# Talk:World War II

I am surprised this is missing, given this is a GA. I know this is a highly watchlisted/edited article, but the lack of resistance section about Resistance during World War II (it is just briefly mentioned under occupation as a main article) seems to me like a major Anglophone systemic bias. Sure, US and UK were never occupied, so occupation gets three paragraphs, and resistance - a single sentence. Sigh. Occupation and resistance is a major part of war memory and narrative in most European countries. To compare: Resistance gets a long section at Polish Wikipedia (with subsections for Poland, USSR, France and Yugoslavia); pl:II_wojna_światowa#Opór_przeciw_okupantom. At French Wikipedia, Resistance gets a subsection comparable to our current Occupations section (fr:Seconde_Guerre_mondiale#Collaborations_et_résistances_en_Europe). Ru wiki aritcle is just a chronological overview with no topical subsections, so it is not a very good comparison (most other wikis, like ours, have both chronological and topical sections). Would anyone volunteer to create such a section? Otherwise, I am afraid this article (IMHO) does not meet GA criteria and should be delisted due to aforementioned lack of coverage of a major aspect (systemic bias). Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 05:52, 21 September 2025 (UTC)

How about you have a first crack, and post a draft here? This seems a lot more productive than threatening to have the article delisted from GA status because someone else hasn't done so. As this is a very high level article, a few sentences would do the trick and would reflect the weight this topic gets in the English language literature. There are also likely areas where the contribution resistance movements made to campaigns could be better recognised in the body of the article, for instance in relation to the Eastern Front and war in Burma. Nick-D (talk) 07:04, 21 September 2025 (UTC)
Perhaps there is a systemic bias towards resistance movements in the non-English wikipedia articles? The issue is how much did they really contribute to the defeat of the Axis powers? Also this article already discusses resistance movements as part of the narrative of war events. The Yugoslavian partisans, the Warsaw uprising etc are discussed at appropriate points in various sections. That said, I think the one sentence dismissal of resistance movements in the article is inadequate: "Although resistance groups formed in most occupied territories, they did not significantly hamper German operations in either the East or the West until late 1943." If you would like to draft a short section on collaboration and resistance in the occupied countries that might well improve the article. Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 07:28, 21 September 2025 (UTC)
There are a total of 3 seperate mentions of resistance. excluding the fact we have articles (and links to them, in the infobox) on each nation's resistance movements. This is an overview, it is best not to weigh it down with material, best left to seperate articles. Slatersteven (talk) 10:12, 21 September 2025 (UTC)
I don't know the extent to which the actions of violent resistance groups may have accelerated the end of the war, but Jacques Sémelin's (1993) Unarmed Against Hitler documents multiple incidents where nonviolence saved many Jews. Examples:
"Danish resistance movement" includes a section on "Nonviolent resistance: 1940–1943" The second paragraph in that article includes the comment that, "The resistance was responsible for the rescue of almost all Danish Jews." The article on "Rescue of the Danish Jews" notes that "The Danish resistance movement, with the assistance of many Danish citizens, managed to evacuate 7,500 of Denmark's 8,000 Jews, plus 686 non-Jewish spouses, by sea to nearby neutral Sweden during the Second World War. ... As a result of the rescue, and of the following Danish intercession on behalf of the 464 Danish Jews who were captured and deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, 99% of Denmark's Jewish population survived the Holocaust." That rescue was initiated by "German diplomat Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz", who " tipped off the Danes about the Germans' intended deportation of the Jewish population in 1943 and arranged for their reception in Sweden." But Duckwitz was not the only German who supported the rescue. It involved an "unusual stream of people travelling on trams" and going into hiding in northern Denmark until they were able to cross into Sweden. "Often German soldiers turned a blind eye to" those unusual activities.
But helping Danish Jews escape the Holocaust was not the only nonviolent action by Danes against the occupation: Danes also organized strikes, slow work, sabotage, and other tactics. Similar actions were taken in the Netherlands but were less well coordinated.
"The Rosenstrasse protest was the only mass public demonstration by Germans in the Third Reich against the deportation of Jews. ... This demonstration was initiated and sustained by the non-Jewish wives and relatives of Jewish men and Mischlinge, (those of mixed Jewish and Aryan heritage)." Goebbels ultimately ordered their release, arguing, "if force was used to crush the demonstrations, it would prompt wider protests all over Berlin, which might soon become political, and could possibly even lead to the overthrow of the Nazi regime."
I remember having read of nonviolent noncooperation that hampered Nazi efforts elsewhere, but I cannot find documentation for such at the moment. DavidMCEddy (talk) 14:36, 21 September 2025 (UTC)
I don't think anything is missing from this article as it is a relatively short overview. I think there is bias towards the resistance in non-English Wikipedias because the resistance was important in their national stories. I don't think it was really that important overall.--Jack Upland (talk) 00:28, 22 September 2025 (UTC)
I am not sure what you mean by "a total of 3 seperate mentions of resistance". Resistance during World War II is mentioned three times (I've added a link to the first mention of the concept; two old ones were in occupation section; one as main - feel free to remove the other one if anyone cares about overlinking). Looking at interlinks, we only link to French Resistance, Italian resistance movement, Yugoslav Partisans and Soviet partisans (these only in the caption). Some may be mentioned by names of local groups, ex. Polish resistance in World War II was not mentioned (but Home Army was; I'll add a link to the parent article to that sentence now for context as not all readers may be familiar with what Home Army is). Anyway, yes, we mention resistance here and there, but the lack of discussion in the occupation section is glaring. Also, note the current sentence/paragraph is logically unfinished. We say "Although resistance groups formed in most occupied territories, they did not significantly hamper German operations in either the East or the West until late 1943.". Fine, but what about 1944+? The reader is left wanting. I'll see what I can draft. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 01:30, 24 September 2025 (UTC)
A separate section on resistance movements—appropriately balanced—would be beneficial. Soviet and Yugoslav partisans tied down significant Axis forces, while Chinese partisans engaged Japanese troops in Mainland China. The Warsaw Uprising, launched by the Polish Home Army, was one of the fiercest instances of urban combat during World War II. Their contributions to Allied intelligence, as well as non-armed resistance (for example, the rescue of Jews), should also be acknowledged.Dreamcatcher25 (talk) 07:38, 24 September 2025 (UTC)


