Talk:World War II

Semi-protected edit request on 28 September 2023

Maybe the Great Depression 212.82.84.162 (talk) 13:16, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

What about it, what edit do you want made? Slatersteven (talk) 13:19, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

Which causes of death were deliberate?

It says, "Many of the civilians died because of deliberate genocide, massacres, mass bombings, disease, and starvation." Does this mean that all of those five causes of death were deliberate? Or just the genocide? Or perhaps, and this seems the most likely interpretation of the existing text, all except disease and starvation? If the latter, I propose changing it to "Some of the civilians died because of disease and starvation, while many others died of deliberate genocide, massacres, and mass bombings." Polar Apposite (talk) 18:01, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

I have removed the sentence because it doesn't mean anything and is unsourced. All genocides are deliberate by definition. And "many died" begs the question of "how many". Presumably the civilian deaths discussed in the article include those who died in fighting and bombings and deliberate starvation but the article doesn't actually make this explicit. Nor do I see how one can separate "deliberate starvation" from starvation caused by disruption of agriculture and other food supplies. My guess is that some authors also include those who died by disease but some don't. However, this needs to be made clear in the discussion of the figures. The only scientific way of determining total civilian deaths would be by demographic analysis of total excess deaths then subtracting known military deaths. Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 22:27, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Editnotices/Page/World War II

Template:Editnotices/Page/World War II has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the entry on the Templates for discussion page. 65.92.244.127 (talk) 05:48, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

Italian Forces in the Med and in the Middle East and the Balkans

For Matija Grabnar, in case if you see this. Italy was the main Axis power in The Mediterranean and Middle East Theatre of World War II.Images about Italian forces should also be there . The Deutches Afrika Korps was just a contingent to support the Italian War Effort after the defeat at Operation Compass. For Tylerburden . The Axis Invasion of Yugoslavia and Greece was directly German And Italian Forces , they even had the Hungarian support for the invasion, but with the exception of the invasion of Greece because no Hungarian forces participated in it . Look kindly at the page of Invasion of Yugoslavia and Battle of Greece. Regards from Jheeeeeeteegh (talk) 23:17, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Due to Italy's failures in Africa, the Afrika Korps ended up being quite a bit more than just a contingent, and actively took place in notable fighting. It therefore doesn't seem necessary to change the image since it appears to have been in use for some time now. TylerBurden (talk) 00:14, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

Yes indeed the DAK was noted for its notable fighting with Rommel. But The DAK had to rely on newly arrived Italian units because Most of Axis Troops in Libya were Italian. Rommel used the Italian troops as spearhead of the attack while the DAK will support the attack against the British and other Commonwealth forces in Cyrenaica with the example of this like Operation Sonnenblume. Regards from Jheeeeeeteegh (talk) 00:45, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

Commanders and leaders

I've been thinking that Hideki Tojo should be listed as the Axis leader of Japan instead of Hirohito. Winston Churchill and Benito Mussolini, both prime ministers of the other two constitutional monarchies involved, are in the commanders section so Hirohito seems like an odd one out. From what I recall Hirohito was a figurehead who spent much of his time in his laboratory studying marine biology, while Tojo handled all military and political matters, planning much of Japan's military campaigns during the war. I do know that Hirohito had some considerable influence in Japanese politics of the time, pressing for and announcing Japan's surrender, and the Imperial Japanese forces fought in his honor. However, the British fought in King George VI's honor, yet Winston Churchill is still listed as the main Allied leader of the UK. In much Allied propaganda from the war, Tojo was portrayed alongside Hitler and Mussolini as the Axis leader of Japan much more commonly than Hirohito was, and was mentioned more often in speeches, newspaper articles, etc. as the man behind Japan's aggression and military expansion. In addition Tojo was executed shortly after the war while Hirohito stayed on the throne until his death. I know this is a highly important article so I thought I would try and get consensus for this before making what would probably be considered a major edit. HawkNightingale175 (talk) 02:07, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

The whole idea, given the sheer size of this conflict, makes no sense. who do we define as a commander, head of state, PM CinC, theater commanders? Which nations only the big three, all? Might be best to leave it out. Slatersteven (talk) 11:06, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

Well, once again I'll axplain my view on this topic: There are more and more historians who consider that Hirohito was in no way a figurehead.

