A lot of American companies* did business with the Nazis. That doesn't really prove any of your points. Large companies are generally pretty indifferent to morality.

* A good one to note is Fred Koch's refinery business.

I don't disagree that economics has a lot to do with wars, often the dominant consideration, or that it played a big role in WWII.

I don't know about any of your "facts" though. Searching to verify the first quote I get a lot of mentions of the Illuminati.

Companies nowadays are indifferent to morality.

Back in WW2 times, I'm pretty sure it was an us vs them mentality and all the US companies had to abide by it.

I called them "facts" just to give my perspective more strength per say. You could make an argument for-or-against any "fact" based on your assumptions.

I have no clue about the Illuminati I just like history and like to read things. People say all sorts of crazy things on the internet, this is just the perspective I've pieced together, albeit my tone was definitely b1tchy last night lol.

These are not the sort of tertiary sources I'd quote, but yes, SONJ did trade with the Nazis for a while. IIRC, so did IBM.

Trade with Germany prior to and during WWII was extensive from multiple companies and Countries. Notably Sweden (nominally neutral during WWII) which supplied the Nazis with Iron ore and other products in exchange for goods they needed*. Small Portugal (also neutral, Ireland and Spain were also neutral) and other nations were also trading partners. Monetary/banking exchanges and payments etc by Germany conducted with the Swiss during the war years has brought condemnation from some quarters, the list of these types of interactions are numerous and extensive. No war is clean nor can moral principals simply be divide up evenly, assigning "moral responsibility" is fluid and convoluted beyond sorting out, if you even wish to engage in such matters.

*The Swedes also allowed the German Army access across Sweden with train transportation for the invasion of Norway.

Sweden took almost all the Jews from Denmark. The Danes and Swedes are heroes of WWII.

Guilt is a powerful motivator. Some individual Danes (Denmark was occupied by Germany and a later residence movement established, see link below) and Swedes were heroes; to think all were or that their governments and other organizations did not collaborate with the Nazis to some extent is grossly naïve. This is true of most European countries previous to and during WWII. Many European countries had their own fascist movements that started in the 1920's - 1940's. See other link.


Denmark_in_World_War_II

From above link:

In 2003, in a speech for the 60th anniversary of the end of the 1940–43 collaborationist government, Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen said that Denmark's cooperation with Nazis was "morally unjustifiable", which was the first public condemnation of the World War II era Danish leadership by a Danish leader.

Fascist movements:

List_of_fascist_movements

I will reiterated and expand upon what I mentioned above - War and all the preliminaries that lead up to it (and the aftermath) are not clear cut, neat, or clean; Thinking in terms of absolutes distorts history and fundamentally is wrongheaded in interpreting events, especially in massive conflicts that involve large and numerous nation states.

I agree generally, but there's a world of difference between the way Hungary or Romania handled Nazi domination than Denmark or Sweden. Less than 1% of Danish Jews were killed in the Holocaust.

It's only because Denmark had so few of them, and Eastern Europe was treated orders of magnitude more harshly by Nazis.

The Third Reich was willing to overlook some minor Jewish relocation by their fellow Arians. I imagine if Denmark had 500,000 Jews living in it their fate would be similar to Romanian ones

That's a point, but I don't think really a good one. I think a Jew in Denmark could go to a random house and expect to be helped and that wasn't the case in Romania. The Nazis didn't overlook Danish Jews. Danes helped 90% of them escape before the Nazis occupied the country. Romanians, Hungarians, Ukrainians and Poles all extensively helped the Nazis round up Jews.

who in Denmark was punished for helping the Jews escape?

my great-grandfather hid several Jews in his house in occupied Odessa. if they were found out, himself, all his family and most likely all of his neighbors would be executed for not ratting him out

a bit harder to be magnanimous when it's either your family or some random Jew you don't know one thing about. that's not to say that antisemitism wasn't stronger in Poland or Ukraine but that might also be a function of that Jews were a significant % of population in those countries

but yeah let's sit on that high horse in a country comparatively untouched by war and also one that directly profited from Nazi war effort and compare it to territories that were planned to have their entire civilian population exterminated

Well your great grandfather was a mensch, but the the Ukrainians compromised a lot, perhaps most, of the concentration camp guards, rounded up Jews ruthlessly and had 300000 people in the collaboration police force. Considering Odessa had pogroms against Jews in 1821, 1859, 1871, 1881-1906 and other cities in The Ukraine like Kiev had pogroms in those years and later like 1919, perhaps it's not a huge shock that they participated somewhat in the Holocaust.

Why is having more Jews something that would make them more likely to kill Jews? Should be less. Jews are nice people and having more around should make them more familiar with that.

