There are a lot of quirks with static linking on Windows.. I've had one or two similar problems to this but mostly my problem was once the 'static' libs were compiled they still depended on the . Dll's being there. Anyway, I've been feeling your pain for a while now but got through it for my purposes... here's one page that really helped me.
I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.