Hi, fourth year history college student here.
Historians never label anything "good" or "bad" concerning history as we have to adopt a neutral and objective stance. History is a science and we need to be professional about it
Have a good day
I don’t know, I can see it. The USSR and FDR were on one side, the Nazis were on the other. I’d say that both sides were definitely bad. I’m glad things went like they did though.
The western Allies, despite their crimes, ultimately fought for the self-determination of nations that they weren’t even a part of. The Axis were trying to dominate the surrounding nations through violence and terror.
So while the Allies *did* commit crimes, saying that they were “bad” in the context of their enemies is historically dubious at best.
Agreed. They were better than the alternative. I’m speaking outside of immediate context to give OP the benefit of the doubt though. In the end, though, everyone’s bad, because people are basically evil.
>I don’t know, I can see it. The USSR and USA were on one side, the Nazis were on the other. I’d say that both sides were definitely bad. I’m glad things went like they did though.
FIFY
fuck america
Nah, America overall was mostly good throughout the 20th century. No major genocides, certainly stopped one or two. Protected the rest of the world from the USSR. You just don’t like America to be an edgelord. Sure, we’ve had some stinkers like FDR and pretty much all of the 21st century, not to mention CIA psyops and stuff. Overall though I think the whole “fuck America” bit is largely unfounded.
I know about them, I’ve studied them in university. But the Western Allies ultimately fought for the self-determination of nations they weren’t even a part of. The Axis ultimately fought for the domination of their neighboring nations through violence and acts of genocide.
Despite the crimes of the Allies, and they *did* commit crimes, calling them “bad” in the context of WWII and their enemies is historically dishonest.
Another historian with a PhD. You and OP are wrong. Like really messed up wrong. Applying a term like "good" or "bad" to historical events is just a display of your own heavy politicized ignorance. Why do you think both sides fought? Because both sides thought of themselves as the "good" ones. If you really want to apply modern defintions of ethics in this debate there is actually only on thing to consider:
Which side committed heinous crimes to ensure the genocide of 6 million people and which side committed atrocities of war to prevent it?
So yeah you both are bad.
Committing war crimes against civilians to fight war crimes against civilians is one sick sense of justice. I'm not hiding my anti-american views in the slightest.
You're right, generally speaking there never are good or bad sides in any war. History is written by victors and the view we tend to correlate with ''good'' will always be the one that closest aligns to our own convictions. However, the ''good vs evil'' narrative is so ingrained in any WW2 discussion that making a blunt statement like ''both sides are evil'' is a good opener to a debate, as it challenges the status quo.
>History is written by victors
Yes. Once. This take is incredibly old and wrong. And it was heavily pushed by the facists and communists alike post WWI to legitimate their causes. There is no status quo in science to break. There theories to debate. If someone was good or evil isn't one of them, thats just populistic mongering.
Sure both sides committed atrocities but the axis were still the aggressors and wanted to dominate the "racially inferior" countries around them.
Not saying that the allied atrocities are justified but they certainly weren't on the same scale as the axis atrocities.
I don't see how this is a gotcha. I never said the allies were saints who didn't commit any war crimes. My problem is with you seeming to draw an equivalence between them as if they were both on the same level of evil.
The nuclear bombing of Japanese civilians is considered to be a war crime and a violation of the Geneva convention, same with the napalm bombings.
That just not true. There weren’t just American troops, and even in the American sections some were people from the less-segregated states.
