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1. US companies heavily sponsored Hitler's rise to power and supplied the Nazis' war preparations to an extent that WW2 would likely not have been possible without the US' support of the Nazis. For one example, by 1942, 1/3rd of all the Nazis' vehicles were made by Ford, while half of the Nazis' vehicles throughout WW2 were made in GM factories (which GM lost control of in 1940), and Standard Oil (today's Exxon and Chevron) continued to supply 13,000 tons oil to the Nazis every month until the very end of the war. And even after the Trading With the Enemy act was applied against US business dealings with Germany, some US companies, including GM, Ford, and Standard Oil (today's Exxon and Chevron) either found ways around it to deliberately continue supporting the Nazis, or indirectly maintained involvement in supplying the Nazis until the very end of the war. "The contribution made by [United States] to German war preparations can only be described as phenomenal. It was certainly crucial to German military capabilities.... Not only was an influential sector of American business aware of the nature of Nazism, but for its own purposes aided Nazism wherever possible (and profitable)--with full knowledge that the probable outcome would be war involving Europe and the United States." "… although by then Hitler's intentions were clear, IG executive August von Knieriem acknowledged that the style of Hitler's war would have been “impossible” had not “the Americans presented us with the production plans, complete with their know‐how.” " Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler With a Branch at Auschwitz (Published 1978) Ford and the Führer How Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power “If we see that Germany is winning we ought to help Russia and if Russia is winning we ought to help Germany, and that way let them kill as many as possible" - Harry S. Truman, June 24, 1941 2. The Nazis' anti-Jew ambition was largely fed by Henry Ford, the founder of the US auto manufacturing company. Ford wrote a weekly anti-Jew newspaper column, which was compiled into book volumes under the title "The International Jew, the World’s Foremost Problem", which was very popular among the Nazi party. Long before the Nazis became the ruling party in Germany, Ford was being praised by them. In 1924, Heinrich Himmler described Henry Ford as “one of our most valuable, important, and witty fighters”. And Adolf Hitler wrote: “only a single great man, Ford, [who], to [the Jews’] fury, still maintains full independence…[from] the controlling masters of the producers”. Speaking in 1931 to a Detroit News reporter, Hitler said he regarded Henry Ford as his “inspiration”, explaining his reason for keeping Ford’s life-size portrait next to his desk. Regarding Henry Ford's anti-Jew writings, Hitler said, “I shall do my best to put his theories into practice in Germany”. Henry Ford was also the first US citizen to be awarded the Grand Cross of the Supreme Order of the German Eagle, an award created by Hitler in 1937. Henry Ford receiving the Grand Cross of the German Eagle from Nazi officials, 1938 3. Hitler also found encouragement for his views in various US policies including the Immigration Act of 1924, the US eugenics movement, and the treatment of Native Americans. In a 1928 speech, Hitler noted that Americans in the Jacksonian era had “gunned down the millions of Redskins to a few hundred thousand, and now keep the modest remnant under observation in a cage”. He also attributed the idea of concentration camps to Britain, saying in 1941, “Concentration camps were not invented in Germany. It is the English who are their inventors, using this institution to gradually break the backs of other nations.” And Hitler's idea of a master-race with blonde hair and blue eyes was heavily derived from the US' own eugenics programs. How US Racism Influenced Hitler The Nazi Connection: Eugenics, American Racism, and German National Socialism The Horrifying American Roots of Nazi Eugenics 4. The first military incursion of WW2 was not the Germany and USSR 1939 invasions of Poland, as is often incorrectly claimed, but was Germany and Poland's 1938 invasion, occupation, partitioning, and annexation of Czechoslovakia, done with the backing of the UK, France, and Italy, which partnered with Hitler via the Munich Betrayal pact. This angered the USSR as Czechoslovakia was their ally and with whom they shared a defence pact. The Polish-German invasion of Czechoslovakia also sparked Slovakia's wilful support of the 1939 Nazi invasion of Poland, with the government