Talk:World War II

About my edits

My edits are deemed to be unconstructive but I do think they are constructive. No one actually say "the Holocaust of European Jews", "the Holocaust" is sufficient. Adding link to relevant topics is useful and it doesn't make sense that "European Axis..." links only to German declaration of war. Casau056 (talk) 10:09, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

I agree. "the Holocaust of European Jews" is a tautology. It should just be "the Holocaust". If there are no objections from other editors I will make the change. Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 01:51, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

+1 Kingpin25zxc (talk) 18:58, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

Gulags "De Facto"?

No source I could find suggests it is "De Facto",and the citation provided is incomplete,not even a ISBN UnsungHistory (Wrong Edit!) 23:57, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

Interesting new book

World War II was not a fight between good and evil, and good has not won. It was an imperialist war from all sides, a war for economic zones of influence, spheres for capital investment, resources and strategic territo-ries. And virtually all powers committed mass violence against non-combatants,often in connection with the scramble for resources, their redistribution and re-source denial to some, that is, by creating conditions of violence. The Allies killed at least ten million non-combatants. The violence also had to do with the fact thatit was a racist war from all sides due to imperialism. By maintaining that this wasa fight between good and evil, the dominant historiography is a continuation ofthe war with other means, and because of its Eurocentrism and systematic con-struction of non-combatant victims of different importance and value, which in-cludes ignoring or marginalizing certainlarge victim groups (especially thosewith a darker skin tone), the mainstream historiography itself is racist.

— https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783111568737-006/html

Haven't seen this figure before: is it commonly accepted? Is Gerlach right that the number of Allied and Axis killings are on the same magnitude? (t · c) buidhe 03:10, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

Please note that The World War II Talk page "is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject." it is not a place to discuss editors' opinions on new books about WWII. If you have a suggestion for a specific addition to the article please provide it with appropriate sources. As the article states, the consensus estimates for civilian deaths among the Axis powers is ten million, compared with 45 million civilian deaths among the Allies. I am not aware of any other historian who argues that the Allies targeted civilians according to the melanin content of their skin. Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 11:00, 30 December 2024 (UTC) Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 22:00, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

No offense but I don't think this is accurate according to mainstream historiography—Stalin's deportations and the expulsion of Germans, for example, was indisputably based on ethnicity. (t · c) buidhe 03:41, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

I have reverted your edit because you are writing one author's fringe view as if it were an established fact. Every so often German historians of the extreme right or the extreme left argue that there was nothing special about the Holocaust and that the actions of the Nazis and of the Allies were morally equivalent. Those on the extreme right argue this because they want Germans to be proud of Germany's Nazi past, those on the extreme left because they think Germany has been scapegoated for what they see as "universal capitalist/colonialist genocide". The vast majority of historians reject these moral equivalence theories. They remain fringe views and have no place in a high level article on WWII based on the consensus of recent scholarship. But let's see what other editors think. Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 07:02, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

(EC) Buidhe, having now read the chapter, while Gerlach does make a number of provocative arguments—including suggesting a rough moral equivalence between the Allies and the Axis in that both were (in Gerlach's view) racist and imperialist alliances of states that killed/exploited civilians (though this is a very simplified summary of Gerlach's thesis), and stating that the common use of the term "Holocaust" to describe the genocide of European Jews contributes to the "systematic mystification" (p. 164) of the event and should be avoided—I don't see that Gerlach anywhere states or implies "that the number of Allied and Axis killings are on the same magnitude" (as you put it). In my reading, Gerlach acknowledges that "the former killed fewer non-combatants than the latter" (p. 217), but this does not validate "the old good-against-evil stories" (p. 220), as "one who kills ten million non-combatants cannot be considered 'good' except for what would be a very peculiar meaning of the word" (p. 170).

Notably, while our article cites figures of four million civilian deaths in the main Axis countries compared to 45 million civilian deaths in Allied countries, Gerlach states (pp. 170–171): "Axis countries primarily killed enemy populations ... But most victims of Allied action against non-combatants were not from the enemy side. The majority were actually their own citizens or colonial subjects: in the Gulag and ethnic resettlements, among Chinese peasants and recruits, and in Bengal and Burundi." Among other examples, Gerlach cites (pp. 168–169, 184–186) the Bengal famine of 1943 caused by British policy (3 million deaths), the man-made 1938 Yellow River flood ordered by the Kuomintang (400,000–900,000 deaths), and prisoner deaths in the Soviet Gulag system (974,000 deaths).TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 07:18, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

The text I added states that there is a popular perception that World War II was fought between good and evil, which is missing from the article despite its big influence on how the war is perceived. Even those who disagree (for example that this framework is reductive and not given to objectivity) don't usually argue that evils by the Allied vs Axis powers are exactly equivalent. How is this fringe? (t · c) buidhe 05:45, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

To clarify the text removed was

World War II has often been portrayed in popular culture as a "good war" in which the Allied powers triumphed over evil; this framing is also present, explicitly or implicitly, throughout most scholarly studies. However, this interpretation has been challenged due to the colonialist actions, war crimes, and millions of civilian deaths from famine for which all major Allied powers bore responsibility. The victims of the war also have not received equal treatment, with the Holocaust receiving much more scholarly and popular interest than other war crimes.

