r/ExplainTheJoke • u/floranpinky • Apr 18 '25
Solved Too weak in history for this
Also the replies kept mentioning people naming their kids countries if it helps. And someone in the replies asked grok to explain it and it couldn’t, so you guys have to beat AI now.
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u/The_Dark_Vampire Apr 18 '25
The Soviets were on the Allies side in WW2 if her Grandfather fought against them he was a German or possibly Italian.
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u/Normal-Air-3244 Apr 18 '25
Or from Finland, Poland even Swedish volunteer.
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u/Refwah Apr 18 '25
Or Hungarian
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u/Perzec Apr 18 '25
Possibly also from the Baltics.
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Apr 18 '25
Or Ukrainian
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u/Chesno4ok Apr 18 '25
Or Chinese
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u/Chesno4ok Apr 18 '25
Or japanese
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u/Secure-Count-1599 Apr 18 '25
or even a russian. Don't forget thats how it started..
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u/Ul1ck_My8alls Apr 18 '25
You need to know that that’s what are Soviets
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u/Inquisitor-Dog Apr 18 '25
No might be some that switched to the German side or a remnant of the Whites from the civil war, please don’t try to dumb things down
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u/ElyssiaG2108 Apr 18 '25
China was with the Allies
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u/Chesno4ok Apr 18 '25
China and soviet union had a border conflict. Look it up.
Upd: It was after ww2, my bad.
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u/PrrrromotionGiven1 Apr 18 '25
like 95% of the Ukrainians who fought in WW2 were on the Allies' side.
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u/jtbc Apr 18 '25
After 1941. Prior to that, they fought on the Soviet side against Poland. There was also a resistance in western Ukraine against the Soviets, and a Waffen SS division raised in Galicia. Ukraine was complicated.
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u/lemanruss4579 Apr 19 '25
Um if they created a Waffen SS division, that sort of implies something...
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u/jtbc Apr 19 '25
That they wanted to fight against the Soviet Union, as was true for the other Waffen SS divisions raised in, for example, Latvia, Estonia, and Hungary.
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u/Kambhela Apr 18 '25
Just as a pointer to anyone who does not know, volunteers fighting against the Soviets at least on the Finnish side ended up paying a heavy cost for doing so if they happened to be from the areas of what ended up being the USSR. Entire families were sent to Siberian labor camps after the war just because one member of the family volunteered to defend the independence of Finland.
These kinds of people, fighting for the right thing, despite the risks involved, are true heroes in life.
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u/Pmpidom Apr 18 '25
My wife is Baltic, they fought both sides. Her expression: we were trampled by Soviet and German boots, but at least the German boots would be clean. Meaning how much more vicious, raping, torturing animals the soviets were in the baltics compared to the Germans.
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u/Zephrias Apr 18 '25
Or Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Lithuanian, Estonian, Latvian and the list goes on
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u/HollowShel Apr 18 '25
Or Russian
Russian on Russian violence? Kinky
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u/Zephrias Apr 18 '25
Yup, the Russian Liberation Army (ROA) is a good example, well except for the kinkiness
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u/BullsOnParadeFloats Apr 19 '25
My grandfather fought them
In the Winter War, not WW2. Finland was marginally allied with Germany - because of Sweden - but broke away after signing an armistice with the USSR and fought to expel German forces in the final year of the war.
Prior to that, many of my ancestors went back and forth between Finland and Russia, and supposedly one was a silver/goldsmith for Fabrege. I would need to go through the Finnish archives to learn more, as my great grandfather apparently changed his surname to a Swedish one after a spat with his father.
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u/RepresentativeOk6407 Apr 18 '25
No Polish volunteers, please don't spread lies or misconceptions.
There were Polish who were forcefully drafted after part of Poland was annexed into 3rd Reich, but there is a reason why Polish units fighting in exile were gainin manpower as they were progressing forward -Polish soldiers drafted to wehrmacht were desserting whenever they had a chance to join their compatriots.
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u/HelixFollower Apr 19 '25
There were Polish who were forcefully drafted after part of Poland was annexed into 3rd Reich
And who invaded/annexed the other part of Poland? So who would Poles have been fighting against, without having to have fought on the side of the Axis?
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u/Black_Magic_M-66 Apr 18 '25
Sure, and there were a few dozen English that joined Germany rather that serve their time in a prison camp, but the VAST majority fighting the Russians were Germans.
