OT: Letter about Iraq from WWII generation woman

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quietone

Joined
Oct 26, 1999
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One of my closest friend's mother is British, she grew up in WWI and WWII environment in England, and wrote this note to him about her generation's view of Iraq. It moved me, and so I wanted to share with y'all. Here you go..

When I was eight we had no 'instant' news. Usually 'word of mouth' got there ahead of radio and newspapers and no one seemed in a hurry about it.
Anyway, in 1937 British statesman, Neville Chamberlain, got back from peace talks in Germany and told us on the radio (later on newsreel film) that Hitler convinced him of his desire for peace in Europe. We believed him and attempted to maintain peace by the POLICY OF APPEASEMENT.
On September l, 1939 Germany (allied with Italy) invaded Austria, Poland, Czechoslavakia, Hungary, and continued to Romania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey,France,Spain and Portugal, but we didn't seem to be really aware that Britain would be next.
Invasion meant you're now under nazi rule--their slaves; able bodied men and women were ordered out of their homes, rounded up and shipped off in trains to work for them in munition factories, etc., crippled or mentally handicapped people were put to death,
and dissenters were sent to concentration camps. SS men controlled everyone's every move. Of course, lawbreakers like prositutes, gypsies, thieves were imprisoned. And, of course, you know about the murdered 5 million jews and 4 million gentiles. CAN YOU IMAGINE ALL THIS GOING ON IN ALL OF EUROPE?
We were ill-prepared and suffered the Blitzreig for two years, all alone, no one to help us because all of Europe was under German rule--and starving to death! Then, thank God, the good old U.S.A. came in and rescued us--and the rest of Europe was finally liberated---does anyone else really know what that means? Boy were those countries glad to see the Americans come to their rescue. They brought food to the starving and brutalized people of Europe and freed them from the tyrrany of the Nazis. And they were so kind in their manner. Everyone loved them. (By the way, Britain alone lost over 900,000 men and 2 million were wounded.)
Since then, regardless of the opportunists, they have improved the lives of many nations and it really is a shame that the children of the survivors and the saviors are so lacking in understanding why we want to get the enemy before he gets us. They don't know how they're helping all these anti-American people who now include all the liberals living in the U.S. It is really shameful.
By the way, Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt was instrumental in bringing the United Nations into existence at the end of the war in 1945 for the purpose of promoting international peace because they wanted to prevent another war like that one--in other words IT WAS TO STOP someone like Hitler before he could get started. Knowing what we do, and everyone in the U.N. agrees that S.H. is a wicked man and stops at nothing, after 12 years, how many more years do they watch him and, like Britain did, attempt to maintain the peace by the Policy of Appeasement.
Hope this gives you a better understanding of we older folks.
 
That was a very moving post. Sorry for this long post but it's a good topic. Here's the fictional view of a Vietnam Vet:

I volunteered because I really wanted to serve my country and stop the Communist menace in Vietnam. When I got there, the villagers thought we were the menace. We had to treat everyone like the enemy including women and kids. All casualties were by landmines and snipers. No face, no warning, and but always there all the time.

We were always told that we were winning because body counts showed more of them were dying than us. Then came TET. And it turned out to be a lie. Then Ellesberg leaked the Petagon Papers. It turned out that our OSS supported Ho Chi Min against the Japanese in WWII. The OSS recommended that we support an independent Vietnam under Ho Chi Min who was pro-American then. But because DeGaulle conviced Washington that he needed France's colonies back in order to stop communism from taking over France, the US sold out Ho Chi Minh. Our OSS officers re-joined Ho Chi Min in the jungle until they had to be quietly but forcibly taken out. Then the French lost and we stepped in to "stop Communism". Then we bailed out after 30,000 deaths. Who ended up containing Vietnam (at one point, the Vietnamese had the fourth largest standing army in the world after China, Russia, and the US)? The Communist Chinese (traditional enemies of the Vietnamese) and their allies, the Khmer Rouge.

Moral of many stories: US leaders can sometimes get it very right and sometimes get it very wrong. They've only been in the world superpower business for around 60 years. In WWII (after the Europeans blew it twice), we and our allies came up with the idea of compassion - helping your enemies rather than punishing them. It worked brilliantly. But at the same time our leaders set the stage for Vietnam which caused the downfall of a US President and ripped the US apart. Karma on a national scale.

