American view of the Eastern Front

[Vanir Ausf B]

Originally posted by Das Reich:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Vanir Ausf B:

It is my understanding that under the Soviet Union, the contributions of the Western Allies were systematically downplayed in history books. I don't know to what extent that is still true, but it is only fair to point out that ignorance of the other guy's history is hardly something unique to Americans.

Yea... have you ever heard about what they print in Japanese school books on history, WW2 in particular?</font>

[Salkin]

Yea... have you ever heard about what they print in Japanese school books on history, WW2 in particular?[/QB]

No, I haven't ....

Do tell !

//Salkin

Curious swede

[wbs]

From MikeyD:

Talk about not trusting the media, I recall there was a flap over the Revolutionary war movie "The Patriot" with Mel Gibson. The Brits complained because in order to make Gibson look heroic the studios pretty well turned the British military into family-murdering Nazis! I guess it would've taken some of the 'shine' off the film to portray American rabble publicly torturing British tax officials in the town square.

That's an example of following the 'party line'.

It's ironic, because "The Patriot" is quite likely the most historically accurate movie ever made about the American Revolutionary War.

It is the first (and perhaps still the only) movie for which the Smithsonian Institution reviewed the script, recommended changes (for example, the type of ground cover present on the battlefields was initially not correct) to make it historically accurate, and then signed off on the historical accuracy of the final script.

I recently had a conversation with a friend's father who is a retired British Army Brigadier.

I asked him how the American Revolutionary War was taught to English schoolchildren, and he said that it wasn't really taught at all, because the British regard the war in the colonies as a relatively unimportant sideshow compared with the Main Event--which was the ongoing series of conflicts with France that was occurring during the same general era. The war in the colonies was an afterthought.

It's kind of interesting to see the difference in perspective. To Americans, we are taught in school that the American Revolutionary War was the ONLY important event occurring on the world stage at that time...

[Ubertracker]

I think our overly-sensitive American friends are missing the point. It's not bashing America to quote from your own test results as published by your own educational institutes and reported in your own press.

No one said anything negative about American people as a nation, your soldiers, or any issues about democracy and freedom (which you have, yes, but not nearly as much as your government says you have. But I digress...).

It was pointed out (beginning with David Glantz's article) that American perspectives on WW2 are biased (somewhat naturally - every nation writes a glowing report of itself). Yes, they are biased towards American involvement and generally dismissive of other nations' involvement. Same was true of WW1.

Americans entered both World Wars late. Their massive economic might and fresh troops made the difference both times. No one doubts the bravery or the dedication or the willingness of Americans to fight and die once they finally got there.

The issue was about the source of those biases: your education system (as your own educators point out!) does not reach the students. I can't say whether it's the system at fault or the boneheaded nature of today's gimme-gimme-TV-generation. But there's obviously been a breakdown somewhere: you're growing a generation of dunces who can't read maps. Maybe they compensate in their Gameboy manipulation, but it's a weak subject for career development.

But to be fair, WW2 is 50+ years ago. It just doesn't interest kids today like it does those of us who grew up in its shadow. I don't expect them to really appreciate it as much as they should understand events and issues closer to their time... like the Middle East, Bosnia, terrorism, Chechnya and even Viet Nam.

Don't you think there's someting wrong when you're on the verge of attacking a nation that almost 90% of the people 18-24 - of military and draft age - can't even find on a map? It's about whether the war is right or wrong, but it begs the question: do your soldiers know who, where and why they are fighting? Or are they just taking orders?

[Spook]

Originally posted by MikeyD:

Poor Saddam. He never did anything to us!

If taking Saddam's military into account too, one then seems to forget quickly about incidents like the USS Stark.

[Vanir Ausf B]

Originally posted by Ubertracker:

The issue was about the source of those biases: your education system (as your own educators point out!) does not reach the students.