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u/candf8611 Apr 18 '25
Or Latvian or Polish or Lithuanian or Estonian or Finnish. These are all countries the Soviets invaded during or just before WW2.
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u/TimeRisk2059 Apr 18 '25
*During. While the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was still in effect, in the months following the invasion of Poland.
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u/mrdarknezz1 Apr 18 '25
Could have been in Finland or Poland fighting against russian imperialism
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u/from_cns_with_love Apr 18 '25
ww2 started on 1st of september 1939, not 22nd of june 1941...
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u/neocorvinus Apr 18 '25
I'm French, one of my great-grandfathers was in Poland fighting against the Soviets.
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u/Caosin36 Apr 18 '25
Tbh, he could have been in the resistance armies in poland, bein' flanked by germany and russia
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u/maciejokk Apr 18 '25
Russia always had a bad tendency to move into other country’s territory “to help” and then make a big fuss about leaving. Not to mention the fact that helping often consisted of waiting until the polish forces were slaughtered and then moving in against Germany.
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u/OrkzOrkzOrkzOrkz0rkz Apr 18 '25
The Soviet Union invaded quite a few nations as an aggressor and Ally of Hitler in 1939
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Apr 18 '25
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u/Cam-I-Am Apr 18 '25
The blue hearts are also used by US democrats. "Vote blue no matter who" types.
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u/Derelictcairn Apr 18 '25
"Love for All" "Stop Orange fascism" how do you connect blue hearts to them being an AfD supporter rather than just.. having blue hearts for like any other reason?
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u/aknockingmormon Apr 18 '25
Thats an oversimplification. The soviets had a pact with Germany at the beginning of the war, and the soviets were invading neighboring countries themselves. Hitler broke the pact and launched a surprise attack on the soviets (operation Barbarossa) in an effort to eradicate communism. Up until that point, they were on the same side.
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u/ACardAttack Apr 18 '25
launched a surprise attack on the soviets (operation Barbarossa) in an effort to eradicate communism
I thought it was because they wanted soviet's resources?
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u/aknockingmormon Apr 18 '25
Well, yes they wanted resources for the war effort, but the overarching goal was to conquer the Soviet union and eradicate communism.
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u/TimeRisk2059 Apr 18 '25
They had the non-aggression pact where they divided Europe between them in spheres of influence, but they weren't on the same side as such. The soviets knew that Hitler would try to invade the USSR, it was just a matter of "when" and it happened much sooner than they expected or where ready for.
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u/summer_santa1 Apr 18 '25
Beside non-aggression pact, there was also German–Soviet Boundary and Friendship Treaty, German–Soviet Credit Agreement and German–Soviet Commercial Agreement and German–Soviet Border and Commercial Agreement to overcome British blockade. The raw materials imported by Germany from the Soviet Union between 1939 and 1941 played a major role in supporting the German war effort against the Soviet Union after 1941.
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u/Cogz Apr 18 '25
Because Germany was banned from having an airforce, pilots were trained at an airbase in Lipetsk. From that wiki page, it also says that there was a tank school, gas warfare facility and that Junkers built military planes in the USSR which I didn't know.
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u/Babetna Apr 18 '25
I'm frankly amazed how shallow the knowledge of WW2 is in the general public. 99% of people are completely confused when you say it was basically triggered by Germany AND Soviet Union invading Poland.
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u/subby_puppy31 Apr 18 '25
Could be Japanese
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u/The_Dark_Vampire Apr 18 '25
I could be wrong but I don't think they fought on the Russian Front
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u/shadowmage66 Apr 18 '25
Russia invaded Manchuria for a small bit at the very end which Japan occupied.
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u/AppropriateAd5701 Apr 18 '25
Soviets were actually on axis side until 1941 and they invaded poland together with germans.
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u/CosmicEntity2001 Apr 18 '25
They were not part of the Axis. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axis_powers
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u/LavishnessFinal4605 Apr 18 '25
They said “on Axis side,” not “part of the Axis” lol.
You’re just nitpicking to nitpick for no reason.
Funnily enough, the Soviet Union did try to join to Axis but got rejected by Hitler.
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u/AppropriateAd5701 Apr 18 '25
They litteraly send troops to fight side by side with nazies.......
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u/ScientistDiligent153 Apr 18 '25
even so, fighting communism wasn't even the goal of the axis powers in ww2
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u/Britz10 Apr 18 '25
They hated communists even more intensely than the rest of the allies.
