History UsefulNotes / WorldWarII

* AdolfHitlarious: This was how the Allied media portrayed Hitler at the time. The revelation of UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust [[Understatement kind of]] [[FunnyAneurysmMoment put an end to it.]] It's gotten a resurgence in recent years, particularly by people like Creator/MelBrooks who want to make Hitler seem so absurd that his ideas will never be taken seriously again.

* AdolfHitlarious: This was how the Allied media portrayed Hitler at the time. The revelation of UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust [[FunnyAneurysmMoment kind of put an end to it.]] It's gotten a resurgence in recent years, particularly by people like Creator/MelBrooks who want to make Hitler seem so absurd that his ideas will never be taken seriously again.

World War II, or the Second World War (often abbreviated as WWII or [=WW2=]), was a global war fought from 1939[[note]]Nazi Germany's invasion of Poland is generally accepted as the start date of World War II, though several other conflicts that would be incorporated into the larger international conflict were already underway. Many citizens of Russia/the old Soviet Union and the United States also generally consider 1941 to be the start date, June 22nd for the former at the start of Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of Russia, and December 7th for the latter following the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, when Germany and Japan both declared war on the US[[/note]] to 1945. It involved 62 out of the 73 existent/independent states at that time, which eventually formed two loose, opposing military alliances: the Allies or Allied powers (China, France, the UK, the USA, the USSR among others) against the Axis powers (UsefulNotes/NaziGermany, UsefulNotes/FascistItaly, UsefulNotes/ImperialJapan and various smaller countries allied to them).

* StukaScream: TropeMaker, TropeNamer, and TropeCodifier. Some versions of the German Ju 87 Stuka dive bomber were fitted with ''Jericho-Trompete'' sirens, which would make [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObJV_PITRjA a distinctive screaming sound]] to intimidate the targets of their attacks. American SBD Dauntless dive bombers had holes in their dive flaps that had a similar effect, the sound being described as a banshee wail.

* GlamorousWartimeSinger: Certainly the era that codified the trope and provided the most iconic ones, who appeared in morale-boosting films and toured troups on the frontlines. Famous examples on the Allies' side include Music/VeraLynn, Music/TheAndrewsSisters, Creator/DinahShore, Creator/MarleneDietrich... Germans also had some, with the like of Lale Andersen and Evelyn Künneke.

* NoSwastikas: The entire rationale behind the taboos on the swastika and the Rising Sun, in fact. Unless it's a historical documentary with archive footage, it's almost impossible to see swastikas even in period pieces set during the war.

World War II is most commonly described as having been fought in two main theaters of war.[[note]]There were also relatively minor skirmishes, bombings or other actions in other portions of the world such as in the Arctic, North America, and the South Atlantic, but essentially they were the most extreme geographic outliers of the two main theaters.[[/note]] The European Theater was the conflict between the Allied Powers against Germany, Italy and their European allies. This conflict was fought not only in Europe, but in the Atlantic Ocean and North Africa. This conflict began with the invasion of Poland in September of 1939 and ended in May 1945 with the fall of UsefulNotes/{{Berlin}}. The Pacific Theater was the conflict fought between the Allies and Imperial Japan in the Pacific Ocean and Asia, which also included some action in the Indian Ocean. This conflict was born out of the UsefulNotes/SecondSinoJapaneseWar which started when the Japanese Empire invaded China in July 1937. This war became part of the 'world war' proper when Japan attacked Allied and American territories in December 1941.

[[caption-width-right:320:Humanity's best and worst were displayed for all the world to see.[[note]]Clockwise from top-right: An Nazi parade, US troops in a LCVP landing craft on the 'D-day' (initiation of mass-combat) of ''Operation Overlord'', the flag of the Soviet Union is raised over the German ''Reichstag'' (this is the second, staged, photo), the 'mushroom cloud' immediately following the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, US Navy Air Force Douglas SBD Dauntless bombers flying over a Pacific atoll, and Imperial Japanese sailors at attention[[/note]]]]

[[caption-width-right:320:Humanity's best and worst were displayed for all the world to see.[[note]]Clockwise from top-right: An NSDAP parade, US troops in a LCVP landing craft on the 'D-day' (initiation of mass-combat) of ''Operation Overlord'', the flag of the Soviet Union is raised over the German ''Reichstag'' (this is the second, staged, photo), the 'mushroom cloud' immediately following the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, US Navy Air Force Douglas SBD Dauntless bombers flying over a Pacific atoll, and Imperial Japanese sailors at attention[[/note]]]]

-->-- '''Joseph Goebbels''', [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFcSFSeZ2w4 Sportpalast speech,]] 18 February 1943

* LesCollaborateurs: The TropeNamer was the government of The State of France (head of state Marshal Pétain, official capital Paris, ''de facto'' capital the spa-town of Vichy), part of which operated under German military control. See also TheQuisling below.