I would be genuinely curious to know if the average Canadian, Frenchman or Brit was significantly more well-informed about the East Front of WW2 than the typical American. The original linked article said nothing of map reading skills. That was brought up later and is a seperate issue than what Glanz was talking about, which was primarily the use of German source material for information on the Russian Front to the exclusion of Soviet material.

Don't you think there's someting wrong when you're on the verge of attacking a nation that almost 90% of the people 18-24 - of military and draft age - can't even find on a map? It's about whether the war is right or wrong, but it begs the question: do your soldiers know who, where and why they are fighting? Or are they just taking orders?

I don't think one has much to do with the other. In other words, if 100% of Americans could find Iraq on a map, what difference would it make? Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if George Bush couldn't find Iraq on a map, but I suspect that somehow everyone who's supposed to get over there will find it sooner or later.

[HolzemFrumFloppen]

Originally posted by Vanir Ausf B:

I would be genuinely curious to know if the average Canadian, Frenchman or Brit was significantly more well-informed about the East Front of WW2 than the typical American.

I don't think that's really the issue anyway. The most telling difference between, say, a Canadian and an American will not be the amount of information they have regarding the Eastern Front. Rather, the former will be less inclined to take offense at the fact that the USSR did the lion's share of the work and bore the penultimate burden of the Nazi onslaught than the latter will be.

It's also the most telling sign of the effectiveness of American internal propaganda (we call it "marketing" here in the States since that word is something to be applied only to other countries) for the past 50 years.

I watched Stephen Ambrose squirm a bit once when an interviewer pointed out that his historical treatises tended to glorify American participation whilst downplaying Soviet involvement; the interviewer asked whether or not this was because of pressure by American publishers to conform to "orthodoxy" in the genre.

Ambrose says: "P-shaw. That's nonsense. I say what I like, when I like in my books."

Hurray!, I thought. That really socked it to 'em.

Then another panelist said: "Mr Ambrose... you always 'say what you like' because they already like what you say."

I don't think Ambrose liked that very much. But suffice to say, it was the godawful truth.

[notalex]

The issue was about the source of those biases: your education system (as your own educators point out!) does not reach the students.

Well, I wouldn't be so sanguine about the Canadian system, either.

One geography professor at the University of Alberta gives his first-year students a map of Canada with only the provincial and territorial boundaries marked and asks them to locate the provincial capitals. Anything within a 100-km radius he marks as correct.

Not so good. Only 20% or so get more than half right; an astonishing 40% can't even get Alberta's capital of Edmonton right.

This is getting wildly off topic, so before the padlock comes down I thought I'd regale y'all with my theories on education.

Basic information like geography, grammar, and the rudiments of spelling and arithmetic are best drilled into kids when they're young and eager to learn.

Horrors! Rote and repetition -- utter anathema to today's educators. But they've got it exactly bass-ackwards in my opinion.

They let children, on the pretext of encouraging "creativity," wander virtually untutored through those critical first years and then try to hammer knowledge into them as teenagers when they almost instinctively mistrust anything an adult has to say. So we get university students who can't read or write or reason; and as for the "creativity" part of it, as T.S. Eliot said, "You've got to know what the rules are before you break them."

But I digress.

[Michael Emrys]

I am in no position to compare educational systems of different countries, but I have to testify that in my time the American system of primary and secondary education had very little to offer of any use, and it has apparently gotten even worse in the 40 years since.

In many areas I could take up the slack by private studies on my own initiative. But even though I was an avid reader on the history of the war from the time I could make out the words on the page, it was not until I was 20 did I have more than the vaguest notion of the scale and complexity of the war in the east. Then I was truly stunned to discover that World War Two had pretty much happened in Russia and that the rest was almost a sideshow. Okay, that too overstates the case by way of compensation, but not that much.

The bottom line is that I suspect that growing up anywhere gives you built in distortions and biases. It takes a lot of work on one's own and an open mind to straighten those out.

Michael

[Horus]

It takes a lot of work on one's own and an open mind to straighten those out.

nice; yesterday i used the same words on an german forum

das denken und finden einer eigenen meinung nimmt einen niemand ab.

not excatly but i think we mean the same.