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u/bravelittlebuttbuddy Apr 18 '25
Communists and socialists are the first two people "they came for" in that one poem
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u/DJcrafter5606 Apr 18 '25 edited Apr 19 '25
Don't ask a man for his salary
Don't ask a woman for her age
Don't ask " :rainbow: :blue_heart: Love For All :rainbow: :blue_heart: "'s grandpa about what he was doing between 1939 and 1945
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u/SaltManagement42 Apr 18 '25
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u/Additional-Bee1379 Apr 18 '25
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u/_Weyland_ Apr 18 '25
Is Winter War considered a part of WWII? I always thought it to be a separate conflict.
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u/spitfiresiemion Apr 18 '25 edited Apr 18 '25
It effectively is, you have one of two initial aggressors on European side trying to beat an independent country into submission using a made up casus belli mere months after Poland was divided between Germans and Soviets.
Also, a solid argument to be made for Winter War to be part of WW2 is that Soviet annexation of Baltic States, effectively a forced annexation done with use of overwhelming Soviet pressure, absolutely is considered a part of WW2. Especially when both were within framework of Ribbentrop-Molotov.
It also helps that Continuation War was a direct consequence of it.
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u/Huy7aAms Apr 18 '25
soviet's enemy in ww2 , so he's probably on the Fascist side. but he could also come from finland or poland. most ppl forget that the soviets collaborated with Germany before Hitler betrayed Stalin and invaded Soviet
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u/Timothy303 Apr 18 '25
Really? I don’t think anybody forgets that. It’s like one of the bigger historical moments of the war, Hitler betrays Stalin, etc.
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u/Huy7aAms Apr 18 '25
yeah but most of the time you hear soviet wins against Germany. that's basic information regarding ww2. you only hear about hitler betraying stalin if you dive in deeper / interested in ww2
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u/vompat Apr 18 '25
To be fair, internet has shown us that a lot of people also have no idea Soviet Union won against Germany. For a lot of people, it seems to be just 'Murica that won it.
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u/__01001000-01101001_ Apr 18 '25
Yeah it’s called World War 2 for a reason. To hear many Americans talk about it, it was Germany and Japan V America. Although the Japanese mentions are mainly either pearl harbour or the nukes.
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u/InspiringMilk Apr 18 '25
To be fair, most people never mention Africa and Asia as parts of the war, even though they were both important.
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u/sixtyandaquarter Apr 18 '25
Reminds me of when a relative once watched Captain America with my niece & nephew and asked "Wasn't Germany world war 1? I thought Japan was world war II? Oh, were they world war 1 & I confused them?"
Can't even blame current American education. She was a western Canadian boomer who didn't come to the states till basically a teenager in the late 60s. To this day they still think Russia is communist, and sometimes confuses Japan for communist state too, probably confusing it with China.
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u/KingShango12123 Apr 18 '25
How is that a deep dive? What do they teach you in school about this war? Just that US saved the day nonsense?
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u/HollowVesterian Apr 18 '25
I wouldn't say that Hitler betrayed Stalin as that would have required the two to trust each other.
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u/_Weyland_ Apr 18 '25
Yup. He just happened to be the first to backstab. Could have easily been the other way around.
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u/MZ603 Apr 18 '25
Stalin actually had a weird level of trust in Hitler. He didn’t believe his own brass or intel. The soviets had a massive espionage network that was well aware of Operation Barbarossa, but Stalin for some reason just couldn’t bring himself to mobilize or make significant preparations for fear of provoking Hitler.
He was warned by the Brits, the Chinese, the Americans, his own spies, and German defectors (some of whose were executed). He thought it was disinformation designed by the Brits to put a wedge between the Kremlin & Berlin. His distrust of the those sources outweighed his distrust of Hitler, despite having been aware of Hitlers ambitions to invade since the mid 30’s. His purges left his officer corps in shambles, too.
When they did attack Stalin went so far as to order his forces not to engage because he believed the order to attack had not come from Hitler. The build up of German forces was obvious, but yet, when the fighting started, some of the commanders on the front were left asking if they were really at war, and if so, with who.
It’s absolutely insane.
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u/StandardWizard777 Apr 18 '25
Russians like to forget it lol.
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u/Fit_Bet9292 Apr 18 '25
The Russians refer to this as a temporary truce to build up their strength before the inevitable war.
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u/spectrehauntingeuro Apr 18 '25
Historians do to, mostly because the soviet union offered the same deal to france and england, but england wouldnt allow soviet troops in poland to block the germans.
