Who won World War II? Conflicting narratives among the allies

World War II was a cataclysmic event that consumed people from many countries for at least 6 years. We discuss a large-scale study of how people from 11 nations remember the war, including 8 Allied and 3 Axis countries. The study showed dramatic differences in how people of the former Soviet Union and those of the other 10 countries remembered the war. Events listed by the Soviet Union were almost completely different from those in the other 10 countries. In addition, Russians (as representatives of the former Soviet Union) claimed greater responsibility in winning the war (75% of the war effort) than did people from any other nation (although the US and UK also claimed over 50% responsibility). However, when people of each country rated other countries’ contributions to the war, they rated the US as having a greater impact than the former Soviet Union. Another interesting finding is that when asked why the US dropped the atomic bombs on Japan, most people of ten countries said it was to win the war, with the exception being people from Russia. Further, the older the person in 7 of those countries, the more they agreed with the statement that the US dropped the bombs to end the war. Our study points up the importance of national collective memory in understanding and remembering World War II and how their can be stark differences in collective memory even among allies in the war.