WW2 Start Date

[derspiess]

Is there something about me that makes me less American than you?

Yes.

[Eddie Teach]

And WHY exactly should I count that instead of Dec 7? Is there something about me that makes me less American than you?

Have you ever waved a Mexican flag in a parade?

[Viking]

Seit 8 November 1923 wird zuruckgeschossen.

[derspiess]

Also Oex, I just remembered seeing a WWII memorial in The Hague that displays 1940 - 1945.  Does that bother you as well? 

[Valmy]

Also Oex, I just remembered seeing a WWII memorial in The Hague that displays 1940 - 1945.  Does that bother you as well? 

Well all of the Netherlands is pretty strange to a foreign eye anyway.

[derspiess]

Well all of the Netherlands is pretty strange to a foreign eye anyway.

I thought it was quite nice.  And clean.

[crazy canuck]

Look Brain, you got Timmay taint +1

[Josquius]

1940-1945 isn't such a bad date unless you're Polish. There was the phoney war in '39 afterall.
Still wrong of course but not massivly so.

[Oexmelin]

Also Oex, I just remembered seeing a WWII memorial in The Hague that displays 1940 - 1945.  Does that bother you as well? 

I did not say there were no reasons for it, I said it was strange to see. I haven't seen that Dutch memorial. Perhaps in another setting and not in a memorial that reads like a tribute to Imperial Military Victories it works. It's also because the whole «War against the Nazis/Tyrany/Barbarians» gets a lot of mileage in the US, and that makes the 1941 date incongruous.

[derspiess]

1940-1945 isn't such a bad date unless you're Polish. There was the phoney war in '39 afterall.
Still wrong of course but not massivly so.

Don't discount the glorious Saar Offensive in 1939

[Iormlund]

I voted September the 1st, as it's the canonical date after all, but if I wanted to be nitpicky I would have chosen the 16th of July, 1936.

You mean July 18th. Which is indeed the right choice.

[Valmy]

Don't discount the glorious Saar Offensive in 1939

Gamelin had to make the politicians happy.

[derspiess]

I did not say there were no reasons for it, I said it was strange to see. I haven't seen that Dutch memorial. Perhaps in another setting and not in a memorial that reads like a tribute to Imperial Military Victories it works. It's also because the whole «War against the Nazis/Tyrany/Barbarians» gets a lot of mileage in the US, and that makes the 1941 date incongruous.

You said it was "horribly" strange.  But it sounds like you have a chip on your shoulder about the design more than anything, which is a different issue.

Since the US was not at war until 1941 it makes complete sense for us to list 1941 on our National World War II Memorial.  If we named it the European World War II Memorial then you'd have a legitimate gripe.

[The Larch]

I voted September the 1st, as it's the canonical date after all, but if I wanted to be nitpicky I would have chosen the 16th of July, 1936.

You mean July 18th. Which is indeed the right choice.

D'oh! Typo!

[Neil]

Compared to the battle for the fate of the entire world that was the European war yes.

Not sure how you decide the "fate of the entire world" while ignoring the war going on in fully half of it.

Even today the European region is more significant than Asia.

Don't think so.  measured on a PPP basis, Asia is way ahead in GDP.  Measured on a currency basis, Asia is still behind but of course it is growing at a much faster rate.

Back then the gap was huge.

Irrelevant.  Back then Asia has enormous numbers of human beings and large quantities of valuable resources.  That made it significant.

A key consequence of WW2 was that it accelerated the break-up of European domination of Asia, an event of world-historical significance in the Hegelian sense.  In that context, the latest round in the long-standing European civil war - although intensely and bitterly fought - was arguably of less long-term significance.

Which is all well and good, but it doesn't have anything to do with a 1937 start date.

The Japanese attack on the Allies was significant.  The start of yet another round of war between Japan and the assorted warlords of China was much less so.