Why are we so obsessed with films about the Second World War?

[Elsa]

It's a war that never ends – cinematically speaking, that is. The second world war may have ceased hostilities on 2 September 1945, with the formal surrender of Japan in a ceremony on the USS Missouri, but the film world has never stopped fighting. Nearly 70 years on, the demand for second world war movies appears unstoppable, the supply inexhaustible. Last year saw the release of films about Germany during the war (The Book Thief), British soldiers imprisoned by the Japanese (The Railway Man), and the confrontation between Nazi and Soviet forces at Stalingrad (Stalingrad). By the end of 2014 we will have had films about the race to recover stolen artworks (The Monuments Men), a US tank crew fighting their way across Germany (Fury), a US soldier who survived shipwreck and a PoW camp (Unbroken), a biopic of pioneering codebreaker Alan Turing (The Imitation Game) and a fictional account of the German occupation of France (Suite Française).

Some movie wars – Vietnam, the cold war, Iraq – come and go, but 1939-45 just won't fade away. It's impossible to come up with a definitive list but, for comparison, Wikipedia's list of films about the 1914-18 war totals a little more than 130, while the same source's compilation of second world war films comes to more than 1,300, and still counting. A decade-by-decade breakdown tells a slightly more nuanced story: there were more than 250 made before the war even finished, reaching over 300 by the end of the 1940s; there were more than 200 each in the 1950s and 60s, before numbers started to decline in the 1970s (130-plus) and 80s (120-plus). The 1990s saw a relatively paltry 86 before a resurgence in the 2000s (180). The 2010s have seen more than 50 so far, suggesting we are on course for a similar figure this decade.

Source: The Guardian

[Rudel]

Because it's the alpha and omega of American mythology, and they have Hollywood.

[Geminus]

Because we apparently make good villains.

[Dál Riata]

Because newspapers like the guardian use the Nazis as a boogey man to browbeat western/white nations into accepting every aspect of the liberal/Marxist agenda.

What do you mean you don't want open borders mass immigration?
You're not a Nazi are you?

What do you mean you're not sure about gay marriage?
You're not a Nazi are you?

What do you mean you're not sure that Islam is a religion of peace?
You're not a Nazi are you?

If the holocaust didn't exist, liberals would have to invent it!

[Ianus]

Because the facts are relatively recent and there are again in live people who fought or lived during the war.

[LightHouse89]

I like how the west is portrayed as great heroes.....heroes of what? democracy? Death to Democracy!

[Geminus]

I like how the west is portrayed as great heroes.....heroes of what? democracy? Death to Democracy!

I don't understand how people want to live in repressive systems voluntarily... Sure the democratic systems today have flaws (which are not necessarily inherent) but I can assure you we have it better than people living in totalitarian regimes.

[pinguino]

Because WWII marked the end of European rule of the world, and the beginning of European colonization by the Americans.

[LightHouse89]

Because we apparently make good villains.

ever see ww1 posters...and ww2 demonizing germans.....they made similar posters about irish immigrants. I hate America entirely....death to America!

[LightHouse89]

Because WWII marked the end of European rule of the world, and the beginning of European colonization by the Americans.

exactly...conquering one region of the world at a time to spread free masonry and Anglo-Saxon American values on the world. I hate America, Free Masonry and the culture of America. South Americans should reject Americans....as should Europeans and all other races in the world. America is the whore of Babylon.