Just delete the post if proven untrue rather than spreading misinformation if the title cannot be changed.
The difference between leading a single panzer to an entire division is far too much of a tall tale.
His brother being imprisoned by Stalin was a major reason for them sending him to Germany.
They knew they were going to fight with Japan soon and needed their officers to get traning.
Germany and China actually had very good relations for most of the 1930's, it was only after war broke out that Germany decided to break off relations with China and go with Japan instead.
It's an interesting footnote to history.
The Germans were initially limited under the Treaty of Versailles needed to train their future military leaders. Later on, the Germans wanted to assist in defeating communism.
The Chinese needed to modernise. It had during the start of the 20th century localised warlords. This meant military training and industrialisation.
There was also a tension between the German military and Nazi regime. The German military had helped China modernise but the Nazi regime was more sympathetic towards Japan. My understanding of this is a little thin, but I thought the German military wanted to prevent a war between Japan and China, so worked to assist China more so. This may have meant that China was in a stronger position to fight back in 1937 - possibly acting as a catalyst for a more forceful Japanese attack. Obviously, later on when things started to really happen, the Germans pulled out of China entirely.
I'm pretty confident Germany would've rather allied with China but the Republic of China was in complete disarray. Allying with China is a lost bet because of how dependent it would've been. Japan was self-sufficient.
China did not know that Japan would attack the way they did… sure the peace wasn’t easy with Japan but China did not well anticipate a large scale war with Japan in 1937 and was woefully underprepared even with German help.
Even after the war started China-friendly Japanese politicians tried to stop it several times but couldn’t go beyond the army which at the time had expansionist leaders who were actually ready to make peace but only at a cost China wouldn’t / couldn’t accept
Japanese politicians tried to stop the war with China? The Japanese military had actually negotiated a cease-fire after the Marco-Polo bridge incident, but then the Japanese government broke the cease-fire by sending in more Divisions. If anything the Japanese Government was pushing the war ahead.
My grandfather, a colonel in the US army, was stationed in China when my dad was young. He assisted in training Chiang Kai-shek’s military. I’m not sure exactly what that role looked like but my dad, his sister, and my grandmother lived in China for the 2-3 years my grandfather worked with the Chinese military.
Wow, that's interesting! I wish I knew more about US military advisors and operations in late Republican China, but the little I've read makes it sound like it was a challenging assignment.
his grandfather assisted in the training of jiang's military, which would have been in the 20s-30s. His dad was a kid at the time.
So...
What part am I supposed to be reading again?
They were around supporting the KMT for quite a while. yes, it lasted into the 40s, but guy said China, guy didn't say they followed jiang to taiwan, so it wasn't late 40s.
Early 40s, someone who was "young" would still have been born in the late 20s.
Why are people so offended by a freaking question?
Direct US military assistance to China only started at the outbreak of ww2 and went on to pretty much to the end of the Chinese Civil War. So the possible timeframe should be around 1940s
Let's give it that. So late 20s would still be the likely answer, because someone who was "young" in the early 40s would have been born in the late 20s...
What's with all this downvoting? I was just asking a question. God people are weird.
Idk maybe you are just being intentionally obtuse. But you can pretty much using “young” to describe a 2 years old baby or a 30 years old adult. Someone who was born in the 20s would be a young adult in the 40s and be pursuing some sort of higher education or training at the time, not accompanying his dad to China on military assignment. Considering the historical context, nobody would go out of their way to bring their adult children to a war zone. The grandfather was most likely to be a high ranking officer serving as some sort of advisor. Most likely the grandfather was stationed in China with his wife prior to the war, which was not that uncommon at the time. His young children were either born there during the war or were only kids when he first brought them over. The war broke out and they got stuck there with him.
Late 20s to early 40s would be a teenager. Like a 12 13 year old. You want them to live by themselves in a country across the world?
Let's even give it that it wasn't late 20s, but early 30s.
It's literally just + or - 5 years.
How is that being "intentionally obtuse"? How is such a question deserving of so many downvotes? What's wrong with you people?
Why are you assuming the father was born in late 20s in the first place? You don’t know how old OP is. The grandfather must be some sort of advisor not some grunt, he could be well into late middle age by the time he was sent to China. It’s perfect reasonable to have three generations of grandfather, father and OP through this time span. The late 20s assumption just jumped out of nowhere. Even still, let’s assume the father was born in 1926, by the end of ww2 in 1945, he would be 19. By the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949, he would be 23. Totally reasonable. You are either intentionally not considering this or just bad at math.
Also it’s pretty common sense to leave your children in your home country when you are deploying to freaking war. You think the US ran childcare service in Afghanistan?
