WW2 was closer.

Edit: society worked towards stopping conflict and limited the scale of conflicts during the period. There was no wholescale destruction or death. The hot wars that happened did not cause widespread destruction of society and a large portion of the population survived and didn't regress technologically.

While certian countries could claim they went through an apocalypse due to proxy wars by the 2 superpowers, they had assistance (most of the time) rebuilding.