But it is so easy to judge with hindsight, isn't it?

Iraq? Well Saddam's a bad one alright. But we supported and armed him in the 80's against Iran. And Idi Amin was probably worst . . . and we did nothing. Big Doc in Haiti was at least as bad as Saddam. But we supported him as long has he kept the peace in our backyard (on a morally positive note: our leaders did at least try to clean up the mess in Panama).

So far for all the allegations about Mass Destruction in Iraq, our leaders have not yet shown concrete evidence. It remains to be seen whether the world's townspeople (i.e. the UN) will agree that the man is just plain bad and has got to be hunted down. But without the townspeople's support, it means our leaders may send good men like Sarge into battle because:

a) they actually have concrete proof that Saddam is developing bio, chem, or nuclear weapons but for whatever reasons (like "national security") refuse to share the evidence with our desired allies (and us).

b) they don't have proof, but want to set the standards for a new world order where they can do what they want without the townspeople agreeing (sort of son Bush undoing what father Bush did with great skill in 1990). They deem this necessary so that they can move on other states like North Korea (which has openly admitted it is making nuclear weapons - world politics is odd isn't it: we risk our people and credibility on a case where there's no proof while treating with kid gloves the guy who says he's done it and is proud of it).

c) they don't have proof but are taking one massive gamble that enough sabre ratling or even an invasion will cause the Iraqis to dump Saddam themselves. Now why they would want to risk guys like Sarge in a gamble like that, who knows? (I hope it's not a personal Bush vendetta thing)

d) they don't have proof but expected to find it when the inspectors went in helped by all our high tech intelligence. Sadly they didn't find it and are now so deep that they can't pull out without losing the next election (sounds a bit like Vietnam doesn't it?). So its charge ahead: damn world order, damn what right or wrong, even damn the American people (at least until voting time), damn all that virtuous stuff that doesn't win elections. At least by charging ahead, there is a good chance that it might all end super quickly (like Iraq I and Afghanistan) so that everyone forgets about it before elections.

I hope their not risking guys like Sarge and our credibility for c) or d). In any case, we will never know until its all over. That's democracy. We elected them. So we bear their mistakes. That's our karma. I hope Iraq isn't one of those mistakes.

Thanks for reading!
 
Sobering stuff.

I've heard this saying in foreign lands:

"To be an enemy of the United States is dangerous. To be a friend is fatal."

Our foreign policy is flawed and the reason for this is we don't understand the people we are trying to deal with and refuse to listen to those who do -- and this: Communism, the cold war, fear of the domino effect, and the "better dead than red" philosophy caused us to make some serious mistakes.

I'm a Korean vet and I remember those North Koreans as a rather formidable enemy. And to be quite honest I'm just as concerned or even moreso about North Korea as I am Iraq. I'd rather take 10 or 15 WTCs than one nuke.
 
Big Kahuna,

The proof of weapons was signed by SH in the armastice agreement. There is no quandary here. The onus on Saddam is to prove, not that he has these weapons, but that he destroyed them. The burden of proof is on him.

World order? Screw that. We defend our country. Iraq is a conquered nation. End of story.

This isn't a democracy, it's a republic.

Our president is taking the high moral ground. Why you can't see that is beyond me.
 
Regardless of why it got started, the train's too far down the track to turn around now. Credibility is on the line. If the United Nations proves to be ineffective at enforcing it's own resolutions, then the world becomes a free for all where the superpowers must fend for themselves. A man is only as good as his word, countries are no different.

