To think there are a lot of people out there who have no grasp of WW2 history

And what amazes me:

Germany - the Nazis - committed awful atrocities in occupied countries. Absolutely awful.

You only have to go to France and see memorials every to resistance fighters who were executed. Villages wiped out.

WW2 ended in 1945. And the Europe that emerged out of it formed trading partners, freedom of movement - and I think that is incredible.

I would say it’s absolutely vital for everyone to understand this at the moment!

I would argue that it's also the way Germany changed and the rise of the Nazis, the way that it was possible for the Jewish population and other minorities to be turned on, to be seen as other and then for the events that led to the Holocaust to happen that people don't really understand.

Living under the Nazi regime. The horrors of occupation, The horrors of the concentration camps.

It's so important people are educated about how that happened. How did Hitler rise to power and what did he do to stay in power. How was it possible for society to turn on its own people.

This is true. I was at the National Portrait gallery and was listening in to a foreign sounding woman who was patiently explaining to her English mate about Henry VIIII and how his daughter was Elizabeth I. He had no idea they were related. How?!

Whut?

Im eager to hear who you think may believe that the axis were to good guys?

Simon Schama's programme about the Holocaust and its origins quoted a survey about the number of people in the UK who do not believe it happened. Cannot remember the percentage but if accurate it is a few million people.

This is like when Laurence Idiot Fox threw a tantrum over a World War II movie featuring a Sikh soldier. I am sure a not insignificant part of our populace think Britain were on the wrong side in WWII.

.............and here we are in 2025, 80 years after 1945, and the posts make an interesting read.

I think people on all sides try to use
ww2 to further their own modern agenda.

Whether it's they didn't fight for a Britain to look like this.
Or, they fought so we could achieve a peaceful multi cultural Europe.

In simple terms Britain fought to stop a nazi invasion. We fought to maintain our territory. For your average Tommy it was that simple.

The political structures which came post war are a different kettle of fish.

One of the things I noticed about the commemoration yesterday was mention of British and Commonwealth forces. Something we should not forget.

I agree with the OP and the person who noted that Brexit has made this worse.

I am in favour of a bank holiday to remember those who died in war, which if nothing else will keep the memory of the horrors alive once those who witnessed it are long gone.

Complete WW2 tangent. I used to regularly walk past the house Reginald Mitchell was born in. WW history was rather important in that area given this connection.

I think it doesn’t help how the media and cultural trends it perpetrates gives such a false impression of war, particularly WW2. All the “we stood alone”, “it was our brave (conscripted) tommies wot won it” stuff just turns me right off. All very militaristic, and jingoistic. Far from the reality of war or even historical truth.

But at one point of the war we did "stand alone". The Americans had not yet agreed to come into the war (they did after Pearl Harbour) everyone else had been invaded and occupied and we were on the brink of being invaded and becoming part of German territory. If it had not been for the fighter pilots in the Battle of Britain we would definitely have been invaded at that time.
I don't think we are "celebrating" war with these commemorations, we are celebrating remaining free, we are mourning and honouring the dead and the chief purpose of these commemorative events is to never forget how terrible war is and to try never to let it happen again. And, as someone has said upthread, the allies included many diverse religions and ethnic backgrounds, black and white. I consider myself lucky, being a 1950s child, that I learned a great deal about the war from different viewpoints, having a father and other relatives that served in WW2 and grandfathers, one of which served in the Great war in France (near the Somme) and the other of which served in both wars, having lied about his age and joined up at 15 to escape his bad home life (he was in action in the Middle East). 1950s children knew much about the war as it was the main topic of conversation amongst our elders for years and years (not surprising) and even our comics were full of stories set in war time/war backgrounds. I remember playing Nazis and Tommies with my older siblings and friends when small and, as I was indeed very small, coming away with the idea that a Nazi was a sort of tomato.

Also, take this opportunity to have a Facebook cull/change your privacy settings. I haven't had any of that on my Facebook and I'd immediately unfriendly anyone who put it on.

