American sector

[Sybma]

The game covers the American sector of Normandy? No British?

Best,

Harold

[AslakH]

Yes.

Next module is commonwealth and SS I believe.

[Sybma]

Ok, thanks!

[AslakH]

You are welcome.

[Sequoia]

Just out of curiosity, the retail vesion of CMBO had some funky name for the SS that I can't remember off hand. It's not illegal in Germany to use the SS name in a game is it?

[YankeeDog]

Yes; it is illegal in many cases to use Nazi or SS nomenclature or iconography in Germany in a commercial product. For this reason, many Nazi/SS-specific words and images were removed from the European release version of CMBO - CMAK so that the game could be sold in Germany. IIRC, the SS unites were called "Waffengrenadiere" or sumfink like that. In the U.S. version, they were called "Waffen SS."

I assume that BFC will have to deal with this issue again when Commonwealth/SS module for CMBN comes out.

[Jonny(FGM)]

The great thing about download sales is that most of us europeans can bypass that : )

However I presume BF will need to provide a special german download version for this reason. Unless I'm mistaken there were no Nazi/SS symbols in the main game (at least the flags), great thing is these can allways be modded tho : )

[finalcut]

Yes,because forgetting about History,or covering it up,No matter how bad it may be,is always the best way to make sure it does not get repeated.. Just curious,maybe some Europeans can answer this,maybe even someone from Germany.Something I have always wondered,and being an American and only being outside of the United States twice(Mexico,and Canada).

What do they teach about WWII History in grade school over on that side of the pond?In England I would imagine it is pretty much the same as here,but what do they teach about Hitler and the Nazi's in Germany or some of the countries that were occupied by Germany during the War?

I have always wondered if they teach honest history,or do they gloss over what happened and the Nazi atrocities?Not being a jerk or anything,just kinda wanted to get the viewpoint from some Germans and bringing up a subject like this can lead to all sorts of issues I am sure.Any input from anyone over there would be kinda interesting IMHO.

How do Germans feel about the War,how about Polish,Russian,French,Italians,Dutch,Etc.Etc.Just asking for some honest feedback.Is the War even taught in schools over there,Do people over there talk about it?Enlighten me please,thanks.

[ZPB II]

You don't even want to know what kind of history they taught over in the Soviet Union and to some extent still do even today in Russia.

Apparently a lot of books make it seem like it was perfectly justified for the Soviets to attack Finland, for example...

[Jonny(FGM)]

History teaching in general is pretty dismal over here in the UK (they have schools in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland too you know ; ) ). It's only compulsary until year 9 (13/14 year olds, no idea what grade that is) and I honestly don't remember having any WW2 stuff after the age of 8 or 9 or so

[ZPB II]

Here in Finland WW2 is covered pretty extensively, spanning all the way until secondary school. Nazi atrocities are covered in detail, but also the brutalities the allies inflicted upon civilians, such as Dresden or the nukes. All in all a pretty balanced view on things.

[Sequoia]

Yes,because forgetting about History,or covering it up,No matter how bad it may be,is always the best way to make sure it does not get repeated.. .

Germany banning Nazi symbols from commercial products other than history books does not mean ignoring history, but quite the opposite.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

View from a Dutchman:

I always get the impression that the Germans are quite responsible and treat their WW2 doings thouroughly and pretty honestly. Unlike the Japanese, who have difficulty coming to terms wit their role.

The ban is not there to cover things up but to take the wind out of the sails of Neo-nazis a bit. There actually is considerable leeway for use of Nazi symbols, it's just that few people would like to risk it. I think BFC could get away with SS symbols if they wanted to. But probably not worth the hassle to them.

In the Netherlands there's a fair bit of honesty about the Dutch role in the war. Warts and all. Collaboration is mentiomed, though I felt in my education it was a little underplayed. But it's certainly in the general consciousness that there was more then our fair share of apathy and collaboration.

Education of the actual war fighting outside the occupation is woeful.

The war is only mentioned when some minority gets its feelings hurt. Referencing to the deportation of Jews in regards to immigration policy is another favourite.

Other then that it's mostly jocular references during sports matches. Asking for our (confiscated) bikes back is a great favourite. Also, and it's slowly dying out, a German asking for directions still risks being told "Immer grade aus" (keep going straight ahead) regardless of the actual required direction. More tradition then hatred. The Germans redeemed themselves, seems to be the general feeling.

[WineCape]

Here in Finland WW2 is covered pretty extensively, spanning all the way until secondary school. Nazi atrocities are covered in detail, but also the brutalities the allies inflicted upon civilians, such as Dresden or the nukes. All in all a pretty balanced view on things.

Translates to:

"We can go so far up the scales of 'goodness AND of badness' that we are pretty .... balanced, ceteris paribus!

