10 World War II Myths That You Believe Because of Hollywood - TopTenz Reaction

welcome back everyone to another reaction video well uh everybody's talking about World War II right now because of Masters of the air and I wanted to take a look at some myths that sometimes people believe from World War II because of Hollywood and I know in talking to a lot of my uh British friends for example that one of the things they really hate is how often in TV shows and movies there's this portrayal of the United States kind of coming in saving the day and winning the war all by itself and the British are always these snotty people who look down on everyone else and those kinds of stereotypes and of course me being somebody who loves the UK but is an American I don't really see that as much as they do but I guess we're all a little biased toward our own side of things uh so I'm interested to see what is covered in this video from top 10 which is one of Simon's many channels uh this is top uh 10 World War II myths you believe because of Hollywood as always I'll put the link down in the description so you can check it out without my commentary let's go ahead and dive in during the second world war the US government combined with two other major influences of public opinion Hollywood and Madison Avenue to support the war effort propaganda flowed through both Industries until it saturated American daily life in Great Britain Churchill's stirring rhetoric spurred patriotic feeling affecting the English-speaking peops on both sides of the Atlantic in news reals films radio broadcasts newspaper and magazine articles information about the war supplanted all other news and entertainment the result was inaccuracies and misinformation entering the Public's Consciousness where it has remained ever since information meant to boost morale gradually became accepted facts despite the inherent inaccuracies dictated by War conditions so let's talk about that for a minute because sometimes the inaccuracies are intentional sometimes things are spun a certain way uh sometimes it's not necessarily untrue but it's so heavily focused on certain things that it can lead to people believing that certain things are only that way when there was another side to it sometimes it's just because so much of the stuff was made like there were being there were movies being made while the war was going on uh sometimes it was just not having all the information you know some of the stuff that we know about history today we only found out decades later after some of the events took place or even longer so our understanding of events is constantly evolving based on new information that we find it's not revisionist history it's just better understanding the history with more information added to what we already know so it's a mix of all of those things many remain in the public Minds though they have long been disproven fighting Hollywood has never been easy when attempting to correct the historical record so here are 10 myths about World War II either created or long maintained by the entertainment industry number 10 American Americans supported rationing on the home front wholeheartedly American life during World War II is portrayed in films and television as one of unity and unfl flagging support for the troops and the government fighting the war often they are depicted humorously such as films using housing shortages to set up romantic comedies the effects of rationing when they are presented at all are seen as being mere inconveniences Americans stoically and even enthusiastically supported rationing as their willing contributions to the war efforts according to philm in reality rationing was almost universally resenting and widely subverted through the black markets which thrived during the war hundreds of items were rationed during the war and ration books and prices change frequently Americans resented the need to budget both ration coupons and cash to purchase items they perceived to be widely available among the items most widely purchased via black markets or counterfeit ration coupons were meat sugar and gasoline one enterprising journalist purchased over a ton of Black Market beef or within a 30m radius of Pittsburgh in just a few hours during the war the government produced scores of posters denouncing black markets and encouraging Americans to refuse to patronize those Merchants who cheated the system their existence and the efforts of the office of price Administration Opa to suppress black marketeers and rationing cheats throughout the war stand as clear evidence to the range of rationing resistance within America during the war number nine so what I'll do is I'll let each one of these play all the way through and then I'll just stop at the end of it before he goes into the next one we'll talk about it uh yeah obviously nobody was happy about rationing I you wouldn't expect anybody to be like yes we have to sacrifice but I think a lot of people did understand it even if they didn't like it and you can't really expect the government to be making videos for public consumption of people complaining about rationing uh you're you're obviously going to focus on the people who are going to speak in favor of something that's going to help you is that propaganda I guess technically it is because it's not telling the whole story I don't think it's necessarily a lie if you're showing people who really do feel that way I I totally get why people did that I I don't know I guess I've never really felt like people were universally in support of rationing during the war maybe we'll get to some more significant ones than that but I get why there would be a focus on making films that support the war effort it just makes sense and they hired a lot of Hollywood people to do this Ronald Reagan was in the military during World War II but he didn't fight he was he actually narrated a lot of those films that were made during the war they wanted Clark Gable and Jimmy Stewart and others to do the same thing but like Jimmy Stewart actually flew bombing missions over Germany during World War II uh Clark Gable flew a few bombing missions as well as a Observer and a tail I think he was a a tail Gunner I think he was a gunner um and did like five combat