Rebuilding
after World War II was incredibly complicated. For a while there, it seemed
like Hitler had control, especially as he spread his reign across Europe.
However, on page 278, Schulze says the only reason he had to go to more
countries was because he was losing allies left and right and had to keep
reaching out to other countries in order to gain some back. It was
also interesting that Schulze painted the Allies in a bad light at first once
Hitler fell. To Germany, we and the British were “terrorists.” It’s interesting
that we aren’t taught how badly we destroyed Germany in school. In reality, we
were kind of terrorists. We were killing people who might have had nothing to
do with Hitler’s regime and basically destroyed most of the country. Sure, we
did a lot for the West Germans once the territories were split up, but the fact
that we created some of the problem makes us look a little less
high-and-mighty. Are we really better than what Hitler was doing?
There
are also parallels between the end of the war, and the end of the Occupation
which is interesting. On page 283, Schulze says, “Such is the nature of
totalitarian regimes, however, that they cannot be brought down by ordinary
citizens but only those within the power structure itself.” Upon reading this, I
immediately thought of the Berlin Wall. The only way the wall fell was because
the people in charge made a damning mistake during a press conference. The
people took it out from there. But if it had not been for the accidental slip,
it probably would have been a bit longer before the wall finally came down. The
same thing happened with the fall of Hitler. He was losing support from other
countries and it took his death to finally bring down his regime. He would not
have been able to be conquered had his plan not started falling apart.
I
also found it incredibly ironic that once American and the Allies had control
over part of Germany that they tried to impart their government systems and
other things they already were using in their own countries, and it didn't work. It reminds me of what we’re trying to do today with Iraq and Afghanistan and many other countries. We keep trying to force ourselves into situations
that maybe we shouldn't be a part of and it never seems to work out. This is
incredibly ironic, since it doesn’t seem to be working out in our own country!
But we do it anyway! On page 292, Schulze says the idea of popular government
failed—it’s still failing in the U.S. Also says a few pages earlier that we took
drastic measures in order to ensure Germany could never threaten another
country again. Yet look at what has happened. Germany is a great advocate for
all sorts of issues (like the U.S. spying scandal) and now we are the ones
terrorizing other countries. We spied on Germany and Brazil for no reason. We
invaded Iraq because we decided they needed us. We think we’re responsible for
Iran. I just find it so funny that we were afraid Germany would be this global
terrorist yet no one is stepping in to stop us from doing exactly what we were
afraid of them doing. That says something about what Germany has learned during
war, and what we haven’t.
