Why is WWII taught so extensively in most countries yet WWI is just glossed over?

[Jamash]

The first 2 responses surprise me, other people I had talked to just said that they got taught the bare bones of it then skipped to WWII.

You have to bear in mind that the Curriculum has changed a lot since I was at school.

I was at primary school and being taught about WW1 before the National Curriculum was introduced, so perhaps the teachers at my school felt that WW1 and an awareness of why we remember it was particularly important.

The area I was brought up in has quite a lot of memorials and reminders of those who served and died in WW1. My Catholic primary school was next to an old graveyard with quite a few war graves which we passed every week on the way to church, so perhaps the teachers felt it was important for us to be aware of these things.

Awareness of WW1 might also vary from county to county in the UK and perhaps WW1 is more remembered in the North West of England than other counties.

I also wouldn't be surprised if the Curriculum streamlined history and nowadays focused more on WW2, since the big evil that was Hitler and the Nazis is a simpler concept than what caused WW1.

 

[owen4evr]

More countries were involved in WW2 than the first.

 

[MasterOfWorlds]

In highschool maybe, simply because all of the intricacies that were involved in WWI would take about half a regular school year to cover, and they teach a good bit to you in history. WWII also had the advantage of having a clearly defined bad guy/good guy thing going for it, and there've been movies made about that, so it grabs the attention of the students more.

In college though, you learn quite a bit more about WWI and WWII.

 

[The Lugz]

I understand how WWII is more recent, however, WWI was the lead up to WWII as without it Germany wouldn't have been crippled.
Is it due to the grey and gray morality surrounding the events with no country truly being in the right?
Is it simply because most of the western front was bogged down in trenches?

i imagine because ww1 is out of human memory, and there are no super-weapons involved or video documentaries

 

[Airsoftslayer93]

Just finished my history A levels, and tbh in my years of history education ive covered both wars fairly equally, in fact most of the focus was on ww1, then the period between, how ww1 contributed to ww2, and then a very small amount on ww2 itself.

 

[SoloStoffe]

I was brifely taught of WWI, and brifely on WWII. What I spent the most time learning about however, was what happened in germany between the two.

 

[VGC USpartan VS]

Look, I'm an American and WW2 is a pretty big thing here.... which is odd because in my U.S History class WW1 only get's one page and WW2 get's one small paragraph that basically said "After the events of WW1, a man named Adolf Hitler" became ruler of Germany and WW2 started."

THAT's IT!

I would also like to mention that I live in California... which has been proven to have the worst schools in the country.

 

[The Great Purtabo]

well... in the U.S. I would assume WWI wouldn't have ben taught as much because, in fact "the best country in the world" was barely in it, and if they were, they were on the sidelines like pussies; but i digress, i do prefer WWI to WW2 because it is the "transition" piece in war today, from the grand, glorifying battles of the 1800's and back, to the bogged down massacres of modern war, where one man could kill a thousand. (US civil war too blech) but in Canada, we did spend more time on WW1 because, well, it was more influencing, and basically shaped the world order we have today.

 

[William MacKay]

in scotland its the reverse. we also have to do a full topic on scotland only, which is stupid as theres very little material on that. we've done about 3 months on WW2.

 

[Mad1Cow]

World War 2 is simpler, it was summed up as "Big bad man want conquer world, get's quite far, fails when America roles in" that's pretty much how most people sum it up (for some reason) (oh and when I say 'summed up' I mean by films/tv/books etc).

World War 1 didn't have a common enemy. It was more that everyone was at war with someone. I think, I wasn't taught too well on these areas (history bored me, deal with it). I know Germany was pretty much the bad guy because of the Treaty of Versailes but they had so many allies with them that time. In WW2 they didn't have too many allies and pretty much rised out of the dumps. Things are remembered and commercialised a lot easier if there's just one guy that the masses focus on. WW1 didn't have that. WW2 did. Heck, even the Cold War did (Stalin) and that has more of a focus than WW2. So that's what I think to the reasoning behind it...

 

[Instant K4rma]

Tom Hanks was never in a Spielberg movie about World War I. Why would we want to learn about a war that didn't have Tom Hanks in it?

