How good was the Good War?

The Boston Glob ^ | 5/8/05 | By Geoffrey Wheatcroft

[metesky]

How good was the Good War?

On May 8, 1945, the war against Hitler’s Third Reich was won — and some of the victors’ most cherished myths were born

By Geoffrey Wheatcroft  |  May 8, 2005

‘‘NO ENGLISH SOLDIER who rode with the tanks into liberated Belgium or saw the German murder camps at Dachau or Buchenwald could doubt that the war had been a noble crusade.’’ Forty years ago the historian A.J.P. Taylor eloquently expressed what has become a universal belief. Other wars are looked back on with horror for their futile slaughter, but the conflict that ended in Europe in May 1945 is today seen as what Studs Terkel called his famous oral history of it: ‘‘The Good War.’’

In one way it will always remain so. A revisionist case, that defeating Hitler was a mistake, would be not only perverse and offensive, but simply absurd. And yet we have all been sustained since V-E Day, 60 years ago today, by what Giovanni Giolitti, the Italian prime minister of a century ago, once called ‘‘beautiful national legends.’’ By ‘‘we’’ I mean the countries that ended the war on the winning side (the Germans and Japanese have some national legends of their own).

Some of these legends are more obvious than others. The French suffered a catastrophic defeat in 1940, and the compromises many Frenchmen made with their conquerors thereafter ranged from the pitiful to the wicked. More Frenchmen collaborated than resisted, and during the course of the war more Frenchmen bore arms on the Axis than on the Allied side. Against those grim truths, Charles de Gaulle consciously and brilliantly constructed a nourishing myth of Free France and Resistance that helped heal wounds and rebuild the country.

[Mr. Silverback]

B.G. Burkett's take on "The Good War" vs. Vietnam in Stolen Valor is also a very interesting read.

[KC_Conspirator]

No, in WWII, if soldiers came through your town, terrible things happened. Unless of course you were American or British, in which the troops gave out food and candy. Sure, we had soldiers that ripped off civilians and enemies but overall, the kind of mayhem that usually followed did not happen with us. That is the truth.

The rapes of the Red Army are a fact, a stone cold fact. Sure its embarrassing years later, but it happened.

[Rockingham]

This is a lot of revisionist codswallop in this posing as mature and informed historical judgment.

(1) For America, WW II began in 1941 with Pearl Harbor, not in 1939 when Germany invaded Poland. To insist that we cannot date our experience of WW II based on when we were attacked is absurd.

(2) Japanese troops were resolutely determined not to surrender. That is why they died in great numbers rather than surrendering, not because of any supposed unwillingness of US Marines to take prisoners. Indeed, the Marines took prisoners when they could -- prisoners can yield valuable intelligence -- but the Marines often found that prisoners were not Japanese but other Asians who had been conscripted into labor battalions.

(3) The Philippines did in fact belong to the US in 1941. We acquired them from Spain as a result of the Spanish-American war. US administration of the Philippines in the years before WW II, which included an elected Philippine government, was widely regarded as tolerant and enlightened. We explicitly promised the Philippines their independence during the war -- and we delivered soon after their liberation from the Japanese.

(4) The bombing of Hiroshima can be seen as morally justified by Pearl Harbor, but the sounder basis for analysis is to look to the military utility. We bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki because they contained military targets and to try to force the Japanese to surrender without an invasion. We were thereby spared horrific casualties, and Japan was spared far worse material destruction and loss of life than a couple of cities nuked.

And by the way, through a little-known spy operation, the Emperor and Japanese government long knew that we had A-bombs and were going to use them. Hirohito and his immediate advisers long knew the war was lost but hoped to secure favorable terms by making the costs of an invasion so daunting. They seem to have anticipated that US use of A-bombs would provide an opportune moment for surrender -- if the survival of the Emperor was assured. In other words, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were nuked because Hirohito wanted to stay in power.

Similar reasoning applies to the US and British bombing of German cities. They were not undefended, and many thousands of Allied airmen died in the effort. One can wish that more precise targeting was possible at the time so as to spare German civilians, but it was not. And more than a few British died in the German air raids that helped to spur the Allied bombing campaign.