Although many were, and that’s deplorable
both sides in WW2 commited horrific atorcities
for the allies, the bombing of dresden and the nuking of Japan
for the axis, the holocaust and the rape of nanking
Bombing Dresden was justified and nuking of Japan saved lives, axis war crimes were literally mass genocide on the basis of racial supremacy. The allies, in particularly Britain, were not even threatened by the axis and yet still fought to defend the idea of a free world safe from tyranny.
serbs when they are in a making exuses for war crimes compation and their oponent is american
also Japan was about to surrender
this is what being american does to someones brain
Because you are unironically arguing that the allies and axis are both evil… you are either trolling or incredibly delusional and either way the odds of having an actual reasoned debate with you are zero, so why waste time on it
Seriously? You criticize the US for killing 200k civillians in an attack on stratgic military target, when they've pre-emptively warned both the population and the Japanese government that the attack will take place, but the biggest offence to USSR that you can come up with is being allied with the US? Not the genocide of 20 million civillians of their own or their treatment of POWs or how they purposefully caused starvation in Ukraine or any other of their myriad crimes against humanity itself?
This is the worst fucking take I've seen about this issue yet. There's legitimately so many reasons to actually say that both sides were horrible in this conflict. You could mention how Churchill and Roosevelt sold out the entire Eastern Europe to soviet regime, how they treated war veterans from allied nations like Poland, who were sent to all fronts of the war where they spilled blood, killed and died for the freedom and values of the Western world. And then they took those people, gave them a few medals, a pat on the shoulder and sent them back under communist regime where they were then persecuted, hunted like animals, tortured and killed because they posed a threat to communism. Or how the allies have withheld or even falsified soviet crimes, such as the Katyn massacre and blamed it on the Nazi's instead, to paint soviets in a better light for the troops' morale.
You could mention how the germans were originally meant to be persecuted and punished for starting the war, their country was meant to be split into parts and plowed through into farms, so that they could never raise their economy or army again. But then they were deemed a strategical position in Europe and so both the Washington and Moscow invested heavily into Germany to rebuild it and make it a strong buffor against the other one, in essence, rewarding the germans for starting the war in the first place.
And so many other horrible and unjust decisions they made during and after the war, with no regard for anything else other than their own profit.
There's so many things that you could've pointed out but you went the worst way possible. Typical leftie, even in legitimate issues you're just conditioned to have the worst take possible.
>Seriously? You criticize the US for killing 200k civillians in an attack on stratgic military target, when they've pre-emptively warned both the population and the Japanese government that the attack will take place,
i just shot your dog but its ok because i told you i was going to shoot your dog
go back to eating burgers and jerking off to the thought of invading canada
This meme is half correct.
Both sides did horrible fucked up shit but the US wasn't rounding up tens of thousands of people into gas chambers or conducting experiments like Unit 731.
The allies were the lesser of two evils.
eat shit, im not siding with people who kill millions of innocent people for no reason and im not siding with people who intentally bomb cities full of civilians
Hmmm today I will hate america for... \*checks notes\*
Destroying nazis !
(I'm not defending america, but good lord I'm grateful France was liberated)
War is bad, there is no way to do war where it is not bad. War requires you to do bad things. The axis however, added bad things.
This is not the same and a silly equivalency.
Edit: Nvmnd, just read some of OPs comments. Clearly I'm wasting my time.
I smell the american 13yo child from across the internet. Allow me to explain.
I am breton, living in France. As we know, we were invaded by the nazis during ww2. The nazis backed up the installation of a dictatorial regime in France based in Vichy, and the german police was allowed to roam freely into the country to arrest jews and political opponents. But that's not all. They also targetted innocent civilians.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulle\_massacre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulle_massacre)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oradour-sur-Glane\_massacre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oradour-sur-Glane_massacre)
("muuuh wikipedia". Yes, wikipedia is meant to make brief and short summaries of various topics for idiots like you)
Hopefully, our english allies and later the USA, in a defensive alliance, decided to liberate the country. I am not an idiot, I know that the americans wanted to install a military government just like they did in Italy. In France, De Gaulle took power and re-installed democracy.
I am aware the british government did starve indians, that the US bombed two cities full of civilians. I know that the blacks had no rights in the US. This was bad
Despite both of these countries being bad, they were in a defensive alliance and liberated my country from nazism. And I am glad half of France wasn't genocided and germanised following the nazi theories of Lebensraum and Germanic superiority.
