Alot of documentaries out there don't shed light to how complicit the french were under the government of Vichy during WWII after their surrender to Germany. Most documentaries instead focus on De Gaulle, and the french loyalty to the allies.
I'm in the process of watching a documentary called the Sorrow and the Pity which really touches on a personable human perspective of world war II and the plight of human nature in desperate situations.
I would assume the same attitudes were also present in Italy, Hungary and other axis nations where truly a majority or large portion of the people thought they were doing the right thing with regards to ethnic cleansing, anti-semitism, open racism etc.
did they honestly believe it was the right thing? or were most of them just going with the flow, choosing to be complacent to survive the situation. Or is this one in the same?
Anyways, use this thread to talk about WWII, movies, documentaries, insight into that which is not well known etc.
Some documentaries and movies that were well done and intriguing (some controversial):
The sorrow and the pitty
Appocalypse - rise of hitler
Appocalypse - the second world war
The world at war (1973) (i have still yet to complete watching it)
Nuit et Brouillard (about the holocaust)
Pétain: Un héros si populaire (haven't seen it, need to find subs for it)
Movies:
Das boot
Saving private ryan
Kapo
Stalingrad
Letters from Iwo Jima
The Great dictator (lol)
Downfall
So yeah.. i made a thread lol
Joss Weatherby
Some good suggestions for viewing material. I can't recommend The World at War enough. It is old, but the series is really detailed. I watched most of it when I was very young, but it still sticks with me, especially episode 24 on the development and use of the bombs on Japan.
As far as the questions posed here, its a pretty complex subject and its a fairly under-researched part of sociology, psychology, and anthropology, that is the complacency of groups in killing, killing at a personal level, and how it varies between cultures, and what remains the same across the human species in general.
I have recommended this book before, and one I have yet to finish reading the entire thing (its quite sobering), is On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society by Lt.Col. Dave Grossman. It is not specific to World War II but a lot of the data was collected during that war, and a lot of modern attitudes on killing are derived from that war.
Also the subject of the puppet/axis-aligned governments during WW2 are interesting, and something I have always wanted to learn more about. Not only France, but Denmark and the other countries that fell under the sphere of Nazi influence during the course of the war. Also the Japanese puppet governments in Eastern and South East Asia are a pretty interesting subject as well.
the views were also prevalent in Central and South America who stood with the United States ... for financial purposes.
quote:
Today I will once more be a prophet: If the international Jewish financiers in and outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war, then the result will not be the Bolshevization of the earth, and thus the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe!
I would assume the same attitudes were also present in Italy, Hungary and other axis nations where truly a majority or large portion of the people thought they were doing the right thing with regards to ethnic cleansing, anti-semitism, open racism etc.
did they honestly believe it was the right thing? or were most of them just going with the flow, choosing to be complacent to survive the situation. Or is this one in the same?
Well, that is a tough question to answer. Norway was occupied, and under Nazi regime. We did not have any concentration camps, unless if you count Grini, which catered to political prisoners. However, there was little outcry when they sent the jews and gypsies out of the country. And all but the dumbest and most blue-eyed knew where they were going and what their fate was. And there has been pretty much a cover-up, and a lot of hush hush around this in the years after.
That's one example. Another would be Croatia, where the Ustaše regime saw it fit to finally get rid of them pesky serbs. And where the Nazis "gently" marched the jews to the furnaces, the Croats had contests where they used a sort of glove, with a large hooked blade mirroring the thumb, to slit as many throats in one day as they could. If they believed it was the right thing to do? Mayhaps. Them seemed to have an awful lot of fun doing it, either way.
Looney4Clooney
Read Les Bienveillantes
It is fiction but it might as well be real. The best documents are ones that show the train of thought of those that are doing what others would consider morally indefensible. It is quite easy.
History is written by the winner and documentaries tend to be somewhat heavy handed when dealing with an issue that is complex. Thats why it is much more interesting hearing from the other side. Until you get both sides, your understanding will be somewhat limited.
kamil
Another worth watching is 'The Nazi's - A Warning from History.' Its in 6 parts and details WWII from a slight different perspective, ie; how german citizens were treated, how nazi officers were making money off jewish slaves in ghettos and how to maximize profits, the effect of anti-semitism in other countries like Lithuania, etc.
Heres the first part:
The Apocalypse documentaries are amazing though.
EgosXII
I did a fair bit of wwii at uni; I don't remember where I read about it, but the French were horrendous. I remember one example particularly; They were actively involved in sending jews to concentration camps. So involved that they didn't just want to get rid of the adults, but all the kids as well. The German occupiers were so shocked that they actually had to write home to Germany to get permission for the French to off the kids, since usually they just sent off the adults... Brutality that shocked the Germans haha
Looney4Clooney
kids , women and elderly were always the first to be targeted once the final phase had begun and total annihilation was the end game. There was only a transit camp in France , Drancy, so it doesn't make sense they would ask permission to kill those rounded up when the dirty work was done in poland. Nobody really knew where they were going and what was going to happen. Most of them were refugees, the french were already on low rations, it is not really that hard to understand why they were handed over so readily.
A great book is the one that deals with IBM. Unlike the eastern purges which were slow brutal and caused pretty much universal mental issues on the german side, the organized camps which made it possible to reach the numbers they did were only possible because of the system they had which was operated by IBM. All the cards were made in the USA until the few years. All the technicians were IBM employees operating as contract workers in the camps.
kamil
quote:
Originally posted by EgosXII
I did a fair bit of wwii at uni; I don't remember where I read about it, but the French were horrendous. I remember one example particularly; They were actively involved in sending jews to concentration camps. So involved that they didn't just want to get rid of the adults, but all the kids as well. The German occupiers were so shocked that they actually had to write home to Germany to get permission for the French to off the kids, since usually they just sent off the adults... Brutality that shocked the Germans haha
But the germans were worse. They didnt just kill off women and children, they went as far as picking out twins at Auschwitz and using them for experiments and see the reaction between two kids and use their findings to see the differences between them.
EgosXII
quote:
Originally posted by kamil
But the germans were worse. They didnt just kill off women and children, they went as far as picking out twins at Auschwitz and using them for experiments and see the reaction between two kids and use their findings to see the differences between them.
The Germans started it anyway; no question they were the worst, but still it was interesting to me that they weren't the only ones. As I said the idea that you could shock the Nazis enough that they had to phone home is pretty crazy imo. Especially when, as OP noted, the French are often seen as valiant freedom fighters.