 

[The_Decoy]

erm I was actually taught a lot more about Unification of Germany (Bismarck), Weimar and the road to war (end of Weimar republic to the invasion of Poland) than I ever was about either world war. I guess my teachers thought actual wars were dull, but the causes and repercussions much more interesting.

Though I hate people who chat during the 2 minutes silence on remembrance day. I mean if I had been born 100 years before I had, I would've had to have served in the trenches. There's such a lack of respect in some people, it sickens me.

 

[Blobpie]

WW2 is just easier to teach, you have a bad guy (axis)and the good guys (allies). It's much simpler the understand.

While in WW1 there wasn't much of a bad guy it was just a cluster fuck of alliances and arm races building up a powder keg until a simple assassination set off a chain reaction.

But luckily in my high school they took the liberty of teaching WW1 BEFORE WW2 which made be understand why WW2 started in the first place.

 

[Inkidu]

I understand how WWII is more recent, however, WWI was the lead up to WWII as without it Germany wouldn't have been crippled.
Is it due to the grey and gray morality surrounding the events with no country truly being in the right?
Is it simply because most of the western front was bogged down in trenches?

The long and short of it is:

WWII is a pretty well-defined conflict, you know who was right, who went in on the right, who went in on the wrong. It's terrible that it was a war but...

WWI is a much more mired conflict. No one knows who is right, who was wrong, they're only halfway certain they know who started it, and in my opinion Britain and France sued the hell out of Germany because a bunch of Balkan states had no money. In fact that last sentence pretty much laid the breeding ground for Hitler in the second conflict.

 

[xXAsherahXx]

I was taught extensively about WWI, but probably because I took a European History intensive class. WWII was kind of skipped over and we were taught the effects of it more so than the war itself.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

What I want to know is why we persist in calling them "World Wars" when they pretty much just revolved around Germany, France, Great Britain, and Russia. Oh sure, we over here in North America joined in too, and Japan got involved in the second one, but the vast majority of the conflict in both wars was centered around the afor mentioned 4 countries. But even if you take into account every country that was involved, that still leaves 2 entire massive continents that weren't involved in anyway whatsoever, 3 if you count Antarctica.

 

[Thrashgrinder]

Well in my country WWI is taught and WWII is NOT taught.(if you're not specialist for the social classes)(we have a shitty education system in Turkey)

And in WWI some countries got kinda greedy with the lands they wanted so maybe that?

 

[The Great Purtabo]

World War 2 is simpler, it was summed up as "Big bad man want conquer world, get's quite far, fails when America roles in" that's pretty much how most people sum it up (for some reason) (oh and when I say 'summed up' I mean by films/tv/books etc).

World War 1 didn't have a common enemy. It was more that everyone was at war with someone. I think, I wasn't taught too well on these areas (history bored me, deal with it). I know Germany was pretty much the bad guy because of the Treaty of Versailes but they had so many allies with them that time. In WW2 they didn't have too many allies and pretty much rised out of the dumps. Things are remembered and commercialised a lot easier if there's just one guy that the masses focus on. WW1 didn't have that. WW2 did. Heck, even the Cold War did (Stalin) and that has more of a focus than WW2. So that's what I think to the reasoning behind it...

well, WWI, Germany was kinda an up-and-comer, and the allies basically crippled their country, allowing nationalists and extremism in Germany to flourish (creating WW2), but in the same way, Germany thought pretty well of itself, and wanted a bigger piece of the allies' pie (like asking the school bully for his lunch money) and basically were reamed. There were events in other parts of Europe too (Serbs vs. Austrians) which forced the war into starting.

 

[ThisIsSnake]

In England we did close to a full year on WWI, as well as a trip to the battlefields in Belgium and France (and graves of French, German, Flemish, Canadian and British troops). We are taught it because of it's massive, massive impact on the 20th Century. It led to the collapse of the European and Ottoman empires, it was the main factor that caused WWII, it led to women's rights being accepted in Britain, the formation of the League of Nations. It's a great war to teach people about, there is no good versus evil struggle, just 5 years of unrelenting bloodshed, insane commanders and disillusionment.

Prior to this War had the image of men of honour fighting for glory, after this all it was was death.

I had a great history teacher that was passionate about teaching both sides of WWI and WWII.

 

[Merkavar]

if i remember correctly in highschool i learnt about ww1 and 2 equally.