Talk:Home front during World War II

Countries to Cover

 * Burma - life under the Japanese
 * France - Germans took the food
 * Holland - eating tulip bulbs
 * Switzerland - surrounded by the enemy
 * Norway - Subjugated, resistance
 * Singapore - no more dining out at Raffles.

these are just a small sample...

there are still gaps in WP.

Wallie 07:32, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

CopyVio on Rationing Section?
In researching German rationing during the second world war, I came up with this link: http://www.youth.net/memories/hypermail/0313.html. It rang suspiciously familiar and I realized that much of this article has been lifted from this source. Can someone take on the task of removing or at least rewording the copyvioed content? Onlyemarie 04:03, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
 * there is no copyright violation. The main criteria is: does Wiki use hurt the copy-owner financially, and the answer clearly is no. The original author remembered some things but also relied on unspecified books. Rjensen 04:21, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Bullcrap. Copyright is inherent to all original works, even mailing list posts (although as a mailing list administrator I caution users that they must have some expectation their posts will be republished in archives and other forums, and they shouldn't post if they have a problem with that). In any case, you don't gain republishing rights just because you think there's no financial harm done; only the copyright owner can make that assessment. You especially don't have the right to republish something without crediting the source. In an encyclopedia we must paraphrase or quote without drawing conclusions, and we must cite reliable sources (or at least enable the reader to gauge the reliability of the source). All information must be verifiable. See WP:V, WP:RS, WP:CITE, and WP:OR.
 * I have addressed the issue, for now, by crediting the source of the lifted text, which should constitute Fair Use. It is now clear to the reader that part of the rationing information was posted to a mailing list in 1997, and that some of the text is directly quoting from the post. This is important not just for copyright reasons but also for verifiability: the rationing info is no longer being presented as an unverifiable statement of fact; it's now being presented as a claim made in a specific published work. The fact that the claim was made is much easier to verify than the claim itself. Deciding whether to accept the claim is the reader's responsibility; we're only obligated to facilitate that process, not undertake it ourselves. —mjb 15:19, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Fair use means no copyright violation. It's fair use if there is no financial harm to original writer. Rjensen 09:10, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
 * No financial harm for the orignal writer or publisher means that fair use claims are more likely to be accepted. It is not a license for copying everything. Andries 19:56, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Both of the above comments about their idea of what "fair use" of copyrighted material means are not correct. According to U.S. law and international agreements on what constitutes the copyright of any author's work, all such work is automatically copyrighted whether so stated or not.  The agreements, however, do allow copying for "fair use", but only limited extracts of the work are allowed to be used without the author's permission.  The belief that outright copying of any copyrighted work as long as it is for "educational purposes" is a fiction.  Any use of such material under that fiction is legally, and not just technically, a copyright violation. K. Kellogg-Smith (talk) 17:56, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Some possible additions for the German section
Andries 19:56, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Bomber campaign hurt little production with the exception of fuel, especially in the last months/years of the war. Bomber campaign on transportation facilities did hurt the German economy significantly in the last years/months of the war. Source: I forgot
 * Germany was never as good in mass production as the e.g. USA or USSR. They had too many projects and should have focused on e.g. two or three types of tanks or airplanes. They had crafts inductry. Source: Duffy, Christopher Storm on the Reich
 * Germany did not use German women for production but forced labor from occupied countries or areas. Source: I forgot, but it is a well-known fact about forced labor.
 * Speer mentioned as his biggest failure the V2/A4 project that used up too many resources. Source: I saw Speer saying this in a documentary about Speer broadcast a few days ago on Belgian TV.