[JonS]

Education of the actual war fighting outside the occupation is woeful.

Personally, I think that's entirely reasonable. The occupation was the war, for the vast majority. The fighting was done by someone else, somewhere else, and has little general relevance.

[umlaut]

I believe Elmar´s desciption of the german view on their nazi past is correct. The germans seem to me to be very well educated on the nazi atrocities and very focused on not letting history repeat itself. But to me is seems like this is slightly less the case in some of the parts of the country that used to be East Germany. It seems to me that this is the place where most of the neo nazis occur in Germany. My impression is that are several different reasons that the nazis have more following in the east than in the west:

1. The East German regime didn´t spend quite as much time and energy on "purging" the nazi ideology as was the case in the west.

2. Eastern Germany is still haven´t caught up with the west economically. Thus, there are large areas with mass unemployment and poverty, ideal conditions for nazi recruiters.

The german members will probably correct me here ;-)

As for my own country, Denmark (smallish thing protruding from northern Germany), the war is still hotly debated: Denmark got through the war very cheaply indeed, mainly because the danish government at the time choose to surrender only a couple of hours after the german invasion began on april 9th 1940. I think no more than a dozen or two danish soldiers were killed in the fighting before the surrender. Many still consider this a national disgrace (at the time some danish officers even felt their honor so blemished by the surrender that they joined the SS in order to restore their honor. Some logic!!). Many still debate whether surrender was the right decision. The arguments are something like this:

Wrong decision:

If the danish government had let the army fight we would surely have lost anyway, but it would have made Denmark choose side more clearly from the beginning of the war and the underground movement would have gained momentum from the onset. And maybe the resistance would have delayed the germans long enough for the british to reach Norway first (probably unlikely, though).

Right decision:

Denmark would have lost anyway, it would only be a question of the amount of casualties among the troops - and not least the civilians. The germans threatened to bomb Copenhagen if Denmark put up a fight, the result would have been the same as the bombing of Rotterdam a few weeks later, when the turn had come to the Netherlands: Same result, only with lots of more dead citizens.

Generally speaking, you could say that in the first 30 years after the war, the general consensus was that every dane had been a member of the resistance movement. When younger historians started looking at events the also began digging up the uncomfortable truth about those who collaborated. Then the debate began in earnest.

Personally, I think the most remarkable story about Denmark in the war is the jewish escape: When the germans in october 1943 decided to round up all danish jews and send them to the death camps, a german officer managed to warn the danish resistance movement ahead. This meant that huge underground operation began, striving to evacuate the danish jews across the strait Øresund to safety in Sweden. The evacuation - mainly in small fishing wessels - was a succes and 93 percent of the jews managed to escape.

[Field Marshal Blücher]

I believe Elmar´s desciption of the german view on their nazi past is correct. The germans seem to me to be very well educated on the nazi atrocities and very focused on not letting history repeat itself. But to me is seems like this is slightly less the case in some of the parts of the country that used to be East Germany.

I would, on the whole, agree with this. I'm not German, but I lived in Berlin for a bit and just about everyone I discussed it with (which was a surprising number of people, given that I like to talk about history ) seemed to have been educated pretty thoroughly on the horrors of the Nazi regime. It's covered pretty honestly and openly in several museums around the city and its area. When I went on a trip to Munich, the city has a ton of educational stuff about Kristallnacht, Auschwitz, etc.

However, I definitely get the impression that there are also parts of the country where this is not the case.

[Krilly]

What also seem pretty obvious to europeans but might be of relevance to mention is, that WW2 was actually fought over here.

Places like Arnhem, Bastogne etc. are places you drive by in your car, they aren't far away places only remembered from history books. Both worldwars have left their mark and there are countless monuments, memorials, bunkers and graveyards all over the place.

Also many grandpa's, grandma's and parents might have some story about the second world war as well. This does a lot to make these subjects a lot more embedded in the collective mindset of european nations.

Besides that I concur with a lot Elmar has said about how the Dutch society generaly looks at 'the war'.

What has struck me as odd the last few years however, is how downplayed the military efforts of the Dutch army is by ourselves. A few years back I realized I read a lot about for example the german fighting in Russia but almost nothing about the fighting in May 1940 in my own country.

When I did do an effort to look it up I discovered that there was far more serious and determined resistance by our troops than we seem to credit ourselves with. For example the fighting at the Grebbeberg, Den Haag and some extent the Afsluitdijk was more succesfull, bitter and costly then we are thought at our schools. We didn't just roll over and surrender at the first sight of a German uniform like our school educations seems to imply:p

Point being, we Dutch seem so emberrassed at our sudden defeat at the hand of the Germans that we rather tend to ridicule our own 'cheap ass outdated' army at the time or gloss over our defeat quickly and focus on the occupation years like JonS said.

