PBS Documentary Purposefully Desecrates World War II Vets

[herbstin]

"It is well that war is so terrible - otherwise we would grow too fond of it."

Robert E. Lee, Statement at the Battle of Fredericksburg (13th December 1862)



I am a history buff, and I do WW2 re-enactment, so I read a lot of historical data, not just books trying to interpret (or spin) that data. While it's great for more & more details to come to light, I really draw the line when authors (and producers) try to judge the past by the norms & capabilities of the present. When they cherry-pick data to validate their cherished biases.

The fact that strategic bombing in that era was not pin-point accurate is conveniently overlooked. The fact that German war production INCREASED during the height of the bombing (1943-1944) and that because German factories became harder to locate & were better defended, it became necessary to bomb the labor pool (no workers, no production). German morale (home & front) stayed fairly strong until 1944. That morale had to be broken.

The Soviet contribution to the war has been overlooked in the West, in a number of ways.
Let's see, we have the military occupation of Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Eastern Poland. The theft of Bessarabia from Romania. The massacre of over 21,000 Polish officers in Khatyn Forest & other locations in 1939-1940. The murders of nearly 10,000 political prisoners in the western Ukraine, shot, grenaded or burned alive in their cells when the prisons they were in were burned down by the NKVD in Jun 1941. Vinnitsa 1939-1941, over 9000 political prisoners murdered. These do not include the fun the Reds had with German troops & support personel they captured. Keep in mind the Germans didn't attack the USSR until Jun 1941.

That the Soviets managed to stop the Nazi offensive pretty much on their own is a given. However, they could not have rolled the Germans back to Berlin without the huge amounts of Lend-Lease material they got from the West, nor without the Western Allies attacking the Germans elsewhere. Had the Germans been able to concentrate their resources on Russia, the Soviets would have lost. As it was, the Soviets had reached the bottom of their man-power pool by the time they launched their final Berlin offensive. Documents that have come to light since the collapse of the USSR indicate Stalin offered ceasefires to the Germans in 1942 & again in 1943 ( World War II campaigns -- Arsenal of Democracy Lend Lease countries Soviet Union ).

Neither of the Allied Blocks (East or West) could have defeated the Nazis by themselves.


PBS does come up with some very cool shows, but it does have too many with the lefty Socialist drivel built in.

[Leo2man]

I am a history buff, and I do WW2 re-enactment, so I read a lot of historical data, not just books trying to interpret (or spin) that data. While it's great for more & more details to come to light, I really draw the line when authors (and producers) try to judge the past by the norms & capabilities of the present. When they cherry-pick data to validate their cherished biases.

No disagreement with your comments. I agree completely, which is why I would advocate reading Ferguson's books before judgement is passed.

My issue is with the message from Rush Limbaugh, that the PBS show is "denegrating World War II veterans". Without viewing the series, making that type of judgement is premature to say the least. If the author is indeed 'cherry-picking' history (and in my humble opinion, he has not: his books are actually quite interesting and quite novel in their approach to the history of the period), then reading his books and viewing the mini-series would allow a more informed critique of both, rather than relying upon the rather questionable rant from Rush. JMO.

"RUSH: World War II, I read today, those of you from the greatest generation, you World War II vets still alive, apparently Monday night PBS is going to run a documentary on World War II in which the whole notion that we were the good guys is going to be turned upside down, that we used totalitarian dictatorship tactics to win World War II, that all we did was bomb the innocent in Dresden and Hamburg and, of course, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that we were not the valiant and valorous victors that we were made out to be, that we couldn’t have done what we did had we not partnered up with another dictator and mass murderer named Stalin. I want to prepare you veterans, if you’re going to watch this, because it’s Niles something or other, I forget his name. I’ve got the story here in the stack. I’ll try to remember to find it before we get outta here. But they’re going to stand the whole legacy of World War II on its head. We were rotten to the core mass murderers of innocent civilians."

[Bluehawk]

If anyone is actually interested in seeing what the fuss was about, start with this source link:

History Detectives . Video . WWII Diary | PBS

The WWII segment of a show called "History Detectives" which airs on Monday evenings might be part of, I believe, what we are discussing. There was another program on PBS following immediately which was called "War of the World", so, maybe that's the one Rush was referring to?

The link above will get you to the actual interview with the 8th Air Force pilot. What is NOT shown in the video is anything that was said of an opinion or editorial nature about the interview by the interviewer, or on the issue of bombing during warfare.

They ALWAYS have a post-segment commentary included, so we'd need to see what the topic of that was in order to know whether Rush is being his usual hysterical self exaggerating mole hills into mountains, or whether (as he is twice daily like a stopped clock) correct in his conclusions.

Normally, "History Detectives" will have 3 different segments per broadcast. This would have been one of three that evening.

The whole show would not have been about this topic, as was implied. Nor is the show a "documentary about WWII", as was also implied.

I could find nothing provocative or outlandish in the least degree during the interview segment. Yet, I agree with herbstin who said here that PBS and, in my opinion (as I have also stated earlier in this thread), this program in particular are often very biased in a rather obvious way.

If, however, what Rush was referring to is "War of the World", then that IS a 3-part mini-series and could very well be the source of his disturbance. Based on the following brief summary, it probably is the problem.

