Also, the US was VERY hesitant to enter the European war. There was a lot of support for the Nazis in the US. From some high ranking people. Like the first director of the OSS and the Dulles brothers (instrumental in forming the CIA and NATO). They wanted a separate peace with Germany, and to enter the European war against the Soviets. But luckily FDR was unmovable in his support of the Soviets against the Nazis.

The latter point is not particularly surprising. Many people fight in wars because they have no choice or out of patriotism, or a combination of those plus other factors.

Another important point is that there are varying degrees of racism. Some people might have the badly mistaken view that a certain skin color is better or worse at certain jobs, for example, but that doesn't mean that they would endorse genocide.

What an astonishingly reductive and inaccurate statement.

Here's but a small token of FDR's statements on the matter.

https://youtu.be/qrNDwyj4u1w?si=c-ZuF7_UOWJQH0wz

Anti-fascist rhetoric was clear and popular, even in nations that would be arguably considered fascist themselves today, like Segregation Era America and the British Empire.

Tons of those soldiers might have continued being a racist after being drafted to fight Nazis, but just as many learned exactly what path they were following and changed course.

FDR's political coalition even pretty much directly evolved into the Civil Rights Movement.

The simple reality is that 20th century politics was never simple but progressive thought thoroughly won out over ideologies of hate and actively worked to undo the centuries of damage done by colonial era white supremacist thought.

It was hardly a perfect process, and it's one that continues to this day, but to pretend it was simply just nations butting heads to the common man is dangerously revisionist.

The allied nations fought fascism. They knew what it was, could describe it better than many do today, and the leadership was clear in their opposition, even if often confusingly hypocritical, and often beset by internal opposition. That not every person in 1940 was completely on board with it is simply the human condition.

Mostly agree but in my own experience it's not WW2 vets that went Birch/KKK etc., but their kids.

My grandma wrote letters to American GIs deployed in Europe during the second world war. She kept the letters she got back.

There were letters outright praising Hitler and hoping the allied powers would take up the fight against the Reds.

Or anywhere near the punk subculture I guess. I feel like it's something that I've been hyper aware of my entire life.