The pogroms are what brought my great-grandparents to the USA thankfully before the Holocaust.

there are many reasons for it not the least of them was to appease the Germans who for many Ukrainians seemed like liberators before the atrocities against civilian population started

you have to recognize that about a quarter of the population was essentially starved to death by Soviets during the Holodomor, and common folk often attributed it to Jews taking key positions in Soviet government in those years

at the same time many Ukrainian and Russian Jews fought an unspeakably grueling war in the regular army against the Nazis while not a single Danish Jew picked a goddamned rifle until a war was basically decided


not even sure how to respond to that. this is incredibly naive if not a troll. there is no such thing as less or more nice people. there are just people

there were some people with Jewish ancestry in top echelons of German government (even SS), were they nice people as well?

think of antisemitism as an allergy to Jews. would your allergy flare up more or less often when the allergen concentration is higher?

I don't think of anti-Semitism as an allergy. Jews, like most people are nice, and decent people should see that by being around us and should be less prone to the irrational hatred that might be partly the result of ignorance.

well the world was a vastly different place 100 years ago, a massive slice of the population was uneducated and ignorant

to this day antisemitism and racism in general exists even in first world countries, that should tell you enough

I mean, half of the US voted for the dude who promised to keep the Mexicans out

True.

Well again, your great grandfather was a hero.

yeah he had a pair of brass balls for sure, my grandma told me some sick stories about him

I don't think this is correct. The Swedes didn't agree to permit the use of their railway system by German troops until after the Norwegian Army had surrendered, which was two months after the invasion of Norway began. Even then there were, at first, extensive restrictions. The railway could only be used by individual, unarmed soldiers. Whole units and arms could not use the railway. This eventually changed, and perhaps what you are thinking about is that Sweden permitted the transport of a whole division, plus supporting troops, from Norway to Finland in advance of the attack on Russia. This was in accordance with existing Swedish foreign policy which was to support Finland against the Russians in all ways short of direct military action.

There are standards beyond the fate of local Jewish populations, measured on a percentage basis, by which to assess culpability or heroism.

LOL!

The Danes surrendered 6 hours after the Germans invaded - just long enough to organize the surrender documents. Just about the only shots fired by Danes in the defence of their country were by anti-aircraft gunners who failed to protect the Danish air force from destruction on the ground. There was no organized defence of Denmark. Some heroes!

In contrast, Norway, a country with only 2/3 the population of Denmark was invaded on the same day by a German force of more than twice the size of the force invading Denmark. The Norwegian army fought against substantial odds for two month before surrendering. The Norwegian air force and navy never surrendered and were operational against Germany throughout the rest of the war.

The Danish resistance movement killed the fewest Germans of any anti-German resistance movement. It didn't even begin sabotage operations until more than two years after the occupation.

Hundreds of Swedes and thousands of Danes volunteered to serve in the SS (it was easier for Danes to volunteer since Denmark was occupied and Sweden was notionally neutral.)

The Swedes followed a foreign policy of not getting involved in combat. Very heroic!

There was actually more resistance in Romania to deportation of Jews than there was in Denmark. About 300,000 Romanian Jews survived the holocaust. Only about 2,000 Danish Jews survived. The effort required to save 300,000 is considerably greater than the effort required to save 2,000.

If you want to point to heroics in the salvation of the miniscule Danish Jewish population, point to the German diplomat that tipped off the Danish resistance before any actual German effort began.

Sweden actually had a lot in common with Romania. Both countries agreed, without being occupied by the Germans, to be the key source of trade in a strategic resource vital to the German war effort. Sweden provided the iron, and Romania supplied the oil.

And yet, more than 100 times as many Jews were saved by Romanians than were saved by Danes.

That's just false. The Germans didn't request any roundup or deportation of Jews in Denmark until 1943, more than three years after the Danes incorporated themselves into the German Reich without a struggle.

Many more Romanians, Hungarians, Ukrainians and Poles, at a far greater risk, helped Jews than did Danes.

Because when your Jewish population is less than 0.07% of the population, misguided people are unlikely to regard Jews as an internal threat. A minority is more likely to be regarded as a threat if it comprises several percent of the population.

https://www.ushmm.org/outreach/en/ar...uleId=10007740

51 out of about 8000 Danish Jews died in the holocaust.

Your points are most likely correct. I based my comment form this accusation from a book reported in a news article (I fully admit the source/book may not be reliable or suspect in other ways):

Neutral-Sweden-allowed-Nazis-use-railways-occupy-Norway--transfer-Jews-death-camps-new-book-claims

I enjoy history a great deal but it is difficult at times to sort out the reliable from unreliable sources/information or the mediocre from the best currently available.

