The Fallen of World War II



  • Fantastic video, breaking down the casualties of WWII.

    There's also an interactive version here: http://www.fallen.io/ww2/
    Very well done.



  • Profound.

    You come up with some good shit on occasion.

    I reckon you should get an honorary Spoon, because you clearly have too much time on your hands. And I don't mean that in a bad way. Far from it.

    👍



  • I wonder if someone has a conspiracy theory where all of WWII never happened.


  • Winner of the 2016 Presidential Election Banned

    I'm pretty sure I've heard of that actually happening somewhere.


  • BINNED

    No, but there are some shithead who compare everything with Hitler. Also some have already forgotten all about it; why there are conventions to prevent big boys fighting each other, why should shelter refugees, ...



  • @blakeyrat said:

    I wonder if someone has a conspiracy theory where all of WWII never happened.

    There are lots of folks who seem to believe that at least some of it never happened; Holocaust denial just won't go away. Neither will denial of the Armenian genocide during WW1.





  • On a less depressing note, I sure hope there's at least one conspiracy theory about something really inconsequential never happening, like whether some specific non-famous person ate pasta on a certain arbitrary day.





  • Thats a pointless conspiracy. Why would they go to all that trouble?

    People will find conspiracy in everything.



  • What about that conspiracy about the white middle eastern guy whose mother is a virgin and who died three days before respawning?



  • @ben_lubar said:

    What about that conspiracy about the white middle eastern guy whose mother is a virgin and who died three days before respawning?

    That's some crappy respawn counter. Should have paid more microtransactions.



  • This topic has now microaggressed every single abrahamic faith.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    Gotta catch 'em all!



  • There is the Bielefeld Conspiracy...



  • About the Bielefeld Conspiracy, I can only say: nobody could possibly believe that. Their university's main building is at most capable of medium duration space flight, perhaps through a wormhole or two.



  • Even Russian Orthodox?

    Those guys are like aliens.



  • I know of at least one, proposed by Lord Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst, that the war was a mass hallucination created by mystics led by the ghost of Madame Blatavsky to force a global peace. he probably wasn't being serious, though.



  • There was a similar joke/assertion on alt.discordia about the US state of Wyoming, if remember correctly.



  • @Nocha said:

    There is the Bielefeld Conspiracy...

    Yes, all of the time people want to make me believe they have been there...



  • Was that the exact number of wwII casualties since I can't remembered it.


  • Banned

    @flabdablet said:

    There are lots of folks who seem to believe that at least some of it never happened; Holocaust denial just won't go away.

    I've once read a blog post where someone has described how he tried to verify the Holocaust death count. He found that the official list of Holocaust victims is very incomplete (by which I mean, much smaller than the alleged death count), but still contains many duplicate entries and many names where there's no record anywhere of any such person living at all. The list also includes people who were missing but not necessarily dead, and people who died of the old age. He also fired off letters to a dozen different Holocaust-related institutions, including one that belongs to Israeli government, asking for some kind of irrefutable proof that even a single person that's on the list mentioned above actually died in a concentration camp - half of them didn't respond at all, the other half didn't understand the question and directed him to the official list he's already got.

    You don't have to believe any of this, since my post is at best fourth-hand account - but then, history books are all third- or fourth-hand accounts too, so...

    Disclaimer: I don't necessarily agree with this guy - I just say what he said. In particular, I don't say there were no Jews killed in Auschwitz-Birkenau et al.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Gaska said:

    I've once read a blog post where someone has described how he tried to verify the Holocaust death count.

    It might be better to try tracking the numbers of people in various countries before and after the war. A reasonable guess can be made for expected births and deaths through non-war causes and used to give a projection for what the population numbers should have been, and the discrepancy between this and the numbers actually present will give you an order-of-magnitude estimate for the number of war deaths.

    Sorting out actual documentary evidence for how many people really died will be hard, particularly as you can't just say “these names are the same so they're a duplicate entry” with the scale of numbers concerned. We can expect there to be multiple people with the same name reasonably often. We can also reasonably expect there to be incomplete documentation when it comes to summary executions.

    The Eastern Front was utterly brutal.


  • Banned

    @dkf said:

    It might be better to try tracking the numbers of people in various countries before and after the war.

