Who started WW2

Who started the war? That is easy....Germany declared a local war against Poland, the Allies declared a great war against Germany.... Poland was not in an alliance with the Allies, and with only a guarantee, it's quite pathetic to see that Germany is still blamed for the great war. Sure, they wanted a war, but not right then, and when it started, who can blame them for doing everything in their power to win it?

The Britain and France guarantees for Polish intergrity were public, not secret, therefor Hitler was aware of a very likely declaration of war from the two countries. It was Hitler's Germany which had a total disregard of any international conventions and pacts, not the Western Allies.

alex does not agree with you

A guarantee is not an alliance nor it plays that role in the international relations. Look at the NATO example. Do you want to say that because Romania had a guarantee from the Allies, we were de facto in their alliance?

A guarantee works only between a superior and an inferior nation, in which the superior one guarantees without the other one's acceptance its independence. An alliance is an understanding between two equal-in-terms countries.

Communist propaganda is quite effective these days... Long live the Comintern!

1. A signed pact or treaty remains a valid act, no matter how it is called (guarantees, pact, agreement etc). Not everything in international politics is based on Alliances.

2. Unless you define the term of "inferior nation", your statement can be insulting.

"Communist propaganda is quite effective these days... Long live the Comintern!"

Spare us from these pathetic remarks.

O.K....sorrry, I'm clueless.....never heard of him in U.S. here, ...so I found this:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A379406

..... "the marvellous Danish anti-war writer, Sven Hassel. Perhaps the very definition of pulp fiction, and so terminally out of fashion that he's only actually popular in Finland. His books have been out-of-print in the English language for many years now, but Sven Hassel did have his time in the '60s and '70s when he was a world-wide best-seller and his books were traded in every school playground on the planet as important research material for 'The Game Of War'. Now is the time to re-read those same stories."


AND

"Why would Anyone want to Read these Books?

Sven Hassel's novels have a major effect on one's outlook vis-à-vis life. Take a quick read through one of the books and you will find that you suddenly have absolutely no respect for authority, a rabid distrust of anything political, religious or dull and a healthy craving for beer, cheating at cards and very large ladies. Your culinary skills will suddenly be in great demand and you will never want to go to sleep again. You will not consider Saving Private Ryan to be in any way a realistic interpretation of war."

Sounds good to me. Anybody got an English language copy they could lend me?

I'm reading Storm of Steel by Ernst Junger. He seems to occupy a strange place in this literature.....WWI vet, wrote from life, book admired by the Nazis, yet he was a so-called "inner immigrant", during WWII, "distanced from the regime, yet only obliquely in opposition" (as if there were another nonsuicidal way to be).

Also found a wierd one: "Blood Red Snow , the forbidden diary of Gunter Koschorreck, a machine-gunner on the Eastern front, WWII. He survived, and saved his memoirs written on scraps of paper sewed into his greatcoat. He talks a lot about Stalingrad and some about Romania. Fighting near "Jassy" (sic) does he mean Iasi? Has some great b/w photos, including one of Romanian infantry on the road to the front.

What he lacks in writing ability (o.k., maybe it's the translation I have) he makes up an absolute deadpan of grim experience.

cheers.

You don't really believe that do u?

At best it's a self contradictory statement, at worst it's a disturbing view of history,imo.

Granted, Treaty of Versailles and the Depression of the 30's combined with the political bomb that was postwar Deutschland almost guaranteed emergence of fascism or communism, (name your poison) and some kind of uber alles "payback time" for the Brits and the French (o.k. Americans too) who had savaged them with starvation and ruinous reparations.

But to suggest that Hitler and the Nazis were somehow victims of an attack and not, in turn, calculating militarist aggressors bent on European and probably world conquest/domination in the name of "lebensraum", Aryan supremacy, and a fanatic antibolshevist crusade is a stunning inversion of reality, if that is your implication, my friend.

With a little experience we get to know when Alexandru is serious and when he's surfing on the waves of strange inspirations

With a little experience we get to know when Alexandru is serious and when he's surfing on the waves of strange inspirations

Oh.

Well, it's about as funny as Prince Harry partying in Nazi drag.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...xajkomyx_photo0

Well, maybe if we consider some facts:

a) The international arena was known for many centuries for supplying history with the most unusual alliances or understandings. Let's see how the Ottoman Empire and France began a special relationship in the 16th century, or how a democratic USA supported several Africa, South American or Asian dictatorships. This implies the necessary conclusion that the international arena is not ruled by several conflicting particular factors (like the internal affairs of a state), but by a grand ideological conflict, which could be called "my enemy's enemy is my friend".

Now, the reason the Communists, and especially USSR, were not so victimised by history as the Nazis were, lies in the simple fact that the democracies needed USSR for a short while in their history, namely the Second World War. If we read Churchill's memoirs (and may I remind you that Churchill cannot be accused of procommunism), we find with stupefaction that Churchill considered the agricultural policy of Stalin a true masterpiece of planning and thought.