### Rewriting
There is a sourcing SYNTH and OR problem with the main resistance sentence we have, i.e. "Although resistance groups formed in most occupied territories, they did not significantly hamper German operations in either the East[419] or the West[420] until late 1943." I've checked both sources. First, neither supports the claim that "Although resistance groups formed in most occupied territories", so effectively, that needs a {{fact}} (granted, it should not be hard to add a citation, and the claim seems mostly correct). Second, the first source talks about Soviet partisans only (while the East encompasses Poland and Yugoslavia, perhaps Greece too); the second is only about France, not the West. Lastly, neither source supports "late 1943" in that context. The first source states that "[Soviet] partisan units rapidly expanded in late 1943 and early 1944" and that "the early effectiveness of the partisans may have been low". The second says "Whether [the French Resistance] made a major difference or not is debatable" and "more or less mass Resistance developed in 1943". Wikiblame tells me this content was written in 2008 by one User:Oberiko, inactive since 2022. I am going to c/e that sentence to remove SYNTH/OR (extrapolating from Soviet/France to East/West) until better sources are found, and if I can, I'll add a ref to the first part (until then, I'll tag it with a cite request - perhaps someone else will be able to find a good source). If I find relevant sources, I'll add a few more sentences about resistance in general. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 04:26, 24 September 2025 (UTC)

Please post that new material for discussion here first, per the usual arrangements. Nick-D (talk) 08:38, 24 September 2025 (UTC)
@Nick-D Sure. I've c/e-ed what we have here, and I am woring on Resistance_during_World_War_II#Assessment (that article was very poor, still needs much work). Based on the section linked here, I'd suggest splitting the current unfinished sentence on resistance into a new short paragraph, and expanding by adding 2-3 sentences, summarizing major types of resistance (violent and non-violent) and how historians view the effectivness. Something like: "By 1942, resistance spread widely across occupied territories, and steadily intensified, with activities ranging from sabotage and intelligence-gathering to clandestine press, escape lines, assassinations, guerrilla warfare and uprisings. Overall effectiveness varied by time and place: resistance rarely altered the strategic course of the war on its own, but it tied down Axis forces, disrupted communications and logistics, and contributed to liberation when coordinated with major Allied operations—particularly from late 1943 onward." Ref: [1] (p. 24, 60-61), [2]. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 11:38, 24 September 2025 (UTC)

In continuation to User:Aemilius Adolphin's comments on my talk page, propose a short addition acknowledging the supporting role of colonies and mandates like Mandatory Palestine in the Allied war effort. While the territory was small compared to other parts of the British Empire, scholarship shows that it hosted British military camps, employed both Jewish and Arab labor in those installations, and expanded agricultural production to provision Allied forces in the Eastern Mediterranean. This is a modest but notable example of how such territories to Britain’s vital global war mobilization and logistics, and is comparable to the treatment of other small colonial territories already mentioned in the article. There is no reason to ignore this issue:
Proposed text
“Though a minor territory within Britain’s empire, Mandatory Palestine played a supporting role in the Allied war effort. British army camps were established in the territory, drawing on both Jewish and Arab labor, while local agriculture was expanded to supply food to Allied forces across the Eastern Mediterranean.”
suggested citations:

