ifs of history and SF have wondered what might have happened if Hitler had postponed or cancelled Operation Barbarossa or if Japan had not attacked Pearl Harbor.

And the teaching of honest history has become lamentably rare in the US! Esp. in public schools dominated by leftists/liberals bent on tearing down their own country.

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

Years ago, arguing with a student from Northern Ireland, I suggested that Orange marches through Catholic areas were unacceptably provocative. As a comparison, I started to say, "Suppose I wanted to celebrate Allied victory in World War II..." I would have gone on to say, "...and deliberately organized a march through a place where I knew that a lot of German people lived." However, I was interrupted by a WWII veteran with "You ain't old enough!" To which I replied, "Then the Orange Men ain't old enough to celebrate the Battle of the Boyne!" All that the veteran knew was that he was in the War and I wasn't. Nothing else mattered. Whatever other point I was trying to make was beside the point.

Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

And that veteran was too simplistic! And Churchill himself, who wrote a massive six volume history of WW II, would have agreed with you. Both about WW II and the provocative stupidity of Orange Order marches thru Catholic areas.

Ad astra! Sean

S.M. Stirling said...

Sean: the Soviets lost 30 million dead fighting Germany — 300,000 soldiers killed taking Berlin alone in 1945. Every German soldier they killed was one we didn’t have to deal with. Better them than me or my father, frankly.

There was no easy way to defeat Germany, because as both world wars showed, Germany was very strong; about as strong as all the other states in Europe put together.

As a side.benefit, the war weakened the USSR too.

S.M. Stirling said...

Paul: The National Socialist movement drew on a whole complex of ideas. The fact that they used a trope or concept doesn’t mean it’s “Nazi”.

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Oh, yes. The swastika in particular is a widespread ancient symbol although it seems that the Nazis devised their own specific layout for it.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Mr. Stirling!

Actually, I agree. But couldn't the same effect have been gotten after Operation Barbarossa began by the UK/US fighting Germany in the west at the same time Stalin was fighting Hitler? Did our countries really have to shower Stalin with uncounted tons of war materiel?

Not helping the USSR militarily might even have led Germany to dispatching more forces to fight on the Eastern Front, leaving less to confront the Anglo/Americans in 1944.

Also, Stalin and his goons were utterly sickening and evil persons. No better than Hitler and his top Nazis were! And before Barbarossa began Stalin was doing his best to help Hitler. Adolf might have won the war in the west if he had merely postponed Barbarossa!

Ad astra! Sean

S.M. Stirling said...

Sean: if we hadn’t helped the Soviets, they would have lost, or at beast gotten a stalemate with the Germans occupying substantial territories. Our aid was essential in keeping them going after 1941-2.

This would have made our fighting Germany much more difficult at best or (if the USSR collapsed) outright impossible, and we’d have had to accept the Third Reich dominating Europe.

About 80% of German losses in WW2 were on the Eastern Front. If the Soviets didn’t do that heavy lifting, we’d have had to do it and the price would have been ghastly .

So Stalin and his regime were evil. Agreed, but so what? Better they bleed and burn than us; it’s just realpolitik. We weren’t fighting the Nazis because they were bad, but because they were a threat to us.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Mr. Stirling!

I can't rebut or refute your argument--so I have to accept it, no matter how sickening it was to help Stalin and the USSR.

I did have in mind how Solzhenitsyn argued in THE GULAG ARCHIPELAGO that the UK/US should not have helped Stalin, because there was no need to do so.

And what might have happened if Hitler, because of the delay caused by the unwanted intervention in Yugoslavia, had decided to postpone Operation Barbarossa till 1942?

Ad astra! Sean

S.M. Stirling said...

Sean there’s some evidence that Stalin intended to attack Hitler, though I have my doubts — he tended to be very cautious strategically.

If the USSR -had- struck first, they’d almost certainly have lost very badly indeed. They just weren’t up to fighting the Germans close to the Germans’ base of supply.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Mr. Stirling!

I can believe Stalin at least THOUGHT of attacking Hitler's Germany, perhaps in 1943 or 1944?

I also think the Red Army was still demoralized from Stalin's Army purges and the disappointing war with Finland. To say nothing of how much BETTER the German Army was when competent generals were allowed to manage it.

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

One of Stalin's many crimes was to purge former White generals who had defended Russia loyally against armies of intervention.

S.M. Stirling said...

The “armies of intervention” were largely mythical, as far as the Russian civil war are concerned. The Entente powers sent troops to guard the supplies they’d sent before the Bolsheviks — widely and with good reason regraded as German stooges — signed a peace of capitulation.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Mr. Stirling!

I only WISH the Intervention armies had been used to strangle Lenin's monstrous regime when it was still an infant in the cradle!

Ad astra! Sean

Nicholas D. Rosen said...

Kaor, Sean!

There can’t be many veterans of World War Two left, but one elderly veteran I know, Walter Rybeck, is still alive so far as I am aware (if he had died these past few months, I presume I would have heard from our mutual friends, including his son Rick Rybeck). Another World War Two veteran with whom I was personally acquainted, Professor Mason Gaffney, died a few months ago, at the age of ninety-six. You and other readers of this blog might find his website, masongaffney.org, to be of interest.

Best Regards,
Nicholas

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Nicholas,
Thank you.
Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Nicholas!

Many thanks! I assume you mentioned these gentlemen because THEY were not simplistic about history, strategy, geopolitics, etc.

Regards! Sean