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If history written by victors, why the sympathy for the Axis



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gingertop




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, May 06 2019, 2:32 pm
Disclaimer: I'm not a historian. I like reading nonfiction so history occupies a lot of what I read and think about.

I've always understood the truism that history is written by the victors but I've begun thinking whether this is true at all.

Nazi Germany surrendered completely. And while the Nazis themselves are reviled as the symbol of evil, the Wehrmact and the German people get pretty sympathetic coverage in literature. So much has been written about the truly abhorrent wholesale rape of German girls after WWII. But do the atrocities of Barbarossa (including mass rape) get even half as much attention? Weren't the Soviets victors in that war? Why do their mutilated and dead count for so much less than those of the Germans.

And in general, why does the Wehrmacht have this reputation of "just soldiers fighting for their country" when they lost an aggressive, bloody war they initiated out of their own paranoia and hate of "untermentschen" such as Jews and Bolsheviks. I understand that every German soldier couldn't be put tried for war crimes. But they lost the world war they began and they directly and indirectly caused the genocide of Jews, Roma, millions of Eastern Europeans. Why did they get away so squeaky clean?


Any historian imas? Can you explain?
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ora_43




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, May 06 2019, 2:48 pm
Wow good question.

I think to some extent "history is written by the victors" is oversimplified. Usually the victors get to write history for about one generation, and then a bunch of revisionist historians come along and cast doubt on their version.

But I think it's true that the victors usually control the mainstream perception. Like, Americans who know next to nothing about the Cold War will err on the side of remembering the Soviet Union as being scary and opposing freedom.

There's also the issue that sometimes the victors aren't sure what story they want to tell. Should 1960s America talk about the horrible things Germany did to Russia, because Russia was America's ally against Germany? Or about the horrible things that Russia did to Germany, because in the 1960s, West Germany was an American ally on the front lines against communism, while Russia was the Big Bad?

Another issue that sometimes the victors only sort of win, but the losers are still strong enough to get their own narrative out (eg with Israel and Gaza).

(not a historian. Could never keep the names straight Sad ).
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Ruchel




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, May 06 2019, 3:57 pm
I think there's gloating in the fate of germans after the war. And fascination.
In France it was hardly explained and when mentioned it was not excused BUT...
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Ravenclaw




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, May 06 2019, 6:48 pm
I agree with Ora that the revisionist history comes later. The Germans were demonized for a long time and only later did people start cautiously telling their story, and then Arendt and Milgram came around...
Initially history is written one sided though.
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gingertop




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, May 08 2019, 11:21 am
Ravenclaw wrote:
I agree with Ora that the revisionist history comes later. The Germans were demonized for a long time and only later did people start cautiously telling their story, and then Arendt and Milgram came around...
Initially history is written one sided though.


Were they demonized, though? The Allied occupation of West Germany was extremely benevolent, with no anger towards Germany. There were tribunals for actual SS officers (and they were stupidly tattooed with their blood type, which made for prima facie evidence that they may have been involved in war crimes) but the occupation was defined by the reconstruction of West Germany and airlifts to East Berlin.


Arendt and Milgram specifically excused Nazis for being banal, law abiding citizens, just following orders. (That's all rubbish but the topic of a different discussion)

I'm talking more about Germany as a whole. I think Germans got away with most of the blame for WWII by blaming "lunatic" Hitler and the SS. As if the Nazi party marched in from outer space and occupied them.


German universities were on Hitler's bandwagon from the beginning with racial disrimination, . Kristallnacht and all the other intimidation of Jews in Germany and Austria involved teenagers, policemen, firefigters... The Wehrmacht marched itself into countries in order to destroy Jewish and other untermenschen hordes. The fact is that Barbarossa was motivated by racial paranoia.

Did anyone see Luftwaffe officers as uniquely evil? They strafed the Jewish part of Warsaw with a disproportionate amount of bombings, swooping low and targeting civilians and shuls. If anything, people like to equivocate between the Luftwaffe's bombing of cities and the Allies campaign in Dredsen. They lost. Why weren't they vilified more for their aggression against countries who did nothing to them and for bringing the Nazi campaign of genocide to all of mainland Europe?

In other words, they lost a war they began, leaving 50-56 million people dead. Why weren't they villified more, especially before the Arendts of the world came around to take away their moral agency?
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amother
Tan


 

Post Wed, May 08 2019, 11:27 am
Ravenclaw wrote:
I agree with Ora that the revisionist history comes later. The Germans were demonized for a long time and only later did people start cautiously telling their story,and then Arendt and Milgram came around...


And Arendt and Milgram were so successful in brainwashing people that we even have Nazi aplogists on imamother...
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gingertop




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, May 08 2019, 11:36 am
ora_43 wrote:

There's also the issue that sometimes the victors aren't sure what story they want to tell. Should 1960s America talk about the horrible things Germany did to Russia, because Russia was America's ally against Germany? Or about the horrible things that Russia did to Germany, because in the 1960s, West Germany was an American ally on the front lines against communism, while Russia was the Big Bad?