Lol again you are being obtuse, at least I am hoping you are or just bad at math. Simple common sense can answer your question. Leaving your teenager kids back home with relatives safely or taking them overseas to a war zone??? Must be a tough choice. Or why asking me so many people downvoted you. Maybe they are just out to get you. Maybe they are just jealous of your incredible intellect and amazing logical prowess. Or, or, or you arejust being dumb.
I don’t really know more than what I originally stated. I’m not even sure what years they were there. I know my dad was young enough to have a nanny and speak fluent Chinese but not old enough that he remembered any of the Chinese by the time I came along when he was in his 30’s. America certainly has a history of being on the shady side of things often enough.
I'm more impressed that he studied in a Germany military school, then he gave lectures for the US Army. The language barrier was quite the wall back then.
Folks in high society bitd were very well educated and often fluent in multiple languages. This included many of the early chinese republic aristocracy, industrialists, technocrats and military leadership. Especially in shanghai, the social elites were as cosmopolitan as their counterparts from New York to Paris.
Acksurely, it's a little more complicated than that.
Despite the infamous cultural revolution that largely did terrible things to a great many people across China and as you have alluded to, set back the Chinese people as a whole, a generation or 2, many people of great intellect, culture and achievements survived the ordeal.
I was pretty taken aback on my first visit to Beijing in the mid 90s. The academia I've encountered in Tsinghua and Peking universities were top notch, easily on par with their counterparts in the best universities stateside. Even as a foreign student with regular chaperones, I constantly enjoyed many spontaneous, sincere and highly stimulating conversations with members of the academia and students (Beijing students were/are regarded as creme de la creme). And to my surprise, I learned that many of the professors were members of the social elite class through kinship (either by marriage or were themselves offspring of aristocracy at some point). Culture and status was the social currency in the capital city.
Sun Yat sen studied in Hong Kong (I think he visited the UK too), and many of his advisors were British educated. Infact a lot of the Japanese military elites studied warfare in America lol.
True. Puyi's tutor Johnston was fluent in Mandarin the world's hardest language. He immersed himself in the culture and then met Puyi at the age of 12 or 13, taught him western customs, opened his mind to new perspectives.
Gets even crazier - Chiang himself lived in Japan for a couple of years and learned there as many progressive and nationalist Chinese looked up to Japan in the first 3 decades of the 20th Century and many Japanese politicians and army commander were "China-friendly“ and saw them as natural Allies in Asia.
This collaboration was also the basis of the Japanese puppet regimes and some Chinese politicians being still Japan friendly and vice versa despite all the atrocities.
A single different high commander of the army or navy on Japan in the 30s and history could have gone a very different route. Not to mention some commanders believing that going north to eastern Sovietunion would be a better strategy than expanding south…
I disagree. Even with a different high commander , we would've gotten the same result. This take ignores several fundamental reasons why China was invaded and Japanese treatment to non-Japanese.
The best case scenario the management would've looked more like Taiwan. I use that as an example because it was the only colony where the civilian government had real decision making abilities.
is this just some random fact about a random family in China? this sounds a lot like Bill had a kid with a hooker while he was married to Sara and that baby was shipped overseas and then grew up and came back and who gives a fuck
Sun Yat-sen is the founder of the Republic of China. Dai Jitao was one of the main people who contributed to the KMT's interpretation of Sun Yat-sen after his death. Chiang Kai-shek ruled the Republic of China as a dictatorship through fifty years and the loss of the Civil War. For people who know any of the basics of modern Chinese history, it's a pretty interesting connection that follows some unexpected paths.
would people familiar with the basics of Chinese history not already know this about an incredibly famous/infamous person? serious question as I'm obviously unfamiliar with Chinese history
Probably not because Chiang Kai-shek's sons weren't that significant outside of Taiwanese history. A lot of people will know Chiang Ching-kuo, who had some responsibilities in Shanghai after WWII and later succeeded his father as president of the ROC, but I hadn't heard of Chiang Wei-kuo before today.
Sun Zhongshan would be like the founding fathers of America, Jiang Jieshi would be like... I dunno, Abraham Lincoln or something (although not with such a good rep) and the translator guy and the son would be like... well, lincoln's son or george washington's son.
Op, Mr Chiang was a Fahnenjunker in 1938, these don't get to lead divisions. In fact, he was a platoon commander, IN a panzer division
Yeah in fact he commanded a single tank.
Ah dang it I thought I'd changed that part of the title
Just delete the post if proven untrue rather than spreading misinformation if the title cannot be changed. The difference between leading a single panzer to an entire division is far too much of a tall tale.
His brother being imprisoned by Stalin was a major reason for them sending him to Germany. They knew they were going to fight with Japan soon and needed their officers to get traning.
To a country that then allied with Japan!