 * It is actually quite false that the Germans never employed women for production. See R.J. Overy's "War and Economy in the Third Reich" where he critically undermines many conventional views about the Nazi economy, including this one. A greater percentage of German women worked in the paid labour force than in the UK or USA. In addition, Overy, Abelhauser, Eleanor Hancock, Neil Gregor, and many others have overturned the view - repeated in this article - that Germany initially favored civilian over military production until the Speer ministry final reserved things.
 * They did indeed use women extensively and most labor was actually contracted and paid labor including social dues. The thing is that once contracted, it was difficult to cancel it. But calling it forced labor is misleading --41.151.239.181 (talk) 17:25, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
 * workers brought in from occupied countries had a "choice" -- they could refuse and starve. Rjensen (talk) 18:35, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

Cleanup needed
Tagged article for cleanup -- major work needed. Much of it reads like an essay, and the intro includes the horrible sentence: "More than 18 million women served on the homefront during WWII and we couldn't have survived without them." -- mervyn 13:16, 8 December 2006 (UTC)


 * The order of specific countries seems a little esoteric. What are the rules of precedence on such matters? Should they be in alphabetic order, chronological order (of entry into the war), or what? Nick Cooper 23:43, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Many of the tables have no units. Do the numbers reference %age of GDP? Tons of munitions? Dollars spent? Saying that Japan produced 8,784 rice in 1944 is nonsensical. 216.86.195.37 10:15, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Missing Information?

 * Australia and New Zealand
 * Canada
 * France
 * Italy
 * Philippines
 * Poland and Ukraine
 * Warsaw Ghetto
 * Scandinavia

Why is there references for these countries, but no information on the article about them? Talk User:Fissionfox 07:54, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Because we want editors to get to work and add material, and to alert users these are important topics even if Wiki has not gotten to them yet. (We do have suitable bibliographical citations.)Rjensen 08:07, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Tables Missing Units
The tables in "Overview" are missing units and are therefore meaningless. The first one, "Munitions Production in World War II" has numbers in the magnitude of tens with no units for each country for each year of the war. Are these millions of pounds munitions produced? Billions of pounds? Millions or billions of kilos? Millions or billions of tons? If tons, are they metric or english? Millions or billions of dollars spent on munitions? Pounds of munitions produced per capita, etc? Update: I was able to find the source complete online and found the units for the table, which are annual expenditures in billions of dollars, quoted in 1944 munitions prices. I added it to the title of the table, but had a little trouble formatting it, so anyone is welcome to fix my formatting.

The "Real Value Consumer Spending" Table is little better. I assume the currency is dollars? Are they 1942 dollars? 1945 dollars? Is each year adjusted for inflation? Are these millions of dollars? Billions of dollars? I am assuming they are total dollars spent by all consumers, and not amount sent per capita because of the scale - I expect people spent more than $100 per person in a year and far less than $100,000 per person in a year - but who is to know when there are no units? I pointed this out in the article itself in March hoping that someone would just put the units in, but that was erased by Pyrotec without him actually fixing the problem. Mmyers1976 18:47, 21 May 2007 (UTC)mmyers1976


 * Your change had the appearance of vandalism. It would have been better if you had used the template {fact|date=March 2007} - it needs double curly brackets –  at each end to work.Pyrotec (talk) 11:24, 27 January 2008 (UTC)Pyrotec (talk) 19:42, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the suggestion. I am always open to learning the formatting that will help me constructively contribute to Wikipedia. At the time I had less knowledge of formatting, but have learned quickly. If you could help me with the first table (Goldsmith) to get the units explanation (in parentheses) to line up better under the table title, I would greatly appreciate it.Mmyers1976 (talk) 21:16, 29 January 2008 (UTC)


 * is this what you want?

Pyrotec (talk) 21:23, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I was thinking more that the units be outside the table, as part of the title "Munitions Production in World War II", but lined up underneath it instead of trailing on as I had it. Does that make sense? Mmyers1976 (talk) 21:32, 29 January 2008 (UTC)



How about this? Its truncated to save space.Pyrotec (talk) 21:40, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

That's perfect, thank you. I see how you did that with the code now. Thanks.Mmyers1976 (talk) 21:51, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Pyrotec, thanks for the correction of your comment to include double curly brackets. I had tried it in the sandbox according to your previous directions and couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong. I wonder, what is the "proper" name for those curly brackets, anyway?Mmyers1976 (talk) 22:16, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Try here Bracket - curly brackets, or braces, or Nances. The last two names are new to me.Pyrotec (talk) 22:29, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
 * "Curly brackets", simple, to the point. That's the way it should be. Why can't they call the schwa "upside down e"?Mmyers1976 (talk) 02:18, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism on rationing in Germany
there has been some vandalism on rationing in germany. i don't know how to revert it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.132.158.88 (talk) 23:36, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

"Labour" Vs "Labor"
National varieties of English Shortcut: WP:ENGVAR See also: Wikipedia:Manual of Style (spelling) The English Wikipedia has no general preference for a major national variety of the language. No variety is more correct than the others. Users are asked to take into account that the differences between the varieties are superficial. Cultural clashes over spelling and grammar are avoided by using four simple guidelines. The accepted style of punctuation is covered in the punctuation section.