And what Umlaut told about Denmark happened here as well, at the end of the war it seemed that every other Dutchman had been a resistance fighter. The ugly truth however it seems to be that the Germans were awfully nice to us, being a close neighbour and all, and that only in the later war years the Dutch resistance really grew to be a factor worth mentioning.

General resistance to Jew Deportation happened here as well, thankfully, like the general railway strike aka 'february staking' that spontaneusly broke out among railway personal.

I'll quit my babbling now, hopes this gives some insights.

[ZPB II]

That's a very good point Krilly. Just before new year on our way to Lapland we happened to drive by the battlefield of the Raate road...Just had to stop by there and think about things...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Raate_Road

[panzermartin]

Well, as far as I remember, WW2 is moderately covered in history class here in Greece. The "Epos" of 1940 and the triumph over Mussolini's forces gets the most attention, as well the battle of Crete. German occupation and atrocities, the terrible famine that starved to death thousands of people, especially in Athens come next. And of course the ressistance part, the blowing of gorgopotamos rail bridge etc. Collaboration was never mentioned much, but that was a decade and more ago. Rest of the global fighting is relatively briefly mentioned.

I sometimes wonder what am I doing here talking about the coolness of german tanks and uniforms while people here (including my parents, Mum in Crete, Dad in Athens) suffered under the nazi boot. The magnitude of some things like a world war just cant be realized in one's mind today..

[Arrad]

I'm German and I would like to sign mostly everything the other guys said.

Showing the youth the horrors of the Nazi Regime is a big part of the education system. I really like how that matter is took care of here: No one is trying to cover up anything and the full truth is revealed. I think we spent a really huge amount of time in history class with this "dark" time of Germany. The reasons are obvious and have been mentioned before: It's all about prevention.

Of course there is still a certain amount of nazis around, but it surely is a minority as in most other countries, too. As for the statement of nazis being mostly in the former DDR, I'm not too sure about that, as I live in the West. From what I hear and see, I think they are rather fairly spread around. Sure there are some hotspots here and there, especially in certain corners of Germany, but mostly in the East? I don't know.

As for certain signs involved in WW2 and in the game, they are not forbidden if they are used for educational reasons. You will find these signs in every German History book. They are just not allowed if no education is involved. I mean think about it: Years of abuse of these signs and so many people suffered under that regime. Of course it is seen as an intolerable insult to those people who suffered, if signs that once were connected to this regime are shown just for fun's sake. Of course that's slightly overdone and ridiculous if games that try to be historical accurate, suffer from these laws, but to me as a German it's somewhat plausible and understandable. But on the other side I also understand those who think it's laughable in terms of historical accurate video games that, in no way, try to glorify the Third Reich.

[Lethaface]

In my opinion the history teaching in The Netherlands is pretty decent, depending on which level of high school you went and even among the same level there are big differences.

We learned the course of history in the 20th century right from the end of WW1, the bad Versailles treaty and what it did to Germany, Weimar republic, the economic crash (seems familiar atm), the rise of Hitler, a little bit about fighting in Europe and the Pacific, more regarding the occupation of The Netherlands and Indonesia and a LOT about the holocaust.

In my year it was a bit too much imo. The final exam was about the holocaust so we spend large parts of the 5th and 6th year about the holocaust and how bad it was (it was probably the worst in history, but still there is no point too much repetition of gruesome statistics and horrific photo's. I was growing tired of it since after a while you have learned what there is to learn from all the statistics and brutal scene's. Having a personal interest in history I probably knew all of it already and read the other parts of the books which we didn't get lectures about.

I was disappointed the role of the USSR was underplayed and the lack of lectures about the period between 1800 and the first World War. Later I became especially disappointed about the lack of attention for the period after WWII.

My final exam was in 2001. My little brother is in the 5th now (1year before exams) and I must say I'm much more pleased about his history lessons then my own.

Lastly I think it is important for us westerners (since most of the people here are) not to forget that history is written by the Victor. This is not to say that I think the Nazi's weren't evil, but perhaps the opposing (Allied) nations weren't idealistic as we thought they were.

[para]

I wouldn't worry about whether or not history is taught in European schools. Hollywood and the History Channel are doing a fantastic job................. ;-)

[Mord]

The game covers the American sector of Normandy? No British?

Best,

Harold

Just for some extra clarification...after the Commonwealth module we'll have one on Market Garden and then one more, that will cover a hodge podge of vehicles and TO&E for obscure or rare units. After that we'll get a new Title (plus modules) that starts in October and covers the Bulge until the end of the war.

Mord.

[finalcut]

Thank you all for your responses.Very interesting reading.