Source link:
http://wap.amny.mlogic3g.com/news.jsp?key=153731&rc=en
------------------------------------

Review: The War of the World, on PBS
Verne Gay
Off Camera
June 30, 2008

The War of the World

Three consecutive Mondays at 10 p.m. on WNET/13, beginning tonight.

Reason to watch:
Star historian Niall Ferguson makes his case for understanding the violence that wracked the 20th century. His take is "revisionist," hence, there's a whiff of controversy here. Based on his 2006 book of the same name.

What it's about:
Tonight's first hour begins with H.G. Wells' "astonishingly prescient" 1898 account of an epic battle between Mars and Earth, and how vast numbers of cities would be laid to waste in the 20th century by men who treated their opponents, quite simply, as "aliens."

Says Ferguson, who narrates, we were taught that "the good guys won the hot and cold war, [but] in this series, I want to tell you that was all wrong. It wasn't class but race that was the dominant idea of the 20th century; it wasn't nation states, but empires." He adds that the history of the last century wasn't about the triumph of the West, but "the resurgence of the East." Tonight covers the start of the 20th century to the beginning of the second World War, although in Ferguson's treatment, such distinctions as "first" and "second" are largely irrelevant.

Bottom line:
Of course, Ferguson - and PBS - would love reviews that proclaim this Scottish historian's revise of the convulsions of the 20th century "shocking," or "profoundly controversial." Sorry - nothing of the sort. Ferguson is a deeply serious scholar who knows his business well, while all he does here is shift his time lines (World War II really began in 1937, he says, with Japan's annexation of Manchuria) or emphasize certain inarguable truths (over others). His "shocker" here? That racial conflicts were the great fault lines of the 20th century. Umm, who says otherwise? In the process, he doesn't necessarily establish that what we learned was "wrong," but perhaps "incomplete."

[Old Fart]

Originally Posted by herbstin

"It is well that war is so terrible - otherwise we would grow too fond of it."

Robert E. Lee, Statement at the Battle of Fredericksburg (13th December 1862)



I am a history buff, and I do WW2 re-enactment, so I read a lot of historical data, not just books trying to interpret (or spin) that data. While it's great for more & more details to come to light, I really draw the line when authors (and producers) try to judge the past by the norms & capabilities of the present. When they cherry-pick data to validate their cherished biases.

The fact that strategic bombing in that era was not pin-point accurate is conveniently overlooked. The fact that German war production INCREASED during the height of the bombing (1943-1944) and that because German factories became harder to locate & were better defended, it became necessary to bomb the labor pool (no workers, no production). German morale (home & front) stayed fairly strong until 1944. That morale had to be broken.

The Soviet contribution to the war has been overlooked in the West, in a number of ways.
Let's see, we have the military occupation of Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Eastern Poland. The theft of Bessarabia from Romania. The massacre of over 21,000 Polish officers in Khatyn Forest & other locations in 1939-1940. The murders of nearly 10,000 political prisoners in the western Ukraine, shot, grenaded or burned alive in their cells when the prisons they were in were burned down by the NKVD in Jun 1941. Vinnitsa 1939-1941, over 9000 political prisoners murdered. These do not include the fun the Reds had with German troops & support personel they captured. Keep in mind the Germans didn't attack the USSR until Jun 1941.

That the Soviets managed to stop the Nazi offensive pretty much on their own is a given. However, they could not have rolled the Germans back to Berlin without the huge amounts of Lend-Lease material they got from the West, nor without the Western Allies attacking the Germans elsewhere. Had the Germans been able to concentrate their resources on Russia, the Soviets would have lost. As it was, the Soviets had reached the bottom of their man-power pool by the time they launched their final Berlin offensive. Documents that have come to light since the collapse of the USSR indicate Stalin offered ceasefires to the Germans in 1942 & again in 1943 ( World War II campaigns -- Arsenal of Democracy Lend Lease countries Soviet Union ).

Neither of the Allied Blocks (East or West) could have defeated the Nazis by themselves.


PBS does come up with some very cool shows, but it does have too many with the lefty Socialist drivel built in.

Well said!
I'm a bit of a history buff too and the fact that I work in a military history museum gives me access to things that have been buried in "modern" history.
Want an example?

How about a copy of the "Honolulu Advertiser" dated Sunday, Nov. 30 1941 (exactly one week before "Pearl Harbor") with the headline "Japs May Strike Over Weekend".
There's a whole lot more to the events of WW2 than a book or a documentary done 60 + years in retrospect could ever do justice to and as far as I'm concerned and from what I HAVE read, the purpose of this is to portray us as part of the problem rather than the solution.
Fortunately, I have access to many more of the folks that were actually there than most, including my 87 year old mother and an absolutely huge scrap book of WW2 from beginning to end, as seen from the actual pages of the New York Times.
I can document who said what to whom, about what and when (from an AMERICAN prospective, of course).
Just think, we're going to go through this all over again in 20 years when PBS decides to review the (selective) history of Viet Nam.
With any luck, I'll be dead and I won't be as insulted as my WW2 "Brothers" are with this PBS hatchet job.
That's enough, I'm done, you guys can hash this out among yourselves.
DJH