But with your idiot mentality of "mmmuh no evil is better than lesser evil", the USA and UK would never have saved half of Europe from genocides and dictatoriship - while staying colonialist, racist and murderous countries - or whatever. And my country would have suffered a lot.
But of course, you can't understand. You would have been safe in the USA, far away from dictatorships and genocides. You would have vertue-signaled during the entire war that the US were evil and that the nazis should not be fought. But the people would have suffered
In this precise situation, the US did something good. I dont like America, but I'm glad they destroyed nazism. Otherwise, who would have did ?
(Before you say "France was colonialist, it didn't deserve to be saved from nazism". Yes it was. But your average french had nothing to do with colonialism and just wanted to live in peace and democracy. The governement was to blame for colonialism, not the people, and a fortiori the ethnic minorities of France such as myself. Nobody deserves to be abandonned to nazism because of the action of their governement.)
(Notice that I've been purposely ignoring the USSR from my argument for understandable reasons. They are a dictatorship and profitered off WW2 to invade half of Europe.)
>In this precise situation, the US did something good. I dont like America, but I'm glad they destroyed nazism. Otherwise, who would have did ?
the soviets accounted fro 80% of the deaths in that inter-imperalist war
and thats comming from a guy who hates BOTH communism and america
If Bob murders 20 children and Jerry murders 19 children, should we say "both are bad" or should we say "Jerry wasn't perfect but he was the less evil of the two"
WWII is not as simple as your made up situation. The complexity of historical war politics are turned up to 11 in the 1940s and comparing it to a situation like that is historically dishonest.
Non of the major government powers in WWII were “good guys.” But whatever hidden goal you may think the Western Allies had, their victory resulted in the return of self-governance to nations they didn’t even live in. The stated goal of the Axis was to dominate and subjugate their neighbors through violence and acts of genocide.
If you aren’t convinced by me, I suggest reading about the level of devastation caused by the IJA in Asia and the Nazis in Europe. It surpasses the crimes of the Allies by such a magnitude that it makes the Western Allies *look* like the “good side” in comparison.
The only reason why we see one side as good and the other as bad is because victors are the ones writing history. Well that and it's hard for a modern person to *not* apply their own ethical biases to past events.
This world doesn't run on hugs although i don't support and i find it stupid i also find it necessary some times. I wasn't going to be born if i didn't try to fight may to my mother's egg
What?
i personally belive that both sides in ww2 where evil
Oh I thought you were making a centrist “both sides bad” joke, because this is a strange take on ww2
its not a strange take, most historians would agree with me that both sides in WW2 where bad
Hi, fourth year history college student here. Historians never label anything "good" or "bad" concerning history as we have to adopt a neutral and objective stance. History is a science and we need to be professional about it Have a good day
Now that I’ve graduated and can technically claim to be a historian I gotta say that’s so very very wrong
I don’t know, I can see it. The USSR and FDR were on one side, the Nazis were on the other. I’d say that both sides were definitely bad. I’m glad things went like they did though.
The western Allies, despite their crimes, ultimately fought for the self-determination of nations that they weren’t even a part of. The Axis were trying to dominate the surrounding nations through violence and terror. So while the Allies *did* commit crimes, saying that they were “bad” in the context of their enemies is historically dubious at best.
Agreed. They were better than the alternative. I’m speaking outside of immediate context to give OP the benefit of the doubt though. In the end, though, everyone’s bad, because people are basically evil.
True, true. I usually like giving people the benefit of the doubt too but this time his claim rubbed me the wrong way
>I don’t know, I can see it. The USSR and USA were on one side, the Nazis were on the other. I’d say that both sides were definitely bad. I’m glad things went like they did though. FIFY fuck america
Nah, America overall was mostly good throughout the 20th century. No major genocides, certainly stopped one or two. Protected the rest of the world from the USSR. You just don’t like America to be an edgelord. Sure, we’ve had some stinkers like FDR and pretty much all of the 21st century, not to mention CIA psyops and stuff. Overall though I think the whole “fuck America” bit is largely unfounded.
