Different Slants

Seeing the World from a New Angle

September 1, 1939: Real History Matters…by Robert M. Katzman

Filed under: Life & Death,Old Fart Wisdom,Politics,Social Policy and Justice — Bob at 4:59 am on Saturday, September 1, 2018
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Real history matters.
***
Today, September 1,1939, when almost no one remains alive who experienced it in either battle or government, Germany invaded France and Poland and World War ll began. The Asian war began much earlier.
***
Most people likely have no idea which countries lost more than a million people. The answer may surprise you.
***
For those strange people who deny the Holocaust ever happened, well, the greatest number of people killed in the two wars were overwhelmingly Christian or Asian. Many thousands of Muslims from both Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and Asia were also killed. They are included in the numbers above.
***
As you read the shocking numbers, it might help to remember that the civilians didn’t start the war.
***
When you vote for whomever you vote, it would be good to remember the consequences of who makes the decisions which can make wars begin.
Generally, the war’s leader’s children survived.
*** 
I found this list of 40 countries losses online, but in order of greatest number killed, those 11 countries were:

Soviet Union-24,000,000 (now Russia & other countries)
China-20,000,000
Germany-8,800,000
Poland-5,600,000
Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia)-4,000,000
Japan-3,100,000
*
India-2,500,000
French Indochina (now Viet Nam)-1,500,000
Philippines-1,000,000
Yugoslavia-1,000,000
Rumania- 833,000
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DEATHS BY COUNTRY
***
Country Military Total Civilian and Military Deaths
Albania 30,000
Australia 39,800 40,500
Austria 261,000 384,700
Belgium 12,100 86,100
Brazil 1,000 2,000
Bulgaria 22,000 25,000
Canada 45,400 45,400
China 3-4,000,000 20,000,000
Czech. 25,000 345,000
Denmark 2,100 3,200
***
Dutch E. Indies 3-4,000,000
Estonia — 51,000
Ethiopia 5,000 100,000
Finland 95,000
France 217,600 567,600
Fr. Indochina 1-1,500,000
Germany 5,533,000 6,600,000-8,800,000
Greece 20,000-35,000 300,000-800,000
Hungary 300,000 580,000
India 87,000 1,500,000-2,500,000
***
Italy 301,400 457,000
Japan 2,120,000 2,600,000-3,100,000
Korea — 378,000-473,000
Latvia — 227,000
Lithuania — 353,000
Luxembourg — 2,000
Malaya — 100,000
Netherlands 17,000 301,000
New Zealand 11,900 11,900
Norway 3,000 9,500
***
Papua New Guinea 15,000
Philippines . 57,000 500,000-1,000,000
Poland 240,000 5,600,000
Rumania 300,000 833,000
Singapore — 50,000
South Africa 11,900 11,900
Soviet Union 8,800,000-10,700,000 24,000,000
UK . 383,600 450,700
United States 418,500
Yugoslavia 446,000 1,000,000
 
***
WORLDWIDE CASUALTIES
***
Battle Deaths 15,000,000
Battle Wounded 25,000,000
Civilian Deaths 45,000,000

2 Comments »

Comment by scott

September 1, 2018 @ 5:52 am

Hi Bob-
I found this to be very interesting and thogh I knew Stalin killed a lot of people I was surprised that China was not more. Does this include the people killed by slavery? I know it was more than 1 country but I think that slavery probably killed more? Are you home” Let’s get together,
Scott
P.S. This is a fucked up thing to send an email about. Not the story just my interest

Comment by Herb Berman

September 1, 2018 @ 6:47 am

September 1, 1939
W. H. Auden, 1907 – 1973

I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.

Accurate scholarship can
Unearth the whole offence
From Luther until now
That has driven a culture mad,
Find what occurred at Linz,
What huge imago made
A psychopathic god:
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.

Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Analysed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again.

Into this neutral air
Where blind skyscrapers use
Their full height to proclaim
The strength of Collective Man,
Each language pours its vain
Competitive excuse:
But who can live for long
In an euphoric dream;
Out of the mirror they stare,
Imperialism’s face
And the international wrong.

Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.

The windiest militant trash
Important Persons shout
Is not so crude as our wish:
What mad Nijinsky wrote
About Diaghilev
Is true of the normal heart;
For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have,
Not universal love
But to be loved alone.

From the conservative dark
Into the ethical life
The dense commuters come,
Repeating their morning vow;
“I will be true to the wife,
I’ll concentrate more on my work,”
And helpless governors wake
To resume their compulsory game:
Who can release them now,
Who can reach the deaf,
Who can speak for the dumb?

All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.

Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.

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