I think WWII affected more ordinary people, at least in Europe. It was the first war that really involved civilians on a massive scale & nobody was safe. WWI seemed like ancient history even when I was young & those stinking trenches where it was mainly fought seemed far away. Most of the people who took part preferred to forget it & get on with their lives. I could actually talk to people who took part in WWII & others who had lost their homes & members of their family. When I was 10 years old that was almost everyone over 20 & some much younger, like my schoolmates, some of whom had lost one or both parents or siblings. I could also see the bomb damage all around me & visit the airfields where the RAF fighters & my BoB heroes were based only a few years before. From a very young age all I wanted to do was join the RAF & fly a Spitfire. Of course, by the time I was old enough the Spitfire was obsolete.

PS. My local barber had been gassed in the trenches during WWI. He wheezed terribly & never fully recovered. He never mentioned it & us kids knew better than to ask him about it. Quite understandably he was a bad-tempered old devil. He was the only WWI veteran I knew at the time.

Another fascination is that WW2 spurred the development of the technology that we use today.  Just think, WW2 started with weapons that were just improvements over their WW1 counterparts - bolt action rifles, for example, and the mentality of the last war.  There were whispers of new technologies - radar, turbines, electric-based calculators.  By the end of the war, electronic warfare was a serious weapon, the turbine was heralded as the engine of progress, and the technologies spurred the economic and further technical developments to this day.

It was (mercifully, so far) the last global, declared war that touched the four corners, and in a way, it was the last war with clear cut "us" vs "them"

I'm sure that the sheer duration of WWII has brought the interest level to where it is now.......afterall, can anyone really call the "7 Day War", a prominent period of any historical significance globally ?...
........I know that for the immediate residents of the afffected area, it must have seemed an eternity, but still, it lives in history as a WAR .

...and so upon sheer numbers of dead, maimed and injured/recovered(at least physically), an event which stretched from 1939-1945 will always hold high interest for most historians............

I've been thinking about it a bit more, maybe its because WWII is within living memory. My grandfathers fought in it along with all but one of my great uncles (he was just a couple of months short of call up when it finished). Perhaps its hearing descriptions of their battles that inspire us and make us wonder.
Also WWII was the first truely "filmed" war, cameramen in the front line with the soldiers filming their bravery, and death.
Gun cameras on planes showing enemies being shot down. Maybe because we have such records there is more interest, whereas say the Boer War can really only be read about...
Just my 2 pence worth

Mark

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WW2 has lost the sharp edeges of it's political sensitivity, as there are less veterans alive each day. Even though the 7 days war was a huge achevement in the tactics department (expecially the cooperation between tanks and infantry), the outcome is still very visible in the news, and a source for heated debate.

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WW2 style "us" vs "them" did exist until 1991... when the soviet union finally collapsed. Up to that point the "us" vs "them" was battled out in the jungle of South America and the grasslands of Africa. On a small scale, but it was happening...
The next step in the "us" vs "them" was 1979 where the first lines of the next chapter were written... only the "us" and "them" were less clearly defined.

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Even though it was filmed to a great extend, most of the video material became available for the public long after the war ended. Vietnam still has the name of being the most "filmed" war, where the press got so many freedom that the public turned against the government. The war was brought to the living room...
This mistake will never be made again, and the 1991-200x Gulf confilct shows the way wars will be in the news from there on

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Omag. I think this is because last year (2004) was the 60th anniversary of the "D-Day" landings in Normandy. This year I imagine all the programs will be about the end of WWII.

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The British Army was made up of many different nationalities & religions from all over the British Empire. These would be as varied as Australians, New Zealanders, Canadians, South Africans, Gurkhas, Indians & many more. There were 1,000s from occupied countries like Poland & France, not forgetting Belgium & all over Europe, who made their own way to Britain to fight. What they went through to get here often makes great adventure stories in their own right. Unfortunately when they did make it they might be treated with suspicion or nobody knew quite what to do with them. Eventually it was all sorted out. If there were enough from one country they might all serve in the same company. One example is the 1st Polish Parachute Brigade that took part in Operation Market Garden. http://www.herbertholeman.com/para/events/driel.php
This is not counting the US Army whose members came from all over the US if not the world.

For WWII in Europe I recommend you try to get hold of some of the old classic WWII films like Dunkirk, The Battle of Britain, Reach for the Sky, The Longest Day, A Bridge Too Far, The Dam Busters, The Cruel Sea etc. Most of these are reasonably accurate. There are plenty more lesser known ones that are well worth watching.

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Unfortunately this is a common story & by no means restricted to your country. My own country is responsible for many things that I'm almost ashamed to admit but there's nothing I can do about it. I once worked with a Polish chap who had managed to come here & serve in the British Army. He stayed here after the war ended & married an Englishwoman. He never saw his family again although he occasionally phoned his mother who had remained in Poland. I expect he has passed away now. There were plenty more like him.