>Nah, America overall was mostly good throughout the 20th century. tell that to the yugoslavs and vietnamese the US killed
The Vietnamese backed by the USSR who were trying to enforce their hegemony across the globe? Those Vietnamese?
L*ftists🍽️
your not a historian, any true historian knows about the allies atrocities
-Redditor without a history degree who’s knowledge of WWII comes from a five minute scroll of wikipedia
I know about them, I’ve studied them in university. But the Western Allies ultimately fought for the self-determination of nations they weren’t even a part of. The Axis ultimately fought for the domination of their neighboring nations through violence and acts of genocide. Despite the crimes of the Allies, and they *did* commit crimes, calling them “bad” in the context of WWII and their enemies is historically dishonest.
Historian with a master's here, and yeah, you're right OP.
Another historian with a PhD. You and OP are wrong. Like really messed up wrong. Applying a term like "good" or "bad" to historical events is just a display of your own heavy politicized ignorance. Why do you think both sides fought? Because both sides thought of themselves as the "good" ones. If you really want to apply modern defintions of ethics in this debate there is actually only on thing to consider: Which side committed heinous crimes to ensure the genocide of 6 million people and which side committed atrocities of war to prevent it? So yeah you both are bad.
Now we just need someone with a DDiv to show up
Yes this would be good. Mind getting one? I am busy being unemployed.
Also Based and highest-paid historian pilled
I only just finished my bachelor’s I need a minute to breath
Committing war crimes against civilians to fight war crimes against civilians is one sick sense of justice. I'm not hiding my anti-american views in the slightest. You're right, generally speaking there never are good or bad sides in any war. History is written by victors and the view we tend to correlate with ''good'' will always be the one that closest aligns to our own convictions. However, the ''good vs evil'' narrative is so ingrained in any WW2 discussion that making a blunt statement like ''both sides are evil'' is a good opener to a debate, as it challenges the status quo.
>History is written by victors Yes. Once. This take is incredibly old and wrong. And it was heavily pushed by the facists and communists alike post WWI to legitimate their causes. There is no status quo in science to break. There theories to debate. If someone was good or evil isn't one of them, thats just populistic mongering.
Fuck some bitches
Sure both sides committed atrocities but the axis were still the aggressors and wanted to dominate the "racially inferior" countries around them. Not saying that the allied atrocities are justified but they certainly weren't on the same scale as the axis atrocities.
do i need to mention that the US (who knew japan was about to surrender) dropped nukes on 2 cities full of civilians?
I don't see how this is a gotcha. I never said the allies were saints who didn't commit any war crimes. My problem is with you seeming to draw an equivalence between them as if they were both on the same level of evil. The nuclear bombing of Japanese civilians is considered to be a war crime and a violation of the Geneva convention, same with the napalm bombings.
Narrator: “Japan was not, in fact, about to surrender.”
Every single man getting off the boat on D-Day was a segregationist.
That just not true. There weren’t just American troops, and even in the American sections some were people from the less-segregated states. Although many were, and that’s deplorable
yes, i know that, fuck them
Please explain yourself
both sides in WW2 commited horrific atorcities for the allies, the bombing of dresden and the nuking of Japan for the axis, the holocaust and the rape of nanking
Lol, lmao even.
Bombing Dresden was justified and nuking of Japan saved lives, axis war crimes were literally mass genocide on the basis of racial supremacy. The allies, in particularly Britain, were not even threatened by the axis and yet still fought to defend the idea of a free world safe from tyranny.
serbs when they are in a making exuses for war crimes compation and their oponent is american also Japan was about to surrender this is what being american does to someones brain
Non American detected opinion rejected 🇺🇸
so your not even going to try and debunk my arguments and instead just pull a xenophobic shit at me? this is why the Russians hate us
Because you are unironically arguing that the allies and axis are both evil… you are either trolling or incredibly delusional and either way the odds of having an actual reasoned debate with you are zero, so why waste time on it
And for soviet union?
