What with all the propaganda, prejudice, and humanity's tendency to reduce the complexities of history to Michael Bay films, World War II remains one of the most misunderstood wars ever fought . If you're a history buff, a war nut, or a really old dude with a hell of a life story, you might already know some of the following things. But if you're like us and got most of your World War II knowledge from fighting Hitler in a robot suit, you might think that ...

5 Hitler Was In Undisputed Control Of The German Military

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The Myth:

Hitler wasn't the military genius pop culture usually portrays him as, but at least the guy commanded some loyalty. Dude was the Fuhrer, after all, and we know he was a captivating leader -- we've seen those videos of him delivering terrifying, passionate speeches to the tune of riotous cheers.

But Actually:

Shockingly enough, being cuffed in the ears by Nazis every time they stepped out of line wasn't openly embraced by 100 percent of the population. The German Navy, the Kriegsmarine, was fiercely loyal to the state, but harbored a deep-seated distrust of politicians and their shenanigans. Erich Raeder, the Grand Admiral for the first half of the war, actively resisted any and all attempts to Nazify the Navy, and gained some notoriety for his up-to-two-hour shouting matches with Hitler. After Raeder's inevitable resignation in 1943, his more Reich-minded successor allowed the Nazi mentality to seep in, but even he continued to keep the Party at an arm's length.

Die Kriegsmarine Magazine

This month's featured story: "27 Secret Codes For Telling The Fuhrer To Suck It (To His Face)."

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The Navy even had a rule that people who joined had to leave the Nazi Party before taking part in any missions, but that didn't mean the Kriegsmarine were passive-aggressively condemning the evils of Nazism. They were mostly just too Christian and conservative to buy into this new-wave Nazi stuff. Still, the Navy was an apt breeding ground for dissenters like Admiral Canaris, who collaborated with generals on the Eastern Front to use a wine bottle to blow Hitler up in 1943.

Thede Palm

Which resulted in him being stripped nude and lynched, with his body left up to rot and bloat. Um ... YOLO?

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Speaking of the Eastern Front: Invading the Soviet Union didn't go well for the Germans, and the troops' opinion of their supreme commander was directly proportional to the depth of the frozen shit creek they found themselves in. Starting in 1942, the Wehrmacht began taking in Soviet citizens to bolster their ranks, and when Hitler told them to stop recruiting racially inferior people into his army, the officers politely told him to screw off. By the end of 1942, 700,000 of the three million soldiers in the Axis army were Soviets. Additionally, a type of German machine gun called the Sturmgewehre proved invaluable on the Eastern Front ... after it was developed against Hitler's orders.