Why does everyone goes crazy about WW2, yet no one gives a shit about WW1?

Because WWI destroyed the old world that no one living remembers while WWII created the shitty one we all live in.

Because it was viewed as a pointless endeavor in which millions died for no reason, the commanders and armies were all equally shitty in how they treated their soldiers, and it left a bitter taste in peoples mouths.

WWII is remembered much more fondly as a war in which fascism was crushed for good, and soldiers who fought in it felt proud of their service.

Plus a little bit of as well.

Except there was a "good/evil" distinction drawn by the Allies in WWI. They drew up a whole propaganda narrative of representative democracies versus evil oppressive autocracies and the scary inhuman Germans. We're still living off WWII propaganda because the people who fought in it are still alive and there hasn't been a war big enough to supplant those old thoughts.

Kaiser Wilhelm was very much considered the most evil man ever before Hitler was given that title. The former is now given much more varied critiques and the latter will after enough time has passed.

Yeah But it wasn't that wide Spread outside of The Anglosphere and France otherwise you would have Moralists Dutch demanding Their Goverment Hand over Willy.

You do know the "widespread" view of WWII isn't really that applicable outside of North America, Oceania, and Europe right? There's countries in Asia, Africa, South America, and the Middle East that don't demonize Hitler at all.

Can someone recommend me good books about ww1?

>Is it because Americans were barely involved in it and couldn't take the credit for the victory?

Pretty much
In case you havent noticed, America is the current cultural superpower
Entertainment is completly dominated by them.
And the reason why they spam movie and video games industry with their precious WW2 is because it's the only big war in which their role wasrelevant to the outcome

All quiet on the western front or the road back

>Is it because Americans
All this Euro butthurt.

If you're going to read Alls Quiet on the Western Front, you should also read Storm of Steel by Ernst Junger. 'All's Quiet' is historical fiction written by someone I've seen criticized as relatively un-involved with the actual horror. Storm of Steel is a memoir of someone who was actually at a bunch of the "big battles". One is about the destruction of innocence by the war, and the horrors it brought to bear. The other is a sobering memoir of the horrifying the war was, but how it changed Ernst Junger into what he thought was a better version of himself.

They're interesting to juxtapose.

Oh and I highly highly recommend Peter Hart's 'The Great War'. It's full of excerpts, interviews and memoirs from people who were there. Some of them are absolutely mind boggling.

Historians are really interested in WWI - it gets almost as much attention as WWII. You should read Alistair Horne's "Verdun" and for a post-war Europe book, Between Two Fires: Europe's Path in the 1930s is a top-notch book that really sets the stage for WWII.

Anyway, I think WWII gets more attention in general because it was much broader and in terms of intercontinental military strategy, ground-level tactics involving lots of mobile troops, mechanization, the air war, etc etc. There is a lot more stuff for laypersons to dive into regarding WWII, whereas appreciating the nuances of WWI military engagements requires a bit more attention, and has less pop cultural outlets from which to absorb information.

>. There is a lot more stuff for laypersons to dive into regarding WWII, whereas appreciating the nuances of WWI military engagements requires a bit more attention, and has less pop cultural outlets from which to absorb information.
I'm gonna go with this. WWI to people who aren't genuinely interested in WWI just sounds like
>It's another 'The General threw the youth of his nation into slaughter' episode

Plus people are just generally historically illiterate - the chronology of the 20th century means nothing to them, so the significance of the First World War is something they just don't understand. I'm a TA for a class on American history and students think WWI started anytime from 1875 to 1945 and they think it was just German people and French people running at each other from trenches until America saved the day. And that's like....a good student's understanding.

Because movies. That's all.
Nazis are good for movies, so they are used in a lot of movies. Also jews are obsessed with the Holocaust, and as a consequence with WW2, and a lot of decision makers in Hollywood have always been jews.

>Is it because Americans were barely involved in it and couldn't take the credit for the victory?
No. First, Americans don't know that. Second, people who make movies wouldn't give a shit about that.

Thanks lads

To be fair the Soviets took Berlins. The American's helped but they only lost 500,000 troops compared to the 20 million the Soviets lost.

>It ended mainly in a status quo besides the breakup of Austria-Hungary and some of the Balkan States
>status quo

I hardly see it as status quo when a majority of the great empires of that time collapsed after the war
>German Empire
>Russian Empire
>Austro-Hungarian Empire
>Ottoman Empire

The British Empire was the only empire left standing.

Short but sweet.
user, you're probably right.

John Keegan's 'The First World War' is the best one volume history.
Read Herwig's 'The Marne'. It's the best book on the beginning of the Western Front war.

...

ww2 was greater in scope, there was a clear delineation between ideologies, the war was more dynamic for sure, better equipment, airplanes wiht purpose, TANKS, a lack of trenches. Trench isn't even slogging it out as its usually depicted, its simply boring, and harder to make a movie out of

I think it's because the Holocaust lends itself to "good Allies vs evil Nazis" myth-making. Even though half of Europe ended up under Soviet occupation WW2 is still considered a black-and-white good-vs-evil affair.

WW1 on the other hand is far more difficult to simplify as "Good Allies vs Evil Central Powers"

In the UK WWI gets a lot of focus in school and our cultural life but Americans make great films and games about WWII so it's cooler.

Nah, it's because WW1 is a genuinely depressing war that was fought for no real reason. It was just a domino effect of alliances.

WW2 is about saving Europe from Nazis so it's a better story with clear good and bad guys. As long as we just ignore the Soviets completely of course.

>for no real reason
no

WWI was fought to check German aggression and expansionism.

