Out of all
the readings of chapters 9-12, I wanted to touch upon German identity and its
relation to unconditional surrender.
Britain, Russia, and the U.S. decided in 1943 that German must surrender
unconditionally, and its land divided up amongst the winning countries of WWII
(279). To surrender
unconditionally is to pretty much give up everything that is ones country,
including the Constitution.
Forcing a country to unconditionally surrender is probably one of the
most shaming acts a government has to succumb to. As a nation’s leader, one must protect the country and its
rights. By unconditionally
surrendering, Germany had to give up its identity as a country.
Germany did
not become a unified nation until 1871, and it had spent centuries trying to get
there. And it remained a unified
German nation for only a short time, having its rights as a nation taken away
by the winning countries. After
Germany’s Constitution was stripped away, the U.S. took it upon themselves to
make a new Constitution, one that fit into what the Allied Powers believed
would be best for the world after WWII.
By doing so, it sounds as if these countries (particularly America) did
not care how this change affected Germany. Not only did Germany lose its Constitution, but also its
military. The Allied Powers
believed that Germany must give up its military because possessing one would be
a threat to world peace, and the country had to give up all its weapons, weapon
production industries, and military (288). Germany was now officially without its own protection.
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| The Holocaust |
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| Hitler Youth; unification of German culture under Hitler |
Loosing the
war must have been a great upheaval for the German people. “Everyone was confronted with questions
about responsibility for the past that extended into the private sphere”
(289). This means that the common
German person was also blamed for the actions of Germany, such as the Holocaust
and start of WWII. Much of
Germany’s actions may have been unknown or not understood by the people,
especially when they lived in a country that was constantly being bombed by
other nations. The text states
that the German people were indifferent of the German political state after the
war because struggling to survive was all they could think about (287). Would that not be the same for many
Germans during the war, as well? Especially if one lived in Dresden or
another city that succumbed to bombardments. If struggling to keep oneself and family alive during a war
was hard enough, how can one understand or even try to understand what the
government is doing to the world?
Not only did
the German people have to suffer from the aftermaths of the war, both socially
and politically, but also with the loss of the German Constitution. When their nation was stripped of its
power and rights, the people lost their identity as Germans. One can say that WWII brought most
Germans together under the thought of the rise of the Aryan race, even if the
concept is ethically wrong. After
the war, Germans no longer had a unified identity, now that the Aryan race
concept and preservation was known to be ethically and morally wrong.
The best way I can
describe this drastic change is to compare German’s unconditional surrender
with Japan’s. When Japan
surrendered they not only lost their Constitution but also risked losing their
emperor. In Japanese culture, the
emperor is a God and his right to power and his actions stand uncontested (for
if you challenge the emperor, you challenge God). Japan had, before August 1945, sent a letter to Britain and
the U.S. saying they would surrender as long as they could keep their
emperor. However, this was ignored
because the Allies wanted an unconditional surrender like they had required of
Germany. Since Japan could not
surrender with their emperor, they refused to surrender unconditionally, and
the U.S. dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9
of 1945. Japan then gave in and
surrendered unconditionally, losing their Constitution (which was also
rewritten by America, no surprise there), but still asked to keep their emperor. The U.S. agreed that the emperor could
remain so long as the Japanese agreed to it (but he would have no power, purely
being symbolic), which they did.
However, Japan had lost the war and was also, like Germany, occupied by
the U.S. This was a time of an
identity crisis; Japan had to rebuild their identity as a people under American
occupation and the changing of their Constitution. One change in the Constitution has been ingrained in
Japanese culture: opposition to war.
The U.S. did not want Japan to go to war again with other nations, so
they made it legally impossible for them to do so. This provision has only existed in Japan for a few decades,
but the Japanese have successfully adapted to the changes placed on them during
the occupation.
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| Occupied Germany |
Germany had to have
experienced the same thing, but probably worse since they were occupied by four
separate countries (France, Soviet Union, U.S., and Britain, see above image),
each controlled under separate rules that the occupying nation saw fit. Germany was no longer a unified
country, or even a country.
Therefore, German identity was harder to, essentially, heal because
German’s were living under different political and social circumstances after
the war.
Word Count=
887
Bibliography:
Schulze, Hagen. Germany: A New History. Trans. Deborah
Lucas Schneider. Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1998. Print.