Sarge
 
quiettone,
your friend's mother is right to compare the situation to the appeasement in the late thirties. However I think you are playing Hitler down if you compare Saddam Hussein to him. Hitler was worse. S Some things are really non parallel:

Hitler did one step after the other. He renewed the military (it was down to 100 000 men after the Versailles treaty), he introduced universal compulsory military service and invaded the demilitarized Rhineland (1936) - no intervention, not even from France (they had granted the Versailles treaty). In March 1938 Hitler took the chance and annected Austria (and was welcome there - he was actually Austrian, born in Braunau). In August and September as the "Sudeten-crisis" developped (a lot of the Sudeten-German population in the Czech Republic wanted to go "Home to the Reich") the British sent Lord Runciman (compare him to the UN-inspectors) to investigate the situation of the Sudeten-Germans under Czech rule - he came to the conclusion it was a bad situation. So in the Munich-Conference (30. Sept.1938, it was then, when Chamberlain returned with the words "peace for our time") The British, the French and the Italian politicians told Hitler he could have this part of the Czech Republic and he took it, leaving the rest of the Czech republic defenseless (border-fortifications were within the Sudeten German territory) - 11 months later the Word War started with the invasion of Poland (it was then, when British faschists like Mosley were stopped, not before). From 1941 on the Holocaust started.

So you see. Hitler "tested" how far he could go - and did not find resistance until the war began. He was able to attack other countries. Saddam is not, due to UN controls, he found resistance. Saddam is evil, no question, but I think he is under control - and just think a bit. The US will attack Iraq, no doubt about that. Saddam is asked to disarm by the UN - wouldn't he be crazy to disarm right now, when all the world expects the US to start the war anyway?

That is one side of the medal. The other is, that he had 12 years to disarm and he did not (however, still no proof for WMD!). And being a German I find it very difficult to decide:
War is the worst of all solutions, but there are circumstances under which war is necessary (remember Germans were "reeducated to be pacifists after the war - it worked I think, so lots of Germans would like to avoid war in general). The Versailles treaty that ended WWI with its hash regulations partly provoked WWII. War, especially unjustified war and unjust treaties have always been the cause for hatred and revenge. The point (insted of a war or after a war) is to give an alternative that is accepted, not to bomb someone back to the stone-age.
Not only France, Poland, the BeNeLux or Italy were freed by the allies in word war two - Germany was liberated too and therefore I feel we have the responsibility to fight dictatorship in the world. I quote Paul Spiegel, chief secretary of the Central Congress of Jews in Germany. He said: "Auschwitz was not liberated by anti-war-protestors. It was liberated by soldiers."

Sorry for the long post.
Andreas
 
Odd, I thought there would have been more comments on this thread. Oh well, maybe Pala's deals have drawn forum passion toward khukuris and away from politics (rightly so).

Sorry. This is going to be another long one (may be that's why there’s so little interest?). By the way, Sarge, the part you may be interested in comes at the very end. UB, the part you might find interesting is in the middle. So scroll on if this gets boring.

An extremely good point, Swede. In the fine print, our leaders' justification for a war is that SH violated the agreement by not destroying his weapons. The moral problem (if morality is an issue - it tends to be over the long term) is who's going to prove it. If we can show proof publicly (like our photos during the Cuban Missile crisis) the American people tend to unite together along with our allies . . . and we tend to win face offs.

Laying the burden of proof on the accused is much harder morally. For example, remember when in the 80's during the Reagen deficit years (a wonderful gamble which worked by the way!), the IRS had to find money fast. So they came up with a system to collect taxes from people like waiters and waitresses who collected tips but didn't report them as income . IRS basically said that an average waitress in your town usually collects $X in tips. If you don't prove to us that you returned the tips which customers normally leave for you, were going to charge you back taxes based on the average.

Was IRS right? Legally . . they could do it. Even morally the IRS had a point because waitresses were collecting tips and not paying taxes on them unlike workers getting paychecks. But in practice, it was a mess. Here you had the IRS going to all these waiters/waitresses claiming back taxes. If they didn't have the money, the IRS went after the restaurants who employed them for "not deducting taxes" from their tips as required by law. Most people felt this was unfair. Eventually Congress called a hearing and had testimony from the guys on the ground who suffered. It isn’t done much any more.

So getting back to burden or proof, morality, and SH. In my mind it's clear that SH is a bad one and should be gone (see below) . . . just like Kim of North Korea, some African leaders including Mugabe, and Latin America (drug) warlords. But so far the morality behind an Iraq invasion seems loose for lack of public proof or a multilateral (big word, huh?) consensus (see my previous post).

