Questions tagged [world-war-two]
Questions related to aspects of World War II (1939-1945 AD). An international conflict whose major participants were the fascist countries of Germany, Italy, and Japan engaged against the allied nations of the UK, France, China, the USSR, and the USA. The conflict began with the German invasion of Poland and formally ended with the American victory over Japan.
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What was Hitler like in private?
The image of Hitler is very well-formed in the modern public imagination: stern, stoic, focused, commanding and intimidating, with a powerful oratory skill and a terrifying ability to stir up passion ...
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Why did Hitler attack the Soviet Union when he was still busy fighting the United Kingdom?
During World War 2, Hitler was fighting a war with Great Britain and her colonies, but while fighting that war, he attacked the Soviet Union even though they had a non-aggression pact. Everyone knows ...
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How did Nazi Germany finance itself during WW2?
How did Nazi Germany finance itself during the war? They produced a large amount of war material during 1939-1945, but how was this production financed? What were Germany's revenue streams that ...
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At the start of Barbarossa, what was the state of Germany's oil supply?
Very recently, I came across this statement from Wikipedia:
In 1938, two thirds of German oil supply came from the United States and Latin America.
It has a citation, some book reference that ...
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When did Australia declare war on Germany in WWII
In 1939, Australia had not ratified the 1931 Westminster Statute, and so lacked an independent foreign policy. Menzies recognised this by saying in 1939, that as Britain was at war with Germany, so ...
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Why didn't Germany blockade the Strait of Gibraltar during WW2?
The Strait of Gibraltar, at its narrowest point, is about 14 km wide. Why didn't Germany blockade it during WW2?
It seems to me that only a handful of submarines and destroyers could do the job. Wasn'...
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How dependent was Nazi Germany on iron ore from Sweden?
From the wikipedia article on Swedish iron mining during WW2, there are a lot of uncited claims. I'll quote the most outstanding of them here:
In the year before the war, Germany received 22 million ...
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What kind of atomic bombs were anticipated after Nagasaki?
After the bombing of Nagasaki, what type of A-bombs were being readied? The Little Boy types were uranium-cored with blast of about 15 kt. The Fat Man types were plutonium-cored with blast of about 21 ...
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On 1941 Dec 7, could Japan have targeted the Panama Canal instead of Pearl Harbor in a surprise attack?
This question comes from a slightly related one.
At the time of WW2, most US industry was on the East Coast, including all of the shipbuilding for Carriers and Battleships. If the Panama Canal went ...
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Why didn't Imperial Japan attack the Soviet Union during World War 2?
Japan and the Soviet Union shared a common border in Manchuria and the German invasion of the Soviet Union weakened the Soviets greatly. In view of the advantages to Japan in seeing the Soviet Union ...
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Why, in the US, is Japanese brutality ignored compared with the Nazi brutality in WW2?
Instead of accepting too much of what I have read in my textbooks, I have read up a bit about WW2 on my own and have always pondered, why in the USA is the brutality and actions of the Japanese during ...
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Did Imperial Japan choose to ally with Nazi Germany because of ideological similarity?
There are certain similarities that can be drawn between Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. Both were dictatorships, both believed in racism (though against different people), and both were wanting to ...
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What did Germany do in World War II about the different rail gauge in the Soviet Union?
One reason it was so hard for Germany to invade Russia/the Soviet Union in World War II (and I) was because the Russians had a different (wider) railroad gauge than that of most of the rest of Europe, ...
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How to rebut Holocaust denial argument?
I came across a Holocaust denier who claims that there is a plaque outside Auschwitz which says that the Nazis murdered 1.5 million people there (mostly Jewish). However, the plaque used to say 4 ...
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Did Churchill and Roosevelt know about the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, or the following secret pacts between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union?
The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was the non-aggression pact between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany prior to, and during WWII. It seems that the actions of the two countries after the invasion of Poland ...
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What was the ratio of German to Soviet losses on Eastern front during different stages of the war?