the soviets where part of the allies, fuck them and fuck the USA and UK
Seriously? You criticize the US for killing 200k civillians in an attack on stratgic military target, when they've pre-emptively warned both the population and the Japanese government that the attack will take place, but the biggest offence to USSR that you can come up with is being allied with the US? Not the genocide of 20 million civillians of their own or their treatment of POWs or how they purposefully caused starvation in Ukraine or any other of their myriad crimes against humanity itself? This is the worst fucking take I've seen about this issue yet. There's legitimately so many reasons to actually say that both sides were horrible in this conflict. You could mention how Churchill and Roosevelt sold out the entire Eastern Europe to soviet regime, how they treated war veterans from allied nations like Poland, who were sent to all fronts of the war where they spilled blood, killed and died for the freedom and values of the Western world. And then they took those people, gave them a few medals, a pat on the shoulder and sent them back under communist regime where they were then persecuted, hunted like animals, tortured and killed because they posed a threat to communism. Or how the allies have withheld or even falsified soviet crimes, such as the Katyn massacre and blamed it on the Nazi's instead, to paint soviets in a better light for the troops' morale. You could mention how the germans were originally meant to be persecuted and punished for starting the war, their country was meant to be split into parts and plowed through into farms, so that they could never raise their economy or army again. But then they were deemed a strategical position in Europe and so both the Washington and Moscow invested heavily into Germany to rebuild it and make it a strong buffor against the other one, in essence, rewarding the germans for starting the war in the first place. And so many other horrible and unjust decisions they made during and after the war, with no regard for anything else other than their own profit. There's so many things that you could've pointed out but you went the worst way possible. Typical leftie, even in legitimate issues you're just conditioned to have the worst take possible.
>Seriously? You criticize the US for killing 200k civillians in an attack on stratgic military target, when they've pre-emptively warned both the population and the Japanese government that the attack will take place, i just shot your dog but its ok because i told you i was going to shoot your dog go back to eating burgers and jerking off to the thought of invading canada
I know but with the nuking of Japan a invasion would kill more people
This meme is half correct. Both sides did horrible fucked up shit but the US wasn't rounding up tens of thousands of people into gas chambers or conducting experiments like Unit 731. The allies were the lesser of two evils.
average lesser of 2 evils fan vs average no evils enjoyer
Cope 🇺🇲🤝🇬🇧🤝🇷🇺🤜🇩🇪🇮🇹🇯🇵
im not an axis simp, i hate axis just as much as i hate the allies
Still tho, this is the real world, u have to let ideologies aside and pick a side sometimes
eat shit, im not siding with people who kill millions of innocent people for no reason and im not siding with people who intentally bomb cities full of civilians
Stop virtue signaling, there is clearly a difference between the allies and the axis powers
in what way both commited atrocities both were racist, authoritrain, shithole countries
So you think living in nazi Germany is the same thing as living in de Gaulle's post ww2 France ?
This is either some premium bait or the worst take possibly ever had about WW2
having an obsession with WW2/Hitler isn't healthy
the only obsession i have is hating america
Hmmm today I will hate america for... \*checks notes\* Destroying nazis ! (I'm not defending america, but good lord I'm grateful France was liberated)
Funny, that's what my psychologist said.
War is bad, there is no way to do war where it is not bad. War requires you to do bad things. The axis however, added bad things. This is not the same and a silly equivalency. Edit: Nvmnd, just read some of OPs comments. Clearly I'm wasting my time.
