What's Up with the History Channels Obsession with Hitler and Nazi Germany?

[Bullet1987]

Both History and History International run Hitler programs EVERYDAY!!! I'm 21 and know hardly nothing about WWII outside of the programs I've seen on Hitler.

Hitler's Bodyguard
Hitler's Propaganda
Hitler and the Occult
Hitler's tub scrubber

Why don't they do as many programs on the Allies or even the Pacific front(Japanese) as they do about the Nazis? What's with the Nazi obsession? Sadly, it's almost as if they're talking about them in rememberence, than talking about their extreme evils.

[slackmaster]

1. That's what the "H" in the lower right corner of the screen is for

The Hitler Channel.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

2. We noticed that a long time ago and call it the Hitler Channel

All Hitler All the Time. Where America goes for it's Hitler fix.

[DangerousRhythm]

18. Haha, we call it that here as well.

I do love that channel though... WWII fascinates me. :)

[Eurobabe]

37. They play in Germany too

Seriously. :eyes: Like anyone over here is going to forget THAT.

[MyUserNameIsBroken]

3. Public domain footage

Seriously: the Nazis documented themselves with stereotypical German thoroughness. The footage is out of copyright, obviously. It thus costs very, very little to make a documentary that uses a lot of it.

That's my theory, anyway. :D

[mtnsnake]

4. I don't know but this moring they showed how the earth will probably be blown up by waves of light

from an exploding star sometime soon :nuke:

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

5. Has anyone seen "Hitler's 101 Favorite Recipes" yet? it's fascinating stuff. nt

[GodlessBiker]

6. More older people watch that channel?

[izquierdista]

7. Yet, you will never see

Anything that credits the Red Army for defeating Hitler. Forget what happened on the Western Front, while Churchill and Roosevelt were waiting for the right timing to invade Normandy, the Wehrmacht was chewed up and spit out on the Eastern Front at Stalingrad and Kursk.

They also minimize the role of the Red Army in the defeat of the Japanese. Had the Red Army not overwhelmed the Japanese in Manchuria in August of 1945, they might have decided to put up more resistance despite the two atomic bombings. Without their Manchurian Army, the Japanese had no more troops left to fight with.

No, they hate to admit that at one time, the US was allied with the USSR to defeat fascism.

[11 Bravo]

15. The Soviet Union declared war on Japan 2 days after the Hiroshima bomb was dropped.

I give them all the credit in the world for hammering the Wehrmact on the Eastern Front, but they deserve no credit for the defeat of Japan.

[WeDidIt]

24. Thank you!

The USSR was absolutely more responsible for winning the war in the west, but you are correct, there was no declared war on Jaapan until two days after Hiroshima.

That said, there were prisoners of war held in the USSR for many years that were taken by the USSR in Manchuko. I know as a dear friend's father was one of these men. He was not released to Japan until 1948.

[Posteritatis]

26. There's a reason for that

They promised to declare war on Japan three months to the day after the surrender of Germany. While it was pretty much too late to affect things much (except for Korea), they at least kept their word on that one.

[izquierdista]

30. Back to the books

To give Zhukov no credit for moving a million troops and thousands of tanks and planes to press the ground attack against the largest deployed contingent of Japanese outside of the home islands is disingenuous. Had the Soviets not attacked, the dead-enders in Japan were willing to wait and see how many of the new-fangled atomic bombs the Americans were able to come up with.

[11 Bravo]

35. It was an opportunistic land grab, nothing more. And neither you nor I ...

have any idea how much sway the "dead-enders" held in late summer of 1945.

[Forkboy]

36. Yes they do.

At the Yalta Conference the Allies persuaded Russia to cancel it's Neutrality Pact with Japan, and got Russia to agree that they would enter the Pacific War within 3 months of the end of the war in Europe (this is also how they got the Kuril Islands and Sakhalin territory of Japan after the war).

The Russian's Manchurian offensive was started between the atomic bombings, and many feel that the combined pressure of Russia ready to invade the home islands (Hokkaido was next) and the atomic bombings were what convinced Japan to realize they couldn't defend themselves. A second front against them would be a death knoll, and even the hard liners knew it.

While the Soviets role in defeating Japan surely didn't cost the blood that it did the US, to say they had no role at all just isn't true.

[alcibiades_mystery]

8. Why is the "Military History" section in most bookstores gigantic?

White males lerv military history. It sells like hotcakes.

[Aloha Spirit]

9. I guess we're coming up on the 70th anniversary of the Poland invasion.......

seriously though, Obama should do something about this.
Can we have a recent history channel where they discuss documents as they are released under the freedom of information act?
come on, tell me you wouldn't watch that.

[old mark]

10. 40 years from now, they will be showing vids of the Bush years.

The Fascist network.

mark

[smalll]

11. It's all just a part of the devolution of cable TV.

Don't have cable here, but like to catch up on it on those rare occasions when I am away and am staying at a motel/hotel.

