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Although they were right to chose Germany as the greater enemy, I think there was a bias in that decision - just not a racist one. The Atlanticist, who thought Europe was the center of the universe, won out over the Pacific lobby who saw Asia as such. Neither group was truly rational in their analysis - although the bias is complex and covers a range of idealogical and political perspectives which I hinted at above.
Bombing cities began in the First World War - between the war a range of theoriest including the US Billy Mitchel supported massive destruction of cities to win wars. I don't know if the Germans were the first to use firebombs or not. Regardless revenge was not why the US did it. They thought it would shorten the war - the same reason we used nuclear weapons in Japan.
It has been argued that the US would not have used the atomic bomb against Europeans - that is Germany. The problem with that argument is that the US in fact planned to do so, but the war ended before it was needed. Dresden suggests strongly that race played little role in the decision.
Its hard for me to sympathise with any country in WWII except maybe Finland.
Although they were right to chose Germany as the greater enemy, I think there was a bias in that decision - just not a racist one. The Atlanticist, who thought Europe was the center of the universe, won out over the Pacific lobby who saw Asia as such. Neither group was truly rational in their analysis - although the bias is complex and covers a range of idealogical and political perspectives which I hinted at above.
Bombing cities began in the First World War - between the war a range of theoriest including the US Billy Mitchel supported massive destruction of cities to win wars. I don't know if the Germans were the first to use firebombs or not. Regardless revenge was not why the US did it. They thought it would shorten the war - the same reason we used nuclear weapons in Japan.
It has been argued that the US would not have used the atomic bomb against Europeans - that is Germany. The problem with that argument is that the US in fact planned to do so, but the war ended before it was needed. Dresden suggests strongly that race played little role in the decision.
Its hard for me to sympathise with any country in WWII except maybe Finland.
I sympathize with every country in World War II except Germany, and Italy, to a lesser extent. Nobody but Germany truly wanted that war.
Had England and France followed more sane policies at Versailles and then during the twenties the political and economic basis for Hitler to take power in Germany would never have taken place. Their attempts to punish Germany with a harsh peace and then repeated occupation created the economic and political landscape that led to the Second World War.
Had England and France followed more sane policies at Versailles and then during the twenties the political and economic basis for Hitler to take power in Germany would never have taken place. Their attempts to punish Germany with a harsh peace and then repeated occupation created the economic and political landscape that led to the Second World War.
Maybe so, but that doesn't excuse what Germany did. Nothing in Versailles was a tenth as harsh as what Germany dished out to innocent people in their path.
What Germany was angry about was that they lost World War I. Any treaty that didn't grant them the rewards of victory in a war that they lost would not have satisfied them, IMO.
And by the late 1920s, England and France were more than ready to rectify in a reasonable, peaceful way any legitimate grievances from Versailles. The Germans wanted another go at war, and I don't think anything short of that would have satisfied them.
Versailles is a good example of the fatal middle ground. It punished the Germans enough to anger them, but not enough to deter further aggression or hold them down for long.
Nothing ever justifies evil. My point was that Germany was not uniquely the evil agent in this case. England may have been willing to be less harsh to Germany in the later twenties. This was not true of France. The US did nothing to address the harm to the German economy (and thus to the European economy) caused by reperations. Had Germany not been an economic disaster due in part to this and had there not been major abuses in the twenties by the Allies of Germans, Hitler would never have risen to power.
The behavior of England, the US, and France in the twenties laid the groundwork for Hitler's rise to power.
Nothing ever justifies evil. My point was that Germany was not uniquely the evil agent in this case. England may have been willing to be less harsh to Germany in the later twenties. This was not true of France. The US did nothing to address the harm to the German economy (and thus to the European economy) caused by reperations. Had Germany not been an economic disaster due in part to this and had there not been major abuses in the twenties by the Allies of Germans, Hitler would never have risen to power.
The behavior of England, the US, and France in the twenties laid the groundwork for Hitler's rise to power.
The US made a whole series of loans to Germany that were never repaid, and effectively paid a lot of the German reparations for them.
The US was also an economic disaster itself in the 1930s, and didn't respond with mass murder and hideous aggression.
Had the US been occupied for years, forced to pay reperations, had its citizens shot, and had the western half of the nation detached from the rest, I imagine they would have reacted quite violently.
Had the US been occupied for years, forced to pay reperations, had its citizens shot, and had the western half of the nation detached from the rest, I imagine they would have reacted quite violently.
Then why hasn't Germany reacted violently since the Cold War? What you described happened to a much greater extent after World War II than it did after World War I.
Germany didn't want to live in peace, in its own territory. It wanted much more than that.
Then why hasn't Germany reacted violently since the Cold War?
1) Because it was not occupied as much as protected from the Soviets by Western forces.
2) Because far from taking resources from Germany the allies put resources into Germany in huge quantities essentially rebuilding and refinancing the German economy.
3) Because the Nazi excesses horrified Germans who turned to democratic politicians aligned with the West. The exact opposite of the post 1918 situation.
The tone and behavior of the West in German was entirely different than the vindictive, punishing one after WWI.
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