Yoav Gelber, Palestine and World War II (Cambridge University Press, 1990).
Roy Marom, “RAF Ein Shemer: Forgotten Case of Jewish and Arab Work in a British Army Camp in Palestine during the Second World War,” War & Society 39.3 (2020): 189–209.
These additions can be generalized more broadly to other colonial dependencies throughout the war. רמרום (talk) 12:20, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

It's a question of due weight. Policy states: "An article should not give undue weight to minor aspects of its subject but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight proportional to its treatment in the body of reliable, published material on the subject." WP:BALASP. This is a high level article and the section on war production and the home front is only meant to include a very concise summary of material that should be discussed in detail in the specialist articles linked in the section. So, on the Allied side, this article only talks about the US and British empire in general and only mentions the Soviet Union is passing. If we are going to talk about civilian contribution to the allied war effort there are scores of countries which should be mentioned before Mandate Palestine. If we want to mention a British colony then India should get 150 times the space allotted to mandate Palestine if we allocate space in proportion to the weight in reliable sources. If you haven't already done so, perhaps you should add your sentence to the the article on Military production during World War II or Home front during World War II. Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 22:32, 25 September 2025 (UTC)
I agree. It can't be mentioned here.--Jack Upland (talk) 01:51, 26 September 2025 (UTC)
I understand the concern about due weight (WP:DUE), but I think this discussion highlights the need for a very short, generalized acknowledgement rather than silence. At present, the article frames “civilian contribution” primarily through the United States and Britain, with only a passing nod to the Soviet Union. I am concerned that this reflects a negative systemic bias (WP:WORLDVIEW), given that civilian labour and provisioning in colonies and mandates underpinned Allied logistics across multiple theatres.
I am not proposing a long section on any single minor territory. Instead, a single bridging sentence can resolve the imbalance while keeping the section concise, consistent with WP:SUMMARYSTYLE. Something like:
“Beyond the major powers, the Allied war effort also drew on civilian labour and agricultural production from colonies and mandates, where local populations supported military installations and provisioning.”
This approach avoids undue emphasis on any one case (Palestine, India, or others) but accurately reflects what the secondary literature shows about the empire-wide mobilization of civilian labour. It also parallels the article’s current handling of the Soviet Union—acknowledged in a sentence without detailed elaboration—while pointing readers to specialist articles for depth.
Such a sentence, with citations to scholarship on colonial labour mobilization, would ensure balance without overextending the article.
רמרום (talk) 08:36, 26 September 2025 (UTC)
This is the top level article on the war, so can't acknowledge all contributions to it. There also isn't material on, for instance, the British colonies West Africa, South Africa or Rhodesia, even though all were involved in the war. New Zealand gets a single passing mention. Australia is mentioned a few times, but it was strategically important in 1942-43, and there's no material on the Australian war economy which was more heavily mobilised than almost any country. I'm not seeing any reason to call out Mandatory Palestine's role in the war. This kind of thing is best covered in articles on theatres of the war and groupings. The new sentence being proposed above is quite problematic as it portrays the residents of empires as being united in supporting the war effort, when this was very far from the case. Nick-D (talk) 08:55, 26 September 2025 (UTC)
I appreciate the point about proportionality (WP:DUE). However, I think Mandatory Palestine is not simply “another small colony” like West Africa or Rhodesia. Reliable secondary scholarship makes clear that Palestine was the central logistics hub for the Allied war effort in the Middle East. British army camps, airfields, supply depots, and agricultural provisioning there served as the base from which operations across the Eastern Mediterranean and North Africa were sustained.
This is why Palestine is often treated differently in the literature from territories that provided manpower or raw materials but were not themselves the key operational base. In other words, it played a strategic logistical role disproportionate to its small size, similar in kind (though obviously not scale) to Australia’s position in the Pacific.
That said, I agree the article cannot single out every territory. The compromise solution I suggested earlier—a brief, generalized sentence noting that “colonies and mandates provided civilian labour and provisioning for Allied logistics”—would keep this high-level article concise (WP:SUMMARYSTYLE), avoid systemic bias (WP:WORLDVIEW), and allow readers to follow links to specialized articles for cases like Palestine.
This way we neither overstate local unity of purpose (Nick-D’s valid concern) nor erase the well-documented fact that colonial dependencies like Palestine underpinned Allied supply chains in their respective regions.
רמרום (talk) 10:03, 26 September 2025 (UTC)

The graph of allied to axis gdp only jas one line 107.13.136.247 (talk) 15:52, 22 October 2025 (UTC)

So it appears that my little two edits of some day ago were reverted by @Aemilius Adolphin because... it would have been "too detailed"!
You all see by yourself how long, detailed and full of wl the introduction to this article is, right?
Well, here Is the first text I inserted:

Several commercial agreements between Soviet Union and Germany were signed and put in effect.

