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BRITISH HISTORY AND MEMORIES
OF
THE SECOND WORLD WAR
Material and moral destruction
“In less than six years Germany laid waste the moral structure of Western society, committing
crimes that nobody would have believed possible, while her conquerors buried in rubble the
visible marks of more than a thousand years of German history. Then into this devastated
land, truncated by the Oder-Neisse borderline and hardly able to sustain its demoralized and
exhausted population, streamed millions of people from the Eastern provinces, from the
Balkans and from Eastern Europe, adding to the general picture of catastrophe the peculiarly
modern touches of physical homelessness, social rootlessness, and political rightlessness.
The wisdom of Allied policy in expelling all German-speaking minorities from non-German
countries – as though there was not enough homelessness in the world already – may be
doubted. But the fact is that European peoples who had experienced the murderous
demographic politics of Germany during the war were seized with horror, even more than
with wrath, at the very idea of having to live together with Germans of the same territory. The
sight of Germany’s destroyed cities and the knowledge of German concentration and
extermination camps have covered Europe with a cloud of melancholy.”
Hannah Arendt (1906-1975), “The Aftermath of Nazi Rule: A Report from Germany”, Commentary, October 1950.
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I. THE LEADER OF EUROPEAN RESISTANCE
A. THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN AND THE BLITZ SPIRIT
Document 1: The show must go on: Performers relax in their dressing room at London's Windmill Theatre
in 1940, only weeks into the Blitz (taken from the dailymail)
Document 2
What General Weygand has called the Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of
Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilisation. Upon
it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire.
The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he
will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may
be freed and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands.
But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have
known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new dark age made more sinister, and
perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to
our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth [5] last for a
thousand years, men will still say, This was their finest hour.
Winston Churchill, “Their Finest Hour”, speech delivered in June 18, 1940. BBC Archives
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B. THE HEADQUARTER OF ALLIED NATIONS: ORGANIZING RESISTANCE
Document 1
“We do not yet know what will happen in France or whether the French resistance will be
prolonged, both in France and in the French Empire overseas. The French Government will be
throwing away great opportunities and casting adrift their future if they do not continue the
war in accordance with their treaty obligations, from which we have not felt able to release
them. The House will have read the historic declaration in which, at the desire of many
Frenchmen—and of our own hearts—we have proclaimed our willingness at the darkest hour
in French history to conclude a union of common citizenship in this struggle. However
matters may go in France or with the French Government, or other French Governments, we
in this Island and in the British Empire will never lose our sense of comradeship with the
French people. If we are now called upon to endure what they have been suffering, we shall
emulate their courage, and if final victory rewards our toils they shall share the gains, aye, and
freedom shall be restored to all. We abate nothing of our just demands; not one jot or tittle do
we recede. Czechs, Poles, Norwegians, Dutch, Belgians have joined their causes to our own.
All these shall be restored.”
Winston Churchill, “Their Finest Hour”, speech delivered in June 18, 1940. BBC Archives
Document 2: British poster on European resistance
British wartime poster, “Leaders of the Allied Nations Whose Headquarters are in Britain”, showing King Peter
Karageorgevich II of Yugoslavia at the bottom of the V. Also pictured are Hubert Pierlot of Belgium, Eduard
Benes, Charles de Gaulle, George II of Greece, “King of the Hellenes”, and the Grand Duchess Charlotte
Aldegonde Elise Marie Wilhelmine of Luxembourg. (George C. Marshall Foundation’s website)
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C. INVOLVEMENT OF THE EMPIRE: AN INTERNATIONAL RESISTANCE OR A
“COLLATERAL DAMAGE”?
Document 1
Sen’s work on the causes of famines can be viewed as an application of the capabilities approach to a real world
situation. In Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlements and Deprivation, Sen rejects the commonly
accepted idea that famines are caused by a decline in food. He gives prominent examples, such as the Bengal
famine of 1943, in which a famine is not only caused by a lack of food, but it is mainly caused by inequalities in
the distribution of food.
Document 2: An ammunition factory, in a news photo, 1942 www.columbia.edu
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II. MEMORIES OF BARBARISM
A. THE BRITISH AUTHORITIES AND THE HOLOCAUST
Document 1: Aerial British photograph of Auschwitz taken by the Allied Air Forces during
World War II were first exposed in 1978 by Dino Brugioni and Robert Poirer, two aerial
photo-analysts who worked for the CIA. www.yadvashem.org
Document 2
Over the course of the war, the Jewish Agency tried persuading the British to help it send
commandos from the yishuv into occupied territory, where they could set up Jewish
underground groups to fight the Nazis. The agency pictured about a thousand men. At least
they could try to sabotage the railroads to the death camps. Ben-Gurion had no faith in the
idea: “Jewish commandos in the war in Poland is ludicrous ! If you want to have commandos,
you have to have a state,” he ruled. The British rejected it for various reasons: they did not
believe that such an operation would advance the war effort; they did not want to enhance the
Jewish Agency’s power; they did not want to be indebted to the agency. All such proposals
were rejected or lost in bureaucratic channels.
Tom Segev, The Seventh Million, The Israelis and the Holocaust, 1991. Translated by Haim Watzman in 1993.
