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EWF: Europe Divided 1914-89 > Postwar Memory > Flashcards

Postwar Memory Flashcards

1
Q

What is Ian Baruma (2001)’s argument about 1945? (4)

A
  • 1945 as a year zero
  • Destruction: vengeance, punishment, black markets, servicing of troops
  • Followed by construction
  • Old world destroyed new world being rebuilt
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2
Q

What is Keith D Lowe (2012)’s argument? (2)

A
  • End of WWII not the end of violence

- Time of lawlessnes, terror and incredible violence in days, months, years after hostilities supposedly ended

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3
Q

What is Henry Rousso’s Vichy Syndrome argument (1991)? (2)

A
  • Coined term in his explanation of how postwar France denied/misremembered/abused its memory of the wartime regime
  • Every country had their own Vichy syndrome
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4
Q

What is Pierre Lagrou’s argument about WWII and postwar memory? (4)

A
  • WW2 such a vast war, great variance of experience
  • Left a generation unhappy/fragmented/divided
  • Collectivisation of violence/suffering or resistance/dissent to help come to terms with trauma and reconstruct civil society
  • Those who didn’t fit into this generated strong memories of their own rooted in the particularity of their experiences and largely regardless of national origin
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5
Q

Why does Tony Judt argue that WWII was a “total war” and most people did experience suffering? (3)

A
  • Nature of war meant civilians felt like victims
  • Most men mobilised
  • Devastating effects on both home front and back home
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6
Q

What is Deak et al’s argument about the importance of denazifying and distortion of war through memory to regime’s image? (3)

A
  • Punishment of collaborators helped distance from and discredit predecessors
  • Allowed responsibility to fall on select few
  • Helped perpetuate myth most of pop resisted and absolved them of wrong doing
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7
Q

What is Gregor’s argument about the “logic of democratic politics”? (3)

A
  • Myths constructed/perpetuated by political elite
  • BUT belief in these myths was a pre-condition to them being acceptable to society
  • Not just about political elite ordinary people particularly in West wanted them too
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8
Q

What does Tony Judt argue was the most universal factor driving shift in national postwar memory?

A

Curiosity of baby-boomers about the lives of their “silent generation” parents

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9
Q

Important things to consider in an answer to bring nuance? (8)

A
  • Implications/definitions of “victim”
  • Room for much variety/different groups, played different roles in the construction of myths
  • Geographically - “Europeans” experiences different
  • Time period - chosen “end point” important - define “postwar” carefully
  • Elites vs below - what were their different roles, how did they benefit
  • Civillians vs soldiers - what where their different roles, how did they benefit
  • Jews
  • National vs local/regional - which context/framework is most appropriate for memory analysis
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10
Q

Nature of postwar memory construction in France in immediate postwar?

A

Victim under Nazi occupation but also myth of resistance

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11
Q

What was the reality of Dutch resistance during the war years?

A

It was limited

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12
Q

Who was dutch resistance during the war primarily organised by?

A

The Communist Party

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13
Q

What was the February Strike in Amsterdam?

A

Communists organised February strike in response to first Nazi raid on Amsterdam’s Jewish population but many citizens of Amsterdam regardless of their political affiliation joined in and spread across to factories in other cities

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14
Q

What were the four other acts of Dutch resistance (besides the February strike)?

A
  • Students strike.
  • Doctors strike.
  • April-May strike 1943
  • Railway strike in 1944
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15
Q

What was the historical significance to the Dutch regime of commemorating resistance?

A

Commemoration of Dutch resistance through a monument important to regime because hadn’t had anything as heroic or eventful in their nation’s history

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16
Q

Why was the collective nature of the the Dutch monument a fundamental concept?