And the second:

After a failed proposal of an extension of the Axis alliance to the Soviet Union in November 1940,

All deleted because it was "too detailed".
Judge it you all, I don't know what to say... I even thought that I was doing a favor and something pleasant to everyone (expecting maybe even an official "thank you" via the mediawiki feedback system), because since the beginning of the russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, everyone wanted to highlight how Nazi Germany and Soviet Union worked close together in the first two years of the war and conquered many nations then... LucaLindholm (talk) 11:23, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

The lead is only meant to give a concise overview of the article. The lead already mentions the partition of Poland under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, and the subsequent Soviet invasions of the Baltic states and Finland. There is no need to mention Nazi-Soviet commercial agreements or the negotiations over the Soviets joining the Axis which came to nothing. The lead omits dozens of more important events. These details can be found in the relevant sub-sections of the article where they belong. But let's see what others think. Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 23:28, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

I would like to add some information about this operation because Hitler used it as a justification for the invasion of Poland. Bavarian Wilhelm (talk) 14:54, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

Such as? Slatersteven (talk) 15:03, 8 November 2025 (UTC)
Germany needed a pretext to start a war with Poland and launched Operation Himmler. Gestapo forces brought a prisoner from a German concentration camp to a radio station located not far from the Polish-German border. This took place the evening before the scheduled day of the invasion of Poland. The prisoner was dressed in a Polish military uniform and was shot on the spot as the Nazis announced that they had stopped a Polish attack. Hitler used this incident to justify his own war. Bavarian Wilhelm (talk) 15:11, 8 November 2025 (UTC)
Too much detail for an overview article. Slatersteven (talk) 15:14, 8 November 2025 (UTC)
Or can I simply write that Hitler needed a pretext and therefore launched Operation Himmler? Like for example: "In order to have a pretext for the war in Poland, Hitler launched Operation Himmler the evening before invading Poland." Bavarian Wilhelm (talk) 15:22, 8 November 2025 (UTC)
We more or less do already "On 1 September 1939, Germany invaded Poland after having staged several false flag border incidents as a pretext to initiate the invasion". Slatersteven (talk) 15:25, 8 November 2025 (UTC)
Yes, but that's part of the surgery. Bavarian Wilhelm (talk) 17:02, 8 November 2025 (UTC)
I want  to write about the operation itself. Bavarian Wilhelm (talk) 17:04, 8 November 2025 (UTC)
This doesn't seem necessary given the article already notes it, and is a 'very high level article. It can't cover all details of the war. Nick-D (talk) 22:07, 8 November 2025 (UTC)
Ok. I understand. Bavarian Wilhelm (talk) 22:22, 8 November 2025 (UTC)

Under the "Commanders and leaders" section, change "Jospeh Stalin" to "Joseph Stalin" ~2025-34335-54 (talk) 12:52, 17 November 2025 (UTC)

 Resolved I have reverted the edit that introduced the typo as it disregarded current consensus. Loytra✨ 13:30, 17 November 2025 (UTC)

It seems that the only text in the participants table is allies and axis. If it would help, I wish to add the full table with every participating country, also based on citations if required.
I am here to request clearance to do so.
Thanks!
Samvielsona (talk) 02:20, 23 November 2025 (UTC)

@Samvielsona: This has been extensively debated! The short of it is that including all of the participants makes the table extremely long, which devalues the summary purpose of an infobox. Ed [talk] [OMT] 03:37, 23 November 2025 (UTC)
That is completely valid! However, providing a list of all of the participant countries (or at minimum the major participating countries) along with a division for allied and axis members (if required) could greatly help with visiting people wishing to get an insight into individual country participation via the list and further help in the conflict's understanding whilst providing although relatively moderate efficiency by staying on the same article whilst viewing the list.
Samvielsona (talk) 04:39, 23 November 2025 (UTC)
Given the huge number of countries that participated in the war and the complexities around this (e.g. quite a few countries fought on both sides of the war) the infobox was vast and unhelpful when it used to include that. The current version reflects the long-term consensus. Nick-D (talk) 05:53, 23 November 2025 (UTC)
We have World War II by country for that. Slatersteven (talk) 10:18, 23 November 2025 (UTC)

Uifhkuerveveve (talk) 18:19, 23 November 2025 (UTC)And France is a major country in ww2

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. NotJamestack (✉️|📝) 18:31, 23 November 2025 (UTC)