    Except Jews didn't have a country.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Gaska said:

    Except Jews didn't have a country.

    What's that got to do with anything?


  • Banned

    What do Jews have to do with Holocaust? Dunno...


  • Banned

    Also:
    @dkf said:

    Sorting out actual documentary evidence for how many people really died will be hard, particularly as you can't just say “these names are the same so they're a duplicate entry” with the scale of numbers concerned. We can expect there to be multiple people with the same name reasonably often. We can also reasonably expect there to be incomplete documentation when it comes to summary executions.

    With 6 million people who died, it's statistically implausible that there is exactly zero documented deaths.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    My point was that I was talking about tracking the whole losses for the war. Figuring out how many of those were Jewish would be possible by extrapolation; there is some existing documentation there. Assuming that people only rarely change race or religion, you can then have a pretty good guess at the overall Jewish losses.

    But none of this has to do with whether the Jews had a country. That is a red herring.


  • Banned

    @dkf said:

    My point was that I was talking about tracking the whole losses for the war.

    And I was talking specifically about Holocaust. Brotip: if you reply to post about Holocaust, and start by quoting part of this post about Holocaust where it says the post is about Holocaust, there's a chance people might assume you're talking about Holocaust.

    @dkf said:

    Assuming that people only rarely change race or religion

    LOL


  • Notification Spam Recipient

    @Gaska said:

    He found that the official list of Holocaust victims is very incomplete (by which I mean, much smaller than the alleged death count)

    Not surprising, since entire communities were wiped out, together with their belongings, documents, etc - names of many victims are simply unknown.

    @Gaska said:

    but still contains many duplicate entries

    As expected in any larger group of people.

    @Gaska said:

    and many names where there's no record anywhere of any such person living at all.

    Again - wiped out communities.

    @Gaska said:

    The list also includes people who were missing but not necessarily dead, and people who died of the old age. He also fired off letters to a dozen different Holocaust-related institutions, including one that belongs to Israeli government, asking for some kind of irrefutable proof that even a single person that's on the list mentioned above actually died in a concentration camp - half of them didn't respond at all, the other half didn't understand the question and directed him to the official list he's already got.

    Yeah, so he wanted to verify number of victims by enumerating all of them by name... which is an idiotic idea.
    He's either a moron, or (more likely) the whole thing is made up.

    The (rough) number of victims is established from german reports, made by camp commandants, einsatzgruppen commanders, railroad transport reports, and general death camp statistics. No one in his right mind counts the number of known names, as the general number of deaths.


  • Banned

    @MrL said:

    Not surprising, since entire communities were wiped out, together with their belongings, documents, etc - names of many victims are simply unknown.

    Fair point.

    @MrL said:

    As expected in any larger group of people.

    I don't remember exactly if it's just name and surname, or more data like date and place of birth etc. In the latter case, conflicts should be much rarer.

    @MrL said:

    Again - wiped out communities.

    Actually, in the 30s, it would be very hard to live without leaving written evidence of some sort - bank accounts, birth and marriage certificates, census etc. It wasn't 19th century anymore.

    @MrL said:

    Yeah, so he wanted to verify number of victims by enumerating all of them by name...

    To be exact, in the specific part you quoted, he wanted to verify that the number of victims is more than zero. Which he failed to.


  • Banned

    @MrL said:

    The (rough) number of victims is established from german reports, made by camp commandants, einsatzgruppen commanders, railroad transport reports, and general death camp statistics. No one in his right mind counts the number of known names, as the general number of deaths.

    But if the list of victims by name was proven to be falsified, then it would put in doubt the official number about unnamed victims too.


  • Notification Spam Recipient

    @Gaska said:

    I don't remember exactly if it's just name and surname, or more data like date and place of birth etc. In the latter case, conflicts should be much rarer.

    Yes, but even if there are actual duplicates on those lists, it doesn't matter, as they are not used to establish number of victims. It's more like a memorial than historicaly accurate list.

    @Gaska said:

    Actually, in the 30s, it would be very hard to live without leaving written evidence of some sort - bank accounts, birth and marriage certificates, census etc. It wasn't 19th century anymore.

    In some cases all documents were destroyed, in others there probably are some traces of someone's existence, but there's no one to find them, as there are no relatives left alive to search for them.

