[ANON POST] A variety of ridiculous WWII-related questionS

[orange_fell]

I seem to have a strange plotbunny that won't leave me alone and requires me to write several background incidents based on things I know nothing about. Can you help me, little_details?

Setting: Germany during WWII, but of the wildly unrealistic, over-the-top variety. Think Inglorious Basterds where rule-of-cool outweighs what actually happened.

Comments

[irreparable]

(I am Australian and a researcher by trade, so that's my basis for some of my answer. :D)

1. Fantastic site convering all aspects of Australians in WW2: http://www.ww2australia.gov.au/
The RSL overview: http://rslnsw.org.au/commemoration/heritage/the-second-world-war
Similar text, but with photos and a LONG list of photographic and primary sources: http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/ww2.asp

Australians as POWs in Germany during the war: http://www.awm.gov.au/exhibitions/stolenyears/ww2/germany/
* this also has maps and prisoner numbers that would be of use, I'd think.

2. The Dresden bombing. It's been described as one of the worst single event massacres of all time.
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/bombing_of_dresden.htm
http://rense.com/general19/flame.htm
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2276944/I-destroyed-Dresden-Bomber-Harris-unrepentant-German-city-raids-30-years-end-World-War-Two.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/february/14/newsid_3549000/3549905.stm

3. I would suggest France, probably south. That's just from having heard my father speak about his time in the War, when he worked for the resistance.

4. My mum listened to a lot of American music during the war years, so it was definitely here in Australia. A lot of bands came to tour Australia, and sell their records while they travelled around the country, and there was a lot of music played on the radio. The Wiki article isn't too bad: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_jazz Even better is the Jazz in Australia site:
http://www.jazzinaustralia.org.au/history.html

And for digital newspaper archive par excellence, I highly recommend Trove. If you're looking to get a feel for how the War was talked about and what people did, do a search for subects and dates during WW2. Think of it as a giant newspaper google.
http://trove.nla.gov.au/

[alextiefling]

As to the badness of the Dresden bombings, I'd recommend the relevant chapter in another Richard J Evans book, Telling Lies About Hitler. He makes it clear that while it was appalling, the badness of Dresden has been played up (especially by the far right) in order to present a false moral equivalence between the two sides.

Also, the bombing of Dresden took place in early 1945 (which is part of the controversy - Allied boots were well on the ground in mainland Europe by then), so it doesn't make sense to use it for the back-story of characters active in 1943.

[irreparable]

The firebombing of Hamburg by the RAF and USAF (Operation Gomorrha) happened in July 1943, though. Are 80,000-odd dead and burned civilians bad enough for your purposes, OP?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Hamburg_in_World_War_II

[irreparable]

Oh wow. Thanks a gazillion! I'd found the first site already but the rest are new to me.

Dresden's too late for my purposes, which is a pity because that's the one I've read about in great detail.

[irreparable]

The firebombing of Hamburg by the RAF and USAF (Operation Gomorrha) happened in July 1943, though. Are 80,000-odd dead and burned civilians bad enough for your purposes, OP?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Hamburg_in_World_War_II

[irreparable]

Yeah, no worries. :)

You might find something here: http://www.worldwar-2.net/timelines/war-in-europe/western-europe/western-europe-index-1943.htm the timelines listed on this site are quite detailed and give a lot of information that you might find useful.