of Slovakia citing Poland's 1938 invasion of Czechoslovakia as their official reason for joining the 1939 Nazi invasion of Poland. news clippings concerning Poland's invasion of Czechoslovakia Annexations by Poland in 1938 Slovak invasion of Poland Before Hitler Invaded Poland -- Poland Invaded Czechoslovakia! And while the UK, France, and Italy infamously all supported Germany's takeover of Czechoslovakia, via the Munich Betrayal pact. The USSR opposed the takeover of its ally, and offered to send troops to defend Czechoslovakia and fight Germany. But Poland refused to allow the USSR to transit its troops across Poland's borders, and even went so far as to assert that Poland would be the first country to take-on Germany. But that didn't happen, and Poland instead joined Germany in invading and annexing Czechoslovakia - a move which made Churchill resent the idea of saving Poland when it was invaded by Germany less than one year later: To Churchill, this was incomprehensible, pledging to defend "that very Poland which with hyena appetite had only six months before joined in the pillage and destruction of the Czechoslovak State." Churchill, Winston S. - William's World War II Page 5. The USSR knew that Hitler's ambitions included conquering the USSR, because Hitler had written about his plan and talked about it in speeches. And so, the USSR made every effort it could to prevent a war with Germany - first, by trying to preserve the positive relations they’d had with Germany before the Nazis rose to power. When that failed, the USSR sought permission from Poland to send troops across Poland's borders and fight Germany on their own turf. But that effort also failed. Before signing their pact with Germany in 1939, the USSR also proposed forming an anti-Nazi alliance between the USSR, the UK, and France. But the UK and France both refused, themselves having already signed pacts with Germany. Stalin 'planned to send a million troops to stop Hitler if Britain and France agreed pact' The Hitler-Stalin Pact "[UK] Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, at first indifferent to Hitler’s capture of the Sudetenland, the German-speaking area of Czechoslovakia, suddenly snapped to life when Poland became threatened. He made it plain that Britain would be obliged to come to the aid of Poland in the event of German invasion. But he wanted, and needed, an ally. The only power large enough to stop Hitler, and with a vested interest in doing so, was the Soviet Union. But Stalin was cool to Britain after its effort to create a political alliance with Britain and France against Germany had been rebuffed a year earlier." 6. The USSR was actually the last state to sign a pact with Nazi Germany, with non-aggression pacts with Germany having first been signed by Poland, the UK, France, Estonia, Denmark, and Latvia. Germany had also formed anti-Communist pacts with many countries, including Japan (November 1936), Hungary (February 1939), Manchukuo (February 1939), and Spain (March 1939). Russia's government claims that the USSR had no other choice but to form a pact with Germany after UK, France, and Poland had all refused to work with the USSR to do anything against Germany. Their claim finds support from the UK's own wartime Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, who also believed the USSR no longer had any other option: "Russia has pursued a cold policy of self-interest. We could have wished that the Russian Armies should be standing on their present line as the friends and allies of Poland, instead of as invaders. But that the Russian Armies should stand on this line was clearly necessary for the safety of Russia against the Nazi menace.” - Winston Churchill, on the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/policy/1939/1939-10-01a.html 7. Russia's government claims their Soviet archives also show that a motivating factor behind the USSR signing its 1939 non-aggression pact with Germany was Poland's clear interest in forming an anti-USSR alliance with Germany. German historians have written that Hitler was receptive to Poland's request, but conditioned such an alliance on Poland ceding its sovereignty to Germany. Poland refused that offer and then, of course, Germany invaded Poland and took it over all the same. Alliance between Berlin & Warsaw? New docs reveal what pushed USSR towards Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact There was NO other way (by Sergey Naryshkin) 8. Germany wasn't the only country in WW2 to have death camps. The Dark Secret of America’s WWII German Death Camps "Every schoolchild knows that the German side in World War II falsely