missions and uh then his Studio kind of convinced the government to pull him off of combat Duty Germany possessed a highly mechanized Army which overwhelmed the Allies early in the war the perception born in in the early days of the war that the German Army was a heavily mechanized armored Juggernaut remains a facet of films set in World War II When The War Began the German Army the here consisted of about 135 divisions only 16 of those divisions were fully mechanized the others had a few motorized vehicles such as staff cars for officers and motorcycles for Messengers the German Army which rapidly swept over most of Western and Eastern Europe was a horsedrawn army dependent upon animal transport to move its equipment supplies ammunition and heavy guns when the Germans invaded France in 1940 the French had more tanks and most of them were more powerful than the German enemies they also possessed more heavy guns and about the same number of troops what allowed the Germans to Prevail over the French in a relatively short campaign was the highly Innovative tactics developed and deployed by the here as well as the air superiority achieved by the luer yet the image Still Remains of the highly mechanized German Army overwhelming its enemies by sheer number of tanks and armored vehicles throughout the war about 75 to 80% of German combat troops relied on animal transport in the field and rail transports to and from the battlefronts number eight yeah absolutely true um it was all about tactics for the Germans the the French did have a more powerful Army on paper than the Germans did uh the Germans just surprised them they they surprised them by putting tanks through areas that the French didn't think tanks could go through and by the time they even realized what was happening the Germans were already behind them um it it was all about surprise the the kind of shock and awe sort of thing um one thing a statistic that really surprised me when I read and I don't have the numbers in front of me but you can look it up is uh I think it was actually a book that I read recently they talked about the number of people by country who had familiarity with driving a motor vehicle of some kind and in the United States it was by far so much more frequent than it was in any other place including Germany where like a really small percentage of people even owned automobiles or or knew how to operate one so even just the number of people who knew how to drive things like tanks and trucks was relatively small and had to be trained up now that's not to say that the Germans didn't eventually develop a much much bigger Army but in 1939 it wasn't there yet the American Military was made up of eager patriotic volunteers American conscription during World War II began in 1940 just over one year before the attack on Pearl Harbor drew the United States into the war following that attack there was a brief surge of enlistments but by early 1943 the draft was fully established as the portal of entry into the US military Americans registered in the draft were assigned a draft number numbers to be inducted were selected by Lottery drawn at random those selected were instructed to report to their draft boards for induction 2/3 of the American men who served in the military during the war were conscripted drafted into military service based on needs rather than patriotism in comparison during the Vietnam war about onethird of troops had drafted draft exemptions were decided for the most part by the local draft boards they were made up of prominent local businessmen and political figures as in all wars in which conscription was used to recruit American troops there was resistance and abuses of the system were not uncommon number seven yeah I will say this about the draft though it got to a place where the United States military actually stopped volunteer enlistments and only did draft and the reason for that among other things was that when people volunteered they got to pick where they served if they were in the tank Corps or the Airborne or in the Navy or in the Army Air Corp things like that uh and and the problem was that people volunteered for the more popular choices and needs weren't being filled in other areas and so they stopped volunteer enlistment altogether and and the only way that people entered at that point was by the draft so that they can make sure that people people were getting where they needed to be RL was an Ardent anti-nazi who opposed Hitler and led a noble campaign with his Africa core it is true that Irwin RL arguably the most famous German Commander during World War II was not a member of the Nazi party but it is equally true that roml personally supported Hitler was a long member of his Circle and even commanded his personal guard during the Polish campaign in film he has frequently depicted as the brilliant commander of the German Africa Corp his most brilliant operation was a 1,400 mile retreat eluding numerically Superior British forces rbl's Legends began during the war presented to the German people as propaganda from Joseph Geral to raise morale following the War British and American sources added to the myth of both his Battlefield Brilliance and his participation in the war as a good German as in a professional Officer and a Gentleman the distinction was necessary to the Western allies in postwar Europe as justification for restoring the West German Army considered a cold war necessity R did perform spectacularly in commands in France and North Africa early in the war and it was he who supervised the construction of most of the Atlantic Wall the German defenses against the Allied invasion of France yet he fully supported Hitler through most of the war and did not support assassinating the fur his Legend was born largely through German propaganda Church chilian rhetoric and concerted revision of History by the Allies in the postwar era number six yeah uh I mean that's all true uh really not a lot I can say about that um it's still debated whether or not he had knowledge of the July plot against Hitler in 1944 it's almost certainly clear that he wasn't an active participant in it but he may have known something about it and and it's fair to to think that raml like a lot of higher ups even within