Why is World War 1 so overshadowed by WW2?

I can speak for the German perspective.

WW1 was horrible, a long fought war of attrition that saw the demise of the Kaiserreich. Yet the war never happened in Germany, our army fought in Belgium and France. Sure, civilians experienced hunger and cold, and the losses were huge but the cities and infrastructure remained intact. The biggest consequence was the establishment of a republic with the abdication of the Kaiser and the instability of the 1920s.

The horror was far away and no civilian in Germany saw it.

Enter WW2.

WW2 saw the annihilation of German cities and indeed the German state. At the end of this war, German losses were even higher and the government was non-existant. Germany was purely at the mercy of the victors. The unimaginable crimes against humanity, the sheer scale of brutality on the Eastern Front, and the refugee crisis did not happen in WW1. Additionally, Germany lost another huge chunk of land and was split for 45 years into two zones.
We were pariah for decades to come.

Hence while WW1 was bad, WW2 was so catastrophic that if we talk about “The war”, we always mean WW2. “The War” is synonymous with WW2 in Germany, literally any other war has to be specified.

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Holocaust victim

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