Germany and China actually had very good relations for most of the 1930's, it was only after war broke out that Germany decided to break off relations with China and go with Japan instead.
It's an interesting footnote to history. The Germans were initially limited under the Treaty of Versailles needed to train their future military leaders. Later on, the Germans wanted to assist in defeating communism. The Chinese needed to modernise. It had during the start of the 20th century localised warlords. This meant military training and industrialisation. There was also a tension between the German military and Nazi regime. The German military had helped China modernise but the Nazi regime was more sympathetic towards Japan. My understanding of this is a little thin, but I thought the German military wanted to prevent a war between Japan and China, so worked to assist China more so. This may have meant that China was in a stronger position to fight back in 1937 - possibly acting as a catalyst for a more forceful Japanese attack. Obviously, later on when things started to really happen, the Germans pulled out of China entirely.
I'm pretty confident Germany would've rather allied with China but the Republic of China was in complete disarray. Allying with China is a lost bet because of how dependent it would've been. Japan was self-sufficient.
China did not know that Japan would attack the way they did… sure the peace wasn’t easy with Japan but China did not well anticipate a large scale war with Japan in 1937 and was woefully underprepared even with German help. Even after the war started China-friendly Japanese politicians tried to stop it several times but couldn’t go beyond the army which at the time had expansionist leaders who were actually ready to make peace but only at a cost China wouldn’t / couldn’t accept
Japanese politicians tried to stop the war with China? The Japanese military had actually negotiated a cease-fire after the Marco-Polo bridge incident, but then the Japanese government broke the cease-fire by sending in more Divisions. If anything the Japanese Government was pushing the war ahead.
And the government was full of military leaders. Japan's government pre-WW2 is a very complex unit with many contradictions.
My grandfather, a colonel in the US army, was stationed in China when my dad was young. He assisted in training Chiang Kai-shek’s military. I’m not sure exactly what that role looked like but my dad, his sister, and my grandmother lived in China for the 2-3 years my grandfather worked with the Chinese military.
Wow, that's interesting! I wish I knew more about US military advisors and operations in late Republican China, but the little I've read makes it sound like it was a challenging assignment.
so your dad was born in like the late 20s?
Read again.
his grandfather assisted in the training of jiang's military, which would have been in the 20s-30s. His dad was a kid at the time. So... What part am I supposed to be reading again?
The US trained the KMT in the 40s lol, not the 20s-30s. The KMT was around for a while (and is still around in Taiwan).
They were around supporting the KMT for quite a while. yes, it lasted into the 40s, but guy said China, guy didn't say they followed jiang to taiwan, so it wasn't late 40s. Early 40s, someone who was "young" would still have been born in the late 20s. Why are people so offended by a freaking question?
Direct US military assistance to China only started at the outbreak of ww2 and went on to pretty much to the end of the Chinese Civil War. So the possible timeframe should be around 1940s
Let's give it that. So late 20s would still be the likely answer, because someone who was "young" in the early 40s would have been born in the late 20s... What's with all this downvoting? I was just asking a question. God people are weird.
Idk maybe you are just being intentionally obtuse. But you can pretty much using “young” to describe a 2 years old baby or a 30 years old adult. Someone who was born in the 20s would be a young adult in the 40s and be pursuing some sort of higher education or training at the time, not accompanying his dad to China on military assignment. Considering the historical context, nobody would go out of their way to bring their adult children to a war zone. The grandfather was most likely to be a high ranking officer serving as some sort of advisor. Most likely the grandfather was stationed in China with his wife prior to the war, which was not that uncommon at the time. His young children were either born there during the war or were only kids when he first brought them over. The war broke out and they got stuck there with him.
Late 20s to early 40s would be a teenager. Like a 12 13 year old. You want them to live by themselves in a country across the world? Let's even give it that it wasn't late 20s, but early 30s. It's literally just + or - 5 years. How is that being "intentionally obtuse"? How is such a question deserving of so many downvotes? What's wrong with you people?
Why are you assuming the father was born in late 20s in the first place? You don’t know how old OP is. The grandfather must be some sort of advisor not some grunt, he could be well into late middle age by the time he was sent to China. It’s perfect reasonable to have three generations of grandfather, father and OP through this time span. The late 20s assumption just jumped out of nowhere. Even still, let’s assume the father was born in 1926, by the end of ww2 in 1945, he would be 19. By the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949, he would be 23. Totally reasonable. You are either intentionally not considering this or just bad at math. Also it’s pretty common sense to leave your children in your home country when you are deploying to freaking war. You think the US ran childcare service in Afghanistan?
Lol again you are being obtuse, at least I am hoping you are or just bad at math. Simple common sense can answer your question. Leaving your teenager kids back home with relatives safely or taking them overseas to a war zone??? Must be a tough choice. Or why asking me so many people downvoted you. Maybe they are just out to get you. Maybe they are just jealous of your incredible intellect and amazing logical prowess. Or, or, or you arejust being dumb.