imprisoned millions of noncombatants in a constellation of concentration camps scattered across the Nazi sphere of influence in Europe. Conditions in these camps were inhumane, to say the least, fraught with starvation, disease, and deliberate murder stalking every inmate for the months or years they spent interned. What has largely escaped the victors’ history books, however, is that another program of internment and mass murder was put together at the end of the war by Allied forces, who took in millions of German prisoners in the summer of 1945 and deliberately starved roughly one in four of them to death. The story of the Rheinwiesenlager, or “Rhine Camps,” was then covered up and obfuscated by professional historians for decades after the war while the survivors grew old and the prisoner records were destroyed." 9. Japan's December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbour which created domestic public support for the US entering WW2 wasn't a surprise to the US government, but was by its design. The US government employed heavy economic warfare against Japan with the intention to provoke Japan into attacking the US, so that the US would have pretext to enter WW2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCollum_memo How U.S. Economic Warfare Provoked Japan's Attack on Pearl Harbor Pearl Harbor: Hawaii Was Surprised; FDR Was Not How U.S. Economic Warfare Provoked Japan’s Attack on Pearl Harbor 75 Years of Pearl Harbor Lies Excerpt from the McCollum memo: "It is not believed that in the present state of political opinion the United States government is capable of declaring war against Japan without more ado; and it is barely possible that vigorous action on our part might lead the Japanese to modify their attitude. Therefore the following course of action is suggested: A. Make an arrangement with Britain for the use of British bases in the Pacific, particularly Singapore B. Make an arrangement with the Netherlands for the use of base facilities and acquisition of supplies in the Dutch East Indies C. Give all possible aid to the Chinese government of Chiang-Kai-Shek D. Send a division of long range heavy cruisers to the Orient, Philippines, or Singapore E. Send two divisions of submarines to the Orient F. Keep the main strength of the U.S. fleet now in the Pacific[,] in the vicinity of the Hawaiian Islands G. Insist that the Dutch refuse to grant Japanese demands for undue economic concessions, particularly oil H. Completely embargo all U.S. trade with Japan, in collaboration with a similar embargo imposed by the British Empire If by these means Japan could be led to commit an overt act of war, so much the better. At all events we must be fully prepared to accept the threat of war." The cover of a Hawaii newspaper, one week before Japan attacked Pearl Harbour: 10. The US' nuclear testing killed 3x as many US citizens in the US as the atomic bombs the US dropped on Japan killed Japanese. US nuclear tests killed far more civilians than we knew Atomic Tests During the 1950s Probably Killed Nearly Half a Million Americans 11. The atomic bombs dropped on Japan likely didn't play any role in Japan's surrender. When Japan's ruling council in Tokyo sent-out the order to surrender, they hadn't yet received the military report of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima - although, they were aware that an attack had occurred. And when the order to surrender was sent-out by Japan's ruling council, the US hadn't yet dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki. Instead, Japan surrendered because the USSR had declared war on Japan and invaded Manchuria and obliterated Japan's forces there. But Japan surrendered to the US because the ruling council believed that Japan would receive better treatment at the hands of the US than at the hands of the Soviets. The damage caused by the US' atomic bombs on Japan was also not the worst that Japan had faced in recent months. In 1945, 68 Japanese cities were destroyed, some of them more than Hiroshima. And despite Hiroshima having a condensed civilian population, the highest civilian death-toll Japan faced was from the March 1945 bombings of Tokyo. "But if you graph the number of people killed in all 68 cities bombed in the summer of 1945, you find that Hiroshima was second in terms of civilian deaths. If you chart the number of square miles destroyed, you find that Hiroshima was fourth. If you chart the percentage of the city destroyed, Hiroshima was 17th." Additionally, it was said by admiral William Leahy, who was the senior-most US military officer in WW2 and was in command of the US' Pacific forces, that “It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade”. General Dwight D. Eisenhower stated similarly, that “The Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing”. Historians reconsider effect of unheralded Soviet WWII offensive against Japan The Bomb Didn’t Beat Japan … Stalin Did - Have 70 years of nuclear policy been based on a lie? Did Nuclear Weapons Cause Japan to Surrender? Why did Japan surrender in World War II? Hiroshima and Nagasaki as Collateral Damage 12. Perceptions of who played what role in WW2 were heavily manipulated in the years following the war's end, and the common narrative of today regarding who played what role in WW2 is extremely contradictory to the facts as they were understood during and in the years immediately following WW2. "I have always believed and I still believe that it is the Red Army that has torn the guts out of the filthy Nazis." —Winston Churchill, Speech in the House of Commons, October 1944 Bonus. Supposedly, 'Godzilla' was a metaphor for Hiroshima, and Hollywood whitewashed it "When the monster Godzilla, or “Gojira,” appeared before Japanese movie audiences in 1954, many left the theaters in tears. The fictional creature, a giant dinosaur once undisturbed in the ocean, was depicted in the original film as having been aggravated by a hydrogen bomb. Its heavily furrowed skin or scales were imagined to resemble the keloid scars of survivors of the two atomic bombs that the U.S. dropped on Japan nine years earlier... American audiences, however, had the opposite reaction, finding comedic value in what many interpreted as a cheesy monster movie. ... For many Japanese viewers, seeing the movie was a cathartic, validating experience, the scholar said. People were able to witness Tokyo being destroyed once more while seeing radiation given the physical form of a monster. The ending, while bittersweet, is a hopeful one in which humanity triumphs over evil. However, American audiences saw a different film when it was brought stateside as “Godzilla, King of the Monsters!” roughly two years later, Tsutsui said. The movie was heavily edited, placing the white actor Raymond Burr at the center of the adaptation. The scholar noted that an estimated 20 minutes of the original Japanese film, predominantly the politically charged portions, were cut out of the American version. Among the axed scenes was one where commuters on a train make the link between the Hiroshima bombing and Godzilla’s attack, as well as the poignant final line in the original where biology professor Dr. Yamane warns that if nuclear testing does not cease, another Godzilla could appear. Tsutsui pointed out that the U.S. version ended on a sunny note, that the world was safe again and could return to normal."

Hey, i got a problem when i launch the game it always starts windowed and i need to switch to full screen. Anyone know how to fix it?

Mostly for 8 year old nephew, his dad will probably play too. Nephew does like Star Wars. What game is least likely to get boring for $60? Thanks

Hi everyone. I'm just looking for more people to play Company of Heroes 2 with. Preferably EU/UK timezone and English speaking. I'm in the UK. If you play CoH2 hit me up.

Hello, I'm working on a side project, and I would like to hear from you guys. Simply answer the question below. What do you picture when you think of World War II aircraft? Examples of what I mean: Anything is helpful, names of aircraft is definitly not necessary. The project is for a historic 3d animation/modeling thing I'm doing on the side, just looking for some ideas of iconic/common scenes.

Its a really exciting WW2 FPS that is currently in Beta and F2P, i definitely recommend checking it out. If you guys do like it you can add me in-game my name is jacobgyori Beware though, the game can be P2W with 'gold' ingame purchasable with real cash.

The Official World of Tanks Thread What is world of tanks? As stated on their website World of Tanks is "...a team-based massively multiplayer online game dedicated to armored warfare in the mid-20th century. Throw yourself into epic tank battles shoulder to shoulder with other steel cowboys to dominate the world with tank supremacy!" In summary World of tanks, or WoT for short, is a free to play MMO game that revolves around tanks from the mid 20th century. How can I join? Just head on over to: http://worldoftanks.com/ and register for an account. Then download the installer here http://redirect.wargaming.net/WoT/latest_web_install_na I already play! Thats great! Feel free to leave your in game name below and perhaps you can meet some fellow tankers! (Finishing thread tomorrow)