Regarding recent back and forth changes of spelling of the word "labor" to either British or American variety of English in the "Labor" section:

An unregistered user had changed the spelling of the word "labour" in the sentence "The German industry used forced labour, called Arbeitseinsatz " to "labor". Pyrotec undid this revision. In this case, the unregistered user's edit is the correct one. Though the Wikipedia Style Guide states that neither spelling variant is more correct, it does stipulate that the same spelling be used consistently in an article. Since the spelling of the section is "Labor", the word needs to be spelled "labor" throughout the article. This is why I reverted Pyrotec's revert.Mmyers1976 (talk) 18:08, 25 January 2008 (UTC)


 * If you had checked the unregistered user, User talk:69.44.138.186, you would have found that the address was mostly used for vandalism; the user had been recently blocked for 31 hours for vandalism, and this was the first edit after the blocking had expired. Labour is used in the two sections Axis and and Allies and my reversion was in accordance with the requirement for consistent spelling.Pyrotec (talk) 11:15, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
 * That's all well and good, but not relevant here, as the unregistered user was not vandalizing on this page; his edit was entirely appropriate. I see you have changed the spelling of the section to the British variant spelling. As long as the British variant is used for all spellings in this article, I see no problem with that, however, I see many uses of American variant throughout the article, such as "mobilization" instead of "mobilisation". It looks like the article was originally written in American variant and "labour" was arbitrarily spelled British variant. Seems like this article still needs cleanup under WP:ENGVARMmyers1976 (talk) 23:11, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Although -ise is generally perceived to be the British English form of spelling and -ize the American English, it seems it's more a matter of preference, with the OUP using the latter, see OUP spelling. Rich257 (talk) 09:08, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Then how about the use of "defense" instead of "defence", another example of the article being written in American voice, along with the preponderance of American sources, even for non-American topics, as cited in the references? The fact that that section title was originally "Labor", not "Labour" shows that the article was written originally in American voice, and all subsequent editing should have maintained that voice. I am sure the unregistered user has committed vandalism before (though if you look at his Talk page, it shows that multiple users may be identified by that IP, and so the one who made the "Labor" change may not have been the person who had vandalized other pages before), but the fact is his edit on this page was appropriate in correcting to keep the original American voice. Pyrotec's revert was unnecessary and pedantic. Because I am not pedantic, I am not going to get into a revert war with him and am willing to let it stand. but if he's trying to justify his actions to me, I am going to point out inconsistencies. Mmyers1976 (talk) 17:34, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Why make up "facts" to justify your own "pedantic" point of view. You can check the article itself, it is here, this is the fourth edit by the same editor on the evening of 8th July 2005. There is no section on labour or labor. It looks British English to me.Pyrotec (talk) 19:47, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
 * The original editor states that he is Canadian of British origin. That could have been checked, as well instead of making up "facts".Pyrotec (talk) 19:53, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, more of these so-called "facts" do not accord with reality. There are only ten inline citations, Cohen (1949) is American and Mmyers1976 appears to have added it (well done) and Houghton Mifflin is a US publisher; one is a blog site site, so there is no independent verification. Of the remaining nine in-line citations, six are British - the Official Histories and the BBC. There is a lot of Further reading, but there is no evidence that they were used in the article.Pyrotec (talk) 20:22, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
 * You need to get a grip. Three rapid-fire posts on this subject from you, it makes you look obsessive and foolish. There is no reason for you to get this bent out of shape over such a minor thing as British vs American spelling, esp. when I accepted your revert and took no other action. As far as me looking up the nationality of the originator of the article, or long past versions of the article, if that is how you want to spend your time, then be my guest, but I find it more constructive to focus on the style and content of the article as it exists today. By the way, I did not add the Cohen table, it was there long before I became aware of this article. Whoever originally posted it and the Goldsmith table into the article neglected to include the units for the tables, and so I, after you recognized the problem but did nothing, took corrective action and looked up the original source myself to find the units and add them to the Goldsmith table, but have been unable to find a free version of Cohen so I could confirm the units. Now of course you know all this as you just posted on the subject two days ago, but here say "Cohen is American and Mmyers1976 appears to have added it" and yet you have the nerve to accuse me of "mak[ing] up" "so-called 'facts'".Mmyers1976 (talk) 21:07, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Some issues to be cleaned up
So, will wait for comments and then start going through the recommended reading list--mrg3105 (comms) ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣ 14:12, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Introduction is 50% POV and vastly insufficient for the subject area.
 * The article is split into Axis and Allies, but in fact the issues of home front were shared by all home fronts, and the occupied territories are ignored although they also were a home front to some people
 * There is a vast reading list, but none of the references provide citation pages!
 * There is obvious prominence given to the UK and Germany, but the leading sections deal with events in 1943-44!
 * The sections for Germany and UK contain different named sections! I am positively sure that munitions manufacturing was an issue for the German home front, and that labour (and Labour) relatiosn were an issue in the UK (my own unpublished thesis!)
 * Neither Italy, an actual member of the Axis, not any of the Axis allies are found in the article!
 * India was a part of the UK administration, but is removed from it.
 * Except for Canadian women, no other country of the Commonwealth is mentioned.
 * There are no neutral states in the article although they too had to adjust to the wartime


