World War II is the largest-scale war in history, at least in any modern sense, and has filled our imaginations to the bursting point. Countless documentaries, movies, video games, books, and everything else have been made about the war, and it has become truly larger-than-life. However, like many larger-than-life things, legend and fact often end up conflated, and the truth can get muddled. In this list, we will be exploring 10 stubborn myths about World War II that just won’t go away.
10. The Attack On Pearl Harbor Caused The USA To Enter The War
One of the most enduring myths about World War II is that the United States sat out the war until, peaceful and kind, they were caught with their pants down at Pearl Harbor and decided to join up to help stop the Axis Powers. Now, while it is true that Pearl Harbor was the catalyst that gave the United States Congress and Senate the guts to officially join, it’s not like the Americans were sitting on their hands before that.
To start with, Japan did not just attack the United States out of nowhere like a man getting mugged in a meadow — even if that’s how history books make it sound. The fact is the United States was engaged in a very ugly diplomatic war with Japan over its aggressive expansion and war was almost inevitable. As for America’s war against the other Axis powers, America had actually been helping the British for years and had ramped up that help over the previous year. This meant an attack from someone in the Axis was almost certainly coming soon, and with it, the official declarations of war.
9. The Germans Were On The Cusp Of Making Nuclear Weapons
Many “shocking” World War II documentaries or other specials will try to go to great lengths about the Nazis, turning them into some kind of almost mythical beast. However, the truth is that they were not only just human beings, but they were human beings who lost. We can theorize until the end of days about what would have happened if they won, but they did not and were almost certainly never going to win. They overextended themselves from the very beginning, and the idea they were close to developing a nuclear weapon is simply not true.
They had made some heavy water, but it wasn’t really that much for what they would have needed it for, and this is also a terrible method of trying to make nuclear technology as it just isn’t efficient. It shows their nuclear ambition was really in its infancy compared to the United States. Some people will point to all the Nazi scientists the USA grabbed up after the war that were especially good at rocket technology, but they were needed for different things. The US didn’t need help making atomic bombs, they had already slaughtered hundreds of thousands with just two of them.
8. The Annihilation Of Hiroshima And Nagasaki Caused Japan To Surrender
Many people, when talking about the atomic bomb, will try to mention the bombings of the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as a necessary evil. They will say that destroying two populated cities with hundreds of thousands of people living in them saved Japan from total destruction. The Japanese are talked about in this weird fashion as if they are some kind of alien hive-mind that would have unreasonably fought to the last man. This makes it easier for the largest country in the world (in military terms) to sleep peacefully at night without being haunted by its past.
However, this quant justification is nothing more than a bunch of hot air dreamed up by a country that doesn’t want to feel guilty for annihilating hundreds of thousands when it wasn’t needed at all. The fact of the matter is that the US had already bombed the living hell out of Japan, so the idea that bombing more of their cities would make them surrender is just silly. America firebombed Tokyo, and bombed civilian cities all over Japan, as part of a campaign to wear down the nation’s spirit, and they kept fighting. Many scholars now believe the real reason Japan ended the war is simple: Stalin was about to enter the fray, and Japan did not want the Soviets as their conquerors, nor felt they could keep up the war on two fronts.
7. The United States Was United Against The Dreaded Nazis
Plenty of Americans like to think of World War II as the time the country truly united, and the whole world came together to fight off evil. World War II has certainly inspired countless fictional franchises, along with more documentaries than you can count. These stories tend to play up the idea that everyone was volunteering to go fight the bad guys, and unlike when politics usually divides people, everyone was completely in this thing together. However, the sad thing is that even the greatest world war of all time didn’t actually bring America truly together.
There were organizations in the United States that supported the Nazis, and while they were investigated for their un-American activities, the USA has a lot of freedom of speech so people could get away with a lot as long as it was peaceful. For this reason, during World War II the USA did have some marches in support of the Nazis right out in broad daylight. As for the US being the heroes who saved everyone, well… they almost weren’t at all. The isolationists tried super hard to stop the country from getting into the war and disapproved greatly of President Franklin Roosevelt’s shadow war against the Axis powers. The isolationists in Congress thought the country could just sit things out, and they were not easy to convince.
6. Hitler’s Famed Blitzkrieg Is Vastly Overrated And Poorly Understood
Some talk about the Blitzkrieg, or Lightning War, in awed voices, as if it was some special advancement in warfare or a genius trick used by Hitler and the Nazis. This misconception has helped create a mystique and some still think if the Nazis had more equipment and the right bit of this and that, the sort of genius they had could have taken over the whole world. However, the truth is there wasn’t anything particularly clever about the Blitzkrieg.
This war strategy was not exactly new, nor was it even invented by the Nazis. In fact, all it really means is that it is the opposite of trench warfare, in that you are trying to get a knockout blow on the enemy. The Blitzkrieg is just the war equivalent of a sucker punch, which is just a dirty trick and not anything clever at all. The Soviets found that the strategy was beaten easily enough by putting down multiple defensive lines to slow down the enemy. By doing this, they could take advantage of the fact that the Blitzkrieg caused the Nazis to temporarily separate some of their lighter and heavier forces, leaving their flanks vulnerable.