A bit of counterreplying:

a) To Dragos: An inferior nation as an international actor is easy to spot, if you don't fall in the morality issue, that one with the "we are all equal, blablabla". An inferior actor has lesser arguments to impose its will onto the international stage: weaker army, weaker economy, weaker aspirations. Ok, USA and Romania have at this time understandings that seem equal in terms. The problem is USA could impose its will fairly easily, Romania could not. The role of the independent international institutions is to prevent such happenings and to translate equality as an universal weapon. What Bush is doing now is detrimental not only to the world peace but also to such an ideal.

Everything that counts is based on Alliances. Why would Romania pass the opportunity of joining NATO with all our other previous guarantees? Simply because an Alliance offers you better protection, military and legally speaking. Ok, it's not right to wage war anyway, so Germany is guilty. Well, if we use other tools, like the national necessity of reclaiming ancient lands (the Polish-German war could be associated with this argument), or the necessity of fighting anyone who is brave enough to take the whole world (like the 2WW), war is indeed diplomacy with other means. Spare me with the "peace, man" propaganda in a forum about the greatest war ever, in which we talk about veterans that only receive medals based on their killings or war deeds. Not even on their enemy, since we hold to the same esteem the Eastern and Western Front (with a small advantage to the East, even if we fought there with the "blood-thirsty tyrant"...

b)To cnflyboy: Typical War propaganda translated in historical statements. I don't want to speak about the internal politics of the Third Reich (to which I am a harsh opponent, but so is everybody, so it's pretty much a finished chapter), but about international affairs, in which Germany was not the devil, but an important, if special actor. Like Napoleon's France or Alexander's Macedonia. Germany was not a victim, but an actor who tried to do what it previously suceeded in Austria and Chechoslavakia. With other means. And it ultimately failed because he did not realise that the other actors had enough. But let's not try to impose one's distorted view on a blood-shed history, that can be imputed to most nations, not only Germany. As for the Holocaust, I can't consider it an act that should be translated into pre-1945 international relations, since it was unknown until that time and it belonged to another chapter (again, I am not defending Germany for the Holocaust).

c)To Chandernagore: Just because I tend to use irony and wit to relieve my hand of the pressures of writing long, boring stuff that no one reads, I don't feel I should be treated as a half-witted man. Ok? And that goes double for everyone else (including my taxman)

In this case it would be indicate to use the term of "lesser nations" than "inferior nations".

It is true that an alliance offers better guarantees, but that does not mean that other signed treaties shouldn't be taken into account, especially when such a treaty guarantees the territorial integrity, like it was the case of Poland.

Studying military history does not mean we support the idea of war, one of the greatest tragedies in human histories. I was moved by a documentary (not related to war, but to wilderness in Russia and some partisan stories) when several Russian veterans told that every problem between countries has to be settled on peaceful terms, so that such tragedy and hate between nations should never happen again.

I wonder how much Churchill did know about the results of the agricultural reform in USSR, and how much planning and though involved the reform from Stalin

Well, lesser is a good term, but only if we are slaves of the "equality" concept. I think that superior-inferior dichotomy works even better in such circumstances. It would be foolish to say that the Renault Tank was a lesser armoured vehicle than the PzIII.

Romania was also dismembered also having a guarantee. I don't know, but having guarentees is worse than not having one at all. Either alliance, either complete neutrality. And Poland had already shown too many signs of friendly gestures towards the IIIrd Reich (like the Teschen case) so recieving a guarantee was quite bad-deserved.

Oh, yes, and slitting one man's throat while saying it... ...

He knew enough. Why didn't the Allies seek the help of Stalin before Munchen? Or after Munchen? Because the Soviet Union was the most feared nation in the 20s and early 30s. It wasn't quite the fenced camp that would become after WW2 and more than a dozen observers notted the horific communist experiments. But war has its factors, and internal dictatorship is not one of them

Dragos, i hope u will not ban a man u shared a drink with

Yes, for an object use whatever term you want, but in order to avoid harmful remarks for nations and people, don't use the term "inferior". It's simple as that.

Romania was dismembered when France was defeated and Great Britain was isolated. Neutrality would not have helped in any way. In the case of Poland, the fact that France and GB declared war on Germany means that they respected the treaty (at least partially, since they did not intervene with troops).

There is nothing to joke about that. Please show some decency.

So I can't say Odobescu is inferior as a writer to Goethe? I have to say that he is a lesser poet while the german is a greater one? Wow! Political corectness... Apart from the fact that 0,001 percent of the Russian Red Army was talking about peace while the rest were killing, pillaging, raping (I can say that the Red Army in Romania raped as much as it could carry per day? Or my decency is again questionable and I should refer to these matters simply as "the russians did [censored] and even more [censored]"?)...

Ok, then I want from the main site to be removed every man that killed at least once (including veterans, generals, ship crews etc...) because killing is indecent... And I am not kidding...