In practice, moral issues won't matter much in the short term because we do have the military power to get him out anytime our leaders' want to. But morality has a way of coming back to bite us later on. We are less unified as a people (Vietnam caused the greatest split in our country since the Civil War). And our leaders can become arrogant which affects their judgment (remember how right after Iraq I, father Bush nobly dove into Somalia?). Karma.

So who has the moral high ground? Here I disagree with your view, Swede. SH certainly doesn't have the moral high ground (if he has any moral ground at all). But nearly anyone's moral ground is technically high when compared to SH's moral pit. So SH’s lack of morals doesn't mean that Bush's Iraq morality is up to the level which a country like ours deserves. And again, any moral consequences will probably only unfold after it’s over.

(By the way, it would be the ultimate comedy if say after SH is out and we or our allies occupying Iraq can’t find any weapons after all. By then the reporters will have moved on. But any long term damage to the US domestically and overseas will already have been done. At least SH will be out finally out - but it leaves us much weaker for the Kims, Drug Lords and Mugabes of this world.)

The big issue is not whether SH is bad and should be taken out. Personally I think he should be (more about this coming up). But the issue is how to go about doing it in a way that does the least damage to us over both the long and short term. Without showing proof or something like a UN (or at least a NATO) consensus to bring more of the American people and the world with them, US leadership will be taking the gambles described in my earlier post.

(Uncle Bill, the part you may be interested in is here)

Why do I believe SH is bad one? Not from what US leadership tells us. I am bothered that after we backed him against Iran he attacked Kuwait. His resume is bad (but there are worse). But its really the info coming from the ground. I see and hear nothing but negative comments coming from Iraqi refugees even when we were backing him against Iran. But I am biased. I have a great deal of respect for Uncle Bill's comments on how info from the field is by far usually the most reliable. Indeed, given UB's success with HI (developing a commercially successful product which the world wants and Nepalis like to make is no small feat) and given his forum comments on Nepal’s politics, I do believe that if UB had access to the intelligence which the US has now on Nepal (which is probably around the same low level as that on pre-Dien Bien Phu Vietnam) he could give better counsel on Nepal to the President than the State Department.

(Sarge, the part you may be interested in is here)

Sarge is quite right when he said “ . . . the train's too far down the track to turn around now.” That‘s a man talking from the field. And when he says “Regardless of why it got started . . .” That’s why Sarge is Sarge.

I sent a couple of khuks to Sarge (a very small token in my eyes even if it stretched out my future birthday gifts) via UB not because I think SH is bad and should be removed (which I do), not because I think US leadership is right (jury is still out . . . I do think US leadership could have done a better job about leading . . like publicly (or even privately) showing whatever proof they based their decisions on), not because I hope he will kill the enemy (I suspect most are undersupplied conscripts who will be abandoned by their higher ups when the heat starts as in Iraq I). I sent them because:

a) From Sarge’s posts, I believe he is a very rare, good man who puts his kuliana (responsibility, duty) for his men and his mission above himself.

b) I believe he is an excellent soldier (even if carrys large swords at official ceremonies J ) – the kind of sergeant I would want for a leader if I were an enlisted man; the kind of sergeant I would listen to carefully before making a decision, and trust to make that decision happen in the best possible way if I were an officer (fat chance!)

c) I am grateful for the necessary but thankless task he and the others do so that I have the great luxury of living my life in peace without facing what he might face. By task I don’t mean just the years of service, tough training and physical hardship. I mean that in being a warrior, there is a high risk that you may discover the very worst of yourself: that you may fail when protecting those you were charged to protect; that under bad circumstances and pushed far enough you may commit horrible acts or make decisions which may haunt you for the rest of your life (or even worse, which you may discover you enjoy – they may be the one in a hundred, but they are needed in war); or in that split second a choice allows, you may choose the choice of a coward. (we have a few Vietnam vets around here who suffer from some of the above; I think that’s why they live out their lives so far from home.; if they are back home, they usually live alone in the wilderness to get away from people . . . may be even to try to get away from themselves . . . hey! That sounds like a lot of guys on the forum! To all of you (and you know who you are), my thanks. You never even got a parade)

d) I trust Sarge enough to believe that he will lead his people with wisdom, judgment, and responsibility so that the khuks will not cause unnecessary harm to them or the enemy (judging what is necessary is of course why he is Sarge).