A

memorial to resistance but simultaneously to entire Dutch nation

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17
Q

How did the Dutch ensure the collective nature of the monument? (2)

A

Personal involvement of all citizens - partially funded through public subscription
No martyrs named - contained soil sites from where anonymous Dutch martyrs from all provinces and colonies died

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18
Q

How does Lagrou argue the anonymous and genuinely “national” memory collated was harsh to those who had suffered more/differently in the Netherlands?

A

Resistance vets, Labour conscripts, Survivors of concentration camps and Jewish survivors of the genocide suffered from lack of recognition of their particular fate, lack of support in face of both their material indigence and need for consolation and integration into national narrative

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19
Q

When and how was the Dutch myth of resistance dispelled?

A

Myth of resistance dispelled relatively early on, largely by local initiative

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20
Q

What is the historical significance of Jacob Presser’s book Ondergang on the extermination of Dutch Jewry published April 1965 selling 100k copies in its first year?

A

Evidence of Dutch people’s willingness to revise original narrative
1965 also the 1st time the Dutch govt offered to contribute to the memorial at Auschwitz

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21
Q

According to Lagrou, when did the national collective memory in the Netherlands fade? (3)

A
  • National collective memory faded as soon as generalised austerity dominating public life faded.
  • Arrival of wealth and welfare in the 1960s made room for particular measures to be made for particular groups
  • Dutch obsession with reconstruction and ending relative economic backwardsness meant attention paid to “damaged groups”
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22
Q

What is Lagrou’s argument about Dutch prosperity contributing to disintegration of myth of a collective resistance?

A
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23
Q

How did the Dutch obsession with reconstruction and ending relative economic backwardness benefit the “damaged groups”? (2)

A
  • Patriots and anti-fascists of 1940s/50s redefined in welfare era
  • 1972 law passed for Dutch victims of persecution, 1980s resitance vets gets a medal, labour conscripts get an association at end of 1980s
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24
Q

How did Austria treat collaborators?

A

Punishment of collaborators - court proceeding initiated vs 137 k Austrians

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25
Q

Evidence of national victimhood in Austria being particularly long-last/enduring?

A

As late as 1990 ⅖ Austrians still regarded Austria as Hitler’s victim rather than accomplice

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26
Q

What did the Austrian’s capitalise on?

A

Capitalised on the Allies 1943 declaration that their country had been “Hitler’s first victim”
Notion spanned post-war political spectrum, embracing social as well as Christian Democrats

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27
Q

What is the significance of 300k Hungarians being punished for collaboration?

A

C. 3% of the population

Included 4 former PMs/other leading officials executed

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28
Q

Why were so many Hungarians punished for collaboration?

A
  • Communist/socialist takeover

- Had been deemed to have sided with the Nazis so badly punished

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29
Q

What was there a divided social memory over in Hungary?

A

Red Army’s rape of around c. 50k women in Budapest

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30
Q

What does James Mark argue about women’s responses about the rapes in Hungary?

A
  • Politicisation of rape
  • Rape used as a narrative element
  • Hungarian nationalism impacted how women spoke about it
  • Communist vs liberal vs nationalist perspectives different and influenced by this
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31
Q

In the immediate postwar period, why and how was the mass rape of Hungarian women not publicly acknowledged? (3)

A
  • Soviet-dominated Allied Control over the media from 1945 prevented stories of rapes to be shared
  • Presentation of Red Army as brutal rapists didn’t fit well with USSR’s promotion of themselves as defeaters of fascism
  • In some cases men presented as victims of women who seduced them in order to weaken their war effort by spreading sexual diseases
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32
Q

What was the impact of this lack of acknowledgement of Red Army rape for Hungarian women? (2)

A

On a private/individual level women shared/wrote about their rapes very little for fear of stigimitasiation (different than Berlin)
Women not allowed to perceive themselves as victims

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33
Q

Why does Peto argue that there was a conspiracy of silence by the state’s regime not a collective amnesia over Budapest rapes?

A
  • Because of the actions and steps that followed to treat the outcomes on a state level
34
Q

What does Peto argue helped erase the Soviet rapes from social and individual memory in Hungary?

