h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Tell your dad that he was not alone. The german soldiers who were sent to Denmark called it "Die Schlagsahne Front" (the whipped cream front) because even though most Danes hated their presence the Germans felt that the Danes were very friendly. Plus here they could get a good meal.

The Danish resistance was not out to kill the common German soldier, who was only doing his duty. The resistance blew up train lines and factories aiding Germany's war. It is true that the resistance assassinated people, but mostly Danish nazis who w*rked as informers for the occupants

It is easy to understand why the german soldiers loved Denmark so much given that the alternative could be the eastern front, maybe even Stalingrad...

If Sweden was not occupied, then it was lucky.

Sweden kept its neutrality throughout the war

So did Switzerland. However, the Swiss seem to have been less than generous about harboring Jews fleeing the Holocaust.

It appears there were sinners and saints in all countries.

While many Danes joined the resistance many others volunteered to fight on Hitler's eastern front...

Finland was allied to Germany - but only because the Fins wanted to defend their country against the Soviet Union. And when the German's ordered Finland to hand over its Jews the Fins flatly refused.

Sweden seems to have defended its neutrality by trading with Germany.

But I can't go into detail. It would be far too time consuming. And what would it change anyway?

That leaves Norway and Spain... Not that I want to belabor it.

Russia sustained huge numbers of casualties, but she pushed Germany back all the way to Berlin. The U.S. fought on two fronts, being the main agent of liberation for the Pacific islands seized by Japan. Britain offered a staging ground for D-Day and other invasions.

What one discoveres these days, when reading revisionist histories of that period, is that in many places (particularly Asia), the reports are that the Americans got it wrong in terms of dealing with local populations after the hostilities were over. Probably there were a lot of Americans over there who wished they could be back home after this disruptive period in their lives. If the Asian populations could have lived in peace with each other, there wouldn't have to be any postwar econstruction, they were probably thinking.

The British came in for their share of criticism where the final days of the Raj were concerned. There's a new history of Mountbatten's last year running India, and his work does not receive good reviews.

As for Russia, it kept many satellite nations under its thumb for decades.

Who was better off, the ones who lost, or the ones who won? I think they all took quite a few lumps.

The Spanish had their own terrible Civil War >A882902 which had ravaged its country, causing hundreds of thousands of deaths.

A882902

dunno why the link didn't appear in the last post

Thank you, lanzababy. Spain had already expelled its Jewish population four centuries earlier. What we know now is that some of them settled in Jamaica and became pirates* so they could avenge their treatment.


*See "Jewish pirates of the Caribbean," by Edward Kritzler, Doubleday, 2008 ISBN 0385513984

I read somewhere that the Belgians managed to hide practically all their Jews during the occupation, or got them out of the country and to safety somehow. Such courage in an entire population!

What I did not know until recently was that Bulgaria refused to send its "own" Jews to Germany.

When the Bulgarian head of state learned that the Germans were coming to see him about it he hid in a hunting lodge with a few close employees until the Germans had left again.

If only more European countries had shown that kind of 'civil courage'!

There are enormous pieces of the puzzle that I am only beginning to find. Prior to Napoleon, Jewish populations in most places lived very restricted lives. For instance, when I went on a tour of the Jewish section of Prague, I was told that the Jews could not be goldsmiths or silversmiths. Their temple could not be any taller than the Christian churches in the town. Then the Napoleonic Code was imposed on the places that Napoleon conquered, and one of its provisions was a liberation of the Jews. They could branch out into careers that were previously closed to them, they didn't have to live in ghettoes any more. It must have been a very heady time for them. Who knew that about a dozen decades later their progress would be so resented in Germany that they would be targeted for genocide?

Would history have been different without the Napoleonic Code>