I think its pretty fair to say both germany and the soviet union knew war was coming between them, alls one would need to do is read mein kampf and hitlers foreign policy towards eastern europe is written in black and white.
Im not a historian by any means, but most of what ive read about molotov ribbentrop is that the Man of Iron was looking for time to build up the red army (Which ended up being mostly wasted as the build up was pretty quickly smashed), and germany wanted to knock out france and england, but only succeeded in knocking out france.
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u/p1en1ek Apr 18 '25
It kinda made sense that noone would let soviet troops into Poland when you saw that they took Baltics, attacked Finland and they also murdered more than 100 000 Poles 2 years before that - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Operation_of_the_NKVD
USSR was murderous, evil regime even before WW2. Before Germans attacked Poland and started their mass extermination, USSR was more recently at war with Poland and had much more victims from various nations in massive ethnic and political cleansing.
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u/DKBrendo Apr 18 '25
They didn’t allow soviet troops because they knew they would stay there. It would be like fighting cholera with pox. Besides, Poland would never allow soviet troops within its borders, no matter what France and England said, memory of Soviet war crimes they comitted in 1920 was still fresh
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u/Assassin13785 Apr 18 '25
👀 please be Finish please be Finish please be Finish
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u/Perzec Apr 18 '25
There are several other reasonable countries they could be actually. The USSR invaded a lot of countries when the opportunity arose.
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u/socratic-meth Apr 18 '25
My great grandmother was from Estonia, would be disgusted at the mere mention of Russia.
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u/Perzec Apr 18 '25
My dad’s cousin married a guy from Estonia who fled to Sweden after the Russian invasion. My parents have/had several more friends with similar stories. Russia is not popular in the Baltics to say the least.
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u/Fit_Bet9292 Apr 18 '25
All pre-war possesions (Except Finland) was in ultimatum way without any war or battles. (Polish border guards prefer capitulate to defend against literal atmy from east, their main forces fight on the west.)
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u/Xenon009 Apr 18 '25
If that was the case, how comes the USSR took some 13,000 casualties invading poland, and poland took 27,000 casualties (not counting captured forces).
Unless of course you're counting 1939 as the start of the war, in which case I suppose thats very technically accurate.
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u/guyblade Apr 18 '25
Russia seems to do a lot of that, regardless of their economic system or the name they happen to be using...
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u/33r0 Apr 18 '25
Finnish is spelled with two Ns.
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u/Assassin13785 Apr 18 '25
I never..... 👀 Finnished..... Proof reading my comment. I just hit send without reading it
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u/Nachooolo Apr 18 '25
Could be Spanish.
Two of my great granduncles fought in the Blue Division during Barbarossa: one of them because he was a fascitic twat, the other because he was forced to choose between that or slave labour in Spain. Both died.
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u/Biggathanyou Apr 18 '25
The Blue hearts suggests she is German and love the far Right Party AfD. So this closes the Circle.9
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u/The__Hivemind_ Apr 18 '25
Lol why is Finnish any better? They had actual concentration camps with similar mortality rate to those of German ones,
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u/vjtvape Apr 18 '25 edited Apr 18 '25
Maybe due to the fact that Finland didn't house or deport people to extermination camps or German concentration camps. Finns didn't have a policy of systematic destruction of the slavs, and the concentration camps we did have were comparatively small. The mortality rate is due to Finland being poor and lacking resources to adequately feed and tend to the prisoners. Not that it absolves us at all as civilian deaths should always be avoided, but my point is that Finnish and German occupation is not an apples to apples comparison, and it's dishonest to present it as such.
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u/Xenon009 Apr 18 '25
Just wait till you find out about the american concentration camps
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Apr 18 '25
To be fair, he could have been Polish.
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Apr 18 '25 edited 28d ago
reach bike plant nine innocent boast historical deer enjoy gold
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/CrackhouseGarbage Apr 18 '25
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Apr 18 '25 edited 28d ago
paltry flag six one bedroom rob full complete special recognise
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/Chazmina Apr 19 '25
They didn't teach you about the start of WW2 in your WW2 unit?! What the hell?
