Different country's views of history.

[Messy1]

They say history is written by the victors. My question is this.
All countries have a different view of the events and what lead to WW2.
Can anyone point out the differances on what is generally acceppted as facts and what is not.

What do they teach in Japan, Germany, Italy, Britain, etc?

I have heard that there are some countries who deny that the holocaust existed. Not wanting to step on anyone's toes or ruffle any feathers. Just wonder how much views of history differ?

This has always interested me.

 

[Hobilar]

BRITTAIN? (Grrr)

Great Britain-Do try and spell our countries name correctly

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Well in modern Germany (according to my wife who is German) it is drilled into them about why it happened and why it should never happen again.

The youth of Germany today (aprox 20 years and younger) are a bit tired of hearing they should be ashamed of what happened 60 to 70 years ago. They believe that it should never be forgotten and that it was a terrible thing but that they should not be blamed for what happened that far in the past.

 

[Downwind.Maddl-Land]

BRITTAIN? (Grrr)

Great Britain-Do try and spell our countries name correctly

Now, now Holibar! Give the chap the benefit of the doubt - it was a 'double strike' on the 'T' wasn't it, Messy?








But now it's been gently brought to your attention:
JUST DON'T DO IT AGAIN!

I don't believe that any Countries deny The Holocaust as a national policy (what's Iran's latest rantings on the subject anyone?), although some very misguided individual's might.

There is the old banter between the Allies as to who contributed the most and - more importantly - when the conflict started, everyone actually acknowledges (in their Heart of Hearts) that it was Team Effort with "horses for courses" throughout.

Although we Brits could not have won the struggle on our own - we needed the industrial might of the USA - Great Britain (including the Commonwealth) also added a modicum of effort - about 55,000 lives' worth in Bomber Command alone - and had been in the front line from kick-off. London 1940 was similar to the Beirut of more recent times, and that sort of thing gets forgotten sometimes.

Finally, although not a PC friendly individual at all, most Brits DO acknowledge Adler's point entirely and try to differentiate carefully between Nazis and Germans. The trick is to stop extremists - of any persuasion Right or Left wing - getting hold of the reins of power.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

The trick is to stop extremists - of any persuasion Right or Left wing - getting hold of the reins of power.

Agreed 100%

 

[Messy1]

Downwind. I agree fully with your last paragraph. Anyone have any idea on how Italy and Japan view WW2? I found a post in a smiliar thread about modern Russians not knowing anything about Lend-Lease. That is what got me wondering this topic.

By the way, sorry for the mis-spelling! Will never happen again! (Hopefully!)

 

[Black Magic]

First of all; I beg your pardon for my english (difficoult to write in english about history for me...)

In the modern Italian society a general, huge, sense of guilt for what happended, before and during the WWII, because italian fascism, continues to be present.
Our influence on the war events was quite marginal than german influence, so our historic view concerns, in the most part, of what fascism did bad for our country and our people.

The contribution of the italian Armed Forces to the fascism is still well remembered in the people minds.
Probably the responsability of the armed forces are not so big as the books teach us in the school...
This happens because, when (ended the war) it was time to blame someone for fascism; italian politicians chose to blame only the armed forces, neglecting that the civil society was fascist as well at that time!

This fact has a particoular effect on the modern italian society.
Everytime Italy is called for an international operation (as happened for Irak, or Afganistan) a big part of the citizens are againist it, because they don't trust our armed forces, so the govern must to call all operations "peacekeeping" or "humanitarian operation".

Another, for me strange, concept in the italian view of history is that Germans in WWII are viewed like invaders!!
In all our books you can read: "Germans enemies"..."Nazists Invaders..." "Nazist occupation"...
This is pretty strange because we were allied!!

Nazists became enemies after our joint with Allies...I wonder why these authors forget the time when we were allied with Germany.
They say: "Mussolini and the armed forces were allied with them...not italian people"
...mmmmm...I think it's a very partial view of the facts indeed...

The discussion about the WWII events in Italy is still to end...

 

[Messy1]

Thanks to all for responding!

 

[marshall]

I can give you an example how Poles and Russians differ in their view on history. For everybody in Poland WW2 started 1st September 1939 but Russians will say it started in 1941 when Hitler attacked Russia. I don't want to say that all Russians think so but probably many of them don't want to remember that they were working together with Nazi's before 1941. Also Russians officialy still don't admited to many awful things they did to Poland and Poles during WW2 and afterwards. I don't want to write here about all things that differ Russians and Poles but there's a lot of them.

Another thing is that there's a difference between Poland and US, GB and Russian about the outcome of Tehran, Potsdam, and Yalta conferences. I won't get into details because I don't feel I will make myself clear about it and those are delicate matters.

If anybody would be really interested in Polish, but I think as objective as possible, point of view I can recommend two books "Rising '44" by Norman Davies (a British historian) and " A Question of Honor" by Lynne Olson and Stanley Cloud. In my and not only opinion two very good books, first one about Warsaw Rising in 1944 but it's a big book and there's a lot more, and the second one is history of Polish pilots from the 303 RAF squadron, the highest scoring squadron during Battle of Britain.

Generally I think that every country have a bit different history version and that it's rather impossible to make one objective version.

 

[Messy1]

Marshall, I defintely agree that one objective history would be impossible! thanks for the reccomendations!