I've read somewhere that the ratio of Soviet to German casualties on the Eastern front was 1.4 for the whole war. But what about data for different stages of the war? (this ratio wasn't constant after ...
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Did the German people actually know Joseph Goebbels as the "Minister of Propaganda"?
I've been trying to understand this for some time now. It seems to me that propaganda should only work if the audience doesn't know that it's propaganda. So if the Nazis' goal was to control its ...
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How dependent were the Germans on horse transport in their invasion of the Soviet Union?
The Germans were very sophisticated in "combined" operations, that is, in using airpower and tanks to attack behind the Soviet lines. That's what gave them the advantage in the early part of the war.
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What kinds of WW2 POWs were treated best?
We all know that the harshest attitudes were toward Jews overall, and maybe Russian POWs in German concentration camps too. Conditions for German soldiers who were held as prisoners in USSR were also ...
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Did France & Italy continue to develop and manufacture sophisticated military hardware once under German control?
Both France and Italy were designing and building advanced vehicle engines, motorcyles, aero engines and airframes through the 1930s and early 1940s.
In the case of those advanced economies of ...
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How credible is Antony Beevor's work? [closed]
Some sources claim that Beevor is revisionist and anti-Soviet propagandist. What is the basis for this criticism? How credible is Beevor? What bias/influence should readers of Beevor's work keep in ...
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Why didn't the discrepancy in the Kursk casualty ratio work against the Soviets?
According to conventional wisdom, Soviet to German loss ratio at Kursk and immediately after in Soviet offensives was around 3:1 in men, and 5:1 (or more) in armored vehicles (tanks and self-propelled ...
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What level of public support did Adolf Hitler have in his final year of power?
In his final year in power, what level of support did Adolf Hitler still command and what drove that public perception?
I ask as an insight into populism and at what point do populations reach a ...
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What was the average age of tank crews, in particular commanders, in WW2?
It's somewhat difficult to find reliable figures for this, but it's an interesting question. Michael Wittmann, the German tank ace, was 30 when he was killed on the western front in 1944. Would this ...
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Why was France granted an equal status among victors of World War II?
How is it that France emerged from World War II with a similar status as the U.S.A., Britain, the Soviet Union, and China in terms of possession of a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council, ...
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When did the allies find out about the killing of Jews during WW2
When watching "Saving Private Ryan" I noticed during the opening scene that one of the soldiers (who is Jewish) gets emotional when he discovers a Hitler Youth knife, I could only assume it was ...
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Did Russian winter seriously contribute to German defeat on the Eastern Front in WWII?
When people discuss the causes of Hitler's defeat in Russia, one topic is frequently mentioned: climate. People claim that winter contributed significantly to the problems of German army on the ...
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Why were Navajo code talkers used during WW2?
In history class, we are covering WW2. On the topic of code-talking, Native American language usage was mentioned, but nothing was said about cryptography. An online search did not come up with any ...
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Why did the Germans spare Allied troops trapped at Dunkirk?
I haven't seen the movie but know enough of the story to understand that Allied troops had fallen back to Dunkirk for evacuation but were trapped there until transport came.
I also understand that ...
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Why did Britain and France not declare war against the Soviet Union when it invaded Poland in WW2?
At the beginning of WW2, although they were slow in actually attacking Germany, Britain and France did declare war against it after Germany invaded Poland. The reason for this was the treaty where ...
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Why were there no internment camps for German-American citizens in USA during WW2?
I am certainly aware of Japanese-Americans being detained in internment camps after the attack on Pearl Harbor and subsequent declaration of war on United States by the empire of Japan.
About 110,000+ ...
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Why did Hitler declare war on the USA?
Since there had not been any offensives launched by either side against the other, why declare war just because Japan had attacked the USA?
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Why were Spain and Portugal neutral / not invaded in WWII?
Why weren't Spain and Portugal involved in World War II with either side? Was not Franco sympathetic with the Axis powers given the help they offered during the civil war?