Three examples:

• Kenneth J. Ruoff, Director of the Center for Japanese Studies at Portland State University, writes in his book The People’s Emperor: Democracy and the Japanese Monarchy, 1945-1995 (2001, p.127) that "If 'war responsibility' means participating in the policymaking process that led to the commencement and prosecution of an aggressive war (for many Japanese, the key issue was the responsibility for defeat, not complicity in an aggressive war), then there is growing evidence that Emperor Hirohito played a considerable role in this area".
• Peter Wetzler writes in his recent book Imperial Japan and Defeat in the Second World War: The Collapse of an Empire (2020, p.175) that "During the Tokyo War Crimes Trials the testimony offered by Tôjô Hideki, and gladly accepted by US officials, succeeded in exonerating the Shôwa Emperor of war guilt. The debate, however, about Hirohito's participation in political and military affairs during the Second World War -whether or not (at first) and to what extent (later)- still continues. It will animate authors for years to come. Now most historians acknowledge that the Emperor was deeply involved, like all nation-state leaders at that time."
• Takahisa Furukawa, expert on wartime history from Nihon University, described Hideki Tojo with this words: "Tojo is a bureaucrat who was incapable of making own decisions, so he turned to the Emperor as his supervisor. That's why he had to report everything for the Emperor to decide. If the Emperor didn't say no, then he would proceed." We can see it in this article.

The unsettled controversy among the historians regarding Hirohito's role in the war means that ignoring the emperor to name his prime minister between 1941 and 1944 as the sole leader would deviate from neutrality to clearly side with Hirohito's apologists. It could be discussed whether the old consensus (naming only the leader who remained throughout the war, that is, Hirohito) is sufficient, or whether Tojo should be named along with Hirohito, but never replacing him.

And this essentially sums up my point of view. This issue has been discussed many times before, but I have no problem explaining how I see it as many times as required.Ulises Laertíada (talk) 22:35, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

In terms of Wetzler's quote, if Hirohito was deeply involved "like all nation-state leaders", wouldn't that imply that George VI and Victor Emmanuel, who were both Heads of State of their respective countries, were deeply involved in the war as well?

Furthermore, I feel as if the counterargument that Tojo wasn't PM for the entire war kind of falls flat. Churchill, Roosevelt, Hitler and Mussolini didn't lead their country for the war's entirety either and yet they are still listed. Furthermore you say that Hirohito appointed Tojo, yet Churchill and Mussolini were also appointed by monarchs, hell even Hitler was appointed by Paul von Hindenburg.

Also I'm not sure if this would be relevant to the discussion but in terms of Furukawa's quote, should contemporary Japanese sources be considered reliable? Japan has a history of covering up their war crimes so I wouldn't fully trust their views on the war. HawkNightingale175 (talk) 04:44, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

• Wetzler's quote implies nothing regarding George VI or Victor Emmanuel since he makes no explicit comparison with them. Rather, it can be deduced that it refers to effective leaders of each nation, whether they are monarchs or not. To persist in affirming that Hirohito is the same as George VI or Victor Emmanuel III without distinction, when it is a fact that there is a growing number of historians who question it, is as sterile as insisting on citing Theobald von Bethmann Holweg instead of Wilhelm II in World War I under the same argument. Wetzler mentions "The debate about Hirohito's participation in political and military affairs during the Second World War -whether or not (at first) and to what extent (later)-": Is there any debate among historians about George VI's or Victor Emmanuel III's participation in political and military affairs during the Second World War? As far as I know, no. This marks a very significant difference with respect to Hirohito's case, enough so that it cannot be dismissed as an equal to the British and Italian cases.
• I have not based my position on how long Tojo was PM during the war (the dates are indicative only). What I have said is that there is controversy among historians about the exact extent of the emperor's involvement in wartime decisions and that it would not be neutral to ignore this fact by citing only one of his prime ministers, omitting him.
• Your argument on Takahisa Furukawa doesn't hold up. In his quoted sentence, he is analyzing a memorandum from Vice Minister Yuzawa from 1941. In that memorandum, as we read in the data collected in the indicated link, we only find descriptions of events on the eve of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Nothing that can be considered a "cover-up" of any war crime. It is the modern historian Furukawa who describes Tojo's role in light of the facts that the documents of the time indicate, it is not Yuzawa who verbatim gives that description of the Prime Minister. It is a conclusion of the historian, not a "cover-up" by the vice minister of the time. In short, your argument on Furukawa's description is not valid.