“World order? Screw that. We defend our country.”

That would be great, wouldn’t it? But if we truly believed that, we wouldn’t be Americans. We would all move to New Zealand (lots of beautiful land – water can still be drunk out of most streams; lots of pretty girls; trout the size of your forearm; boars the size of a cow; so far at the end of the world that it never matter much in anything; so much elbow room that not many people tell you what to do . . . hmmm . . . maybe not such a bad idea! J ).

(Overseas forum members please forgive me for the following text but since the majority of members are Americans/Canadians and since the burden/guilt/glory of Iraq II falls on our shoulders, you will find that the rest of this really is targeted at Canamericans)

Reality is that in spite of our global mistakes, our global ignorance, our global naivety, our global hypocrisy, our shallowness, our fickleness, our insincerity, our loudness, our occasional arrogance, our greed, and our crassness, America has done a magnificent job of being a superpower over the past 60 years. No western culture has dominated their world more since the Romans defeated Carthage. The world has never seen faster growth in incomes, literacy, and life spans. And amazingly, excluding the internal pogroms of Stalanist Russia and Mao’s China, all this happened with very few lives lost in conflict.

(By the way again, I find it amazing that America managed to keep the peace for sixty years with only two major hot wars (Korea and Vietnam) for a loss of “only” say 60,000 American + allies lives. That’s around the level of one significant WWI or Civil War battle (historians please correct me). I speculate that it’s no coincidence that the two wars were in Asia. In Europe, America saw its way through two conflicts within our own alliance (Britain and France over Suez, Turkey and Greece over Cyprus). America has traditionally been much more familiar with Europe (how many old timers out there took a French, German, Spanish or Italian lesson) than Asia (listen to what UB has to say). Some say this is partly due to the McCarthy’s communist witch hunt depleting the State Department of Americans with foreign expertise. Anyway, Washington is probably even less familiar with the intricacies of the Middle East (maybe it’s a good sign Britain has joined us in Iraq II – the British have a long tradition of Middle East to India intelligence).

Along with sheer power, we spread concepts like equal opportunity, freedom to trade and run business (which has made us and most of the world much better off), self-government (vs. colonial), and forgiveness (it is no accident that our main WWII foes have become richer per capita than the US – most say the Vietnamese would be better off today if they lost the War for commercial reasons – so if Iraq II is a decisive victory, time to invest in Iraq).

So in short, the world needs America. I could give an example in Asia. Without American protection of Japan, the Japanese would have to re-arm. If Japan re-arms, China would have to build up its arms (right now China has on purpose not built a blue water navy to keep this balance), then on and on a bit like WWI. So in fact, the leaders of China, Japan, and nearly all of Asia still want America to be engaged as sheriff (i.e. when the Philippines Senate ended the US leases on Subic bay – I hear several rushed offers including Vietnam’s Haiphong were made to keep the American presence here).

What would happen if we just stuck to defending our country? We tried that once after WWI. I believe our standing army was cut down to less than 30,000. Most of our fleet could fit into Pearl Harbor. No need to go into what happened then. But to put it bluntly (overseas members are not going to like this statement, but it is true) America saved Asia and Europe from themselves in WWII . . . and did a pretty good job over the past 60 years. A lot of this is luck. Some will say it’s also technology and MAD nuclear threats. But as they say in my business “Whether its luck or skill, doesn’t matter . . . it works”

Sorry but I’m getting tired and I’m anyone reading this far is tired, too. I think I might have broken the record for longest post. Maybe I should change my screen name from The Big Kahuna to Wayne the Windy. But thanks for reading. I can’t really say what I feel in daily life. So it feels good to get it off my chest.
 
Ooops . . . apologies. Let out citing the British in the last part of the previous post when citing the Americans and Canadians.
 
Kahuna, I appreciate your kind words, and your support, but I gotta tell you I'm nothing special, in fact pretty average. Ours is an all volunteer force, and every man and woman in uniform serves by their own choice and commitment to our country, and to freedom. I'm just one little brick among many, but together we form the wall that keeps the wolf from the door. All of you who get involved in supporting the cause of freedom are bricks in that same wall.

