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- Jul 27, 2010
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Hello all.
I thought to bring you into a research paper topic for one of my final MA classes before earning the MA degree. This is a dark subject for me and the last time I explored this period of German history, I became lost in the inhumanity of the Nazis. But after Hitler and Eva Braun committed suicide in the bunker and all of Germany was vanquished, I was disturbed by how the Allies themselves, acted.
There were reasons why Gramps didn't want to talk about the war.
Extrajudicial executions, mass rape of the vanquished, enforced hunger of the common Germans, seizure of property without recompense and generally the victors covering all of their actions under same idea: The Nazi's started it and deserved what they got.
That sentiment was felt from FDR/Truman, throughout the military from Eisenhower on down to the private. Those feelings intensified when the death camps were uncovered. I've been to the Eisenhower Presidential Library for primary source documents, to track the sentiments of the victors.
As racially centered as the Nazi's were, it was after the war that Europe became more homogeneous. Poland, Czechoslovakia, and a other countries ethnically cleansed themselves of Germans. East Prussia was swept of its residents by the brutal USSR, with transplanted Poles finding farm houses with meals still on the table, months after the war ended. Ethnic German's who's family may have lived in the Sudetenland for a 100 years, were given ten minutes to pack bags to leave their homes forever, and then were robbed by the soldiers forcing them out. They were sent on trains to a destroyed Berlin. Berlin was utterly devastated at the end, and the smell of corpses was all pervasive, emanating from the rubble. These refugees arrived in mostly the American zone because all feared being caught on the USSR side, but the farm land was held by the Soviets. The Allied Psychological Warfare Division told the Germans how they should react when Allied troops marched into their towns. They told businessmen and other white collar workers that they needed to plant crops while they could, because no food/help was coming for them. Consequently, the real amount of calories each German in Berlin and other cities was 800 calories a day, about what the inmates of Buchenwald received from the Nazis during the war.
I will explain these details in the paper, but I am more interested in other questions this time around. Western democracies, especially the USA, exist by the rule of law. We pride ourselves on the benefits of this system and call it the best on Earth. Yet, FDR in 1944 decided with the help of Henry Morganthau at Treasury, to reduce a technological, educated German populace to serfdom, working in the fields. The idea was that there was something fundamentally wrong with German culture/civilization that led the world into two World Wars. Yet, Germany was too important of a nation to reduce to nothing. It would cripple all of Europe to do this, yet the USSR and France feared any resurgence of a unified Germany. Truman, Eisenhower, MG Lucius Clay decided that for the good of Europe, Germany must be restored and yet forcibly re-educated/de-nazified. The West used dictatorial powers to make West Germany become a democracy.
The other major reason, which may have been the most powerful reason, is the fear of communism. If the USA did not come up with the Marshall Plan to restore Germany/Europe, then in their desperation, Europeans would have been susceptible to the siren song of communism. This applied to Western Germany in a big way, and so the Germans needed to become our allies after the Berlin airlift and the Marshall plan, and it seems to have worked.
Was it moral to use undemocratic methods to coerce a people to become a democracy? I learned from another historian tonight when she discussed her book about CIA assassinations regarding the questions of morality, or were the actions necessary? Anyway, if you've gotten this far, thanks for reading.
I thought to bring you into a research paper topic for one of my final MA classes before earning the MA degree. This is a dark subject for me and the last time I explored this period of German history, I became lost in the inhumanity of the Nazis. But after Hitler and Eva Braun committed suicide in the bunker and all of Germany was vanquished, I was disturbed by how the Allies themselves, acted.
There were reasons why Gramps didn't want to talk about the war.
Extrajudicial executions, mass rape of the vanquished, enforced hunger of the common Germans, seizure of property without recompense and generally the victors covering all of their actions under same idea: The Nazi's started it and deserved what they got.
That sentiment was felt from FDR/Truman, throughout the military from Eisenhower on down to the private. Those feelings intensified when the death camps were uncovered. I've been to the Eisenhower Presidential Library for primary source documents, to track the sentiments of the victors.
As racially centered as the Nazi's were, it was after the war that Europe became more homogeneous. Poland, Czechoslovakia, and a other countries ethnically cleansed themselves of Germans. East Prussia was swept of its residents by the brutal USSR, with transplanted Poles finding farm houses with meals still on the table, months after the war ended. Ethnic German's who's family may have lived in the Sudetenland for a 100 years, were given ten minutes to pack bags to leave their homes forever, and then were robbed by the soldiers forcing them out. They were sent on trains to a destroyed Berlin. Berlin was utterly devastated at the end, and the smell of corpses was all pervasive, emanating from the rubble. These refugees arrived in mostly the American zone because all feared being caught on the USSR side, but the farm land was held by the Soviets. The Allied Psychological Warfare Division told the Germans how they should react when Allied troops marched into their towns. They told businessmen and other white collar workers that they needed to plant crops while they could, because no food/help was coming for them. Consequently, the real amount of calories each German in Berlin and other cities was 800 calories a day, about what the inmates of Buchenwald received from the Nazis during the war.
I will explain these details in the paper, but I am more interested in other questions this time around. Western democracies, especially the USA, exist by the rule of law. We pride ourselves on the benefits of this system and call it the best on Earth. Yet, FDR in 1944 decided with the help of Henry Morganthau at Treasury, to reduce a technological, educated German populace to serfdom, working in the fields. The idea was that there was something fundamentally wrong with German culture/civilization that led the world into two World Wars. Yet, Germany was too important of a nation to reduce to nothing. It would cripple all of Europe to do this, yet the USSR and France feared any resurgence of a unified Germany. Truman, Eisenhower, MG Lucius Clay decided that for the good of Europe, Germany must be restored and yet forcibly re-educated/de-nazified. The West used dictatorial powers to make West Germany become a democracy.
The other major reason, which may have been the most powerful reason, is the fear of communism. If the USA did not come up with the Marshall Plan to restore Germany/Europe, then in their desperation, Europeans would have been susceptible to the siren song of communism. This applied to Western Germany in a big way, and so the Germans needed to become our allies after the Berlin airlift and the Marshall plan, and it seems to have worked.
Was it moral to use undemocratic methods to coerce a people to become a democracy? I learned from another historian tonight when she discussed her book about CIA assassinations regarding the questions of morality, or were the actions necessary? Anyway, if you've gotten this far, thanks for reading.
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