Today is the 1st of September (WWII start in Poland)

By Freikorps?

In fact, the Great War Of The 20th Century as Historians tend to call it (or the 30-year war of the 20th Century) started on 28th of July 1914 and ended 15th of August 1945, or to be even more precise, November 1990 as there was never a peace treaty signed between the Allies and Nazi Germany. This took place at the Conference of Helsinki of November 1990. Ceremonial, yes, but it was the official end of the Second World War, the third phase of the Great War of the 20th Century.

First phase has become known as WW1, Second phase was the period of formation of new nations, several smaller wars being fought as part of the bigger conglomerate of instability caused by 19th Century politics. Therefore, Historians speak also of the "Long 19th Century, which started basically with the French Revolution in 1789 and ended with the outbreak of the Great War of the 20th Century in 1914.

The Cold War can be regarded as the Fourth phase, however, Historians still debate whether to include this or not. They do agree however, that the Cold War was created during the GWOTTC.

>^..^<

M-G (so perhaps we could all commemorate the 28th of July?)

liberation from or by?


- of course there were reasons, there's always someone who has reasons etc.
But the day of actual attack is to be remembered, don't you think?


- it was not an invasion but a swift anschluss.
The actual attack on an independent neighboring country took place 71 years ago, please don't write new history.

*nods*

Here more and more historians agree...but some go even further...for them the great european war ended only in 1989 !

In Yugoslavia there was still fight in the 90's.
Anschluss was for Austria.Czechoslovakia was invaded.

But that had nothing to do with the reasons for the great european war...
If Tito hadn't died there would be probably still a Yugoslavia!

it's quite easily to understand, during ww2. there was 3 fractions.

"Allies" (the West)
Axis (Nazi Germany with their vassals)
Commitern (Soviet Union)

So when did just 1 stand victorious?
In 1989...

Who won?

That's why I added the conference of Helsinki of November 1990. That is namely where the peace treaty between Germany and the Allies finally was signed. There wasn't one signed in 1945.


Until 1945, the Soviet Union was considered an Ally too. After all, she fought Germany, didn't she? And after May 1945, she fought also Japan.


In a way you're right - Yugo was born out of the first phase of the GWOTTC and it was also one of the reasons 19th Century policies collapsed and descended into the enivitable war that had to follow. But others say there were too many other factors in play in the Yugo wars that they only loosely can be connected to the GWOTTC.

Other Historians (among them Fischer) contribute the GWOTTC to the coming into existence of Germany as a unified state and her two attempts to achieve hegemony, but I don't fully agree to that: the first phase could hardly be described as a German attempt to achieve hegemony; too much traditionalism, militarism and old style politics in a new environment involved to be just that - the third phase definitively can be described as that.


Actually we owe it to Markovic that the war didn't burst out already in the mid of the 80's. He wasn't a good president, but he managed very well in balancing on the edge of the ethnic powder keg that Yugo was. This also proves basically that the Yugo wars had de facto nothing to do with the breakdown of the East Bloc - if it weren't for Markovic' skills in keeping the country together, it would have perhaps burst open as soon as 1982, about one year after Tito's death. All that taken into account, I know the Serbs look upon Markovic as a loser, but he prevented what later on Milosevic couldn't prevent. Be it willfully or not willfully.

Celebration of the German invasion I found a little odd to be honest.

There is a celebration, and there is a commemoration. Two different animals.

Surly nothing wrong with that, but then again that commemoration goes year after year - wouldn't it be better to concentrate on polish achievements or polish victories, I found those commemorations a little depressing.I think that aim of such commemorations should be to uplift the nation spirit not to put it down.

I know that celebrations - commemorations of the 1st September were carried out during the time of communist regime in Poland - maybe it was their socio-technical and devious way of keeping Poles and their spirit down ?

Sorry Bzibzioh, no offence ....

Actually they did.
Tag der Befreiung and Tag des Sieges in East Germany.

Commie history....suuuuure....
Well (for them it was!)

Well, the Commies beat the Nazis, didn't they? The Russians, that is.

No, they didn't!

(Or you would call the whole Allies alliance commie...)

American aid helped the Soviets but nevertheless, they killed 85% of all Germans and therefore it can be said that the Russians are the ones who did the brunt work of destroying the fascists.

@Bratwurst: Oh stop it. The Russians were part of the Allies until 1945/46 and as being so, they defeated the Nazis. So the Russians have every right to hold a "victory day".

@Zimmy: with over 20 million deaths and about 4 years of continuous fighting they did indeed bear the brunt of the Second World War (or the Third Phase).

>^..^<

M-G (remember that the Cold War started after 1945)

Where did I deny that?
But you said:


I would not even call the majority of the Russians Commies, not to speak of the overwhelming majority of the other Allies. For them it was a defense war (not that they had much choice with the machine guns of the NKVD behind them anyhow).

It was more a case of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend".

The commies profited from Hitlers stupidity....if he had been smarter he would had build a world wide anti-Stalin alliance.

No, the Commies didn't beat Hitler!

PS: In the first weeks of Barbarossa the Wehrmacht took Millions of russian soldiers POW...they were not fanatical commies wanting to fight to the death for the "cause".

Only as became known that Hitler had likewise not their best in mind they decided rather to fight than just to lay their weapons down.

And you think an American or British soldier wasn't shot if he refused to fight?

There had been actually only one case of that (Cowardice in front of the enemy) in the US army (Pvt Slovik) and only a few in the british army (and both after they had their trials)...as far as I know.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Slovik

Correct me if I'm wrong...

None taken.


Well, what can you do when a country had more sad moments than good to remember from it's own history. Faking cheeriness(sp?) would also be not healthy.

I agree that some of those anniversaries, or an overexposure of them, are remnants from commie times.

Still, German commies.

Commies know no tribes and national pride....

The german commies licked Stalins boots long before Hitler!
Polish commies had been quite grateful too...

So if a German becomes a commie then that person is not German anymore?

Good. I hope you remember that when you discuss Polish commies in the context of German expellees after WW2.

Are playing dumb with purpose or are you that really so stupid?

Not in 1871?

Lame attempt at avoiding the answer.
If East Germans were not really Germans because they were commies then what was the whole reunification about? BRD reunified with what, if there were no Germans to the East of them?

The German unification indeed disrupted the second concert of Vienna system, in that sense that the Great European Powers of the day didn't have a playground anymore to fight their wars and it further complicated the already complicated balance of power kept in place by the concert system. It contributed indirectly indeed to the collapsing of 19th century politics in 1914, but only as one of many factors, therefore I wouldn't say that the GWOTTC started with the unification of Germany in 1871. There were too many other factors to point out this event as cause.

Edit: if one wants to point out this unification as cause, one can just as easily point out France under Napoleon 3 as cause - her entire politics were aimed at disrupting the balance of power, which originally was aimed at containing France anyway, and caused liaisons to form all over Europe, which eventually led the the system to collapse under its own weight.

>^..^<

M-G (tiens)

Hmm....not 1871 per se...I would agree with the date of the ousting of Bismarck...here rational and well balanced foreign policy ended.


Then stop vomiting such crap!
Or I will call all Poles Commies (and I would have even more right to do that after all they were allies with Stalin).