Of this, the first and third sentences are not seriously disputed and don't reflect Gerlach's pov. I guess you can challenge the second sentence but that would seem to compromise nPOV because these are very serious criticisms of the Allies made continuously since the war itself. (t · c) buidhe 06:02, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

I have again reverted your edit. You made a bold edit. Two editors have objected to it in whole or in part. Please don't start an edit war. It is now up to you to gain consensus for your proposed revision. WP:BRDCYCLE. You are using the wikipedia voice Wikipedia:VOICE to present the highly controversial opinions of one author as fact. You are also giving undue weight to a fringe view. Specifically:

1) The statement: "World War II has often been portrayed in popular culture as a "good war" in which the Allied powers triumphed over evil; this framing is also present, explicitly or implicitly, throughout most scholarly studies. The part of the quote in italics is an assertion by Gerlach. No serious recent scholar reduces WWII to a simple conflict between good and evil.

2) "However, this interpretation has been challenged due to the colonialist actions, war crimes, and millions of civilian deaths from famine for which all major Allied powers bore responsibility." As I said, the "good v evil" interpretation is a straw man set up by Gerlach. No serious scholar holds it. The statements "refuting" this straw man are merely the sweeping assertions of Gerlach. What "colonialist actions"? Which "war crimes"? Which "famines for which the Allies were responsible"? All these are highly contested issues, not facts which can be written in the wikipedia voice based on one source.

3) "The victims of the war also have not received equal treatment, with the Holocaust receiving much more scholarly and popular interest than other war crimes." This is a non-sequitur. There might be good reasons why scholars have written more on the Holocaust than other war crimes and it might have nothing to do with "equal treatment of victims of war". Just as there might be good reasons why there has been more scholarship on WWII than on ship building in 15th century Venice. Frankly I find your wording sinister because the notion that Jewish victims of WWII get special treatment is a classic anti-Semitic trope. (I am not suggesting that you are antisemitic, I am pointing out that we need to be careful of our wording because there is a history of far-Right groups using loose wording in wikipedia articles on WWI and WWII to push their agendas.)

Some of the issues raised by Gerlach might be worth discussing in other specialised wikipedia articles on the Holocaust, or WWII in popular culture, or the Historiography of WWII. But for a high level featured article on WWII all that needs to be said is that there was an event commonly called the Holocaust in which 6 million Jews were deliberately murdered by the Nazis and their allies because of the Nazi ideology that the Jews were subhuman.

As for the issue of alleged allied war crimes, this is a controversial issue which is already discussed sufficiently in this article. If Gerlach has a detailed argument that there were more allied war crimes than generally accepted in recent scholarship then this can be discussed as a minority opinion in one of the specialist wikipedia articles on War Crimes in WWII. If ever a scholarly consensus emerges that the events which Gerlach considers allied war crimes were in fact war crimes then an appropriate sentence can be added to this article in the wikipedia voice with citations to that scholarship. Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 07:26, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

No one else objected to my edit. The article currently says next to nothing about perception of the war, which is a big content gap. You haven't come up with any sources that contradict what I wrote, just saying you think it's fringe based on your own opinion. it is simply a fact that many perceive the war as a contest between good and evil (I would agree that even many scholarly studies do implicitly refer to the Allies as the "good" side). As you note in your response, the Holocaust is the subject of much more studies than other atrocities, reasons for this were not covered. there is no scholarly controversy that the Allies committed many war crimes, enforced colonial rule against foreign populations, or were responsible for large scale famines—any revision to suggest this would fail NPOV. However, if you don't like my text, can you at least propose something else that would address this content gap? (t · c) buidhe 08:27, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

• It's fair to say that Gerlach's arguments about the Holocaust are pretty mainstream among scholars in the field: For example, see The Problems of Genocide, which is all about the different responses to different types of deadly anti-civilian violence, or Raz Segal, who writes, "For “genocide,” together with the term “Holocaust,” maintains a hierarchy of violence".[1] (t · c) buidhe 08:38, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