So I must reiterate my position: I'm open to discussing whether or not it would be appropriate to cite Tojo alongside Hirohito, but I must definitely say no to replacing the latter with the former.Ulises Laertíada (talk) 08:00, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

You might want to read up about the Kyūjō incident, in which a group of Japanese generals attempted to overthrow the Emperor. Thus proving that the not all of the Japanese military leadership blindly followed the Emperor. Furthermore Tojo was a dictator who seized power like Hitler and Mussolini did, Hirohito was a monarch who inherited the position.

As for your own suggestion on whether to add Tojo as well. I'm wondering if the commanders and leaders section could be expanded to include more heads of state, heads of government, military officials, etc., but there were a lot of them and it might make the section ridiculously long. I am wondering if Charles de Gaulle could be added on the allied side. HawkNightingale175 (talk) 00:59, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

Well, I think there are some errors in your answer.

• First, the Kyūjō incident was not carried out by "a group of Japanese generals", since the highest-ranking person involved was a major. Rather it was "a group of Japanese officers", who were precisely repressed by the generals and the bulk of the army. In any case, this event indicates absolutely nothing regarding the Japanese leadership during the war, in the same way as the 20 July plot, no matter how much it proved that not all of the German military leadership blindly followed Hitler, doesn't mean that he did not lead Germany at that time.
• Second, Tojo never "seized" power. After Konoe's resignation in October 1941, Hirohito refused to appoint Prince Higashikuni in his place (against the recommendation of his advisors) and decided to appoint Tojo instead. To say that he "seized power", as if he had come to his position through some movement of his own, or even more so, as if he had carried out a coup d'état, is evidently incorrect.
• Third, to be a monarch who inherited his position is not incompatible with exercising leadership in a nation: Wilhelm II in World War I Germany or Boris III in World War II Bulgaria exercised leadership in their nations at those times.
• Fourth, although it is very common to popularly consider Tojo as a kind of "dictator", and he is often generically described as "dictatorial", in fact that is not correct since he never had true dictatorial power. Sir Max Hastings, in his book Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45 (pp. 38-39) calls Tojo "a supposed dictator" and adds that he had much less authority in militarist Japan than Churchill had in democratic Britain. A good example of this took place in 1942, when a Japanese military court sentenced eight pilots from Doolittle's squadron to death. The head of the Army Staff, General Sugiyama, insisted on carrying out the sentences, while Prime Minister Tojo wanted to keep the prisoners alive to avoid reprisals against Japanese captives in the United States. Neither of them had the authority to prevail over the other and it was Hirohito who had to decide, choosing to commute five of the death sentences and give the green light to the execution of the other three, as was carried out. Striking situation for a "dictator". In Wikipedia, "dictator" appears in Hideki Tojo, only in a negative sense, and attributed: The American historian Herbert Bix wrote that Tojo was a "dictator" only in the narrow sense that from September 1942 on, he was generally able to impose his will on the Cabinet without seeking a consensus, but at same time noted that Tojo's power was based upon support from the Emperor, who held the ultimate powers.

Of course, the question of the exact extent of Emperor Hirohito's power and involvement remains an open controversy, and for the same reason so does the Japanese wartime leadership itself. Two positions on this matter can be shown: the one that attributes effective leadership to Hirohito and the one that attributes it to a "military clique", which can be represented, for example, by Tojo. But I repeat again that it would not be neutral to omit the position that attributes leadership to the emperor to show only the other.