5. German Citizens Sat By And Did Nothing As Their Jewish Neighbors Were Taken Away
One of the favorite myths about World War II is that regular German citizens did nothing at all and that if we just speak up in our own countries, we can make sure nothing like that ever happens again. And while it’s a comfortable notion that people being responsible would have stopped it, things aren’t always that easy. The Nazis started with propaganda and then followed it up by slowly ramping up terrible, and abusive laws. People who spoke out against them to protect their neighbors were taken into camps themselves and everyone was afraid.
And we aren’t saying that the German people gave up once Hitler had solidified power either. Many German citizens did try to help those under threat from the Nazis to get to safety. Some German officials stuck out their necks, knowing the punishment for one of their kind would be terrible, to get people to safety. Now, we aren’t saying there weren’t some bad citizens as well since some did report on their neighbors, but there were also many good people who did as much as they could.
4. The Nazis May Have Dealt With Rebels, But Apart From That Successfully Took Over France
It’s arguable just how much control Germany had over France throughout the war, but some people are confused about how that control actually began. The Germans first occupied France about halfway through the year 1940. At first, they just had the Northern and Western portions of the country, and many felt that the Vichy government was a puppet state run by the Nazis. The French resistance began almost immediately, and it took the Nazis two more years to control the rest of France.
And even when they had this, it wasn’t like they had successfully conquered anything. You see, the French were a really hard people to take over, and they didn’t take kindly to invaders on their land. The French resistance was so fierce that to say the Germans had the country would be a gigantic overstatement of their accomplishment. Without an incredibly expensive sustained occupation, it is unlikely Germany could have ever held the territory long-term. With how strong the insurgency was, the Germans had about as much control over France as the United States had over Iraq.
3. “Keep Calm And Carry On” Did Not End Up Needing To Be Used
“Keep Calm and Carry On” has become, in many people’s minds, the very perfect celebration of British stiff upper-lipped-ness. It perfectly defines their people and shows how they managed to stay calm during the worst of World War II, by remembering to stay cool, and go about their business no matter what. Or at least, it would have been, if they had ever actually needed to use this slogan during the war. The truth is that the slogan wasn’t dredged up until decades later, and it has some interesting history behind it.
Back then, things were very, very frightening and no one really knew what was going to happen (it was World War II, after all). The Nazis invading Britain and at least temporarily occupying it was a very real possibility and something the government had to be prepared for, even if it was unthinkable. The slogans and posters were printed up as part of a just-in-case shadow campaign to keep people’s spirits up if the country were to actually be invaded. Of course, as we know the British won the Battle of Britain, keeping any invasion at bay, and the campaign was never needed. But it serves as a stark reminder of just how close things were to very different, and much darker outcomes.
2. Adolf Hitler May Have Survived Somehow And Had A Double In The Fuhrerbunker
One of the favorite subjects of World War II documentaries is the fate of the Nazis, especially those who were not captured and put on trial at Nuremberg. They like to wax on about how some of them may have escaped to South America, and of course, the famous Dr. Joseph Mengele is always mentioned. However, the favorite is Hitler, and the theories about him surviving somehow persist. Still, while the theories may stubbornly refuse to die, Hitler himself most definitely did.
For starters, Allied intelligence told us he had gone to hide in his Fuhrerbunker, and he was discovered with Eva Braun, the closest thing he had to a girlfriend. The Allied forces found the Fuhrerbunker stocked with supplies, which confirmed it was almost certainly his personal bunker, and it was also stocked with what was definitively Hitler’s dead body. Now, some may argue that it could have been a body double, but the dental records were confirmed to be a match with Hitler’s. At the time, there was no better way of identifying a body, and there was zero reason to believe it was anyone else but him in that bunker.
1. The Battle Of Normandy Succeeded Due Entirely To Its Incredible Planning And Heroism
Now, we want to be clear that we are not trying to downplay the incredible heroism involved, or the incredible amount of planning required to pull off the operation on D-Day. It was a miracle of planning, subterfuge, and so much heroism that will never be forgotten. However, despite all of that, the operation came closer to disaster than most people are aware of. The truth is that it was quite a defensible position and a huge part of the Allies’ victory relied on tricking Hitler, which had required months of careful work to ensure Hitler could believe Normandy was not the main attack, and not even be sure of the day or time of the “real” attack.
While losing the battle and not taking the beach would not necessarily have lost the war, it would have been a giant setback for the Allies, and if Hitler hadn’t been successfully fooled it may not have succeeded at all. Several of Hitler’s best commanders were not available on the day of the attack, and the intelligence operation the Allies had put together managed to make him think a bigger attack was still coming elsewhere. He resisted calls from his commanders to bring in more heavy artillery and tanks, which might have stopped the Allies from storming the beach