[ January 16, 2003, 02:41 AM: Message edited by: Horus ]

[Grisha]

Originally posted by Michael emrys:

The bottom line is that I suspect that growing up anywhere gives you built in distortions and biases. It takes a lot of work on one's own and an open mind to straighten those out.

Well put, Michael.

[Vanir Ausf B]

Originally posted by HolzemFrumFloppen:

I don't think that's really the issue anyway. The most telling difference between, say, a Canadian and an American will not be the amount of information they have regarding the Eastern Front. Rather, the former will be less inclined to take offense at the fact that the USSR did the lion's share of the work and bore the penultimate burden of the Nazi onslaught than the latter will be.

I always thought the most telling difference was in the spelling of "armor". That's the real issue here.

I think few Americans take offence to the acknowledgement of the Soviet sacrifice, assuming they are aware of it. And American jingoism has no more to do with the Glantz article than American geography skills.

Stereotypes are fun to play with, though.

[ January 16, 2003, 05:49 AM: Message edited by: Vanir Ausf B ]

[Engel]

Originally posted by Ubertracker:

understand events and issues closer to their time... like the Middle East, Bosnia, terrorism, Chechnya and even Viet Nam.

Although you can't really understand these subjects without understanding the issues behind them, which in many cases have their roots in events that happened 50+ years ago.

[-E]

Originally posted by ichadwick:

Canadians have known...

When our closest neighbour doesn't even know who our prime minister is...

Mexicans don't know who your Mime Prinister is?

[ichadwick]

Originally posted by notalex:

Yeah, well that somehow fits. They voted for Ralph Klein, after all! And I don't know if a single Albertan would ever admit to knowing where Ottawa was on a map!

But you are right about one thing: most kids today in NAm don't know anything about WW2 much less the sort of stuff we bandy about here. Most kids can't tell the difference between WW1 and Desert Storm, much less between a PZ III and a T34.

Face it: we're the elite. CMBB is our IQ test.

[SgtMuhammed]

I think that pretty much goes without saying. One of the reasons we are even on this forum is because we have an interest in the game material and a desire to improve out knowledge of it. This alone separates us from the majority of the public (from any country) who are content to let someone else tell them what they should be interested in (how the hell else do you explain Survivor).

It is an old sentiment but it bears repeating: Most people could care less about the world around them as long as they can feed their family, put a roof over their head and gripe about how screwed up things are. A few people, however, have the drive and ability to actually see beyond thier own noses and these are the ones who eventually make a different. The masses usually despise these people.

Well before it is too late;

Hi Mom.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by -E:

Mexicans don't know who your Mime Prinister is?

Who is Nacada's Mime Prinister anyway?

Michael

[Michael Emrys]

I'm interested in history and geography and crap like that because I'm weird. I'm interested in a lot of weird crap, check out my profile. I've never denied I'm weird. Well, there was that time I was trying to date the mayor's daughter...but other than that I mean.

Michael

[Lars]

Originally posted by MikeyD:

I guess it would've taken some of the 'shine' off the film to portray American rabble publicly torturing British tax officials in the town square.

I don't know, I think the Brits these days might have cheered that.

[MikeyD]

Dang it Spook, you're right. I forgot all about the Stark incident. Label me among the ignorant masses, I guess.

By the way, if memory now serves me, didn't the sequence of events go: Iraq attacks U.S. warship, U.S. responds by bombing the crap out of Iran? I'm working off distant memory here. That's not one of those historic events that gets reviewed on the History Channel.

[ January 16, 2003, 12:44 PM: Message edited by: MikeyD ]

[Frunze]

Yeah, MikeD, that's about how it worked out in practice.

[Dirtweasle]

Originally posted by MikeyD:

Dang it Spook, you're right. I forgot all about the Stark incident. Label me among the ignorant masses, I guess.