Sarge
 
But to put it bluntly (overseas members are not going to like this statement, but it is true) America saved Asia and Europe from themselves in WWII . . . and did a pretty good job over the past 60 years.
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... as an overseas member I like the statement because it is the truth. Europe and Asia owe the US a lot and I am kind of ashamed when I see how my government acts on the Iraq crisis.
This does not mean two countries cound not have different opinions and have friendship nevertheless. With my friends I do not always share the same opinion (wouldn't that be boring?) - we love each other nevertheless. In the political friendship it is the tone that makes me sad.
It looks as if it will be the old game: US fights, UN feeds and EU funds - no question the US takes the highest risk. I am glad there are guys like Sylvrfalcn to do the job and wish there would be more good guys from good countries to join. I just pray that all of those who defend our liberties and put their lives at risk will return safely.

Andreas.
 
I am in my 30's. I (obviously) wasn't around during any of the large scale wars, WWII, Korea, Vietnam. Through 27 years in the martial arts, and having an asian teacher that saw his people liberated from the Japanese during WWII by the US, along w/ having a lot of influence from a veteran UDT/SEAL in the family, I have developed a heartfelt appreciation for our veterans. Not just ours, but our allies, might I add. I have even developed a kind of respect for our enemies of various wars, the kind of respect that you must have for an opponent in order to take them seriously and not lose an engagement.

I really don't know all the dynamics to the current political situation. To me, politics is a big room of smoke and mirrors, and I tend to wonder if anyone in the civilian world understands all the components, and of course I wonder about the motivations of those that do that are in power.

I am not clear if Iraq has weapons of mass destruction or not. Like I said, smoke and mirrors to me. I do know that there are a lot that are unaccounted for, which means there is a potential threat somewhere.

In my heart, when I ask myself about war and SH. I believe there are hundreds, if not thousands of reasons (counting lives that SH has taken of people in his own country, including the children) why we should remove him by any means necessary. Liberals in our country seem to take a don't rock the boat approach, which I understand. But, I don't believe that these Liberals really grasp the fact that SH has tortured and killed innocents. It is arrogant to me to discount their lives and rights as human beings. Even with respect to a different cultural perspective, right is right. He hasn't done it on the level of Hitler, but what if you could ask one of those dying if you think that the scale makes their death any less significant?

The bad thing about a fight is that someone always gets hurt, and the bad thing about a war is that someone always gets killed. I really don't like either. I have another feeling in my gut that if a job needs doing, that you don't have to like the job in order to succeed at it.
 
I hate war.:( :barf:

That said, I also know that war is sometimes necessary because of the greed, stubborness, and sought after power by an individual that becomes the person in power in their own countries.

As far as a comparison between Hitler and Saddam I see no difference at all. The only thing different is the scale. If Saddam had the means and wasn't as well policed as he is he would've already got rid of the Kurds in Northern Iraq, whether by gas chambers or other means.
It matters not whether a so called man harms one child or a million. The potential is there IMO. And Kuwait wouldn't have been the last country he invaded.

Saddam and any others like him need to be taken out. International law and courts compared to local law and the smallest criminal court are also only different in scale as are the offenders, again IMO.

My old man was a sorry excuse for a man. He once told me that God was only for Sundays. I told him that my God was for always.
If people would uphold thier belief's and live according to what they say they believe then the whole world would be self policing and we would have no need for the instruments of war. Again, my opinion.

It's also my opinion that all true warriors hate war.
The ramifications of war are a whole lot more than the chance of losing one's life.
One's soul is much more important than one's life no matter what your choice of belief is, again, my opinion.
War can result in making some loving combat and death. Only a few of those can be brought back to life fit enough to live among the common people.
Thankfully not too many are affected in that way. Again, my opinion for what it's worth the same as this post.
 
"It's also my opinion that all true warriors hate war.
The ramifications of war are a whole lot more than the chance of losing one's life. One's soul is much more important than one's life no matter what your choice of belief is, again, my opinion.
War can result in making some loving combat and death. Only a few of those can be brought back to life fit enough to live among the common people. Thankfully not too many are affected in that way."

Wise words again from a very wise man.