How are the Historians who are pushing the narrative that Entering WW1 was a mistake such as Niall Ferguson viewed in the UK?

Haha no.
Kaiser was ultimately not a bad man and didn't do anything distinctly evil.
Hitler was a bad man who did bad things for bad reasons and then blamed everyone else before killing himself. The only people who are going to be saying Hitler was a good guy in 50 years are the same caliber of people saying it now.

The US's involvement, or rather, lack on involvement with Germany was a deciding factor. England cut off trade to Germany and the US got mad, but ultimately didn't call England's bluff.
Without the good and raw materials coming in Germany slowly crumbled.

They had lots of manpower left in 1918, but they were on the brink of famine and running out of supplies. US entry into the war made what was a hopeless endeavor suicidal so of course they called it quits there.
A world where the US told the British blockade to shove it would look very different today. Either the US stops selling to the UK and possibly France or it continues trade with Germany and remains on good terms with them throughout the war.

>Americans can't take credit for the victory
I can and will, froggy. Unless you don't think the massive influx of money, materiel and men didn't tip the scale. To say nothing in the huge morale effect of American entrance on both sides

>Why does everyone goes crazy about WW2, yet no one gives a shit about WW1?

I don't know about your country, but here in New Zealand we hear loads about WWI and Gallipoli

Scale of the war and how relatively recent it was. Also if I may be allowed to oust myself as a /pol/itician, the Jews perpetual yodeling about the holocaust keeps WW2 on the stage, albeit as a supporting character

Seems like a decent thread to ask. What was used against Kaiser Wilhelm to paint him as a warmongering monster? My high school history teacher, who's probably the most intelligent person I've ever met, never particularly blamed the war on him, but considered him a dodgy type due to his crippled upbringing making him bitter and edgy.

From what I've read he actively wanted to avoid the war but couldn't stop it once it got started and generally tried to act decently as a gentleman and a ruler, and was also something of an anglophile and navy-nerd.

Did Kaiser Wilhelm really do anything to justify his evil reputation outside of being the figurehead of the side that lost WW1?

We go pretty "crazy" about WW1 in Britain, but WW2 as well.

They're seen in quite different lights.

WW1 is a war of pointlessness, death and suffering which highlights mans flaws.

WW2 is seen a just and heroic war of necessity against tyranny where we all pulled together.

Monarchist

Yea but that WW1 narrative was purely wartime propaganda, anyone with a brain could see after the war that there was no bad side and no good side, just a fucked up system of alliances and nations wanted to have a fight.

If the Kaiser was really considered more evil than Hitler he wouldn't have been allowed to abdicate and become a comfy archaeologist for the next 20 years.

All the violence against the Belgian civilian and killing Edith Cavell

It's not like he personally ran the war effort. I thought that because of Prussia's bullshit Germany's military leaders pretty much did whatever they wanted and the kaiser just sort of went with it because what the hell else could he do?

>Why does everyone goes crazy about WW2, yet no one gives a shit about WW1?

To be fair, I'd argue that the British, and most likely the French give more of a shit about WWI than WWII, most likely down to the much higher casualties both suffered, with the ill-fated British 'pals battalions' system leading to the entire going male populations of towns wiped out in single battles. It was less romantic and less of a feel-good war (why it tends to be ignored in the USA than WWII with so many lost and the victory feeling hollow, and it's much harder to portray the Central Powers as evil megalomaniacs hell-bent on taking over the world than it is Hitler.

Just consider that in Britain WWII events are rarely celebrated or remembered, but armistice day from WWI is a big deal, with large events and tributes, and the wearing of poppies becoming a common feature.

"On the 11th hour, of the 11th day of the 11th month…the guns fell silent"

>To be fair, I'd argue that the British, and most likely the French give more of a shit about WWI than WWII,
I wouldn't go that far

>Just consider that in Britain WWII events are rarely celebrated or remembered, but armistice day from WWI is a big deal, with large events and tributes, and the wearing of poppies becoming a common feature.
It's a general remembrance of warfare as a whole, you'll see lots of WW2 vets on parade as well as Iraq and Afghanistan vets too.

Only Euronigs participated in it.

Meanwhile WWII has an Asian front

um

>declare war
>don't send troops for over another year because the war is ending
>We won!
Americans are pure scum

Are you serious?
The only battle in the Far East in WWI was some shitfight in Jiaozhou.

Meanwhile in WWII had the Pacific campaign, the war in China between them and the Nips started earlier and was so big it has separate name. To say nothing of Europeans getting BTFO of their Southeast Asian colonies.

>Yurocucks drag their colonies with them.
>All the world participated m8!

What are you even doing on a history board man?

> Completely ignoring Africa and the Middle East

Well didn't they?

Germans weren't any more expansionist than Russians or French or anyone else at the time though. In fact, they were probably less expansionist since literally everyone else had more colonies than them.

Might be that all the vets are dead.
Its hard to relate to something thats in a distant past.
Unless you're a jew

French and British were left intact of the large empires.
Portuguese and dutch empire where left intact of the small ones.

Im not sure if Denmark or Belgium counts as Empires, But they kept there oversees possessions as well.

It was the end of land based European empires though.

it's because practically everyone anyhow involved in first one have been dead for decades

...

ask the average normie if they've ever heard of Austria-Hungary

Of course ive heard of austria and hungary you fucking nerd

youtube.com/watch?v=t6-UoiE6S9k

>It was the end of land based European empires though.

For a few years at least

Journey to the End of the Night

it was fucking stupid and just a grinding horrifying nightmare for everyone involved

WW2 had much more interesting shit