I just argued with someone about those dastardly Swedes and WWII. With a close family member in fact, because my recent ancestry is mostly Swedish and Norwegian. The rest is mongrel.

Almost everything in that linked article is consistent with what I wrote. The bit that isn't is the alleged rail transportation of German troops to Narvik. The article isn't clear on the actual dates involved, and it isn't clear whether the Swedes were dupes or knowing and willing accomplices. What is clear is that any such troops were not initial invasion troops but reinforcements to an existing front that had been established without the use of the Swedish railroads. Ultimately, the fate of the Narvik front was decided by the invasion of France.

The book may or may not be accurate. Since it constitutes "new research" it may be an instance of the agreed record needing to be updated. It wouldn't surprise me that the Swedes would have preferred to keep any such willing cooperation out of the public record after the war..

Also, it is sometimes hard to sort out valid and non-valid conclusions derived from the same good sources.

Well then, we share more than just an interest in history. The majority of my ancestry is also Norwegian and Swedish. I have relatives in Norway still. During the war, some relatives were collaborators and some were active in the resistance. Of the latter, at least two were captured and killed. There was an ugly incident at the funeral for one of these, when some collaborator relatives tried to attend.

Nobody is contesting the fact that > 90% of Danish Jews were helped to escape to Sweden. What I'm contesting is your ridiculous claim that this made Denmark and Sweden as a whole "heroes".

These are also facts:

• The rounding up of those Danish Jews who did not escape was done by teams of Germans guided by Danish volunteers.
• Danish volunteers in the SS were involved in war crimes (including mass executions) against Jews in eastern Europe.
• Sweden was the key provider of one of the two most important strategic good for the German war effort.
• Swedish volunteers also served in the SS.

The number of Danes who volunteered for the SS was similar to the number of Danes who helped Jews escape to Sweden.

I haven't found any mention of any Dane being killed for helping the Jews escape.

Yes a small fraction of a percent of the Danish population helped another small fraction of a percent of the Danish population escape to Sweden. A similar small fraction of a percent of the Danish population volunteered to serve in the SS. I'd suggest to you that neither is particularly significant in trying to determine if Denmark and Swede as a whole were heroes or villains.

I'd suggest to you that the actions of the two countries were, on the whole more cowardly than heroic or villainous. Sometimes cowardice is the winning strategy.

Now in contrast to Denmark, in Romania a much higher fraction of the population helped a much larger Jewish fraction of the population escape deportation to the camps, and consequences for people caught providing such help were more severe. I'd suggest that by your misguided standards that should make Romania more heroic than Denmark.

Very well said, and I quote it in bold because it deserves to be repeated and fully absorb by all. The implications are important (and vast) and should be pondered by all, especially by historians that wish to present an unbiased view of history. An impossible task, being a human endeavor, but a worthy goal.

Today is the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Midway. It was often called a miracle win by the US. Both sides certainly made their shares of mistakes and it really could have easily gone either way. This is one of my favorite pieces of history. I have read a great deal about it. The Battle of Midway by Craig Symonds is a really outstanding chronicle of the battle and the intelligence that lead to it happening. For the Japanese perspective Shattered Sword by Jonathan Parshall tells the Japanese story of the battle and how they got there.

This was a really pivotal battle that turned the US from the hunted to the hunter. If it had gone the other way things would have been much harder than they were as all of the US marbles were pretty much on the table for this one.

In those early days the US Navy was in pretty much total disarray and they lacked both the ships and experience much of which they got in Midway.

The Naval battles of Guadalcanal were also pivotal and extremely close. I just read Neptunes Inferno: The US Navy at Guadalcanal by James Hornfischer. Outstanding book! The US Navy was still a mess and both sides were still making way too many mistakes.

But if Midway goes the other way Guadalcanal probably never happens and the US has many more obstacles. If Guadalcanal goes the other way the US has a much tougher road in front of them. But both of these battles were extremely close and easily could have gone the other way. The US would probably have still buried Japan with industrial might but Japan would have had more time to build up and try to keep up making it much harder than it already was. If those early battles go the other way Japan gets more time with less attrition of manpower and equipment at a time when things were very even.

Hi Mr. Baseball:

To me, the key moment at Midway was when the US Torpedo planes went into the attack of the Japanese fleet without the support of the rest of the US Bombers which were also supposed to attack at the same time. Of course, this ended up being a brilliant move since it left the Japanese carriers easy targets since their air defense had to come down to defend against the torpedo planes. But I have always wondered if the pilots of the torpedo planes knew they had no chance and would all be shot down.

Best wishes,
Mason