[Homer_J_Simpson]

Free Republic University, Department of History presents World War II Plus 70 Years: Seminar and Discussion Forum
First session: September 1, 2009. Last date to add: September 2, 2015.
Reading assignment: New York Times articles and the occasional radio broadcast delivered daily to students on the 70th anniversary of original publication date. (Previously posted articles can be found by searching on keyword “realtime” Or view Homer’s posting history .)
To add this class to or drop it from your schedule notify Admissions and Records (Attn: Homer_J_Simpson) by freepmail. Those on the Realtime +/- 70 Years ping list are automatically enrolled. Course description, prerequisites and tuition information is available at the bottom of Homer’s profile. Also visit our general discussion thread.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Selections from West Point Atlas for the Second World War
Northwestern France, 1944 – The Exploitation: Operations, 14-25 August 1944
Southern France, 1944 – Operations in the South, 15-28 August, 1944
Eastern Europe, 1941: Russian Balkan and Baltic Campaigns – Operations, 19 August-31 December 1944
The Western Pacific, New Guinea, and the Philippine Islands: Allied Advances to the Palaus and Morotai, 30 July-17 September 1944 and Air Attacks on the Philippines, 7-22 September 1944
Northern Italy 1944: Allied Advance to Gothic Line, 5 June-25 August and Gains 29 August-31 December
China, 1941: Operation Ichigo, April-December 1944 and Situation 31 December
China-Burma, 1941: Third Burma Campaign – Slim’s Offensive, June 1944-March 1945

[BroJoeK]

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August 25, 1944:

• "Adolf Eichmann and his staff leave Hungary, effectively ending Nazi deportations of Hungarian Jews."

"Among the things that made Auschwitz the most horrific of the camps was the infamous selection process that took place upon the prisoners' arrival.
This photograph shows an SS man deciding who will die immediately in the gas chambers and who will work himself or herself to death as a slave of the 'master race.'
Children and pregnant women, who represented the future of the Jewish 'race,' were universally selected for the gas chambers."

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[Vaquero]

Degaulle got the honor of leading the forces into Paris and he accomplished this incredible feat despite ignoring the command orders of the Supreme Commander in all aspects before and during operation overlord and the following pushes toward Paris. An effete big nosed lumbering gawk who did more for the Germans by his narcissistic self importance than any help he might have given to the allies.

Ah Politics.

[Hebrews 11:6]

On your page 1 map, that wouldn’t be a blot of mustard just over Dijon, would it?

[PapaNew]

Headlines Aug 25, 1944: The Tide of the Battle Surges into the Capital of France

Headlines 70 years later: French government dissolved amid turmoil

[PapaNew]

I feel bad for Bulgaria and the Balkins who have two enemies: the Nazis and the Russians. You feel like, at a certain point, it’s not the Nazis, but the Soviets that pose the greatest threat to free countries.

Although I don’t think we’re at that point yet, I’m not sure why we had to ally ourselves with the Soviets in such a way as to agree to anything other than what we were doing: liberating countries and turning the countries back to their own governments and people. I think we should have demanded the same from Stalin. I mean, it wasn’t like they would get mad and go home - they were fighting for their own country.

Seems like our next priority after beating the Germans was ensuring the freedom of Allied-occupied countries. I don’t think “politics” should have stood in the way of ensuring peoples lives would not go from German totalitarianism to Soviet totalitarianism.

Of course this contemplates another war. The only people who would have wanted that were the people who were about to be enslaved by the Soviet regime. I don’t think it was a secret how many millions of Russian citizens Stalin had killed or banished to Siberian desolation.

From the beginning, we should, IMO, have had the foresight to set our expectations that the the Russians stay permanently within its own pre-war borders and negotiate with them along those lines. You get the feeling that instead, Stalin is dictating post-war terms to Roosevelt and Churchill (I think Churchill had a clearer idea of Stalin than Roosevelt).

The eastern Europe “buffer” thing was an obvious excuse for territorial expansion by a clearly dangerous government. In that sense I think Patton was right. Nevertheless, it seems that Roosevelt the socialist was “soft on communism” and probably not enough people could see past the exhausting victory we had just won. One notable exception was Patton.

It sometimes seems more difficult to win a just peace than to win a war.

[PapaNew]

German pockets of resistance in France...the status of Bordeaux is still not clear.

Yup, gonna have a tough time wrenching those Nazis away from that delightful wine.

[BluH2o]

Ping for later ... interesting.