# Why did most of Europe just lay down for Germany at the start of WWII? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 29, 2010, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-most-of-europe-just-lay-down-for-germany-at-the-start-of-wwii/562233 "2010-11-29T01:02:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![SecretaryofEvil](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e95f7d/32.png) [@SecretaryofEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SecretaryofEvil)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2010, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-most-of-europe-just-lay-down-for-germany-at-the-start-of-wwii/562233/201 "2010-12-10T04:10:07Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > And the notion that the Russians “never surrendered” is simply laughable. Russians surrendered BY THE MILLIONS. Of course there was an official “No Surrender” policy from Stalin, but that didn’t matter much until after the war, when all the Russian soldiers liberated from POW camps were sent to the Gulags on charges of treason. > > But the Russians surrendered and surrendered and surrendered. It’s just that after a thousand kilometers of advancing, destroying the Red Army, and accepting surrenders, the German Wehrmacht was overexposed. And finally the remaining portions of the Red Army that hadn’t been killed or captured was able to mount a counterattack, and grind the Germans down, and reverse the process. > > France didn’t have a thousand kilometers to retreat into. Neither did Norway, or Denmark, or Belgium, or Luxembourg, or Poland. Russia was able to absorb fantastic losses of men and territory, not because they “didn’t surrender” (because they did), but because they had unparalleled men and territory to lose. The Germans kicked Russian ass all day every day for a solid year, and the only reason the Russians weren’t conquered is they had so much ass to kick there was still quite a bit of ass left. The Germans ran out of boots before the Russians ran out of ass. > > It’s odious and offensive to declare that the difference between countries that were occupied and countries that weren’t occupied was that the occupied countries were full of cowards, while the unoccupied countries were full of heroes. It’s beyond offensive. It’s literally retarded. Yeah, I was wondering when someone was going to bring up the millions of Soviets who surrendered to the Germans. Or what about the thousands of Soviets who switched sides and fought for the Germans? If the Soviets were so tough and never surrendery, why did millions of them surrender to Stalin & company and get sent to gulags? Courage is as necessary to winning a war as shoes are. It’s pretty hard to win a war without shoes or courage. But if you’re expecting to win a war just because you have massive amounts of courage or shoes, be prepared to have your country trashed by people who have adequate amounts of courage and shoes, and massive amounts of explosives. ---
**Author:** ![katydid1031](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/2bfe46/32.png) [@katydid1031](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/katydid1031)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2010, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-most-of-europe-just-lay-down-for-germany-at-the-start-of-wwii/562233/202 "2010-12-21T19:32:31Z")
Wait a minute…Didn’t Germany have gun control? It started in 1929…if I rmember history right. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2010, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-most-of-europe-just-lay-down-for-germany-at-the-start-of-wwii/562233/203 "2010-12-21T20:06:19Z")
Re. the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising: according to Wikipedia, about 13,000 jews were killed in the uprising and about 50,000 prisoners deported to concentration camps. Only a handful of resistance fighters escaped. German losses are unknown because they were deliberately played down but were probably only a few hundred killed and wounded. Granted the Warsaw Jews were in a terrible position, but still not a very triumphant resistance. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2010, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-most-of-europe-just-lay-down-for-germany-at-the-start-of-wwii/562233/204 "2010-12-21T20:21:12Z")
> [@katydid1031](#): > > Wait a minute…Didn’t Germany have gun control? It started in 1929…if I rmember history right. In 1919, Germany passed a law outlawing all firearms ownership. In 1928, they passed another law relegalizing it but requiring people who owned, carried, or sold firearms to be licensed. In 1938, they passed a law removing the requirements to license rifles and shotguns, reducing the age someone could get a handgun permit to 18 from 20, banning Jews from carrying weapons, increasing the length of the weapon permit, and increasing the number of people who were exempt from the permit law. ---
**Author:** ![katydid1031](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/2bfe46/32.png) [@katydid1031](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/katydid1031)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2010, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-most-of-europe-just-lay-down-for-germany-at-the-start-of-wwii/562233/205 "2010-12-21T22:04:04Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > In 1919, Germany passed a law outlawing all firearms ownership. In 1928, they passed another law relegalizing it but requiring people who owned, carried, or sold firearms to be licensed. In 1938, they passed a law removing the requirements to license rifles and shotguns, reducing the age someone could get a handgun permit to 18 from 20, banning Jews from carrying weapons, increasing the length of the weapon permit, and increasing the number of people who were exempt from the permit law. Thanks!..Need to review my history. ---
**Author:** ![Bookkeeper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bookkeeper/32/281_2.png) [@Bookkeeper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bookkeeper)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2011, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-most-of-europe-just-lay-down-for-germany-at-the-start-of-wwii/562233/206 "2011-01-01T17:05:20Z")
> [@Tristan](#): > > The Finns are truly bad ass, and very humble about it. A friend who served a couple of tours in UN peacekeeping forces told us of an incident when he was in Lebanon where the Israelis began shelling an area near a Finnish UN post. The Finns contacted the Israelis, who refused to stop the shelling, so the Finns drove their APC into the target zone and radioed UN HQ that they were under artillery fire. The shelling stopped. Badass is right! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-most-of-europe-just-lay-down-for-germany-at-the-start-of-wwii/562233.md?page=10)