Hitler's Inner Circle by late in the war was fairly disillusioned with how things were going and with the leadership at that point but he he never really spoke out real vocally against it and he ends up having to take his own life because of his the implication of him in the plot against Hitler um and they have this big funeral for him and and the propaganda continues uh we do that though especially with figures who die in the middle of the war that made them makes them famous we tend to mythologize them a lot more look at who we mythologize from the past right we raml from World War II and part of that is the whole clean verock myth this idea that uh yeah the SS and the Nazi were bad but the regular German army they were all great and they hated the Nazis and that kind of stuff did that exist absolutely and that's far too much to go into in this video but uh the idea that they were all good and and honorable I mean there were dishonorable people in every Army but um Patton we mythologize quite a bit he died right at the end of World War II we mythologize Stonewall Jackson because he died in the middle of the Civil War uh we mythologized John F Kennedy because he was assassinated and so there's always that what if Factor what would have happened afterwards and and did they reach their full potential and what might have changed if they had lived and R's no different the Germans were obsessed Patton regarding him as the Allies most feared Commander the 1970 Academy award-winning baric pattern starring George C Scott as the flamboyant American General depicts an infactuation by his German adversaries with his whereabouts the portrayal of a German command structure obsessed with the activities of the man they viewed as the most feared of all the Allied command ERS Patton would have certainly endorsed such an image but post-war analysis as long indicated the Germans held Paton in no such or in fact prior to his assuming commands of the third Army in 1944 they paid little attention to him at all patteron was a master of self-promotion one of the first American commanders to include a press officer as a member of his staff he dressed flamboyantly often wearing riding breaches and boots he wore Ivory gripped pistols and adopted a highly polished helmet with his General Stars prominently displayed in Sicily he used his pistols to personally shoot two mules blocking a bridge and made certain that war correspondents accompanying his troops knew about it in a book he wrote between the world wars The Secret of Victory Patton wrote the leader must be an actor he is unconvincing unless he lives his part Patton spent His World War II years living his part frequently to the exasperation of his superiors but to his German adversaries he was simply a primadonna not a commander that they feared above all others I will say this first of all the movie uh a lot of the events that you see in the movie did happen pretty much the way they're shown uh the movie gets a lot of things right uh the the biggest thing the movie gets wrong other than what he just mentioned about how the Germans were kind of obsessed with Patton as the best leader in uh in the Allies uh is Patton himself I think I I love George C Scott is Patton I think he captures the ethos of Patton brilliantly but the voice is very different Patton did not have a a Gruff kind of grally tough sounding voice he actually kind of talked like this I mean that's a really poor imitation of it but he had a kind of a high voice uh not at all a tough sounding guy there's a couple videos of him speaking toward the end of the war you can see that but he was a tough dude uh I will say this the Allies obviously thought something of the German thoughts about Patton because they put him in command of a fic I ious Army um to convince the Germans that he was going to be in charge of the army that made The Landings uh that were going to happen supposedly at Cala so they must have thought that the Germans thought highly enough of him to put him in command of that Army yeah a lot of the myth of Patton a lot of what he did that really made a mark for himself happens after D-Day when he's given third Army and when they kind of Race Across France uh but he did do some things uh well in North Africa and in Sicily and uh for the first two years of the war he's probably the most accomplished American General um but he couldn't get out of his own way uh incidents in Sicily and things he said to the Press stuff like that um kind of hurt him in the long run but uh brilliant dashing confident Commander but also an insecure man at times uh when you read a lot of the stuff that he wrote in his journals very insecure very concerned about what people thought of him stuff like that number five after the fall of France Great Britain stood alone against Germany in film after film depicting the fall of France the beginning of the Battle of Britain emphasis is placed on the British standing alone against the might of Germany and their Italian allies the myth of Britain's lone stand against what Churchill described as Nazi tyranny began with his speeches to Parliament and to the British people at the time it many of them he was actually speaking to the American people hoping through his rhetoric to exploit traditional American Sympathy for the underdog but Britain did not stand alone following their Retreat from Dunkirk and are the Chanel ports and the subsequent surrender of the French in 1940 the British Empire covered more than 25% of the globe Britain could and did draw resources and men from Canada India Asia South Africa redia Australia New Zealand and its islands in the Caribbean and elsewhere the Empire held vast reserves of oil rubber coal iron ore and food STS from around the world Churchill's rhetoric and the jingoistic recording of history in the post-war era led to the creation of the Britain stood alone myth a simple review of The Facts reveals the myth is romantic nonsense even the deservedly idolized pilots of the RAF were not simply British standing alone against Hitler pilots from South Africa redia Netherlands Poland France Belgium Canada and even volunteers from the United States all flew with the Royal air force during Britain's Darkest Hour number four I'll say this