Be Like Us: The Solution to Post-War Germany

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.