* CheeseEatingSurrenderMonkeys: The TropeMaker in the world's consciousness. The truth is a lot more complex and nuanced. Very few people (like General UsefulNotes/CharlesDeGaulle) saw the point in fighting on once France had 'already lost' the Battle Of France - Marshall Pétain's coup had a lot of popular support - and they saw no hope of Germany ever being defeated. But as they became increasingly sure that Germany would lose the war (Stalingrad, Donbass, North Africa, Kursk, central Ukraine) [[LaResistance resistance groups were founded with the aid of existing organisations such as the French Communist Party]]. By Mid-1944 they were ready to welcome The Allies' return with some of the best espionage work the world has ever seen. General de Gaulle's Free French Forces also contributed several thousand combat troops to battles such as Bir Hakeim, Monte Cassino and Ouistreham (on Operation Overlord's D-Day), and once France was liberated they formed an army several hundred thousand strong to take over support roles and free up Anglo-American troops for the front lines (by taking charge of besieging the last German pockets on the Atlantic coast for instance).
* LesCollaborateurs: The TropeNamer was the government of The State of France (head of state Marshal Petain, official capital Paris, ''de facto'' capital the spa-town of Vichy), part of which operated under German military control. See also TheQuisling below.

** The Jericho Trumpet was removed from later models of the Stuka, as the Germans quickly came to the conclusion that equipping a bomber with its own air raid siren to warn the enemy was [[AwesomeButImpractical counter-productive.]] Not to mention that the sirens purportedly caused drag and the ''lack'' of siren prior to being bombed ended up being a nasty surprise.

-->-- '''Joseph Goebbels''', [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFcSFSeZ2w4 Sportpalast speech]], 18 February 1943

World War II is most commonly described as having been fought in two main theaters of war[[note]]There were also relatively minor skirmishes, bombings or other actions in other portions of the world such as in the Arctic, North America, and the South Atlantic, but essentially they were the most extreme geographic outliers of the two main theaters[[/note]]. The European Theater was the conflict between the Allied Powers against Germany, Italy and their European allies. This conflict was fought not only in Europe, but in the Atlantic Ocean and North Africa. This conflict began with the invasion of Poland in September of 1939 and ended in May 1945 with the fall of UsefulNotes/{{Berlin}}. The Pacific Theater was the conflict fought between the Allies and Imperial Japan in the Pacific Ocean and Asia, which also included some action in the Indian Ocean. This conflict was born out of the UsefulNotes/SecondSinoJapaneseWar which started when the Japanese Empire invaded China in July 1937. This war became part of the 'world war' proper when Japan attacked Allied and American territories in December 1941.

* TheQuisling: TropeNamer [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vidkun_Quisling Vidkun Quisling]], who betrayed his country to the Nazis and got stood up in front of a firing squad after the war. Other Quislings of World War II include President Wang Jingwei of China, Dirk Jan de Geer of the Netherladns, Marshal Philippe Pétain and Prime Minister Pierre Laval of France and General Andrei Vlasov of The Soviet Union. De Geer advocated negotiating a peace treaty between the Netherlands and Nazi Germany, which hurt Dutch morale by stating that the war couldn't be won; Queen Wilhelmina labeled him a deserter and traitor to the Dutch cause for publishing documents advocating cooperation with the Germans. After the war ended, De Geer was convicted of treason at trial and stripped of his honorary titles, spending one year in jail followed by a three-year probationary period. Quisling, Laval and Vlasov were (tortured and) executed, Pétain's death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment due to his advanced age and (by that time) severe dementia, and Jingwei died of natural causes before the war was over.