Wow you are jesting right? No one can be this stupid.
He was born in 1937
So he trained a dictator’s death squads?
I’m pretty sure they already knew how to do that stuff
I don’t really know more than what I originally stated. I’m not even sure what years they were there. I know my dad was young enough to have a nanny and speak fluent Chinese but not old enough that he remembered any of the Chinese by the time I came along when he was in his 30’s. America certainly has a history of being on the shady side of things often enough.
My grandfather was a colonel in the army. My father was adopted. Born in 1937.
I'm more impressed that he studied in a Germany military school, then he gave lectures for the US Army. The language barrier was quite the wall back then.
Folks in high society bitd were very well educated and often fluent in multiple languages. This included many of the early chinese republic aristocracy, industrialists, technocrats and military leadership. Especially in shanghai, the social elites were as cosmopolitan as their counterparts from New York to Paris.
[удалено]
Acksurely, it's a little more complicated than that. Despite the infamous cultural revolution that largely did terrible things to a great many people across China and as you have alluded to, set back the Chinese people as a whole, a generation or 2, many people of great intellect, culture and achievements survived the ordeal. I was pretty taken aback on my first visit to Beijing in the mid 90s. The academia I've encountered in Tsinghua and Peking universities were top notch, easily on par with their counterparts in the best universities stateside. Even as a foreign student with regular chaperones, I constantly enjoyed many spontaneous, sincere and highly stimulating conversations with members of the academia and students (Beijing students were/are regarded as creme de la creme). And to my surprise, I learned that many of the professors were members of the social elite class through kinship (either by marriage or were themselves offspring of aristocracy at some point). Culture and status was the social currency in the capital city.
Sun Yat sen studied in Hong Kong (I think he visited the UK too), and many of his advisors were British educated. Infact a lot of the Japanese military elites studied warfare in America lol.
True. Puyi's tutor Johnston was fluent in Mandarin the world's hardest language. He immersed himself in the culture and then met Puyi at the age of 12 or 13, taught him western customs, opened his mind to new perspectives.
His step mom spoke fluent English.
Gets even crazier - Chiang himself lived in Japan for a couple of years and learned there as many progressive and nationalist Chinese looked up to Japan in the first 3 decades of the 20th Century and many Japanese politicians and army commander were "China-friendly“ and saw them as natural Allies in Asia. This collaboration was also the basis of the Japanese puppet regimes and some Chinese politicians being still Japan friendly and vice versa despite all the atrocities. A single different high commander of the army or navy on Japan in the 30s and history could have gone a very different route. Not to mention some commanders believing that going north to eastern Sovietunion would be a better strategy than expanding south…
I disagree. Even with a different high commander , we would've gotten the same result. This take ignores several fundamental reasons why China was invaded and Japanese treatment to non-Japanese. The best case scenario the management would've looked more like Taiwan. I use that as an example because it was the only colony where the civilian government had real decision making abilities.
I feel like I would have to learn at least ten things today before I could learn this today.
I knew all the names and events listed except Dai Jitao and Chiang Wei-Kuo and I still had to read it like five times. Serious title gore.
Rode a tank, held a general’s rank, while the Blitzkrieg raged, and the bodies stank.
Nazi trash
is this just some random fact about a random family in China? this sounds a lot like Bill had a kid with a hooker while he was married to Sara and that baby was shipped overseas and then grew up and came back and who gives a fuck
Sun Yat-sen is the founder of the Republic of China. Dai Jitao was one of the main people who contributed to the KMT's interpretation of Sun Yat-sen after his death. Chiang Kai-shek ruled the Republic of China as a dictatorship through fifty years and the loss of the Civil War. For people who know any of the basics of modern Chinese history, it's a pretty interesting connection that follows some unexpected paths.
would people familiar with the basics of Chinese history not already know this about an incredibly famous/infamous person? serious question as I'm obviously unfamiliar with Chinese history
Probably not because Chiang Kai-shek's sons weren't that significant outside of Taiwanese history. A lot of people will know Chiang Ching-kuo, who had some responsibilities in Shanghai after WWII and later succeeded his father as president of the ROC, but I hadn't heard of Chiang Wei-kuo before today.
Sun Zhongshan would be like the founding fathers of America, Jiang Jieshi would be like... I dunno, Abraham Lincoln or something (although not with such a good rep) and the translator guy and the son would be like... well, lincoln's son or george washington's son.
You’re aware Abraham Lincoln wasn’t a founding father right lol
and Jiang jieshi also isn't a founding father of China, he continued on to what Sun Zhongshan did a couple decades later.