  The sentences you propose reduce several complex and disputed issues to a series of crude and contentious generalisations based on one book. I don't believe it can be rewritten is a satisfactory way for this article. To do justice to the the topic of "perceptions of the war" would require a whole sub-section on WWII in popular culture, a section on the portrayal of WWII in scholarship since 1950 and a section on the Historiography of the Holocaust. Each of these sections would require a thorough and balanced overview of recent scholarship on these subjects. The views of Gerlach and Moses on the Holocaust are not mainstream, they expressly argue that they are challenging the mainstream. They have their supporters but have come in for heavy criticism. More importantly there are literally thousands of academic studies published each year which still use the concept of genocide as an analytical category. I don't see any reason why this article needs to include Gerlach's view that the Holocaust gets more attention than it deserves. The vast majority of scholars obviously disagree. This article has a section on Genocide, concentration camps, and slave labour which devotes one sentence to the Holocaust and 14 to other crimes so I don't think the Holocaust is overrepresented here at least. Just to be clear, I'm not suggesting the views of Gerlach and Moses should be suppressed on Wikipedia. I just think it's a matter of balance and undue weight and that they should be included--along with the mainstream counter views--in the specialist articles on the Holocaust. But let's see what other editors think. It's holiday time so we probably should allow a couple of weeks for other interested editors to comment. Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 10:07, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

  I'm asking again: do you have even one source that contradicts what I wrote? If the content is fringe, you should have no trouble finding many rock solid sources that say the opposite. (t · c) buidhe 05:59, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

  If you are interested in improving this article by adding a section or sections on perceptions of WWII then I am happy to work with you to do this. I hope you will agree that for an article rated as a good article, such a section(s) should be based on the consensus of recent scholarship rather than on one very recently published work which the author expressly states challenges the mainstream historiography of WWII and is only a research program guide and not a fully researched history. As I wrote above, this is a holiday period and I am away from my personal library and the main research libraries I use. I am also reluctant to expend the necessary effort to do this properly unless there is a clear consensus among other editors that such a section would be useful. In the meantime, I have objected to your proposed addition for the reasons I have stated and it is up to you to gain consensus for your proposed change. So I'm asking again: please allow a couple of weeks to give other editors time to comment on your proposed addition. I look forward to working with you to gain consensus for improvements to this article. Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 07:50, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

  I'm confused why you think this needs to be handled in a separate section, rather than a few sentences. The article is written in summary style so it's correct for the details to go into a different article. (t · c) buidhe 14:49, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

As this article covers the war at a very high level, I don't think that it's appropriate to give much weight to individual sources. The wording here is also highly unfortunate in that it comes uncomfortably close to claiming, using Wikipedia's voice, that the Allies were every bit as bad as the Axis, which is not a view that any serious historians hold. If we want to discuss a more nuanced version of the war, it would be best to use multiple sources that ideally survey the modern literature. It's fair to say that modern historians take a much more sophisticated approach to the war than was the case in the past (which is one of my many frustrations when people turn up here arguing that we shouldn't list Stalin first in the infobox as he was a bad man - he most certainly was, but modern historians also stress the key role the USSR played in the Allied victory), but we should be careful in how this type of material is presented. For instance, German histories of the war attribute the ultimate responsibility for the devastation the Germany suffered from Allied bombing and the chaotic evacuations in early 1945 to the Nazis. Nick-D (talk) 03:55, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

I'm not attached to the particular wording but I do think the article should have some sentences about how its subject is commonly perceived. Do you have another version or other sources to consider? (t · c) buidhe 04:15, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

I'd suggest looking at what recent wide ranging histories of the war say. For instance, Anthony Beevor and Richard Overy have published well reviewed general histories of World War II in the last decade or so - both are well regarded experts on the war with an interest in covering a wide range of perspectives. As Aemilius Adolphin notes, the issues you raise have been discussed in the mainstream recent literature on the war. Nick-D (talk) 04:38, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

It is a pretty good summary of the Nazi viewpoint as advanced in the Nuremberg trials: that Allied bombing was a worse crime than the death camps; that the real crime against humanity was the expulsion of ethnic Germans from the eastern lands; that the Holocaust is overblown; and that it was the Jews that started World War II. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:04, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

References

Mention that World War I is the predecessor of World War II.