World War II, or the Second World War (often abbreviated as WWII or [=WW2=]), was a global war fought from 1939[[note]]Nazi Germany's invasion of Poland is generally accepted as the start date of World War II, though several other conflicts that would be incorporated into the larger international conflict were already underway. Many citizens of Russia/the old Soviet Union and the United States also generally consider 1941 to be the start date, June 22nd for the former at the start of Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of Russia, and December 7th for the latter following the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, when Germany and Japan both declared war on the US[[/note]] to 1945. It involved 62 out of the 73 existent/independent states at that time, which eventually formed two loose, opposing military alliances: the Allies or Allied powers (China, France, the UK, the USA, the USSR among others) against the Axis powers (UsefulNotes/NaziGermany, UsefulNotes/FascistItaly, UsefulNotes/ImperialJapan and various smaller powers).

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/wwii_collage3.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:Humanity's best and worst were displayed for all the world to see.[[note]]Clockwise from top-right: An NSDAP parade, US troops in a LCVP landing craft on the 'D-day' (initiation of mass-combat) of ''Operation Overlord'', the flag of the Soviet Union is raised over the German ''Reichstag'' (this is the second, staged, photo), the 'mushroom cloud' immediately following the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, US Navy Air Force Douglas SBD Dauntless bombers flying over a Pacific atoll, and Imperial Japanese sailors at attention[[/note]]]]

World War II is most commonly described as having been fought in two main theaters of war[[note]]There were also relatively minor skirmishes, bombings or other actions in other portions of the world such as in the Arctic, North America, and the South Atlantic, but essentially they were the most extreme geographic outliers of the two main theaters[[/note]]. The European Theater was the conflict between the Allied Powers against Germany, Italy and their European allies. This conflict was fought not only in Europe, but in the Atlantic Ocean and North Africa. This conflict began with the invasion of Poland in September of 1939 and ended in May 1945 with the fall of Berlin and Prague. The Pacific Theater was the conflict fought between the Allies and Imperial Japan in the Pacific Ocean and Asia, which also included some action in the Indian Ocean. This conflict was born out of the UsefulNotes/SecondSinoJapaneseWar which started when the Japanese Empire invaded China in July 1937. This war became part of the 'world war' proper when Japan attacked Allied and American territories in December 1941.

World War II, or the Second World War (often abbreviated as WWII or [=WW2=]), was a global war fought from 1939[[note]]Nazi Germany's invasion of Poland is generally accepted as the start date of World War II, though several other conflicts that would be incorporated into the larger international conflict were already underway. Many citizens of Russia/the old Soviet Union and the United States also generally consider 1941 to be the start date, June 22nd for the former at the start of Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of Russia, and December 7th for the latter following the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, when Germany and Japan both declared war on the US[[/note]] to 1945. It involved 62 out of the 73 existent/independent states at that time, which eventually formed two loose, opposing military alliances: the Allies or Allied powers (China, France, the UK, the USA, the USSR among others) against the Axis powers (chiefly UsefulNotes/NaziGermany, UsefulNotes/FascistItaly and UsefulNotes/ImperialJapan).

* UsefulNotes/NazisWithGnarlyWeapons: A detailed guide about the German military at that time.

World War II, or the Second World War (often abbreviated as WWII or [=WW2=]), was the sequel title more than 20 years in the making to the genre-defining MMORPG title ''World War I: The Great War''. Set after the defeat of the German faction and the Vienna Armistice more than two decades earlier, the sequel (with a higher budget and massive investment following the wide reaching impact of the first title) saw the Germans under a new, genocidal leader bent for war with two new factions, the Japanese and Italians, introduced as enemies to the Allies.

In reality, World War II was a global war fought from 1939[[note]]Nazi Germany's invasion of Poland is generally accepted as the start date of World War II, though several other conflicts that would be incorporated into the larger international conflict were already underway. Many citizens of Russia/the old Soviet Union and the United States also generally consider 1941 to be the start date, June 22nd for the former at the start of Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of Russia, and December 7th for the latter following the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, when Germany and Japan both declared war on the US[[/note]] to 1945. It involved 62 out of the 73 existent/independent states at that time, which eventually formed two loose, opposing military alliances: the Allies or Allied powers (China, France, the UK, the USA, the USSR among others) against the Axis powers (chiefly UsefulNotes/NaziGermany, UsefulNotes/FascistItaly and UsefulNotes/ImperialJapan).