 * One of the references - Postan - gives a page number (page 148) and another gives the chapter; other than that I agree with all the other comments. However, I'm not too worried at the moment about lack of page numbers; what is more worrying is that very few of the statements provide any citations. If you are questioning labour and labour relations in the UK they were a problem - see the History of the Second World War - but didn't you do your thesis on that topic? Pyrotec (talk) 16:03, 26 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Ok, you got me on the one reference :)
 * I go into fts when I find statements that are unreferenced :)...sometimes fits of laughter
 * Er, my thesis was on comparative labour conflict management in Australia and the UK since Federation (Australian), and necessarily dealt with he role of the Labour movement, but was not specifically on the Second World War. Some titles here look completely new to me.
 * So, any suggestions on how to go about it? I am also participating in the Military History soon to be launched sub-project on categorisation where I will suggest that main category articles need to reflect the contents of the category. With this in mind I offer basic contents of the category as I see it now below:


 * Home front during World War II (sociology)


 * Societies under occupation during World War II
 * Social change during World War II
 * Community change during World War II
 * Family change during World War II
 * Quality of life during World War II
 * Civil defence during World War II
 * Environmental damage during World War II
 * Urban damage during World War II
 * Rural damage during World War II
 * Industrial damage during World War II
 * Infrastructure damage during World War II
 * Cultural damage during World War II


 * Home front during World War II (politics)


 * Political parties of World War II
 * Political activism during World War II
 * Political following during World War II


 * Home front economics during World War II


 * Social economics during World War II
 * Labour participation during World War II
 * Commercial activity during World War II
 * Work conditions during World War II
 * Women in the workforce during World War II
 * Labour disputes during World War II


 * Reserve forces during World War II (military on the home front)


 * Territorial defence units during World War II (alt. Home front defence units during World War II)
 * Territorial defence formations during World War II
 * Territorial defences during World War II
 * Territorial fortifications during World War II


 * comments?--mrg3105 (comms) ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣ 02:38, 27 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Introduction:
 * As "mrg3105" mentioned (Clean up intro - first point this heading.) above, I have tried to fix some of the problems with ONLY the intro. I am sure there is some POV left, but should be better. I also added a point about propaganda. This is certainly a valid point and does not mean Nazi/Axis only. Should probably fit under 'Sociology" above. Anything alluded to in the Introduction should be later Referenced by facts and refs/Citations in the BODY. (i.e. Sociology/Propaganda). Comments?
 * 19:15, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Should there be a section on the Japanese homefront?
Should there be a section on the Japanese homefront? -Why is there only a chart on rice and the word "bankai" on Japanese homefront? Im guessing this is vandalism. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.237.187.152 (talk) 18:48, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Ethnics as a noun
-in the canada section "ethnic" is not a noun, there isnt any such thing as "ethnics"  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 116.37.180.139 (talk) 03:58, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I have changed the section title to "Ethnic minorities from enemy countries. DuncanHill (talk) 17:01, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

New material
While moving pictures and copyediting, I forgot to add: 'New material to the "Britain" ' section, on 4 May 2013. Trying three or four times, both yesterday and today, for some reason, it will not accept my input when I press 'Save' (it's only on this page). But it is there; I've looked.

