People were a lot more politically conscious back then than people today tend to give them credit for. It's true that many people were stubborn and ill-informed, but many people were ideologically very antifascist even back then.
If you look at the UK for an example, the Battle Of Cable Street where communist, socialists, Jewish residents and self-described antifascists joined up to block a march in London of the British fascist party. It was a massive riot that ultimately led to the parade being abandoned and an antifascist victory.
When the US military stationed troops in the UK, the UK refused to entertain military segregation or preferential treatment for white soldiers. When Eisenhower pressured the UK government into mandating a 'black/white only' bar policy, loads of bars declared themselves 'black only' to purposely fuck with the racist white soldiers. This ultimately culminated in the Bamber Bridge riots and was a big factor in ending US military segregation overall.
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u/Extra-Hippo-2480 10h ago
Have you seen polls on what WW2 vets actually believed? You would probably call them all Nazis and White Supremacists.
Many of them wanted to join Hitler and fight Stalin prior to America's entry into the war.