A

The rapes committed by Soviet soldiers led to a change in the Hungarian practice of reproductive rights and in the narrative on reproductive rights,

35
Q

How did the Hungarian practice of reproductive rights and the narrative on reproductive rights change in Hungary following Soviet rapes? (2)

A
  • In Budapest, there was the possibility of free, officially approved abortion, which changed how women related to their own bodies.
  • The way in which the decisions of the National Council were publicised in Hungary also increased the secrecy surrounding abortion.
36
Q

What did the dramatic increase in STI’s as result of the rapes in Vienna and Budapest to?

A

The no. of infected women in Vienna doubled, in Budapest it tripled.

37
Q

What did the Inter-Allied Commission reports reveal about how Soviet health authorities dealed with the STI transmission? (7)

A
  • Soviet health authorities simply denied the existence of venereal disease among Soviet soldiers
  • Sexually transmitted disease became a public-health issue
  • The creation of a national network of institutions for treating venereal disease was one of the consequences of Soviet occupation.
  • The circumstances whereby women had been infected and who had infected them weren’t mentioned’ only the “result” - the disease - was important
  • Responsibility thus was conveniently placed on women’s shoulders
  • Rape was dealt with not as a moral but as a medical matter, which was controlled and institutionalised.
  • The act, rape, was shrouded in social silence.
38
Q

In the post-communist period, how do we see a complete reversal of the Hungarian postwar memory? (5)

A
  • All women appear to have identified as victims regardless of whether they were raped
  • Those not raped tended to tell stories of near-misses/escape conveying impression that they too identified w everyday threat of being raped
  • Mark somewhat crudely suggests a link between those women who convey this impression and their tendency to have conservative/nationalist/strongly anti-communist political affiliation
  • Suggests that communist women had harder trouble discussing than communist women
  • Need to be critical of Mark - not unsurprising really that being raped or threat of being by a communist soldier might pre-dispose you to being anti-communist
39
Q

What is the significance of Hungary’s political situation dictating whether women allowed to express a feeling of victimhood?

A
  • Women’s victimhood/politics/the chosen narrative of Hungary’s 20th c remain intrinsically linked
  • Pre and post communist period whether rape acknowledged or not, a sense that memory, whatever the chosen/imposed narrative, was collective/shared
  • Perception of an individual’s/country/s experience of WWII could change over time - malleability of memory
40
Q

What is the significance of all Polish WWII memorial sites denoting “death at the hand of Germans”?

A

German occupation focal point in their national memory for decades - because of Soviet influence

41
Q

Why is it significant that the Holocaust did not feature in Polish public memory unlike the war for 15-20 years?

A

Poland’s Jewry was the largest in Europe

42
Q

What does Oral-Bukowska argue is the reason for the distorted Polish postwar memory?

A

suggests bc were under Soviet occupation and result of Soviet anti-semitism - prevented public demonstrations of resentment towards USSR and selective communal memory - unable to decide what was a war crime/collaboration.resistance

43
Q

How do I want to complicate Orla-Bukowka’s argument about the cause of Poland’s distorted postwar memory?

A

Silence surrounding the Holocaust likely also partly due to extent of collaboration of ordinary Poles - distancing themselves and alleviating guilt
Many provincial towns people aided Gestapo forces/little done to stop/resist
90% of pre-war Polish Jewry killed

44
Q

What was the Polish narrative of resistance against the Nazis in the three eras postwar?

A

Immediate postwar period promoted Home Army and Soviet Army
Stalinist era false image of brotherhood between “Polish” armies excluding Home Army and Soviet armies fighting vs Nazis
Post-1956 turn towards communist nationalismreinclusionof Home Army, ideas of communist national heroes - HA had been an anti-communist resistance during wars

45
Q

How in post-USSR period following collapse of 1989 are Poland still perpetuating myths? (2)

A

Poles positioned as victims first and foremost and as resistance heroes secondly
Poles victims during WWII, fought 2 totalitarian states, only nation who didn’t openly collaborate or surrender to Hitler, and saved Europe from German fascism by being “sacrificed” to the Soviets

46
Q

What was the nature of East German postwar narratives?