RASAM (talk) 11:07, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
 * You could seek help at WP:VPT. Regards, Nick-D (talk) 11:19, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

India
I Changed India to British India,because India was a colony of Britain in WW2.Will change some thing more.Ovsek (talk) 12:43, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

"Correct" versus technically correct vs unambiguous
Editors Ebonelm and Dmol have both reverted my edits regarding the change of name of the island of (Great) Britain to the country name of United Kingdom (or UK).

Ebonelm's rationale, in the edit comment, was "IP doesn't seem to understand that Britain isn't an island". Kinda an aggressive and patronising charge to suggest that a fellow editor "doesn't understand".

I understand fully, as I suggested in my edit comment when I re-inserted my changes, the etymology of and even the current uses of terminologies.

I would suggest, in my defence against this charge, that most other people do not understand the terminology - AND that we can help avoid confusion and ambiguity. Take for example the Wikipedia article Britain. As I've argued recently elsewhere on Wikpedia (and Ebonelm has weighed in there also), the article itself has no single definition of 'Britain'. It is either a country or an island. In fact, it is mostly really a nickname for both, which is one step above less formal nicknames like 'Blighty'. As 'Britain' is also the name of an island (technically speaking, the full name of the island is 'Great Britain'), then confusion can arise - especially for foreigners who are not used to knowing the geography of the British Isles.

Further, historically speaking, Ireland could also legitimately be referred to as 'Britain' (technically 'Little Britain').

The confusion arises because of the fact that the territory of the NON-political, geographical entity (Great Britain) is not identical to the political entity and sovereign country (the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland). Many people are, of course, confused between the terms 'British' and 'English' - incorrectly confusing the two as equivalent. We can't necessarily do anything about that.

However, we can help avoid confusion by using the more formal country name 'United Kingdom' or 'UK' for short, when possible. Obviously many authors of great works have used the term 'Britain' (technically incorrectly) in titles of their publications. The encyclopaedia cannot change that. BUT, the encyclopaedia can help minimise confusion by using 'UK'.

You will note that in this article in particular, Belfast is mentioned in its own section. In fact, that section should be expanded and changed to Northern Ireland, to describe how much the province contributed to the war effort, in terms of equipment and produce etc, despite (or perhaps to some degree because of) conscription not being enforced there. I digress. Belfast is not on the island of (Great) Britain. It is, however, a part of the United Kingdom.

While many people, including professionals, (mis-)use the term 'Britain' AND it is not the job of this 'paedia to correct the world's mistakes, it IS the job of the 'paedia to present information in as clear, precise and unambiguous manner as possible.

I probably won't be able to follow this discussion up, but feel free to weigh in on this, and on the other discussion I've left at Talk:Evacuations of civilians in Britain during the Second World War. Cheers. --98.122.20.56 (talk) 13:26, 24 June 2016 (UTC)

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www.projectinposterum.org
please elaborate why you think www.projectinposterum.org is appropriate for further reading. MozeTak (talk) 20:52, 18 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Please explain why you have removed this source. No word why this source is bad. No need for removal as multiple sources are allowed. The Banner  talk 22:08, 18 November 2019 (UTC)
 * It is a blog by an advocacy group. Please see: Arbitration/Requests/Case/Antisemitism in Poland this fails by a mile. MozeTak (talk) 22:18, 18 November 2019 (UTC)
 * It is not a source but "further reading", so it does not fall foul of the ArbCom verdict. The Banner  talk 22:22, 18 November 2019 (UTC)
 * It is blog run by anonymous people on the internet. If you think its bibliography should be copied here, maybe you could do that? MozeTak (talk) 22:33, 18 November 2019 (UTC)