World War II has a predecessor called World War I, that started back in 1914, and ended in 1918. O7Official (talk) 13:22, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

We do. Slatersteven (talk) 13:25, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 13 January 2025

Please add « General Charles de Gaulle » with the main Allies leaders and France into the five World War II biggest winners. It’s a historical fact. Even if France lost the Battle of France, the Free France and the French Resistance went on the fight until 1945. Their participation was important in the Western Front. Of course, without the others Allies, France never won the War. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TanguyWilly (talk • contribs) 15:14, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

This has already been discussed quite a few times it seems, you can find the discussions by searching for him in the archives. TylerBurden (talk) 20:45, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

The lead is too long - here are my suggested edits

While MOS:LEADLENGTH is not prescriptive, it recommends that leads not be so long that readers are intimidated by them or lose interest. The current lead is almost a full A4 page, which I'd suggest is excessive, though probably not dramatically so. I'd suggest the following lightly revised version to get the length down a bit. In doing so, I've looked for easy wins, especially by removing unneeded details such as who declared war when when this is obvious from the other text. I'd be grateful for views and further edits - there's a case for more dramatic editing to get this to the general norm of 3-4 shortish paras. Perhaps the most controversial element of the below is omitting a mention of Hitler's suicide: my rationale here is that both Ian Keershaw (author of the standard biography of Hitler), Richard E. Evans and some other historians state that Hitler's suicide was inconsequential by the time it occurred given that Germany had been totally destroyed so it doesn't seem significant enough to mention; we (rightly) don't mention the killing of Mussolini or FDR's death either. Nick-D (talk) 10:20, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all the world's countries —including all the great powers—participated, with many investing all available economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities in pursuit of total war, blurring the distinction between military and civilian resources. Tanks and aircraft played major roles, with the latter enabling the strategic bombing of population centres and delivery of the only two nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II was the deadliest conflict in history, resulting in 70 to 85 million deaths, more than half being civilians. Millions died in genocides, including the Holocaust of European Jews, as well as from massacres, starvation, and disease. Following the Allied powers' victory, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Korea were occupied, and war crimes tribunals were conducted against German and Japanese leaders.

The causes of World War II included unresolved tensions in the aftermath of World War I and the rise of fascism in Europe and militarism in Japan. Key events leading up to the war included Japan's invasion of Manchuria, the Spanish Civil War, the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War, and Germany's annexations of Austria and the Sudetenland. World War II is generally considered to have begun on 1 September 1939, when Nazi Germany, under Adolf Hitler, invaded Poland, prompting the United Kingdom and France to declare war on Germany. Poland was divided between Germany and the Soviet Union under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, in which they had agreed on "spheres of influence" in Eastern Europe. In 1940, the Soviets annexed the Baltic states and parts of Finland and Romania. After the fall of France in June 1940, the war continued mainly between Germany and the British Empire, with fighting in the Balkans, Mediterranean, and Middle East, the aerial Battle of Britain and the Blitz, and naval Battle of the Atlantic. Through a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany took control of much of continental Europe and formed the Axis alliance with Italy, Japan, and other countries. In June 1941, Germany led the European Axis in an invasion of the Soviet Union, opening the Eastern Front and initially making large territorial gains.

Japan aimed to dominate East Asia and the Asia-Pacific, and by 1937 was at war with the Republic of China. In December 1941, Japan attacked American and British territories in Southeast Asia and the Central Pacific, including Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, which resulted in the US and the UK declaring war against Japan, and The European Axis also declared war on the US. Japan conquered much of coastal China and Southeast Asia, but its advances in the Pacific were halted in mid-1942 after its defeat in the naval Battle of Midway. In late 1942, Germany and Italy were defeated in North Africa and at Stalingrad in the Soviet Union. Events in 1943—including German defeats on the Eastern Front, the Allied invasion of Italy, and Allied offensives in the Pacific—forced the Axis into retreat on all fronts. In 1944, the Western Allies invaded occupied France at Normandy and the Soviet Union recaptured its lost territory. In the Pacific, the Allies crippled Japan's navy and captured key islands.

The war in Europe concluded with the liberation of German-occupied territories; the invasion of Germany by the Western Allies and the Soviet Union, culminating in the fall of Berlin to Soviet troops; Hitler's suicide; and the German unconditional surrender on 8 May 1945. Following the refusal of Japan to surrender on the terms of the Potsdam Declaration, the US dropped the first atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August. Faced with an imminent invasion of the Japanese archipelago, the possibility of further atomic bombings, and the Soviet declaration of war against Japan and its invasion of Manchuria, Japan announced its unconditional surrender on 15 August and signed a surrender document on 2 September 1945, marking the end of the war.

World War II changed the political alignment and social structure of the world, and it set the foundation of international relations for the rest of the 20th century and into the 21st century. The United Nations was established to foster international cooperation and prevent conflicts, with the victorious great powers—China, France, the Soviet Union, the UK, and the US—becoming the permanent members of its security council. The Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War. In the wake of European devastation, the influence of its great powers waned, triggering the decolonisation of Africa and Asia. Most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery and expansion.

