• iSeth@lemmy.ml
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      21 hours ago

      Not unprovoked and not for 5 more years. Germany declared war on the US. Until Pearl Harbor, the US was quite neutral.

      Edit: correct 4 to 5

      • FundMECFS@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        21 hours ago

        They were about as “neutral” as they were in the Ukraine conflict under Biden.

        They were selling loads of weapons at discount prices and supporting the allies in many ways.

        You’re right though that the US public was generally against joining the war, and the US as a whole, tended to be quite isolationist until Pearl Harbour.

        • alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml
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          17 hours ago

          They were selling weapons to both sides. GM controlled Opel until the 1940s, they built a lot of the nazi war machine (using forced labor), the Ford-Werke factory in Germany produced V2 rocket turbines among other parts, and US strategic bombers were specifically told to avoid bombing it because it was owned by an american, Exxon and Dow licensed patents for synthetic rubber and other war materials Germany lacked, Chase provided loans necessary for the rearmament, IBM sold the nazis the computers they used to carry out the holocaust.

          The capitalist class looked at fascism as the savior of capitalism; they’d been terrified of a revolution in Germany and Hitler had just shown them an alternative. There’s a reason he was Time’s man of the year in 1938.

            • alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml
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              17 hours ago

              Good catch, I have edited it accordingly. Real “giving the nobel peace prize to Henry Kissinger and the guys he is currently dropping chemical weapons on” vibes.

              Also: Holy shit, Chiang Kai-Shek is there for 1937.

              • wewbull@feddit.uk
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                28 minutes ago

                I wish they’d put the articles behind those covers on their site, rather than just simple biographies. I’d like to read how people like Hitler and Stalin were perceived in the run up to WW2. Stalin in 39 is particularly interesting because that’s just after Molotov-Ribbentrop has been signed and WW2 has started with the Russian allied to the Germans.

              • skulblaka@sh.itjust.works
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                17 hours ago

                Time Magazine Person of the Year is for the most influential person of the year. Not the best, or most admirable. Merely the greatest agent of change.

          • Eheran@lemmy.world
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            20 hours ago

            Do you mean the other way around? German companies had the patents for synthetic rubber, most notably Buna-N, and when the USA joined they simply stole it?

        • juli@lemmy.world
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          13 hours ago

          They were about as “neutral” as they were in the Ukraine conflict under Biden.

          Ah yes, and during Palestine conflict. They ultimately come out on top, it doesn’t matter if they’re funding a genocide. And people like you just spread around the “good”, and hide the actual heinous history.