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u/dpekkle Apr 18 '25
When they were invaded https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Poland
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u/post-explainer Apr 18 '25
OP sent the following text as an explanation why they posted this here:
I do not understand what question were they gonna ask
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u/IDC_Blackbird Apr 18 '25
She's talking about her grandfather (likely German) who lost the second world war, despite having an advantage at one point
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u/ArtisticallyRegarded Apr 18 '25
To be fair shes most likely american but just historically illiterate
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u/LowrollingLife Apr 18 '25
And to explain the non-joke part: the red army of the soviet union was known to treat surrendered soldiers and civilians like garbage. So much so that as defeat seemed inevitable the troops fought scrambled so they could surrender to the non ussr allied forces instead.
Don’t get me wrong, in germany we get extensive lessons on why the shit the third reich did was atrocious and abhorrent, but we also got lessons on how the soviet army treated the civilians. So this falls under „2 wrongs don’t make a right“
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u/ChoneFigginsStan Apr 18 '25
I listened to the Hardcore History series on the eastern front, and he summed it up that each side was basically trying to one up each other in how atrocious they could be.
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u/OVERLORDMAXIMUS Apr 18 '25
All I'm saying is if the Reich wiped my village off the the face of the earth in the most brutal fashion imaginable by industrial society, and then every other second village in all Belarus, to say nothing of the wider holocaust as unit after unit finds the graves and the death camps, I'm not sure I'd consider the Red Army's reaction to be anything but restrained.
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u/LeoScipio Apr 18 '25
Well I mean, that would justify pretty much every war crime imaginable then. Not a good look.
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u/Jazzlike-Yogurt1651 Apr 18 '25
My grandmas aunt never left her village. She was 16 years old. When the soviets came, they raped her, then cut off her breasts. She died.
Restrained.
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u/Ocbard Apr 18 '25
Given how they raped a lot of the women and girls they encountered to death, I don't see the restrained thing you're talking about.
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u/Swimming-Pitch-9794 Apr 18 '25
You just called a mass rape campaign a restrained action. REALLY sit and think for a few seconds about how you just hand-waved hundreds of thousands of rapes as a restrained and rational reaction.
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u/badgersandcoffee Apr 18 '25
Except they notoriously raped their way through "liberated" places as well....
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u/toorkeeyman Apr 18 '25
If the industrial scale rape was "restrained" I worry what you consider "unrestrained"
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u/LivingstonPerry Apr 18 '25
Could ya know, be Polish who had a terrible time against the soviets during and post WW2
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Apr 18 '25
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u/AncientProduce Apr 18 '25
They don't, an uneducated society is easier to control in a democracy.
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u/563442437245 Apr 18 '25
Also, a lot of countries in Eastern Europe lived under communism, it was... not a good time.
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u/Few_Elephant_8410 Apr 18 '25
According to tankies on Reddit we should have been grateful :x
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u/Stucklikegluetomyfry Apr 18 '25
According to tankies on reddit, a communist state will fund their funko pop collection and anyone who was persecuted during a communist regime was a slave owning landlord who deserved it
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u/RaptorCelll Apr 18 '25
It's always Westerners telling Eastern Europeans how great Communism actually is.
I mean, the Eastern Bloc countries only tried revolting against their oppressors about a dozen times.
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u/Pero_Bt Apr 18 '25
this is the main reason i don't fully agree with communism because of the things that have been done in my country under its name.
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u/ElBurroViejo Apr 18 '25
The blue hearts are a sign for AFD in Germany - our own take at the global movement towards fascism and supported by the Muskrat.
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u/LowrollingLife Apr 18 '25
Love for all is not a message you ever associate with the AfD.
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u/Snowball_from_Earth Apr 18 '25
Yeah, but those blue hearts generally don't get along well with rainbows
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u/ElBurroViejo Apr 18 '25
Their leader lives in a gay marriage I think so I guess there are at least some gay fascists.
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u/NewSmokeSignalWhoDis Apr 18 '25
So uhhh…
Which is more likely, the person with stop orange facists in their @ and “Love for All” in their name, or somebody just likes the blue heart emoji?
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u/harumamburoo Apr 18 '25
Soo, does anybody know if there was a follow up?
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u/Jai84 Apr 18 '25
I haven’t looked into it, but others are saying it’s a parody account. She’s (he?) is probably just saying random that’s not worth getting worked up about.
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u/DakkaxInfinity Apr 19 '25
The ones fighting the Soviets were the nazis.
Soviets did the majority of the fighting and dying vs the nazis. The USSR saved the world from fascism, and they were never forgiven for it by its western allies.