(5) The-Soviets-won-the-war-because-they-bled-the-most line is silly. The Soviets started the war and invaded Poland as an ally of Hitler, which detracts from the supposed credit due them. If there had been no Hitler-Stalin pact, there might not have been a WW II, or it would probably have been far less destructive.

Moreover, the US and British war effort and material support for the Soviets was essential to their survival. A large slice of Germany's military production was also diverted from the Eastern front, thus relieving pressure on the Soviets. The material wealth and technological competence of allowed the US and Britain to reduce their casualties, and it is absurd to regard their war effort as thereby diminished because they bled less than the Russians did.

By the way, are Soviet casualties from their attacks on Poland and the Baltic countries seen as part of their overall total in beating Hitler -- without regard to those casualties having been incurred as Hitler's ally? And how about the 14,000 Polish prisoners that the Soviets killed after Hitler attacked in 1941? Do the Soviets credit them as Allied battle casualties?

[TheSorcererwiththeCosmicKey]

Who was the one leader pre-war to have stood up to Hitler, and actually forced him to stand down?

[Skooz]

Still, the Marines scarcely pretended to take prisoners (even when the Japanese wanted to surrender...

The Pacific War was a take-no-prisoners affair from the get go. Both sides understood that.

[Hermann the Cherusker]

On the contrary, I find it quite easy. The Nazis bombed Rotterdam. The Nazi waged a blitz against London and killed 40,000 civilians.

The bombing of downtown Rotterdam was a mistake from confused orders, as was the initial bombing of civilian portions of London. Churchill, OTOH, ordered a deliberate attack on the citizenry of Berlin and then many other cities, with eager help from Bomber Harris. And the Allied attacks were not simply dropping bombs here and there, but the purposeful use of incindiary devices to create fire storms to destroy the city being attacked.

Its difficult to see the moral or historical difference between such bombing campaigns against civilians and the gas chambers, except that one side won and the other lost.

[PeterFinn]

What a pile of stinking crap. He uses some truths to couch his lies about the war.

The Japanese Bushido did not allow for surrender. The Bushido code also dictated that an enemy who surrendered was dishonorable and not worthy of consideration. The Japanese were wholly unlike the Germans. The Japanese would shoot medics, they killed the injured, they were not at all humane. They even cannibalized captured Americans. They killed millions of Chinese in a horrid holocaust of death and rape and slavery that makes the works of the Nazis pale in comparison.

And we nuked them twice. Too freaking bad.

During the war the Germans quite often demonstrated mercy and civilized behaviors that were wholly absent the Japanese. They did not shoot medics and there were many incidents in which US & German medical units worked together to save people.

And while the Germans were great soldiers, they were defeated in many operations by Allied units that were less than the equal of the Germans in supplies and numbers. The Japanese-American 442nd regiment routinely took on German positions of greater strength.

And it is not a "fairy tale" that the Russians went on an orgy of rape and pillage in Germany. They raped and pillaged their way though the Baltic states, Poland, Prussia, and then Germany and Austria. And let us not forget that the damnable stinking French declared a three day 'plundering right' in the French sector of Germany where they raped, murdered, and pillaged with the same ferocity as the Russians. The French in Mannheim ranged afield and tried to enter Heidelberg to continue their atrocities and Patton put an end to that.

But the Japanese? They got no mercy during the war because they GAVE no mercy. Japan deserved far more retaliation than they received and post-war Japanese knew this. It is the latter-day generations who were taught that the USA started the war and bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki without provokation who are confused about the facts of the war.

And the moron who wrote this article.

[Blzbba]

'You think I’ll weep for “scores of thousands of women and children”?"


Agreed, but boy, did I get flamed on an earlier thread/post about the Russian gang rapes for making the same point. I hope you fare better than I.

I've started noticing an undercurrent of Nazi sympathy...or at least more of a tone of "It wasn't really the citizens' fault" or "they had no choice but to follow orders" crap on the History Channel lately. I find it unsettling.

[Blzbba]

"I wonder for how long I will have to hear this dirty fairytale."


Just don't make the mistake I made, which was to say "Oh well - war is hell" in relation to this dirty fairytale. I got roasted in an earlier thread about Russian Gang Rapes for not feeling awful about the poor Nazi citizens. Apparently, the time frame for "NEVER FORGET" is only 60 years or so for a few posters here...