A

Emphasis on Soviet victimhood not national victimhood

47
Q

What is an example of how the WWII/Holocaust narrative was transformed into a battle between the bourgeoisie and the working-class in East Germany?

A

GDR school texts presented Hitler as a tool of monopoly capitalists - siezed territories/started wars in pursuit of big business’ interests

48
Q

What is some evidence that in East Germany they paid restitution to the Soviet Union rather than the Jews? (2)

A
  • 1950 Walter Ulbricht inaugurated the ‘Day of Remembrance’, commemorating the 11 million who died fighting vs Hitler’s fascism rather than Germany’s victims
  • Buchenwald concentration camp transformed into a memorial site - guidebook described stated aims of “German fascism” as “Destruction of Marxism, revenge for the lost war, and brutal terror vs all resistors”
49
Q

How was soviet rape during Liberation of Berlin treated in East Germany by the regime?

A
  • Immediate aftermath Communist Party members petitioned for an open discussion about Soviet rape in the party - Ulbricht said would be able to take place a later date
  • Cold War sets in - becomes a taboo subject so as not to be detrimental to image of Soviets and USSR - censorship remained in place until collapse in 1989
50
Q

What was emphasised instead in East Germany?

A

Emphasis on Nazis violence and presentation of Soviets as liberators and saviours and communism as a positive force

51
Q

What does Stargardt say about women who had been raped in Berlin?

A

Women couldn’t tell husbands without triggering male sham and revulsion - reared in notions of male honour - rape viewed as a violation of the homes had been their duty to defend - betrayal and sign of their impotence

52
Q

What was the impact of the mass rapes in EG? (4)

A
  • Unwanted pregnancies and dangerous abortions
  • Many women died from internal injuries of brutal violations/due to untreated STIs or unsafe abortions
  • Suicides by those unable to cope w trauma and dishonour
  • Many children died Berlin infant mortality rate 90%
53
Q

When was the shift in EG postwar memory and why and what were the implications? (3)

A
  • Nov 1988 USSR Sputnik magazine published an issue for GDR blaming Hitler’s rise to power on failure of German communists
  • At odds with official GDR historiography
  • Feeds into 1989
54
Q

What did Winter 1944/5 Nazi surveys show?

A

Most Germans considered themselves victims of the war

55
Q

What is the significance of Konrad Adenauer’s 1951 referencing of “unspeakable crimes … committed in the name of the German people” in a speech?

A

Takes blame off the German people/cast them as victims

56
Q

What does Gregor argue about the integrative function of victimhood in West Germany>

A

importance of collective suffering/mourning in Germany due to refugee crisis

57
Q

What are the phases of Gregor’s argument about the importance of collective suffering/mourning in Germany due to the refugee crisis? (3)

A
  • WG took on German speaking people expelled from Eastern Europe meant post-WWII many who identified as ‘German’ but had v diff cultural tropes/traditions
  • Collective victimisation/overarching narrative of German victimhood eased process of assimilation/gave them something in common aided resestablishment of “a functioning community w a renewed sense of civic identity”
  • Integrative function of victimhood
58
Q

What did the focus on national victimhood at Hitler’s hands allow for a focus on in West Germany?

A

focus on new enemy the USSR

59
Q

What supports Gregor’s argument that in the FGR efforts to contrast itself w Communist EG became integral to its image? (4)

A
  • Even SPD town council ended up articulating similar cultures to CDU at national level - political actors constrained by what people wanted to hear
  • The “mongol-eyed Soviet rapist” appeared on electoral posters of the CSU in Bavaria during first Federal elections of 1949 - later adopted across Germany by Christian Democrats
  • Becomes a common motif in parts of the ruhr despite no Soviet soldiers ever reaching there
  • BUT STARGARDT POINT FOR ON AN INDIVIDUAL LEVEL DIDN’T HELP VICTIMS
60
Q

Explain the successive phases in the immediate postwar period from punishing collaborators to myth cultivation in West Germany?