Quietone, I am guessing. But your sense of justice makes be suspect that if you were born twenty years earlier, you may have willingly served in Vietnam. If you have the discipline to study martial arts for so long and the humility to respect those who could teach you, it sounds like you would have made a good soldier. And if deep down violence and killing do abhor you, you might have made it through without losing your soul as a wise man describes.

You and I are lucky enough that others before us and others now (like Sarge) created a world were we were put in a position where we might have lost or seen the worst of our souls (at least in war).

I saw my old boss (an ex-Vietnam marine) the other day (this is a guy who keeps pictures of his soldiers and friends killed in action stuck on his toilet door so everyday when he sits on the can he never forgets them). He was telling me about his reunion with his old unit in the US. He mentioned how he angry he used to get at the guys who fell apart when they were needed. Then he told me how, especially after seeing his old unit, he now feels really sorry for them. They had to live (and suffer) through all these years with what they did.

Pan Tau, perhaps you might be able to share some wisdom about something I've never understood (I've never visited Germany). After WWII, the German people were very quick to accept, understand, and then build on what happened in WWII. As a result Germany is now strong economically, politically, and respected in world politics. Japan on the other hand is still dogged by WWII issues both at home and from abroad (which still hampers their growth 60 years later). What is it about German culture (a very old one) that allows such introspection, humility, and evolution in such a positive way after such a great catastrophe?
 
Wise words Yvsa.

Pan Tau, perhaps you might be able to share some wisdom about something I've never understood (I've never visited Germany). After WWII, the German people were very quick to accept, understand, and then build on what happened in WWII. As a result Germany is now strong economically, politically, and respected in world politics. Japan on the other hand is still dogged by WWII issues both at home and from abroad (which still hampers their growth 60 years later). What is it about German culture (a very old one) that allows such introspection, humility, and evolution in such a positive way after such a great catastrophe?
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Kahuna,
Right now Germany is not very strong economically - and we are still dogged by WWII issues and it will stay that way (which is good because most f the Germans living today have no personal guilt in what happened during the holocaust and the war but have the duty and the responsibility to prevent inhumanities like that now and in the future (because of that I think Germany should join the US in fighting Saddam Hussein)).
I think it was a mixture of different things that led to the "Wirtschaftswunder" (economic miracle) in the fifties.
1. A first thing that is not very glorious is that Germans learnt to obey during the reign of Hitler - a very bad thing under the Nazis (lots switched out the moral side of a thing when they received an order), a good thing after the war.

2. The victorious allies treated Germany different compared to the situation after the first world war. The Versailles treaty crippled a nation and created hatred. After WWII there were plans (Morgenthau) to do a very similar thing on a larger scale, but these plans luckily were not realized. There would have been war again I think.

3. After six years of war Germans were fed up with war. There were terrific bombings (Dresden to name the worst) that were military nonsense just to demoralize the population. This did not work very well, the population stood togther and tried ti build up (as did the British with coventry). What was worse was that there is litterally no German family that has not lost a son, a father, a brother in the war. A lot of them had realized that the Nazis were criminals because they did not surrender earlier, rumors of what happened in the concentration and extiction camps spread during the last two years of the III. reich. They wanted peace - and they got it when their city or village was occupied by allied forces.

4. The denazification started very early - but was not effective. They started with the "small nazis" and planned to go on in to the more responsible ones - but with the Soviet Union there was a new common enemy since 1948/9 - so some of the bigger nazis that were in trial 4 to 5 years later were treated not so bad because now they were needed to build up a relieable ally against the eastern bloc (a new war in Korea had started...). Gen. Patton was one of the US-Americans who did not care very much about the danger of old nazis but did see the soviet danger very clear - I think he was mistaken (easy to say from today's standpoint), he died shortly after the war in a car-accident, the new military governor of bavaria was more rigorous.