[Mrs. Don-o]

"The men of our time must realize that they will have to give a somber reckoning of their deeds of war...

"With these truths in mind, this most holy synod makes its own the condemnations of total war already pronounced by recent popes,[2] and issues the following declaration.

"Any act of war aimed indiscriminately at the destruction of entire cities of extensive areas along with their population is a crime against God and man himself. It merits unequivocal and unhesitating condemnation. "

This quote is from a document called "The Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World." It comes from the last (Catholic) Ecumenical Council and has the form of a teaching which is solemn and universal.

I quote it here, not because I think you have any particular ties to the Catholic Church (I don't even know you) but because anyone with any ties to "God" or "man himself" ought to seriously consider the moral evaluation of an act which indiscriminately kills noncombatants.

There are very few acts that can't ever be justified by context, pretext or precedent. The deliberate taking of an innocent life is one.

It doesn't matter whether something similar or 1000 times worse was done to you beforehand. It doesn't matter whether it's done by abortion, a bomb, or a baseball bat. It doesn't matter whether you think it'll have good consequences. It doesn't matter whether it's soon covered over with rubble or flowers or a brand-spanking-new city, democracy, free enterprise, and peace.

It's still putting your crosshairs on the innocent and pulling the trigger. It's still murder.

[Blzbba]

" Stalin was an active partner with Hitler."


He was also a paranoid, delusional lunatic who went out of his away to ignore the intelligence advice of his officers, most often with disastrous results for his troops.

[ClearCase_guy]

I think 4 basic positions could be adopted on the war:

1) The Nazis were right to start the war in Europe. They were the Good Guys. It's a shame they lost.
2) The Japanese were right to start the war in the Pacific. They were the Good Guys. It's a shame they lost.
3) The Allies responded when attacked. They were the Good Guys. I'm glad we won.
4) Despite all my reading on WWII, I have not yet figured out who the Good Guys were. Could have been the Nazis. Could have been us. Who's to say?

I choose Option #3.
I take it you choose option #4?

[conservonator]

It's still putting your crosshairs on the innocent and pulling the trigger. It's still murder.

Hard to argue with an objective fact, but I'm sure some will try.

[AppyPappy]

They are higher. Soviet troops who retreated were machine-gunned by Commissars who stayed behind them. It was go forward or die.

On the Soviet side, there were probably more machine guns pointed at Russians than Germans.

[AppyPappy]

Its difficult to see the moral or historical difference between such bombing campaigns against civilians and the gas chambers, except that one side won and the other lost.

That's moronic. The Germans had war industry in those cities. The Jews weren't exactly making B-24's in the ghettos.

[redgolum]

The front line Russian troops (the ones doing most of the fighting) did not behave like the "Raving Slavic hordes" that some historians portrayed them as. Yes, a lot of looting and rapes happened.

The second line troops from the Russian army, the ones who came into the occupied territories later, did rape and loot a lot more. Many of the stories of atrocities done by the Red army came from these troops.

I have family and friends that lived through WWII in Poland and what was then East Prussia. Listening to their stories, it is hard to see who they hated more.

[redgolum]

That's moronic. The Germans had war industry in those cities. The Jews weren't exactly making B-24's in the ghettos.

The American Army Air Corp conducted daylight raids against factories and other military targets to try to spare as much non combatant damage as possible. Bomber Harris thought that the US was insane for not killing as many "Huns" as possible, and the RAF mainly operated at night against whole cities. That is why Harris was not very welled liked among his peers of the time.

In the eastern theater, the US firebombed Japanese cities. The death toll was higher in those attacks than in the two atomic bombings. In a culture of wood and paper houses, a few napalm bombs caused a firestorm.

Targeting of civilians is a dirty way to fight, no matter who did it. I can't really blame either of the Allied commanders for doing it though. They were under enormous pressure and probably felt it was them or us.

[redgolum]

Intentionally targeting civilian non combatants is wrong. War is never "good" but can be just. WWII in the end was a just war because if Germany hadn't been stopped, there is no telling just what would have happened.

The better question is would WWII happened if we (the US) stayed out of WWI?

[Blzbba]

"The deliberate taking of an innocent life is one. "


Even so-called "collateral damage"?

[AppyPappy]

The RAF operated an night because it saved bombers from being shot down.