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B. VIOLATIONS OF GENEVA CONVENTIONS
Document 1: Difficulties to admit war crimes committed by the Allies
For most people in the West, the denials rest on delusion, not evidence. The question never
even becomes, 'Did the Allies do such things?' because the answer has been planted in
everyone's heads already. 'NO, the Allies did not, because they could not.' For instance, the
eminent British historian Michael Howard, reviewing for the Times Literary Supplement a
book about Allied atrocities against Germans, admitted that although he was 'an innumerate
historian' unqualified to judge the crucial statistics in the book, he could 'apply the criterion of
inherent probability' to refute the book. The French press and TV rose with rhetoric
uncomplicated by evidence to denounce recent allegations that mass crimes were committed
by the French army against the Germans. […]
Count Nikolai Tolstoy, the renowned English writer, has been driven bankrupt and forbidden
to publish on the subject of British treatment of prisoners of war under Lord Aldington. His
books have been withdrawn from British libraries. His attempts at redress in British courts
have been constantly frustrated in the UK, although the denial of his rights has been
condemned by the European Court of Human Rights at Strasbourg.
James Bacque, Crimes and Mercies, the fate of German civilians under Allied occupation, 1944-1950, “History and
Forgetting”, Warner Books ed. 1997.
Document 2: British prisoners of war in a Japanese hospital for prisoners of war at Nakom
Paton, Thailand
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C. WINNING THE WAR AT ALL COSTS?
Document 1: Part of "AIR RAID DAMAGE IN GERMANY, 1943" (photographs). Men
search amid debris for survivors in Hamburg following RAF raids of July to October 1943.
Document 2: Bombing Hiroshima
Truman’s decision to use the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki [three days later]
resulted from the interplay of his temperament and several other factors, including his
perspective on the war objectives defined by his predecessor, Franklin D. Roosevelt, the
expectations of the American public, an assessment of the possibilities of achieving a quick
victory by other means, and the complex American relationship with the Soviet Union.
Although in later decades there was considerable debate about whether the bombings were
ethically justified, virtually all of America’s political and military leadership, as well as most
of those involved in the atomic bomb project, believed at the time that Truman’s decision was
correct. […]
It is possible to construct scenarios in which the use of the atomic bomb might have been
avoided, but to most of the actors the events of 1945 had a grim logic that yielded no easy
alternatives. No one will ever know whether the war would have ended quickly without the
atomic bomb or whether its use really saved more lives than it destroyed. What does seem
certain is that using it seemed the natural thing to do and that Truman’s overriding motive was
to end the war as quickly as possible. In the decades following the end of the war there was
increasing debate about the morality of using the atomic bomb, with opponents arguing that
even if it did hasten the end of the war, its use was unjustified because of its horrific human
consequences.
Alonzo Hamby (Distinguished Professor of History at Ohio University) “Truman’s decision to use the atomic
bomb,” published in Britannica
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III. MEMORIES OF LIBERATIONS
A. OPENING THE CONCENTRATION CAMPS
Document 1: After liberation of the Bergen-Belsen camp, British soldiers forced German mayors from nearby
towns to view mass graves. Bergen-Belsen, Germany, after April 15, 1945.
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Document 2: Foreign Secretary denouncing the organization of the Genocide
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B. DIFFERENT LIBERATIONS OF EUROPE
Document 1: Bleiburg Slaughters according to Tolstoj / operation Keelhaul + repatriations
Terrified people of all ethnic categories in Yugoslavia streamed across the Karavanken
mountains and the River Drava in a desperate attempt to surrender to the British. What they
sought above all was protection from the Communist Partisans. Fearful massacres were being
perpetrated behind the Yugoslav lines, and there were few who did not anticipate a ghastly
fate in the event of capture, regardless of their actions during the chaotic years of occupation
and war. […]
Basta and Scott swiftly decided that they would compel Herencic to surrender all Croats
under his command to the Yugoslav forces. Scott made it bluntly clear to the General that he
would not under any circumstances permit the Croatian exodus to advance further into
British-occupied Austria, and that he would deploy all forces he could muster to assist Basta
in compelling submission if required. […] General Basta assured Brigadier Scott that
everyone returned to Yugoslavia would be treated humanely and decently, and that the Croats
consequently had nothing to fear. […]
How many died in the fields beside Bleiburg I have been unable as yet to establish with any
precision. Over the years I have obtained many accounts by eyewitnesses of what occurred. In
addition graves of the fallen have been identified, and it seems that subsequently bodies were
removed by the Austrian Black Cross and interred elsewhere.
Document 2: October 4, 1944: British begin liberation of Greece which was occupied at
different times by armies of 3 Axis countries: Germany, Bulgaria and Italy.
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C. THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A NEW WORLD ORDER
Document 1: The Yalta Conference
This cartoon by the American cartoonist Paul Plaschke appeared in the Chicago Tribune,
shortly after the Yalta Conference. It shows Stalin playing poker with Churchill and
Roosevelt.
Document 2: Fulton’s speech
From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the
Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern
Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all these
famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and
all are subject in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and, in
some cases, increasing measure of control from Moscow. Athens alone -- Greece with its
immortal glories -- is free to decide its future at an election under British, American and
French observation. The Russian-dominated Polish Government has been encouraged to make
enormous and wrongful inroads upon Germany, and mass expulsions of millions of Germans
on a scale grievous and undreamed-of are now taking place. The Communist parties, which
were very small in all these Eastern States of Europe, have been raised to pre-eminence and
power far beyond their numbers and are seeking everywhere to obtain totalitarian control.
Police governments are prevailing in nearly every case, and so far, except in Czechoslovakia,
there is no true democracy.
Winston Churchill, Speech delivered in Fulton, 1946.
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