It just keeps getting worse and worse. The "History Channel" is just Hitler nostalgia, or "Ice Road Truckers."

At my gym, the TV in the weight room has been set to "The Learning Channel" for a while now. It's amazing what "The Learning Channel" has to offer:
"What Not To Wear."
"Picking Up MILFS At The Supermarket And Teaching Them How To Cook."
"Watching Random Chicks Give Birth."
And, "That Asian/Caucasian Couple Out In The Suburbs With Their Eight Kids."

[DangerousRhythm]

19. The Learning Channel is a damned shame these days.

Isn't that the same channel that has all baby crap shows all the time? Or is that another channel that poses as educational?

I remember when The Learning Channel was actually worth watching, probably a decade and a half ago.

[smalll]

22. Yep, that's the Learning Channel. As time goes by I feel increasingly happy with being cable-free

It gets more wastelandy and useless every year. Just one example: despite ALL the cable channels out there, what great new programming have they produced? From what I hear, over the past couple of years, they've produced just about ONE "worthy" series -- "Mad Men." I've seen it once or twice, its OK, nothing that special. In fact, it seemed to me just a period-piece copy of a lot of the "dramas" on networks these days: young upwardly-mobile "professionals" who are allegedly at the top of their game career-wise but don't seem to do much at work (at the law firm/hospital/advertising office) except swank around, boink each other, then do drama over the boinkage and/or make smutty comments about boinkage with all the sophistication of 8th-graders.

[ipfilter]

23. TLC jumped the shark with Trading Spaces.

It hasn't been the same ever since.

[Posteritatis]

25. I gave up on TLC when..

..their lineup changed from educational programming to some 4-8 hour block of related shows following a couple from dating to their kids' toddlerhood which they re-ran several times a day. Is it still just The Childbirth Channel?

[JVS]

12. 1. Plenty of archival footage. In public domain even 2. Easy to take a non-controversial stance

#2 is why you'll never see a documentary about Poland's inter war authoritarian government and participation in the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia, or the role of Tito and his Partisans in WWII

[Phoonzang]

13. I personally find it interesting.

But then I find the Nazis interesting, the same way a psychologist finds serial killers interesting.

[SIMPLYB1980]

14. Agreed. I wish they would do a show showing the similarities between,

Hitler and Bush. Hell it could be a twelve part series. I doubt that will happen though. I do see it as a good warning about fascism for them to show these programs. Though I'm shore some Nazi is sitting in his basement whacking off to it.

[QueenOfCalifornia]

16. I know!

It used to be A&E's job to be All Hitler All the time.... (I used to write for a show on A&E and that was our mantra.) :)

[Ioo]

17. The "H" really means Hitler, not history

[treestar]

20. There is a fascination with evil

And when it comes to evil, Nazi Germany is it.

[RamboLiberal]

21. Huh - Some of you must not channel surf by History Channel

Except when they were promoting Valkyrie they haven't been showing much WWII stuff except for some programming they did on the Pacific War of the WWII carrier Enterprise.

Last year they were the Ice Road Truckers and Tree-cutting Loggers channel. This year they seem to be the religious and UFO channel. On edit I forgot about Gangland which to me seems to glorify gangs, outlaw motorcycle gangs, etc.

Shows listed on their site: Ancient Discoveries, Ax Men, Cities of the Underworld, Extreme Trains, Gangland, Ice Road Truckers, Monster Quest, UFO Hunters, The Universe. Don't see any Nazi shows there.

I'd rather they got back to "History".

This is complaint is so 90's! I think some of you post w/o checking on what you're posting about!

[AyanEva]

29. .

I always enjoy Armageddon Week, which they've had like four times this year. XD

[WI_DEM]

27. History Channel has always been obsessed with Hitler, maybe they got a good deal on Hitler

documentaries.

[AyanEva]

28. I think the shows are pretty fascinating, personally.

That's one of my favorite channels.

[Beacool]

31. It sells?

Those shows must have higher viewership than others. The History channel has been obsessed with WWII for years.

:eyes:

[alwysdrunk]

32. WWII is incredibly interesting

I could watch those documentaries for days. I can't even really explain it, when they come on I can sit and watch them for hours. I'm no WWII buff, it's just an interesting subject.

[Beacool]

38. I find them very interesting too, but sometimes it's overkill.

Just like MSNBC and their prison stories. What's with that anyway? They are supposed to be a news organization, why do they do these prison stories ad nauseum? Neither CNN nor FOX operate that way.

:(

[zulchzulu]

33. Oddly, the sad subject gets high ratings and it's getting near Sweeps Week

WWII videos are very popular...

[Forkboy]

34. It must just be me, but I watch History Channel all the time and hardly ever see this stuff.

Especially compared to how they were years ago.

[underpants]

39. Have you seen the one "Did Confederate ghosts advise Hitler?"?

:rofl:

that is my brother's synopsis of the History Channel