    @Gaska said:

    To be exact, in the specific part you quoted, he wanted to verify that the number of victims is more than zero. Which he failed to.

    "Failed", heh. There are tons of eyewitness testimonials of survivors, testimonials of perpetrators, german reports, allied reports and even photos. It's not possible to genuinely fail in this matter, one must ignore an ocean of evidence to do that.


  • Notification Spam Recipient

    @Gaska said:

    But if the list of victims by name was proven to be falsified, then it would put in doubt the official number about unnamed victims too.

    No such thing was ever proven. Plus, lists of names are not made by meticulously verifying every name provided by victim relatives - they are not meant to be 100% accurate.


  • Banned

    @MrL said:

    Yes, but even if there are actual duplicates on those lists, it doesn't matter, as they are not used to establish number of victims.

    But the proportion of false entries on that list can be used to estimate how big is the error with total number of victims

    @MrL said:

    In some cases all documents were destroyed, in others there probably are some traces of someone's existence, but there's no one to find them, as there are no relatives left alive to search for them.

    There's entire country of relatives. And don't say they're not relatives because they have inheritance claims on various properties in Poland that sum up to about $60,000,000,000.

    @MrL said:

    "Failed", heh.

    Yes, he failed. By which I mean he didn't succeed.

    @MrL said:

    There are tons of eyewitness testimonials of survivors, testimonials of perpetrators, german reports, allied reports and even photos. It's not possible to genuinely fail in this matter, one must ignore an ocean of evidence to do that.

    Or must state a different question - not "was there Holocaust at all?" but "can any person who died in Holocaust be identified by name?".


  • Banned

    @MrL said:

    No such thing was ever proven.

    Neither was proven that the list is correct.

    @MrL said:

    Plus, lists of names are not made by meticulously verifying every name provided by victim relatives - they are not meant to be 100% accurate.

    From one side, it gives the unlucky victims a chance to be properly memorized too. On the other hand, it gives the Ministry of Truth a great leeway.


  • Notification Spam Recipient

    @Gaska said:

    But the proportion of false entries on that list can be used to estimate how big is the error with total number of victims

    No it can't be.

    @Gaska said:

    There's entire country of relatives. And don't say they're not relatives because they have inheritance claims on various properties in Poland that sum up to about $60,000,000,000.

    I fail to see how it's related to our discussion.

    @Gaska said:

    Or must state a different question - not "was there Holocaust at all?" but "can any person who died in Holocaust be identified by name?".

    Yes, there are lots of testimonials of survivors identifying victims by name.

    @Gaska said:

    From one side, it gives the unlucky victims a chance to be properly memorized too. On the other hand, it gives the Ministry of Truth a great leeway.

    WTF are you talking about?


  • Banned

    @MrL said:

    No it can't be.

    Yes it can be.

    @MrL said:

    I fail to see how it's related to our discussion.

    You said there are no relatives to search for documents. I said that they are and they did search for documents.

    @MrL said:

    Yes, there are lots of testimonials of survivors identifying victims by name.

    [citation needed]

    @MrL said:

    WTF are you talking about?

    About what the list might look like in 100 years, after one or two more socialist revolutions.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @Nocha said:

    There is the Bielefeld Conspiracy...

    That made me think immediately of North Dakota Doesn't Exist. Which is actually reference on the wiki page you linked:

    On USENET, a similar joke was told about North Dakota in the 1980s. Variations on this have spread throughout the Internet, often focusing on other rural states, such as Nebraska, Idaho, and Wyoming. Few people live in Wyoming, and most people outside Wyoming have never met anyone from Wyoming.

    Their link is crap, but this page seems to cover all the right ground:

    No doubt there are better places to read that old joke, but I'm not going to spend more time looking for it.


  • Notification Spam Recipient

    @Gaska said:

    Yes it can be.

    No. Names lists are not used to establish the number of victims. Those things are unrelated.

    @Gaska said:

    You said there are no relatives to search for documents. I said that they are and they did search for documents.

    Not for every victim. What's wrong with you?

    @Gaska said:

    [citation needed]

    Sorry, I'm not doing homework for you.

    @Gaska said:

    About what the list might look like in 100 years, after one or two more socialist revolutions.