Nick-D (talk) 10:16, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

Further suggested cuts:

World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all the world's countries —including all the great powers—participated, with many investing all available economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities in pursuit of total war, blurring the distinction between military and civilian resources. Tanks and aircraft played major roles, with the latter enabling the strategic bombing of population centres and delivery of the only two nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II was the deadliest conflict in history, resulting in 70 to 85 million deaths, more than half being civilians. Millions died in genocides, including the Holocaust of European Jews, as well as and from massacres, starvation, and disease. Following the Allied powers' victory, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Korea were occupied, and war crimes tribunals were conducted against German and Japanese leaders.

The causes of World War II included unresolved tensions in the aftermath of World War I and the rise of fascism in Europe and militarism in Japan. Key events leading up to the war included Japan's invasion of Manchuria, the Spanish Civil War, the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War, and Germany's annexations of Austria and the Sudetenland. World War II is generally considered to have begun on 1 September 1939, when Nazi Germany, under Adolf Hitler, invaded Poland, prompting the United Kingdom and France to declare war on Germany. Poland was divided between Germany and the Soviet Union under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, in which they had agreed on "spheres of influence" in Eastern Europe. In 1940, the Soviets annexed the Baltic states and parts of Finland and Romania. After the fall of France in June 1940, the war continued mainly between Germany and the British Empire, with fighting in the Balkans, Mediterranean, and Middle East, the aerial Battle of Britain and the Blitz, and naval Battle of the Atlantic. Through a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany took control of much of continental Europe and formed the Axis alliance with Italy, Japan, and other countries. In June 1941, Germany led the European Axis in an invasion of the Soviet Union, opening the Eastern Front and initially making large territorial gains.

Japan aimed to dominate East Asia and the Asia-Pacific, and by 1937 was at war with the Republic of China. In December 1941, Japan attacked American and British territories in Southeast Asia and the Central Pacific, including Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, which resulted in the US and the UK declaring war against Japan, and . The European Axis also declared war on the US. Japan conquered much of coastal China and Southeast Asia, but its advances in the Pacific were halted in mid-1942 after its defeat in the naval Battle of Midway. In late 1942, Germany and Italy were defeated in North Africa and at Stalingrad in the Soviet Union. Events in 1943—including German defeats on the Eastern Front, the Allied invasion of Italy, and Allied offensives in the Pacific—forced the Axis into retreat on all fronts. In 1944, the Western Allies invaded occupied France at Normandy and the Soviet Union recaptured its lost territory. In the Pacific, the Allies crippled Japan's navy and captured key islands.

The war in Europe concluded with the liberation of German-occupied territories; the Allied invasion of Germany by the Western Allies and the Soviet Union, culminating in the fall of Berlin to Soviet troops; Hitler's suicide; and the German unconditional surrender on 8 May 1945. Following the refusal of Japan to surrender on the terms of the Potsdam Declaration, the US dropped the first atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August. Faced with an imminent invasion of the Japanese archipelago, the possibility of further atomic bombings, and. The Soviet declared war against Japan and its invaded Manchuria.Japan announced its unconditional surrender on 15 August and signed a surrender document on 2 September 1945, marking the end of the war.

World War II changed the political alignment and social structure of the world, and it set the foundation of international relations for the rest of the 20th century and into the 21st century. The United Nations was established to foster international cooperation and prevent conflicts, with the victorious great powers—China, France, the Soviet Union, the UK, and the US becoming the permanent members of its security council. The Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War. In the wake of European devastation, the influence of its great powers waned, triggering the decolonisation of Africa and Asia. Most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery and expansion."

Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 22:12, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

with many investing all available economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities in pursuit of total war — this seems a bit weak.--Jack Upland (talk) 02:04, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

ww2 and ww1

a blood and death situaition ḀẩẠạạ ạ ạạạ 217.38.12.83 (talk) 14:01, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

Yes? What edit do you want us to make? Slatersteven (talk) 14:14, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

Summary Helps

I have been working slowly over the past couple of months on Draft:Attacks on the United States, which obviously has several entries from this war (like the attack on Pearl Harbor and the bombardment of Ellwood. If anyone familiar with one or several of the attacks against the U.S. during the war, feel free to help perfect the summaries or help by adding additional sources/references.

Any assistance is always appreciated! You can find the World War II section in the draft here: Draft:List of attacks on the United States#World War II (December 1941–September 1945). The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 21:38, 16 January 2025 (UTC)