5. Germany received a lot of help from the US with CARE-parcels and the European Recovery Programme. German prisoners of war were treated mostly well (some exceptions always happen

6. There is a tradition of high quality ingenieurship in Germany that was and is unbroken (but too expensive nowadays). West-Germans had a new start from the beginning in 1949. Everyone had the same amount of money (20 Deutsche Mark), everyone wanted a better life and tried to realize his/her ideas sometimes in very creative ways.
Germans had a culture to be proud of and therefore a kind of cultural national identity that lacked the political sector (Germany was not united until 1871 and there are not many honourable German politicians before 1918 (maybe Bismarck or Friedrich II of Prussia if you want so), there were some between 1919 and 1933 (Ebert, Stresemann, Wels) and none between 1933 and 1945 - so they had a cultural basis and a new political goal at the same time.

So Germans simply had to build up because of the misery after the war (Germany was much more destroyed than Japan was), together with the western allies they had a common enemy in the east, they had the spirit and the knowledge to start something new and they received a lot of help from the former "enemies". However some (and not so few) nazis were still there after denazification (they have more or less disappeared the biological way now), we have some new ones around in the eastern part of Germany who are nazis because of unemployment and stupidity. Despite this minority (about 2000-3000 in a people of 80 000 000, but they make a lot of noise) Germany is a renewed country and should approach to its role as a large European country (which includes responsibility and maybe a bigger role in the UN) in a careful way. There are some historians who speak of "Nationalmasochism" after "Nationalsocialism". Time to get rid of the masochism I think but not time to forget the horrors of the III. Reich, time to be proud of the achieved but not time to forget about all the help we received.

I think the treatment Germany received after WWII can serve as a model for a new order in Iraq: Do not produce hatred but thankfulness and you will find allies and neither slaves nor new terrorists. (just my personal opinion).

...longish post, sorry for the still not so good English.

Andreas
 
Originally posted by Pan Tau
Wise words Yvsa.

I think the treatment Germany received after WWII can serve as a model for a new order in Iraq: Do not produce hatred but thankfulness and you will find allies and neither slaves nor new terrorists. (just my personal opinion).

...longish post, sorry for the still not so good English.

Andreas
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TBK and Andreas thank you for the kind words.:)

Andreas there is nothing wrong with your English. You said it very well.

After watching a documentary on the German POWs the other night I think perhaps that the returning prisoners had much to do with the way Germany is today.
The documentary said that the height of the German POW population there were some 400,000 prisoners in the U.S.
The documentary brought back some very old memories........

One time my old man took me and Mom for a ride around a German POW camp.
I was very young, but the memory has stuck well in my mind.
Being alone or with adult company so much of the time I thought about things that most kids have no inkling of.
There were many, many POWs outside, all dressed neatly and looked well fed.
Granted the fence they were behind was extremely high and with barbed wire strung across the top.
I thought it interesting at my very young age to see several baseball games going on between the POWs.
For some reason I didn't think that the Germans would have played baseball.
I asked my folks why we were at war with Germany because they looked just like we did.
They were laughing, talking, smoking and seemed genuinely happy with their situation.
Just the fact that the German POWs were treated like human beings, even being prisoners, had to have an impact on at least the majority I would think.
And 400,000 POWs returning home from a land that was free even though themselves were not while here had to have an influence on thier families, friends and nieghbors.
That was a lot of men returning home considering how many were lost in the war.
At least I like to think that their experiences here in the U.S. had a positive influence on their lives.
Most people the world over just want to live their lives in peace and as much prosperity that they can generate.
It's the dayumed governments that screw everything up for us little people.
 
Thank you Yvsa.
I think you are right. It was easier for the US to treat the German POWs in a good way. It was not so easy for the Soviets, and the British because their countries had suffered directly from Hitler`s aggression. POWs and refugees were not treated that good by other allies.
Some moths ago I read that during the last German offensive in the Ardenne-mountains there were days without communication between the soldiers and the commanders/headquarters due to heavy snowfall. Some US and German soldiers are said to have celebrated christmas together during these (two) days. They parted the other day and the Germans surrendered two days later as the weather cleared up and allied air forces could use their superiority.
Sometimes I think these young soldiers had more things in common than things that made them enemies (I am not speaking of the fanatic hard-core nazis) - it shows in situations like that.
It's the dayumed governments that screw everything up for us little people.
Click to expand...
Right - but I am glad the US-government did intervene (It was Hitler who declared war on the US after Pearl Harbor because he hoped Japan would attack the Soviet Union in exchange)...

Andreas
 
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