    That makes even less sense.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @dse said:

    Also some have already forgotten all about it; why there are conventions to prevent big boys fighting each other, why should shelter refugees, ...

    Hey there, time to throw out as special "FUCK YOU" to certain members of my family I like to avoid at family events.

    Some background: I guess I'm technically born Jewish. I'm way more "meh. Athiest" than anything else. But growing up adjacent everyone "Of Faith" (capital O capital F, you can hear it when they speak), I was exposed a particular brand of "Of Faith". I like to call it "Conspicuously Jewish". I'm sure this exists for any faith. You have a group of people who follow as many of the tenants and niggly little rules as possible, not because of any sense of faith or duty, but EVERYONE ELSE can very clearly SEE HOW JEWISH YOU'RE BEING, and how you're BEING WAY MORE JEWISH THAN YOUR NEIGHBOR.

    One of their favorite touch-points was to wear the motto NEVER AGAIN on their sleeves. I grew up hearing over and over how The Holocaust was literally the worst thing to happen ever. Any Holocaust Memorial (statue, wall, museum, anything) was to be revered. You should FEEL PAIN and DEEP PROFOUND SADNESS at every opportunity-- openly in public, so everyone knows YOU ARE RESPECTING THE DEAD. Never mind that all of the family were Canadian by WWII, and we had barely any family left overseas. And never mind that none of them served and fought and liberated the camps. Hell, never mind that none of my relatives are even FROM Israel, nor would dream of living there (The One True Sacred Holy Land).

    Because NEVER AGAIN!

    Now, I don't disagree with the base sentiment there. I mean, the Holocaust was a horrific event and a stain on humanity that shouldn't be forgotten, lest it be repeated. There really isn't much arguing that, unless you're an asshole, sociopath or, well, I guess a Nazi. Like, a literal Nazi. Or you're Hitler. Like, the literal Adolf Hitler. But anyways...

    Like I said, it isn't the base idea there I disagree with. It's the fucking goddamn hypocrisy that leaks out of every pore.

    Refugees
    Family: NEVER AGAIN! Did you know that once the government of Canada turned away boatloads of Jewish refugees, sending them back to death camps!!! BE ANGRY AND CONSPICUOUSLY OFFENDED BY THIS AT EVERY OPPORTUNITY!

    Me: Really? Because right now we're actively turning away Syrian refugees by the boatload, sending them back to death-camp like conditions.

    Family: Screw those freeloaders, just trying to mooch off the government of Canada! They can file paper work just like everyone else. They're probably terrorists anyways. NEVER AGAIN!

    Race Relations
    Family: NEVER AGAIN!!! The Jewish People are persecuted and hated everywhere we go. People hate our faith and want to see us destroyed!! We must never allow anyone to say or do anything even remotely derogatory against OUR FAITH... even if it is accidental or unintentional. Is there a street festival planned on the same day as one of our holidays-- even if we'd never go to that festival anyways? CANCEL THE FESTIVAL!

    Me: Uh, but they just have it on the second saturday of the month, for a good couple hundred years now...

    FAMILY: Because obviously it's been put on that date as a intentional slight to OUR PEOPLE! No one should be persecuted and forced to give up their religious holiday!!!!!

    Me: We don't even observe that holiday. Or go to synagog.

    FAMILY: FAITH IS IMPORTANT!

    Me: Okay, but if they move it to the next day, it'll interfere with Eid.

    Family: GODDAMN MUSLIMS FORCING THEIR RELIGION ON EVERYONE! Why should our schools and festivals bend over backwards to accommodate them? NEVER AGAIN!!!!

    Genocide

    Family: NEVER AGAIN!!!! We must be constantly vigilant so no Holocaust ever happens again.

    Me: But you're advocating a war between Israel and Pakistan...

    Family: GODDAMN A-RABS NEED TO BE WIPED OUT, Filthy fuckers.

    Me: But... that isn't how war works. Even if there was a legitimate conflict between those two states...

    Family: BOMB THE SAND NIGGERS BACK TO THE STONE AGE!

    Me: But-- the vast majority of the targets are non-combatants. Women, children, citizens...

    Family: IT doesn't matter. They're all guilty. They all are just skulking in the shadows and mosques, planning the destruction of the superior Jewish faith. They're the enemy, and if we give them the chance they'll destroy our society.