Also, given their strategic ...
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Did the Soviets excel in one area of weaponry during World War II?
The Germans had some of the best machine guns and tanks during World War II. Likewise, the Americans had a big advantage with the M1 Garand (which Patton famously called "The greatest battle implement ...
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Why did Hitler not order the use of poison gas in combat?
From what I know, Hitler wanted Germans to fight, quite literally, to the last, and he wouldn't have minded terribly if every last German died fighting the enemy.
So why did he never use poison gas ...
user3521
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Why are military uniforms often flared or poofy above the knee?
I've often wondered why do various uniforms have those "poofs" on the outsides of the legs just above the knee? Was there a particular purpose to this, or a practical reason, or was it just the result ...
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At which point in time did the majority of German population become aware of the Holocaust?
I've read the wikipedia pages on Responsibility for the Holocaust and German Resistance to Nazism but the answer is not clear. It's established that large numbers of Germans were aware of the ...
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What became of Nazi Germany's embassies in neutral countries?
This picture shows the German embassy in Stockholm very near the end of World War II (with the flag lowered to mark Hitler's death).
Germany surrendered on the 8th May 1945. The Flensburg government ...
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How many lives were estimated to have been saved by the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs?
**President Truman in a August 9, 1945 radio address to the American people, outlined the reasons why we dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima (and later Nagasaki)
I realize the tragic significance of ...
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How true is the statement "Soviet troops got into Berlin riding American trucks, walking in American boots and using American trains"?
In other words, how significant was American lend-lease in helping the Soviet front? Would the Soviets be suffering a lot more had lend-lease not happen, or was it not as significant as people make ...
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Why didn't Germany attack Turkey during WW2?
Most of us might have heard something about the Geo-strategic position of Turkey. She connects two continents to each other and provides a bridge between the relatively advanced Europe and the ...
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Where did Japan get their oil during WWII?
To my understanding the United States was the largest exporter of oil to the Japanese prior to Pearl Harbor. The Japanese islands aren't known for their oil fields. It's also believed that the attacks ...
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Why was there lack of food during WW2 in the UK?
Why was there lack of food during the WW2 in the UK?
I understand the lack of food in the countries occupied by Germans, as they recruited a lot of agricultural products for their war machinery. But ...
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Why didn't Henry A. Wallace become President in 1945?
Henry A. Wallace was Roosevelt's vice-president during WWII. Shortly before Roosevelt's death (82 days) following a slow decline in health, the Conservative wing of the Democratic Party started an ...
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"More Frenchmen bore arms for the Axis than for the Allies during the Second World War"?
True or false?
This is claimed by Andrew Roberts in The Storm of War. Quote:
As more Frenchmen bore arms for the Axis than for the Allies during the Second World War, it is unsurprising that ...
user3521
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What were the 52 kinds of victims persecuted by the Nazis?
Out of the surviving 6,808 arrest files
of Duesseldorf, a small city of half a million population, 1,440 were
those of Communists alone. They were, however, only one among
the 52 types of ...
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What goods did Germany trade during World War II, and with whom?
I have scoured the internet for numerical figures and an actual list of raw materials to no avail. Moreover, I am reasonably certain that many of you are very knowledgeable upon this subject matter, ...
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Why was Franklin D. Roosevelt pro-intervention?
In the lead-up to WW2, most Americans were in favor of neutrality and isolation. President Roosevelt, however, was privately in favor of intervention.
One paragraph from Wikipedia summarizes it ...
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Could the Soviet Union have continued fighting World War II without Caucasus oil?
In 1942, Germany's Fall Blau was initially aimed at capturing or interdicting shipments of oil from the Caucasus to the rest of the Soviet Union. Even though armies were diverted to Stalingrad and ...
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Are there any records that indicate a submarine vs submarine battle?
I am aware of only one which is the U-864 was sunk by the HMS Venturer but that was when both were being submerged -- according to wikipedia. Is that accurate? Which battles did happen between two (...
