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So am reading various sources on the Internet about post WWII Europe and it seems while there was an initial rush of sympathy and so forth for the devastated Jewish population and others affected by the Nazi regime, it all began to take a backseat very quickly to other plans.
While there was an initial rush to find and punish those responsible for the murderous Nazi regime many, many more were either spirited out of Europe or whatever country by the USA, UK, or other country that had need of them (Klaus Barbie was one glaring example), or merely given "Persilschein" meaning they were cleaned up and "reformed". Still many managed to escape any of it and live out their lives unrepentant and not much bothered.
It seems by the 1950's France and other countries were saying "we have had enough of death and yes bad things did happen but it is time to move on". Whatever jail sentences many Nazis were given ended up being shortened and they were released. Others who were part of the machine simply vanished into South America or other places (helped by the Red Cross, Catholic Church, USA, and the rest of Ratlines) where they were rarely bothered again.
Did people feel that it would be a repeat of the ills that came out of the TofV to make things too harsh on Germany/Nazis as a hole (other than the major leaders who were tried and some executed) and felt other things such as containing Stalin took precedence over living in the past?
I mean when you look at the numbers of persons killed including entire villages including women and children, then add up the total number of days those actually tried and convicted it barely reaches a few seconds per life.
In a matter of speaking yes but perhaps not the way one might picture it.
The Marshall Plan came about to put people back on their feet so another mad man didn't rush in and take charge. The thing is, that next mad man was the Soviet Union.
Germany was devastated in WW2, mostly as a results of Hitler insisting on fighting to the end. It was destroyed. Berlin was devastated and went through a period of Russian rape and pillage that rivaled the Japanese in Nanking. Then the country was devided into two and occupied for many years. East Germany becoming a Russian vassel state for the next 40 years. Millions of German prisoners of war captured by Russia and still alive at the end of the war were shipped to Siberea to die and the few remaining were not released until the 50's.
I mean, what else could you do to them to punish them? They had hit rock bottom.
America was magnanamous in victory, helping all of Europe to rebuild including west germany. That was both a cold war ploy as well as humanitarian.
yes...that horrible treaty made it apparent why Germany waged war
but once the true scope of the holocaust became known, any and all sympathy for Germany disappeared
if Hitler had contained his hatred for jews, or simply just kicked them out without the genocide, history would judge them and him differently
America was anxious to get Germany and Japan inside its sphere of influence in order to counteract what was perceived as the Russia threat. Harsh and vindictive treatment would have made that process much more difficult.
America was anxious to get Germany and Japan inside its sphere of influence in order to counteract what was perceived as the Russia threat. Harsh and vindictive treatment would have made that process much more difficult.
^ This.
The moment fascist Germany surrendered, our used to be ally, the Soviets, emerged as the new # 1 menace to western Europe. Germany was needed to form the frontier of the line holding the Soviets back. Getting Germany up and operating as an ally was more important than any considerations of revenge.
In the Far East a strong ally was needed to serve as the western power's proxy against China after it went communist. Japan filled that role better than anyone else, so again the prime priority was to turn Japan into a democratic ally rather than into a wasteland.
So am reading various sources on the Internet about post WWII Europe and it seems while there was an initial rush of sympathy and so forth for the devastated Jewish population and others affected by the Nazi regime, it all began to take a backseat very quickly to other plans.
While there was an initial rush to find and punish those responsible for the murderous Nazi regime many, many more were either spirited out of Europe or whatever country by the USA, UK, or other country that had need of them (Klaus Barbie was one glaring example), or merely given "Persilschein" meaning they were cleaned up and "reformed". Still many managed to escape any of it and live out their lives unrepentant and not much bothered.
It seems by the 1950's France and other countries were saying "we have had enough of death and yes bad things did happen but it is time to move on". Whatever jail sentences many Nazis were given ended up being shortened and they were released. Others who were part of the machine simply vanished into South America or other places (helped by the Red Cross, Catholic Church, USA, and the rest of Ratlines) where they were rarely bothered again.
Did people feel that it would be a repeat of the ills that came out of the TofV to make things too harsh on Germany/Nazis as a hole (other than the major leaders who were tried and some executed) and felt other things such as containing Stalin took precedence over living in the past?
I mean when you look at the numbers of persons killed including entire villages including women and children, then add up the total number of days those actually tried and convicted it barely reaches a few seconds per life.
I disagree with your initial premise here. After all, while many German war criminals unfortunately escaped (meaningful) justice, Germany ended up losing about a quarter of its pre-war territory after World War II and also ended up being partitioned for almost half a century. Likewise, Germany had to endure and to deal with the expulsion of 12-15 million ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe. Frankly, I would certainly consider all of this to be a severe punishment for Germany.
I'm not sure what being left off easy means in this context, the former leaders of the government and the military were placed under arrest, some were convict and sentenced to long prison terms or executed. The entire nation was occupied and governed by the four occupying forces nominally from the end of the war until 1955, ten years of essentially foreign rule. Of course the eastern sector while granted sovereignty in name was nothing more than a vassal state of the Soviet Union until 1990.
Another thing to consider is that at the conclusion of WW I, the German homeland had been untouched by the armies. They faced food shortages and the future reparations would be harsh, but the land itself had not been fought over, the civilians had been left undisturbed, the infrastructure was intact.
At the conclusion of WW II, Germany was in ruins. The major cities had been flattened by bombing. The land war had come home with all the destruction advancing armies bring. In WW I they had suffered a bit over 2 million dead, in WW II they lost 7.3 million.
Japan's entire merchant fleet had been sunk and the homeland was unable to feed itself, their cities had been reduced to rubble by the B-29 attacks, and of course two of their cities had been vaporized by the atomic bombings.
The destruction of WW II far outweighed the burdens of the reparation payments of WW I. Punishing Germany and Japan further would have been cruelty for the sake of that most ignoble of causes - revenge.
First, they were occupied. During the occupation, the Germans lost all the powers of a sovereign nation. In addition, they lost territories (East Prussia and East Pommeria) that had been German for centuries and millions of German civilians were expelled from these territories. They were also split into two separate nations for fifty years.
The Soviets kept hundreds of thousands of German POWs as slave laborers until 1955. Though not as blatant as the Soviets the French used a variety of pretenses to hold Germans as forced labor , often in bad conditions.
Now, Japan got off easy.... .
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