By the way, if memory now serves me, didn't the sequence of events go: Iraq attacks U.S. warship, U.S. responds by bombing the crap out of Iran? I'm working off distant memory here. That's not one of those historic events that gets reviewed on the History Channel.

Not exactly...

At 8:00 PM on 17 March 1987, a Mirage F-1 fighter jet took off from Iraq's Shaibah military airport and headed south into the Persian Gulf, flying along the Saudi Arabian coast. An Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) plane, in the air over Saudi Arabia and manned by a joint American-Saudi crew, detected the aircraft. Aboard the USS Stark, a Perry-class frigate on duty in the gulf, radar operators picked up the Mirage when it was some 200 miles away; it was flying at 5,000 feet and traveling at 550 mph. Captain Glenn Brindel, 43, commander of the Stark, was not particularly alarmed. He knew it was fairly common for Iraqi and Iranian warplanes to fly over the gulf. Earlier in the day, Iraqi jets had fired missiles into a Cypriot tanker, disabling the vessel. But no American vessel had been attacked.

In keeping with standard procedure, Captain Brindel ordered a radio message flashed at 10:09 PM: "Unknown aircraft, this is U.S. Navy warship on your 078 for twelve miles. Request you identify yourself." There was no reply. A second request was sent. Still no answer. Brindel noted that the aircraft's pilot had not locked his targeting radar on the Stark, so he expected it to veer away.

At 10:10 PM, the AWACS crew noticed that the Mirage had banked suddenly and then turned northward, as though heading for home. What they failed to detect was the launching by the Iraqi pilot of two Exocet AM39 air-to-surface missiles. The Exocets had a range of 40 miles and each carried a 352 lb. warhead. For some reason, the sea-skimming missiles were not detected by the Stark's sophisticated monitoring equipment. A lookout spotted the first Exocet just seconds before the missile struck, tearing a ten-by-fifteen-foot hole in the warship's steel hull on the port side before ripping through the crew's quarters. The resulting fire rushed upward into the vessel's combat information center, disabling the electrical systems. The second missile plowed into the frigate's superstructure.

A crewman sent a distress signal with a handheld radio that was picked up by the USS Waddell, a destroyer on patrol nearby. Meanwhile, the AWACS crew requested that two airborne Saudi F-15s pursue the Iraqi Mirage. But ground controllers at Dhahran airbase said they lacked the authority to embark on such a mission, and the Mirage was safely back in Iraqi airspace before approval could be obtained.

[ichadwick]

...on the other hand, it's difficult to be overly critical of the nation that gave us Victoria's Secret catalogues. Where else on earth could you get a book of colour pictures of young women in underwear sent to your home as an normal occurrence - and on a regular basis?

Gotta love it.

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by wbs:

It's ironic, because "The Patriot" is quite likely the most historically accurate movie ever made about the American Revolutionary War.

It is the first (and perhaps still the only) movie for which the Smithsonian Institution reviewed the script, recommended changes (for example, the type of ground cover present on the battlefields was initially not correct) to make it historically accurate, and then signed off on the historical accuracy of the final script.

[snips]

I suspect that the Smithsonian Institution concerned itself only with matters of costume and setting, rather than the plot, which is what British viewers find objectionable.

Unless, of course, you have any evidence of the historical occurrence of a massacre strongly reminiscent of Ouradour-sur-Glane during the AWI?

All the best,

John.

[Ubertracker]

Originally posted by Lars:

It's only because you guys never do anything anymore.

Blow something up, get back in the papers.

Er... let's see... Europe 1914 (four years before the Americans)... Europe 1939 (two years before the Americans)... Korea 1950...

Peacekeepers in Cyprus, Egypt, Bosnia, Croatia, Haiti, Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, Sinai, Central African Republic, Eritrea, Somalia and others...

Over the years, more than 125,000 Canadian military personnel have served on peacekeeping missions for the United Nations – more than any other country... 107 Canadians were killed on peacekeeping duty (about 15% of the UN total).