I think it's more twats who think both wars were like a game the 'we won' that are the problem. When you see a 90+ year old man talking about remembering all the dead bodies floating past him in the water it makes me angry to see idiots the generation or afterwards using the horror they endured to talk a load of old crap about WWII. They have decided to live in reflected glory that they don't deserve.

From what I've seen the ones who actually fought are very much proEU - they lived through war and appreciate the value of peace

The currently older generation are those born afterwards

100% agree. I was thinking about this on the way to work today funnily enough. It is worrying that people forget the wars, why they happened and what they were against. I suppose it is easier for me as my grandparents fought in the war and they used to talk about it with me.

I would amend your thread title to read more simply “no grasp of history.” So many of my students arrive at university with only the vaguest notions of historical events, timelines, currents, causes and effects. And presumably they are among the more academically engaged of their generation.

It is not necessarily the young ones are the ones with distorted view of the Great Wars. It is more likely that regular viewers of nostalgia WW2 (propaganda) films on Forces tv and such like think that we stood all alone and won easily.
Even yesterday a lot of column inches were spent on how if you add Canadians to the English, then English soldiers outnumbered Americans on D-day.

*commemorative.

I think it doesn’t help how the media and cultural trends it perpetrates gives such a false impression of war, particularly WW2. All the “we stood alone”, “it was our brave (conscripted) tommies wot won it” stuff just turns me right off. All very militaristic, and jingoistic. Far from the reality of war or even historical truth.

There is nothing to celebrate in war. No glory. Far from standing alone, the USA and Russia lost millions of lives and the Second World War culminated in the worst war crimes and terrorist atrocities in the history of the human race with nuclear attacks on Japan who were in the process of surrender.

I don’t like all the commentator stuff due to the crass and dishonest tone of it.

People also forget that it wasn't just white Christians who fought in either WW1 or WW2. There are memorials on the Downs in the south of England where Hindu soldiers who had died of wounds were cremated. Look on the list of Victoria and George Crosses for the names of the Sikh, Muslim, Hindu and Gurkha service members who won it.

That goes for nationality too. Free French, Polish and Czech fought in WW2, as did Indians, many in the Battle of Britain. Free French commandos landed ahead of the British on D-day. Many Polish had to remain in the UK as the USSR had overrun Poland yet they get told to go back to Poland by wankers.

Sakura7
Germany does a great job of educating children about how Hitler came to power, so that people will recognise it when another threat appears. Unfortunately others aren't so well informed, and the rise of the far right across Europe, America, Brazil, etc, is very very worrying.

Germany has its own share of neo-Nazis and far-right people in spite of all the educating that they do. It also has a lot of older adults who claim untruthfully that their Good Party Member or Hitler Jugend parents were in the German Resistance and lucky not to have died for it, and so feel able to deny any sense of responsibility -- and are fairly unpleasant about "foreigners" "invading" their country (when talking about women and children fleeing from a war).

Oh and I would revisit your Facebook friends list

People have very little grasp of history in general. As well as learning from it it also shows what shaped our country and culture.

I guess it’s naive to think given our county’s long history the only thing that should shape it is ww11. It’s just a very small part of our history.

There’s more contemporary shows of leaders and countries vilifying and trying to annihilate minorities that young people could probably relate to more. But WW2 is undoubtedly the blue print of why we need to crush these sorts of regimes in their infancy.

What I think we can really learn from ww2 is the selflessness for the greater good, the lack of the cult of the individual that seems so prevalent today.

Unfortunately as it does slip into history these things become more remote, just as say the napoleonic war would have affected a couple of generations then it slips into history this will also to a certain extent.

When I was a child, the veterans fromWW2 were still relatively young and most of the attention went to the WW1 veterans (I think the silence around the horrors our troops faced in ww2 was still very loud at this point). Now WW1 seems to be slipping further back in people’s minds.