I have a soft spot for both of the world wars. It is just crazy to believe that the killing of a single married couple could spark the Great War, known today as WWI. What madness! Men, women and children died for their homelands over this double murder. It just boggles my mind.
Fast forward to the 1930's. What also boggles my mind, perhaps even more, is that 99% of Germany's non-Jewish citizens could follow a monster such as Hitler. The invasion of an unprovoked country should have been the first clue that something was wrong. I just cannot understand rallying behind a leader, no matter how "enthusiastic" he sounds or as "charismatic" he is, if he's invading other countries.
It's almost like they were drugged, or brainwashed, or something. Something! I just cannot wrap my mind around it. The thing that scares me to this day is how quickly things would change for the worse. Though Hitler began dabbling in politics around 1919, his ascent into higher government wasn't until 1932.
Imagine that in only 7 years Hitler would manage to plunge Germany into a war, that would sweep across the world. Millions would die, due to his actions, before it was all over. Instead of simply building up his new country (remember that he was actually Austrian) by leading citizens in a way where they could all unite and work together, he would simply take what someone else had, throw those people aside and hand it out to Germans.
Obama is not quite that bad, obviously. He doesn't invade other countries, even if they're killing our people and should be punished. Yet he does take what does not belong to him, ignores the outcries and then does what he wants with it. He doesn't like the Jewish, but at least he isn't doing what Hitler did them. The point is a comparison of how quickly a nation can change. We had a great thing going here in America, and the citizens blew it by electing Obama.
The psychology of it all interests me greatly. How can the Germans have followed such a man? How could Americans just stand aside watching Poland get invaded, then the British Isles being attacked, then Germany's invasion of Denmark, followed by Norway, then Holland, then Belgium, then Luxembourg, then France, then Greece, and then Yugoslavia.
What monsters were Americans to just stand there and do nothing? How selfish does one have to be? Let us simply close our eyes to avoid seeing the blood, let us plug our ears to block out the screams and let us simply ignore the death and destruction.
Look at it this way. Let us say you are in a room with 11 other people. You have a gun and another person has a gun. The other begins killing people slowly, one by one. Do you use your gun to stop the other? Or do you just stand there and watch? What would people think of you, if you simply stood there and watched, letting those die when you have the very clear ability to stop him?
This is exactly what our entire nation did to Europe. The other with the gun represents Hitler, you are America, and the other ten are those countries. There is no difference here. It is exactly what happened. Millions of Jews died and most probably would have survived had we entered the war when we should have. We could have invaded Germany much earlier and thus saved the Jews. There is no sugar coating it, their blood is very clearly on our hands.
Now consider this. Look at what is happening in the Middle East today. What are we doing to stop it? Nothing! We are simply holding that gun, and letting them die. Apparently, we learned nothing from waiting too long. Let us instead wait until millions die in the Middle East. It is just utter nonsense!
This is why the psychology of it all interests me. These are twisted minds who promote evil by pretending to actually care when their actions, very obviously, say otherwise. It is a clear and defiant message to those suffering: you matter not.
Now, I told you all of that to tell you this: I am beginning a quest. I will call it a quest, rather than something absolute. You may or may not complete a quest, but if I say I'm going to do this, then it is expected that you will finish it. lol! Yes, I'm leaving myself an out because I will fully admit, that I get lazy sometimes and then fail to finish what I started.
Let me just change the subject for a moment and you'll understand why I did shortly. You see, I have a subscription to Newspapers.com. I am a genealogist and the site is actually owned by Ancestry.com. It's focus is finding articles about your family in older newspapers. However, I've come to see how fantastic it is for just reading history in the making. See now where I'm going with this? History in the making... such as in World War II.
It's hard to go through thousands of newspapers for everything WWII. It is just so jumbled up when you're going through them all. Also, history books only tells us what they believe are the most important points of the war, not necessarily what I believe (or you believe) should be important.
In order to really understand it all, my quest is to read headlines on a daily basis for the next several years. I want to relive every day as it happened. I want to also begin a little early, to see events that begin happening leading up to the war. I'm not going to go way far back, but the war began on the first of September in 1939. I think I'll start with today's date, 1939. I've got several months to lead up to the war and that should do me well.
I'm not just talking about the war either, but also on the home front. How much was a loaf of bread? What was the hair style of the day? What movies were in theaters? It is life, all life, during the war.
Keep in mind that in 1939 the Dust Bowl was winding down, the books The Grapes of Wrath and Rebecca came out, both later were turned into film. Gone With the Wind hit theaters with a smash, as did The Wizard of Oz. Lou Gehrig's strength as a player was dwindling and thus he retired. The pope dies and so many other things. There were plenty of interesting headlines, but not just the popular ones. I will learn about them.
I also want to blog about it. I will try to post clippings, if I can do so legally. I will definitely post excerpts with citations because that is allowed in the copyright law.
For those who have a Newspapers subscription, I invite you to join me, dear readers.
So here we go and on with the show! Please wish me luck and encourage me to continue. Thanks to you all!
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