A

Punishment by intl and local courts
Ordinary people didn’t care
Necessary to rebuild
Lacked resources or collective will to punish, prioritised rebuilding and forgetting

61
Q

What is evidence of the West German myth cultivation enabling people to resume back into society and retain positions and wealth?

A
  • Hans Globke who played a substantial role in creating the Nuremberg Laws able to act as secretary of state under Adenauer
  • Herman Abs - financier for Deutsche Bank - played a massive role in Third Reich
62
Q

What does Stern argue about the history of the remnant of German Jewry? (In WG)

A
  • History of the remnant of German Jewry who survived Nazi persecution and genocide in Altreich generally ignored by German historiography
  • Jewish dimension in post-war German history was sterotypically portrayed as returnees duly integrated into new era who forgives their former persecutors and are guided by a ‘spirit of reconciliation.’
63
Q

What does Gregor offer as an alternative reading of WG national victimhood’s necessity? (3)

A
  • perception of NV integral to narrative of economic success/revival
  • Economic miracle became a means of battling the past
  • Sept 1969: CSU Chairman Franz Josef Strauss: “a people that have brought about such economic achievements have the right to not hear about Auschwitz anymore”
64
Q

When and how does a shift in West German postwar memory occur? (3)

A
  • 1960s easing of CW tensions - new less virulently anti-communist context and space to engage in a more critical approach to WWII
  • New generation attempts to understand - recognition early postwar Govt’s narratives untrue and a more honest reflection/critical discussion of events
  • Some young radicals used Freudian Marxist Wilhelm Reich’s 1920s/30s work to understand their parents generations participation in persecution/murder of European Jewry
65
Q

Central argument of Reich’s 1920s/30s work?

A
  • “cruel character traits” evident among those “in a condition of chronic sexual dissatisfaction” while “genitally satisfied people” displayed “gentleness and goodness”
  • Sexuality as normal/healthy rather than dangerous/deseriving of repression to help prevent formation of fascistic personalities in future
66
Q

Interaction of WG postwar memory with other sources of legitimacy i.e. new beneficent state?

A

Interacted with memory cultures as continuation of Hilterite Nazi policies and an attempt to address issues they were perceived to solve in interwar period

67
Q

Implications/historical significance of resistance narrative in France?

A
  • Humiliated at having experienced 2 German invasions and loss of colonies
  • Myth of resistance allowed to remember more agency/heroism than most had displayed
68
Q

French narrative of victimhood cultivated how?

A

Specifically Jewish suffering collapsed into a narrative of French suffering

69
Q

What did the misremembering of the war years enable in France?

A

Helped old elites retain their position - President Mitterrand

70
Q

How did France therefore treat collaborators?

A

C. 10k real/alleged collaborators lynched in war’s final months/at moment of liberation

71
Q

Historical significance of the emphasis on women’s sexual relationships with occupiers while romantic interludes of soldier in enemy territory idealised in France?

A
  • Post-Liberation c. 20k women accused of “horizontal collaboration” w Germans humiliated - shaved heads, naked parades, swastikas painted onto them
  • Gender tied to the nation, women viewed as producing the nation in a way men aren’t, defying that by collaborating sexually
  • Double standard - interplay of gender and national ideological factors
  • Many of the 20k women punished had performed only professional services for occupying Germans rather than having had sexual relationships with them
  • C. 200K fR BABIES W german fathers believed to have been produced
72
Q

Cause of French shift from punishing collaborators to myth cultivation?