about that territorially speaking in Europe Britain was standing alone they were the only part of Europe that was fighting against the Germans that hadn't been conquered at that point uh so I wouldn't go so far as to say no they weren't standing alone because they had their whole empire I get it I get why it seems that way uh but also this again was about propaganda this is about Churchill trying to build build up the morale of the British people about how they were standing alone against Nazi tyranny and and yeah and some of his speeches he even you can tell he's directly calling out the Americans because when he talked about how even if Britain was conquered he he without saying the United States by name he implied that they would eventually figure it out and they would come to their rescue and take it back for them uh so all of this is about psyche and propaganda and morale and and boosting your willingness to stand and fight so I I wouldn't call that one strictly a myth there is some truth to the whole standing alone thing the Battle of Britain was David and Goliath events with the British a decided Underdog during the Battle of Britain the area or Campaign which attempted to induce Britain to surrender or face Invasion several advantages were held by the British first and probably most decisive was Britain's Advanced early warning radar Communications and control systems which allowed the RAF to scramble Fighters and Vector them to intercept incoming German aircraft chain home stations made operational just before the war gave the British a descided Advantage allowing them to keep aircraft on the ground until they were needed rather than expending precious fuel in patrols most of the airto air combat which took place during the battle did so in British Skies men who had to abandon their aircraft and ba out for the most part landed in Britain or Scotland or in the waters nearby Pilots could quickly return to duty once any injuries healed German Pilots became prisoners of War most of whom eventually were sent to Canada for the duration German aircraft consumed considerable amounts of fuel just to arrive over Britain and were thus Limited in the time available for combat before they had to disengage and return to base the Battle of Britain took its name from yet another speech by Winston Churchill and ended in a decisive defeat for the Germans and humiliation for Herman ging's lwaa it remains a battle surrounded with myths and mythconceptions but it was never a David versus Goliath Affair about 2,900 fighter pilots flew for the RAF during the battle roughly the same number as did for the Germans of those 2,900 about 20% came from Nations other than Britain including exiled Europeans pilots from the Empire and American volunteers number three so yeah I I agree it was less David and Goliath than sometimes people think but what the British had going for him was a major home field advantage all the stuff he just mentioned they were fighting at home they could concentrate on where the attacks were coming and not have to cover everything all at once their pilots if they got shot down and survived could get another another plane to fly whereas Germans were captured all of that absolutely helped uh there were also some serious mistakes made by Herman guring in leading the Luft Waffa uh where there were moments when the Germans probably could have won the Battle of Britain but made critical errors at critical times and the one thing I I'll take a little bit of exception with as he said that basically they were trying to force the British to surrender I think h would have been perfectly content not with British surrender but with the British just negotiating a piece and saying we're out I don't think Hitler felt the need to conquer the British Isles he just didn't want to have to fight them anymore he would have been fine with them saying we're done white peace we're out of this but that was never going to happen certainly not with Churchill in charge German war crimes were committed by the SS and gapo not the fear marked begin beginning in the 1950s as the extent of German war crimes continued to be revealed the myth of the clean ver Mark emerged reinforced by films and television programs the myth holds that the Gusto and the vaan SS committed war crimes across Europe without the participation or even the knowledge of the V Mark by the way theark refers to the German military comprised during World War II of the H the Army The Creeks Marine the Navy and the lwfa the Air Force in post-war Europe as it became apparent the Soviets had no intention of withdrawing from the countries overran during the war the Western allies needed to strengthen their positions the creation of a West German Army was encouraged with the support of Western leaders including eisenh how the German military was absolved of guilt for war crimes during the war with all blame being assigned to the Nazi SS and Gusto the clean V marked was born out of Cold War necessity the myth remains but it's false her troops engaged in war crimes against civilians from the earliest days of the campaign in Poland in 1939 they were rationalized as necessary for security against part an attacks or simply obeying orders but they were nonetheless war crimes willingly committed not every German Soldier committed war crimes of course but every branch of the German military as well as the German paramilitary units did yeah and it's important to note that a number of ver moed generals and uh other members of the military were executed for war crimes uh that they were absolutely aware of and in many cases ordered to have happen some guys got away with it though guys like yoe Piper who um whose men very famously committed the malody massacre uh but you know what there were things like that that happened under Patton for example the 11th armor division during the Battle of the Bulge massacred a bunch of German soldiers it got brushed under the rug um yeah this was the the clean verm is not an a German only invention uh before the war was even over people were already thinking about the post-war world and the big Showdown that was going to happen between uh the Soviets and the Western allies who right now it's the enemy of my enemy as my friend but once