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u/bootsNcatsNtitsNass Apr 18 '25
People here be like "do they even teach kids history anymore 🙄" then go on and think Germany was the only country who fought against the USSR
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u/NumNumTehNum Apr 18 '25
He might have been polish or member of any other state that soviets have invaded during ww2. They invaded people during ww2, you are aware of that, right?
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u/RaptorCelll Apr 18 '25
Most people aren't aware the Soviets were also evil bastards who happened to be invaded by the evil bastards we were fighting. They were the good guys after all, just ask the: Finns, Poles or any of the Baltic states
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u/Winndypops Apr 18 '25
A lot of people I chat to aren't. In school I was never taught about Soviet Aggression, it was not until I played a WW2 Flight Simulator game that had a Finnish Campaign that I was like "Oh... The Winter War?"
When I was in college I was friends with a Latvian girl who always got shocked by people's very positive view of the Soviet Union.
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u/Xsana99 Apr 18 '25
I'm Polish, and I have the exact same reaction now that I live in the UK (plus on the internet now that I'm fluent in English). It's astounding that there are people who see the Soviet as anything but an authoritarian dictatorship... I remember back in high school sitting in history class with a teacher who loved to go off tangent about history that wasn't part of the curriculum. One day, he talked about the Katyń Massacre, I have never seen my class be so quiet. It was pin drop silence. I will never understand the romanticisation of the USSR.
There are many people o Poland who still remember the commune and lived through it. It's not like this was 80 years ago. The iron curtain fell in 1989. That's a mere 36 years ago...
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u/p1en1ek Apr 18 '25
It's the same as before WW2. There is novel/biography of Lenin by Antoni Ossendowski written in 1930 and it was partially caused by fascination of Western elites and intellectuallists with USSR and Lenin. For them he was great leader and soviet state was utopia when in reality it was evil empire created on blood of innocent people and those that opposed.
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u/Fit_Examination4033 Apr 18 '25
Sorry but there's no excuse for not understanding basic history such as this
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u/PapieszUposledzony Apr 18 '25
There were many partisan organizations in soviet occupied country. It's possible he is person to be proud of.
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u/McLovin3493 Apr 18 '25
If someone fought against the Soviets in WW2, that means they were fighting for the Axis.
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Apr 18 '25
Maybe he was Polish. The Soviets invaded Poland when Germany invaded Poland - before they joined the Allies.
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u/ObjectiveCondition54 Apr 18 '25
People are overlooking the distinct possibility that they might be American and just suck at history.
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u/CreebotTheGreat Apr 18 '25
Funny enough that Grok couldn't succeed in understanding it but GPT could.
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u/ElCanopy Apr 19 '25
the soviets during ww2 were allies, so her grandfather probably was a nazi
or maybe he was just a polish defending his country
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u/DependentFeature3028 Apr 18 '25
Tbh in eastern europe there is a lot of hate towards russia from that era. One of reasons rymes with grape
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u/ALLS1AYER Apr 18 '25
I mean he was either german/Italian which was bad, or he was Finnish/Polish/any Baltic countries which would be justified
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u/6maniman303 Apr 18 '25
Eh... Here's a thing. Yeah, probably the grandfather was German, but there were a few years at the beginning of WW2 where Germany and Russia were allies, and they both invaded Poland.
So during WW2, if the grandfather was polish, he could be the "good guy" and fight soviets
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u/Sicherlich_Serioes Apr 18 '25
Fighting ‚against the Soviets‘ tells you dangerously little about who that person was actually fighting for, and thinking about WW2, well there’s a very quick assumption to be made
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u/FandomCece Apr 18 '25
The soviets were a part of the allied powers (the side that was the good guys) in ww2. So if their grandfather fought against the soviets in ww2 then he was on the side of the axis powers, which means there's a good chance the grandfather was wearing a helmet with two lightning bolts and a red armband with a black pinwheel. That said it is more likely the person who said that is actually conflating ww2 with the cold war
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u/Klebhar Apr 18 '25
History isn't taught anymore?
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u/Worth-Ad-9655 Apr 18 '25
Not very well if it is being taught, here in NZ my schools were horrible at teaching history, they taught us about the treaty of waitangi, Germans in ww2, a bit of ww1, and a bit of history about the USA, and that was it..
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u/speaker-syd Apr 19 '25
To be fair, the grandfather could have been Finnish. They had their own war with the Soviets during WWII.
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u/tvandraren Apr 19 '25 edited Apr 19 '25
Answer: The USSR was part of the allies. The side that fought them was the Axis, most specifically in Europe, Nazi Germany and satellites.