On my opinion on Japanese political system during World War II, I believe that the Empire of Japan was not a "dictatorship", at least as it is understood in the West. It was certainly not a democratic regime, but it was more like an oligarchy coordinated by the emperor. Minoru Genda explained that ... "the whole organization was split into three -that is, the Navy, the Army, and what is known as the government- and the only one who could coordinate the three was the emperor." We can find this in Fighting to a Finish: The Politics of War Termination in the United States and Japan, by Leon V. Sigal, published by Cornell University Press in 1988, p. 74. My personal point of view is closer to that held by Professor Herbert P. Bix, who states that ... although the emperor was more akin to an absolute rather than a constitutional monarch, he was not by nature a combative man eager to start wars. Neither was he a dictator or a Western-style wielder of despotic power like Hitler or Mussolini. Hirohito operated within a bureaucratic monarchy protected by his Meiji Constitution, and advised by his palace entourage or "court group." Not until the late 1930s did Hirohito become a real war leader, actually exercising his constitutional prerogatives of supreme command. So I repeat: my point of view is that the Japanese Empire was an oligarchy coordinated by its emperor rather than a "dictatorship" in Hitler's or Mussolini's model.

Regarding thesis of Hirohito's effective leadership, you can read these two articles, as an example:

• 5 Myths About Emperor Hirohito by historian Francis Pike.
• Hirohito: String Puller, Not Puppet by historian Herbert P. Bix.

Let us remember that, as I previously pointed out, Kenneth J. Ruoff, Director of the Center for Japanese Studies at Portland State University, writes in his book The People’s Emperor: Democracy and the Japanese Monarchy, 1945-1995 (2001, p.127) that "If 'war responsibility' means participating in the policymaking process that led to the commencement and prosecution of an aggressive war (for many Japanese, the key issue was the responsibility for defeat, not complicity in an aggressive war), then there is growing evidence that Emperor Hirohito played a considerable role in this area". When someone shows me a similar statement from any historian about the role of monarchs with less real power (like George VI or Victor Emmanuel III), then I will see some similarity between them and Emperor Hirohito during the war, but in the meantime, I reaffirm that they seem like very different cases from each other.

Another example:

Butler, Daniel Allen (October 30, 2020). Pearl: December 7, 1941. Casemate. p. 20. ISBN 978-1612009384. Retrieved December 13, 2022.; the supporting text here is ... the emperor was not only aware and informed of Japan's affairs, domestic and international, but took an active, if not always highly visible, part in them. The idea of a "Showa Restoration" - stripping the Diet, prime minister, and Cabinet of any effective power, reducing them to mere functionaries, in the process making the emperor an absolute monarch - reveals the presence of a more forceful personality willing to actually exercise his imperial power than would be expected of a detached, isolated monarch.

For all these reasons, I maintain that mention of Hirohito in the Japanese leadership is essential, regardless of whether or not it is considered necessary to add a mention of Tojo.

Finally, regarding the addition of Charles de Gaulle on the Allied side, I am not opposed, in fact I see it as very reasonable. Only, first we have to see what precedents there are in the discussion of the possible inclusion of him and if it is possible to reconsider it.Ulises Laertíada (talk) 03:41, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

There have been lots of discussions of de Gaulle here previously, and the consensus has always been to exclude him per the sources. Free France was not a major military power until the final months of the war and de Gaulle was a somewhat marginal figure in directing the Allied war effort - he wasn't even told about the Normandy invasion until a few days before it occured, for instance. Nick-D (talk) 05:59, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

OK. Nothing to object to what has already been discussed before. What came out of the previous discussions is what has to be applied when there is no new data to add.Ulises Laertíada (talk) 12:52, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 10 November 2023

I just have to correct one thing on the side bar of this page. please give me your permission 2600:1700:3680:8B70:686B:249D:2E6D:DBB2 (talk) 21:10, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

 Not done: this is not the right page to request additional user rights. You may reopen this request with the specific changes to be made and someone may add them for you, or if you have an account, you can wait until you are autoconfirmed and edit the page yourself. Hyphenation Expert (talk) 21:16, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

Add Stalin as Axis Leader

Joseph Stalin was an Axis leader and needs to be acknowledged as such. He was, with Hitler, a main initiator of the war.

Acknowledgement of his leadership of a Soviet state "Allied" with other Allied nations should also remain.

His name should be on both sides of the ledger. 148.75.168.181 (talk) 20:09, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

That's been proposed here a few times in the past, and the consensus has always been to not make this change, per what the sources say. Nick-D (talk) 22:29, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 21 November 2023

Fourbigguys4545 (talk) 17:07, 21 November 2023 (UTC) Make its date 2300 to 2400

Unless your request is a lot more specific (with sources) it cannot be actioned. Britmax (talk) 17:15, 21 November 2023 (UTC)