A
  • Punishment by intl and local courts
  • Ordinary people didn’t care
  • Necessary to rebuild
  • Lacked resources or collective will to punish, prioritised rebuilding and forgetting
73
Q

Memory culture wars in France?

A
  • Political groups channelled particular memory cultures for their own partisan purposes
  • Memory wars in the first decades after 1944 about different groups trying to claim the heroic mantle of ‘the resistance’ for themselves
74
Q

What did the Gaullist myth of resistance look like?

A

Gaullist myth glorified a particular kind of nationalist, non-communist resister in direct opposition to cultures of memory on the left

75
Q

What is Lagrou’s argument about postwar memory and myths and the significance of resistance vs victimhood in France?

A
  • Memory of resistance which concealed more traumating/humiliating memory of Vichy not as dominant as presented, déportation battleground epitomised experience of Fr society better
  • Nation viewed as a community of suffering - device for massive conversion of victims of a humilated nation in heroes of a reborn one
76
Q

What does Gildea argue the Cold War did in France for memory culture battles (5)?

A
  • Onset of CW afforded former Vichy supporters space to articulate a “black legend of resistance”
  • 1948 Abbé Jean-Marie Desgranges, deputy from Brittany in the 1930s, revealed “the masked crimes of résistantilaisme”
  • Critique indicted communists - drove wedge bw them and Gaullists
  • Rehabilitated Petain
  • Reconsideration of wartime past - made it possible for politicians associated with Vichy to return to power and for amnesty laws to be passed in 1953-53
77
Q

What is evidence of the delayed shift in France surrounding memory of war?

A

1969 French Govt banned the showing of film Le Chagrin et La Pitié on cooperation during the occupation in cinemas - still unwilling to come to terms with collaborative role

78
Q

What is evidence of the eventual shift in France being generational? (3)

A
  • Transfer of power from Mitterand to Chirac in 1995 - in Mitterand’s interest to obscure past, Chirac too young during WWII to be incrimated by collaboration allegations
  • Almost immediate shift in public attitude to WWII memory - Chirac recognised France’s collusionary role in the Nazi murder of France’s Jews v soon after entering office
  • Influence of CW, Algerian War and 1968 and changing perspectives on WWII
79
Q

What is evidence that supports idea that once shift had taken place in France, political legitimacy could only be gained through public acknowledgment and recognition of flaws?

A

De Gaulle voted out office following 1968

80
Q

What is evidence of the regional variation during the war in France, making collective memory narratives difficult? (6)

A
  • Lower Normans/Auvergnats prospered and did well from German occupation
  • Paris social life continued - 1943 Sartre;s play successful premiere in presence of le Tout-Paris and leading literary lights of the German military hierarchy
  • Toulouse vs Bordeaux - resistance vs attentisme
  • Paris - Summer and Winter of 1940 - w-c pop of northeastern arrondissements fraternised w German soldiers e.g. at cafe terraces while western arrondisements shuttered and silent until at least September 1940
  • Germans annexed Northeast and put it under military governance of belgium
  • Paris - friendship developed in interwar years, germans appoint French they already knew immediately following occupation - also young German men sent to paris in - 1940 found themselves with limitless authority - collaborationists not always dupes/servile instruments/two-way realationship
81
Q

What are general explanations for postwar memory topic?

A

Helped old elites protect their position
Important for regimes to distance from Nazis
Secured political legitimacy - but not only source of political legitimacy
Economic growth unparalled - age of affluence
Provision of food/housing/work
Enabled attention to be deflected from things didn’t want to discuss or remember
Helped foster a sense of unity/ordinary people come to terms with the past
Alleviate guilt for crimes
Advent of Cold War/New enemy dteacted from efforts to hunt down Nazis/collaborators/correct falsehoods in WG memory culture - general focus on construction of a geopolitical situation less likely to fall to communism in the West
Falsehood didn’t seem to be fostering any imminent danger

EWF: Europe Divided 1914-89 (5 decks)

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