I smell the american 13yo child from across the internet. Allow me to explain. I am breton, living in France. As we know, we were invaded by the nazis during ww2. The nazis backed up the installation of a dictatorial regime in France based in Vichy, and the german police was allowed to roam freely into the country to arrest jews and political opponents. But that's not all. They also targetted innocent civilians. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulle\_massacre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulle_massacre) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oradour-sur-Glane\_massacre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oradour-sur-Glane_massacre) ("muuuh wikipedia". Yes, wikipedia is meant to make brief and short summaries of various topics for idiots like you) Hopefully, our english allies and later the USA, in a defensive alliance, decided to liberate the country. I am not an idiot, I know that the americans wanted to install a military government just like they did in Italy. In France, De Gaulle took power and re-installed democracy. I am aware the british government did starve indians, that the US bombed two cities full of civilians. I know that the blacks had no rights in the US. This was bad Despite both of these countries being bad, they were in a defensive alliance and liberated my country from nazism. And I am glad half of France wasn't genocided and germanised following the nazi theories of Lebensraum and Germanic superiority. But with your idiot mentality of "mmmuh no evil is better than lesser evil", the USA and UK would never have saved half of Europe from genocides and dictatoriship - while staying colonialist, racist and murderous countries - or whatever. And my country would have suffered a lot. But of course, you can't understand. You would have been safe in the USA, far away from dictatorships and genocides. You would have vertue-signaled during the entire war that the US were evil and that the nazis should not be fought. But the people would have suffered In this precise situation, the US did something good. I dont like America, but I'm glad they destroyed nazism. Otherwise, who would have did ? (Before you say "France was colonialist, it didn't deserve to be saved from nazism". Yes it was. But your average french had nothing to do with colonialism and just wanted to live in peace and democracy. The governement was to blame for colonialism, not the people, and a fortiori the ethnic minorities of France such as myself. Nobody deserves to be abandonned to nazism because of the action of their governement.) (Notice that I've been purposely ignoring the USSR from my argument for understandable reasons. They are a dictatorship and profitered off WW2 to invade half of Europe.)
>In this precise situation, the US did something good. I dont like America, but I'm glad they destroyed nazism. Otherwise, who would have did ? the soviets accounted fro 80% of the deaths in that inter-imperalist war and thats comming from a guy who hates BOTH communism and america
Read the fucking end my guy. USSR is not as bad as the nazis but not far. Hopefully the US was there
The Allies weren’t perfect, and some did horrible things. But compared to the Nazis and Imperial Japan, they were Bob Ross
If Bob murders 20 children and Jerry murders 19 children, should we say "both are bad" or should we say "Jerry wasn't perfect but he was the less evil of the two"
WWII is not as simple as your made up situation. The complexity of historical war politics are turned up to 11 in the 1940s and comparing it to a situation like that is historically dishonest.
I'm sure you'll make WWII as complicated as you need it to be to ensure that whatever country you're from were the Good Guys™
Non of the major government powers in WWII were “good guys.” But whatever hidden goal you may think the Western Allies had, their victory resulted in the return of self-governance to nations they didn’t even live in. The stated goal of the Axis was to dominate and subjugate their neighbors through violence and acts of genocide. If you aren’t convinced by me, I suggest reading about the level of devastation caused by the IJA in Asia and the Nazis in Europe. It surpasses the crimes of the Allies by such a magnitude that it makes the Western Allies *look* like the “good side” in comparison.
on a side note, before anyone brings up ukraine, i no longer support Ukraine
Take a shower go outside touch some grass and come back and tell us what you think again
just got back from touching grass supprisingly, i stlll think that ukraine is just as bad as russia
Well then either A) you're lying or B) you touched the wrong type of grass. Weed i believe it's called
The only reason why we see one side as good and the other as bad is because victors are the ones writing history. Well that and it's hard for a modern person to *not* apply their own ethical biases to past events.
Y u have stupid? Nvm you're l*ftist🍽️
the only stupid one here is you and everyone else who supports anyside in war
This world doesn't run on hugs although i don't support and i find it stupid i also find it necessary some times. I wasn't going to be born if i didn't try to fight may to my mother's egg
Holly fuck, Emily! You're so dumb!
ah yes, im an emily because i have empathy for the victims of allied and axis atrocities fuck this sub
You should be clear. Both were bad is different to both were bad but clearly one was worse. Please explain.