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Originally Posted by smc  Please don't take this as a dig but could it be that it is you who lacks knowledge? And that could well be because of the emphasis on media and learning in this country rather than you yourself.
There are two ways of understanding WW2, through the prism of your own nationality/country or surveying it as one big whole. By doing the former you ignore what happened elsewhere which results in a skewed view of the conflict. By concentrating on the latter you have to understand what went on everywhere and taking an overiding view.
You will understand the conflict much better if you can try to view it from other countries' perspectives, particularly those in eastern Europe who are often ignored by many in the west. Gotthard has already pointed out that 80% of the Wehrmachts forces were on the eastern front which gives some indication of the titanic struggle that went on there. You only have to look at numbers of killed in that part of the world that dwarfs anything in the West. The battle of Kursk is probably the most important battle in WW2, Operation Bagration in 1944 saw Soviet advances reclaim territory bigger than France. Stalin's move into the Balkans reshapped the entire postwar world in that region. You can even point to the battle of Khalkin Gol in the summer of 1939 when the Soviets defeated the Japanese in a huge border skirmish as one of the most defining moments before the war had even started because it stopped the Japanese from expanding north into Siberia and concentrated their attention towards striking to the south. And once Stalin knew for sure there were striking south in 1941 he was able to bring these battle hardened troops back for the defence of Moscow.
Remember the British went to war because of Poland in 1939 and the Allied Coalition's relations broke down over Poland in 1946-7 which precipitated 40 years worth of Cold War in Europe. By relegating the east to a sideshow you will not be taken seriously by those who come from that part of Europe. |
A third way is from different countries perspectives in turn. Seeing it as a whole doesn't really see it from a whole because it wasn't a whole. Everyone saw their own interests in a different way as was of course natural.