I think the Cold War probably did change Allied perception of the former Axis. Germany and Italy and Japan were rebuilding themselves as capitalist and free countries and the Iron Curtain had descended, leaving millions trapped in the horrific, totalitarian Soviet Union. So what was done to them by the Nazis became lost behind the stories of what they did in retribution?

Americans were comfortable using former Nazis in the space race, for example. Stories of Soviet horrors in East Germany had a higher premium than stories of German horrors.
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keym




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, May 08 2019, 11:40 am
I think that an earlier poster said it well.
The fear and spread of Communism, and the Communist takeover immediately after WWII.
As the history books were being written, Russia and China (our strong allies) became our enemies and we're taking over. Eastern bloc, Cuba, Korea, Vietnam.
So the West Germans and Japanese became our allies because we had a more dangerous enemy. And we couldn't afford to isolate our new allies by demonizing them too bad.

I mean this happens constantly. Decisions made based on the current Scary Bully.

Us made choices in the 70s to ally with Afghanistan and to quietly back Khomeini because of Communist fears. Look how that turned out for us.
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gingertop




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, May 08 2019, 11:47 am
ora_43 wrote:


Another issue that sometimes the victors only sort of win, but the losers are still strong enough to get their own narrative out (eg with Israel and Gaza).



This prompted me to think that maybe the "history is written by the victors" truism doesn't work as neatly in modern society with a liberal conscience. Veni, vidi, vici is not a modern sentiment.

Rather, even when a war is won, the victory is not enough. Historians also look at how the war is won and the moral arguments of each side.

I'm just thinking out loud here, but maybe the history is written by the victims in today's world, a complete reverse of the old order?

Like if Israel would have ch"v lost the 1948 or 1967 wars, it would have been recorded in history as the genocidal war against innocent Jews that it really was. But precisely because they won, they somehow have to be seen as wrong because the Arabs lost so stupendously? The underdog automatically gets a veneer of moral correctness?
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gingertop




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, May 08 2019, 11:54 am
keym wrote:
I think that an earlier poster said it well.
The fear and spread of Communism, and the Communist takeover immediately after WWII.
As the history books were being written, Russia and China (our strong allies) became our enemies and we're taking over. Eastern bloc, Cuba, Korea, Vietnam.
So the West Germans and Japanese became our allies because we had a more dangerous enemy. And we couldn't afford to isolate our new allies by demonizing them too bad.

I mean this happens constantly. Decisions made based on the current Scary Bully.

Us made choices in the 70s to ally with Afghanistan and to quietly back Khomeini because of Communist fears. Look how that turned out for us.


Definitely true.
The Communists were a huge and real menace and as much as we can look back with horror at some of the groups America backed, they were fighting a truly terrible ideology.
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keym




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, May 08 2019, 11:55 am
gingertop wrote:
This prompted me to think that maybe the "history is written by the victors" truism doesn't work as neatly in modern society with a liberal conscience. Veni, vidi, vici is not a modern sentiment.

Rather, even when a war is won, the victory is not enough. Historians also look at how the war is won and the moral arguments of each side.

I'm just thinking out loud here, but maybe the history is written by the victims in today's world, a complete reverse of the old order?

Like if Israel would have ch"v lost the 1948 or 1967 wars, it would have been recorded in history as the genocidal war against innocent Jews that it really was. But precisely because they won, they somehow have to be seen as wrong because the Arabs lost so stupendously? The underdog automatically gets a veneer of moral correctness?


This is an interesting though.

But I think there might have been a post WWI perspective.
History generally agrees that the extreme punishment taken against Germany and Austria for WWI- loss of land, crippling financial, humiliation, etc. directly led to Nazism and WWII.
I wonder if there was a point not to go that extreme again. Give Germany (and Japan and Italy) the opportunity to rehabilitate its country and its image so there wouldn't be a 3rd war.
In that they were fairly successful. Says me looking with the long view of 70 years and modern perspection.
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gingertop




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, May 08 2019, 12:08 pm
keym wrote:
This is an interesting though.

But I think there might have been a post WWI perspective.
History generally agrees that the extreme punishment taken against Germany and Austria for WWI- loss of land, crippling financial, humiliation, etc. directly led to Nazism and WWII.
I wonder if there was a point not to go that extreme again. Give Germany (and Japan and Italy) the opportunity to rehabilitate its country and its image so there wouldn't be a 3rd war.
In that they were fairly successful. Says me looking with the long view of 70 years and modern perspection.


Interesting. Definitely in 1945, it was popular to think that the Versailles treaty caused WWII. Recently, that has been reexamined as well, but the Allies decision to stay around in Germany definitely seemed to have paid off.
And having non-belligerent service members in Germany, especially while the other half was being occupied by extremely belligerent Soviets, made the Germans friendly to American soldiers. So we had soldiers coming back from Germany, having been wined and dined by the local populace and no acts of terror committed against them. That helped create the fairy tale that Germans were the victims of Nazism.
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