the enemy is taken out there were a lot of Germans who thought that they could get the Western allies to team up with them to take out the Soviets that was kind of how things were viewed and while the Western allies weren't going to go that far they did need to think about a post-war world where they were going to need Germans on their side and the three areas that became Western became West Germany the three occupation zones for the French the British and the Americans uh required that some of these guys who were high- ranking ver mocked officers were going to have to continue to be in the west German Army and a lot of them did continue to serve to the atomic bomb caused the Japanese to surrender the Japanese surrendered because of the atomic bombs which fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki every film which covers the end of the Pacific War says so in many an image of a mushroom cloud preced scenes of people celebrating in Time Square what is uncovered is the fact that the two atomic bombings were not the most devastating bombing raids on Japan during the war 60 Japanese cities had already been destroyed by bombing raids including the dreaded fire bombings which terrorize the civilian population there were many factors which allowed Japan to accept surrender though the supposed unconditional surrender included several conditions which they insisted upon one was the right to keep the emperor on his throne another was the withdrawal of Soviet troops following the ation of war on Japan and invasion of Manchuria the Soviet invasion created a two- front War for the Japanese who had already lost their Fleet and most of their Air Forces Japan was beaten before the atomic the two bombings and the threat of more to come certainly helped convince them to stop fighting a war they had clearly lost they had no food no oil and few medicines it was clear by then to even the most rabid warmonger among them that the Americans would not quit and the Russians were coming in the end it was the Emperor who agreed to surrender and speak directly to his people people for the first time in history number one yeah and uh he still nearly faced a coup I mean there was an attempt uh by some of the higher ups in the military who did not want a surrender to happen uh and they tried to overthrow the government to keep it from happening uh yeah this is one of those ones that you can't really say one way or the other we will never be able to fully quantify and objectively state what the specific reasons were that Japan surrendered it was a number of factors he's right the firebombing was incredibly devastating and the the cities we chose to drop the atomic bombs on were cities that hadn't really been hit too heavily by the firebombing yet um the Soviet Union declaring war was a huge factor for sure I think it's all of it I think the atomic bomb certainly helped push them over the top in terms of surrender but were they the sole and deciding factor no Hitler's biggest mistake was a repeat of napoleons invading Russia in 1941 Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 was not just a mistake it was the opening Salvo and what became a series of mistakes made one after the other for the rest of the war the invading Germans carried no winter uniforms or equipment expecting a quick campaign they reason to expect such as up until then all of their land campaigns have been successful completed quickly and efficiently obviously the war with the Soviets broke that mold but it was not Hitler's biggest mistake that error was his decision to declare war on the United States in December 19 1941 in accordance with his perception of The tripartite Pact interestingly the Japanese did not respond in kind and declare war on the Soviet Union then at war with Germany Hitler declared war even though American President Franklin D Roosevelt had not mentioned Germany or Hitler in his declaration of war on Japan American outrage was directed at Japan not Germany Hitler made it easy for Roosevelt and the United States to enter the war and adopt the policy of destroying Germany first Hitler's rash decision ensured that the Allies would gain control of the Atlantic Sea lanes and the industrial might of the United States would arm his enemies they already in a death grip with the Soviet Union the Germans then faced the largest industrial economy in the world his attack on the Soviet Union ensured a long and brutal War his declaration of war on the United States would ensure he would lose it I'm not sure if I feel like it was a bigger mistake to declare war on the United States than the Soviet Union I still say the Soviet Union was the bigger mistake to make uh number one because he had a non-aggression paact with the Soviets and I think that probably would have held for a while um I mean I understand that ideologically it was like a core Nazi tenant to hate the bolix as they called them uh and they were a natural enemy that at some point he just was going to go over just because of who he was and because of who they were as Nazis but um the United States while not actively putting combat troops on the ground was certainly helping already financially economically uh in terms of supplies ammunition weapons those kinds of things the Allies in Europe already so and really North Africa was pretty minor in the grand scheme of things as far as the number of troops that were involved it's not until you get to Italy in 1943 that the US is in any substantial way contributing militarily other than the bombing raids and you can argue whether or not those made a huge difference in things so I I really really really truly believe that the Soviet Union was the much bigger mistake in terms of Declarations of War but uh that's again one of those things we can debate and talk about so let me know your thoughts about everything we just talked about in the comment section below let's have a discussion let's learn from each other let's debate in a civil way what we agree with what we disagree with with each other thanks for watching

Channel: Vlogging Through History

Views: 174,183

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Id: mjQdPlsc6Q8

Length: 30min 10sec (1810 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 30 2024