    Me: But they're humans, living amongst other humans...

    Family: EXACTLY, they're infiltrating our society, poisoning the hearts and minds of the people, buying their way into a corrupt government that'll bend over backwards for them. We need a better government that will stand up to these filthy A-Rabs. Round them up and keep them from breeding everyone else out of Canada. Ship them back where they came from, then send in the army to shoot every single one of them so they don't bomb us!

    Me: Jesus fucking shit, you pyschos! Do you even realize that you're saying, word for word, beat for beat, EXACTLY THE RHETORIC THAT HITLER USED TO RALLY SUPPORT, GET INTO POWER, FOR THE THIRD REICH AND CAUSE THE HOLOCAUST? Listen up, you dumb motherfuckers, "never again" doesn't mean "never again-- to us". It's supposed to mean "Never again TO ANYONE! Be ever vigilant against those who would conqor, kill and destroy. Protect the weak and shield everyone from persecution and genocide". It isn't free license to advocate murdering an entire culture of BILLIONS because they're The Enemy Other.

    ...

    Admittedly that last part is a bit less civilized than I actually would say-- but anything I did bring up would just be dismissed as "this is different" and "The Faith is important" and then the racist genocidal rhetoric continues.

    So yeah-- for anyone who says "Never again" out of one side of their mouth and "Kill all the XXX" out of the other, big old history text-book sized FUCK YOU to your ignorant, history-repeating ass.


  • kills Dumbledore

    @Gaska said:

    Hey, guys. I'm totally not a holocaust denier, but the holocaust didn't happen because there are two John Smiths in this list I just made up

    <empty


  • Winner of the 2016 Presidential Election Banned

    @Lorne_Kates said:

    I like to call it "Conspicuously Jewish". I'm sure this exists for any faith. You have a group of people who follow as many of the tenants and niggly little rules as possible, not because of any sense of faith or duty, but EVERYONE ELSE can very clearly SEE HOW JEWISH YOU'RE BEING, and how you're BEING WAY MORE JEWISH THAN YOUR NEIGHBOR.

    This is pretty much how I tell the difference between religious people and "Religious™" people.



  • My maternal grandfather, who was British by the way, drove from Normandy to "somewhere" in Germany in a Sherman Tank. Not the same tank, obviously, although they were mass produced and had standard interchangeable parts. They just had a tendency to burst in to flames.

    I suppose that surviving that is an achievement in itself.

    He died some 10 or 15 years ago, he was 80 something. He died a few years after my grandmother died.

    He never talked about the war and if asked he said he was a cook.

    As a kid I found a luger and a Ceremonial Nazi Dagger - my mother still has that and a few others things. Don't know what happened to the Luger - it was probably binned shortly after it was found.

    I respected his achievements, his sacrifice, his silence and pain. He was a kind and generous man, even if his wife wasn't.

    He was one of the first into Belsen


  • Banned

    @MrL said:

    No. Names lists are not used to establish the number of victims. Those things are unrelated.

    They can be used to estimate how big is the exaggeration of number of victims. If someone added a thousand or two false names, surely they could have added a million or two to the tally.

    @MrL said:

    Not for every victim. What's wrong with you?

    ...Fine, let's say I'm content with this answer.

    @MrL said:

    Sorry, I'm not doing homework for you.

    And I'm not helping you in your own case.

    @MrL said:

    That makes even less sense.

    About as much sense as it made in 1900.


  • Winner of the 2016 Presidential Election Banned

    @Gaska said:

    They can be used to estimate how big is the exaggeration of number of victims. If someone added a thousand or two false names, surely they could have added a million or two to the tally.

    Except that would imply that the same people did both.


  • Banned

    @Jaloopa said:

    Hey, guys. Look at what @Gaska didn't say!

    There are many things I didn't say. What's your point?


  • Banned

    @Fox said:

    Except that would imply that the same people did both.

    To simplify things, let's say we're talking about the official list of names published by Israeli government, and the official number reported by Israeli government. This is as close to "the same people" as you can get.


  • Winner of the 2016 Presidential Election Banned

    Except we're not.


  • Banned

    I am. The blogger I mentioned was too.


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