WW2 Land Combat Source Infodump

Now that I've begun my research on the German army during WW2, I'll just link some of my sources here for now: the wikipedia page, the wikipedia page on the German tanks, and a website called Achtung Panzer!

World War 2

The thing that I most like about World War 2's story is the degree to which it seems to follow so many typical heroic tropes. It started, as the book makes clear in its description, Hitler initially conquered France and it shocked the Allies, then it seemed that Britain was alone in a struggle against Hitler, with Russia also fighting him but being barely a friend and at least a very dangerous ally, until America entered the war and saved everybody. The textbook heroic story of the war, I feel, may be a major contributor to the way in which it tends to be viewed as justified, unlike World War 1, whose story was essentially "lots of people die, nothing really happens."

Hitler's Rise to Power

Hitler's rise to power is a fascinating exercise in the power of oratory to control people. According to wikipedia, Hitler's rise to power was largely due to his oratory and organizational abilities, as well as his willingness to use any means to get to where he is. My first thought about the election of Hitler, as with most people, is that he was a mad dictator and there's no way I wouldn't have personally opposed him. However, upon thinking about it, something about having a man come to power who is going to solve all the problems appeals to me on some level. Thinking about a government like ours, where the people are against so many things and have so many little views that the government has to respond to, sometimes I think that it would be better if we could just have one person take over and deal with everything, and that's how I imagine Germany must have felt before Hitler - and now, Hitler is the reason people tend to not give in to those thoughts.

The Debate: Final Reflections

Our debate in class was very interesting - seeing how each side defended its own point, and how the pro-fascism side (especially Nick) managed to convey the sense of insane fanaticism present so often in fascism. The central problem with the debate was the problem with all debate, which is that you can't prove philosophical postulates and each team entered with different ones. Their team continuously referenced anti-social elements being suppressed, and our team continuously said that what was more important was tolerance.
It's possible that this is a reflection of how everything worked in the actual world - there cannot be reasoned debate, and sometimes even discussion is strained, when two opposing sides have worldviews based on mutually contradictory postulates.

In Response...

In response to Jonathan's response to Nate's post, I would like to say that I think that people acting in their best interest and supporting the groups that people think will follow their best interests is obvious. I think the question in politics is more about which group you think will support your own best interests, and that people being hesitant to support the "whites" on the grounds of them being instruments of foreign powers is an example of people supporting those who will act in their own self-interest.

Hitler vs Stalin

Hitler is the general western world's first thought when we think about the ultimate incarnation of evil, the second being Satan. This is despite his much lower death toll compared to Stalin - though there are occasional people who argue that Hitler was worse than Stalin, even amongst them the death toll for Stalin is higher, and the vast majority consider Hitler more important - when I type "Hitler" into my google search, which gives me suggested searches based on others' searches, a variety of suggested searches about Hitler come up, but amongst the Stalin suggested searches are both "Stalin and Hitler" and "Stalin vs Hitler" - in terms of mass-murdering villainy, Stalin is clearly Hitler's still-evil-but-not-quite-as-bad assistant.
The reason for this is probably American propaganda during WW2, which led to lots of "Captain America fights the Nazis" and very little "Captain America fights the Russians". However, I wonder whether there is any other reason that Hitler is so much more the ultimate villain than Stalin.

Fascism

Fascism was, and is, an interesting ideology, to the point that either there is an American Fascist Party or some crazy guy made a website, though it isn't as if that hasn't happened before. The interesting thing about Fascism is that it's so simple, and it must have been how government originally emerged - some guy was just charismatic enough, and had a large enough group of soldiers, that he convinced everybody else to listen to him. The fact that this kind of leadership emerged instead of democracy, which is one of the most complex forms of government, indicates the degree to which Italy was devastated by World War One.
The other interesting aspect of fascism is the degree to which it derives itself from democracy - the closer a form of government gets to completely expressing the will of the people, the easier it is for a charismatic person to seize power by convincing the people he should have it. It's a vicious cycle.