World War II, or the Second World War (often abbreviated as WWII or [=WW2=]), was the sequel title more than 20 years in the making to the genre-defining mmorpg title World War I: The Great War. Set after the defeat of the German faction and the Vienna armistice more than 2 decades ago, the sequel (with a higher budget and massive investment following the wide reaching impact of the first title) saw the Germans under a new, genocidal leader bent for war with two new factions, the Japanese and Italians, introduced as enemies to the Allies.

In reality, World War 2 was a global war fought from 1939[[note]]Nazi Germany's invasion of Poland is generally accepted as the start date of World War 2, though several other conflicts that would be incorporated into the larger international conflict were already underway. Many citizens of Russia/the old Soviet Union and the United States also generally consider 1941 to be the start date, June 22nd for the former at the start of Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of Russia, and December 7th for the latter following the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, when Germany and Japan both declared war on the US[[/note]] to 1945. It involved 62 out of the 73 existent/independent states at that time, which eventually formed two loose, opposing military alliances: the Allies or Allied powers (China, France, the UK, the USA, the USSR among others) against the Axis powers (chiefly UsefulNotes/NaziGermany, UsefulNotes/FascistItaly and UsefulNotes/ImperialJapan).

-->-- '''Joseph Goebbels''', [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWueAam-w-c Sportpalast speech]], 18 February 1943

* TheQuisling: TropeNamer [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vidkun_Quisling Vidkun Quisling]], who betrayed his country to the Nazis and got stood up in front of a firing squad after the war. Other Quislings of World War II include President Wang Jingwei of China, Marshal Philippe Pétain and Prime Minister Pierre Laval of France and General Andrei Vlasov of The Soviet Union. Quisling, Laval and Vlasov were (tortured and) executed, Pétain's death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment due to his advanced age and (by that time) severe dementia, and Jingwei died of natural causes before the war was over.

World War II, or the Second World War (often abbreviated as WWII or [=WW2=]), was the sequel title more than 20 years in the making to the genre-defining mmorpg title World War I: The Great War. Set after the defeat of the German faction and the Vienna armistice more than 2 decades ago, the sequel (with a higher budget and massive investment following the side reaching impact of the first title) saw the Germans under a new, genocidal leader bent for war with a new faction, the Japanese, introduced as enemies to the allies.

World War II, or the Second World War (often abbreviated as WWII or [=WW2=]), was a global war fought from 1939[[note]]Nazi Germany's invasion of Poland is generally accepted as the start date of World War 2, though several other conflicts that would be incorporated into the larger international conflict were already underway. Many citizens of Russia/the old Soviet Union and the United States also generally consider 1941 to be the start date, June 22nd for the former at the start of Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of Russia, and December 7th for the latter following the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, when Germany and Japan both declared war on the US[[/note]] to 1945. It involved 62 out of the 73 existent/independent states at that time, which eventually formed two loose, opposing military alliances: the Allies or Allied powers (China, France, the UK, the USA, the USSR among others) against the Axis powers (chiefly UsefulNotes/NaziGermany, UsefulNotes/FascistItaly and UsefulNotes/ImperialJapan).

* CheeseEatingSurrenderMonkeys: The TropeMaker in the world's consciousness. The truth is a lot more complex and nuanced. Very few people (like General UsefulNotes/CharlesDeGaulle) saw the point in fighting on once France had 'already lost' The Battle Of France - Marshall Pétain's coup had a lot of popular support - and they saw no hope of Germany ever being defeated. But as they became increasingly sure that Germany would lose the war (Stalingrad, Donbass, North Africa, Kursk, central Ukraine) [[LaResistance resistance groups were founded with the aid of existing organisations such as the French Communist Party]]. By Mid-1944 they were ready to welcome The Allies' return with some of the best espionage work the world has ever seen. General de Gaulle's Free French Forces also contributed several thousand combat troops to battles such as Bir Hakeim, Monte Cassino and Ouistreham (on Operation Overlord's D-Day), and once France was liberated they formed an army several hundred thousand strong to take over support roles and free up Anglo-American troops for the front lines (by taking charge of besieging the last German pockets on the Atlantic coast for instance).

** The Jericho Trumpet was removed from later models of the Stuka, as the Germans quickly came to the conclusion that equipping a bomber with its own air raid siren to warn the enemy was [[AwesomeButImpractical counter-productive.]]

* Many, ''many'' {{Reichstropen}}.