This incredible footage of Berlin in the aftermath of WWII!
Here’s amazing color footage of Berlin from just after the Nazis were defeated – Yahoo Finance.
WWII
“Remembering our Greatest Mission” | History News Network
William Lambers marks the anniversary of the U.S. air drop of food to the Netherlands (May 1945) with a plea to help the civilians trapped at the Yarmouk refugee camp near Damascus: “As we mark the anniversary of the great World War II mission that saved the Netherlands, we must keep that spirit alive. They are starving people today that are days way from death unless food can be brought to them. We, the international community, need to summon every ounce of strength and determination to help save them. That is our mission.” Read the entire article here:
History News Network | Remembering our Greatest Mission.
The Cost of Revenge: “The Horrific Unintended Consequence of Doolittle’s Courageous Raid on Tokyo” | History News Network
Today is the anniversary of the famous Doolittle raid on Japan. But before we celebrate we should remember the cost paid by innocent Chinese civilians for this act of revenge. James M. Scott explains that, “that success came at a horrible—and until now—largely unknown price paid by the Chinese, who were victims of a retaliatory campaign by the Japanese Army that claimed an estimated 250,000 lives and saw families drowned in wells, entire towns burned, and communities devastated by bacteriological warfare.” This story should remind us that revenge has caused more human suffering than any other human motivation and that it has done so with little or no benefit other than the joy some get from it.
Scott also raises the subject of Japanese attempts to deny their own history: “Unlike Germany, whose leaders have for decades attempted to atone for the Holocaust, the Japanese have increasingly tried to disavow their nation’s legacy of cruelty, from the use Korean comfort women to the Rape of Nanking.” So, in conclusion he implores us: “As we celebrate the rightful heroism of Jimmy Doolittle and the 79 volunteer airmen who flew with him on one of the most celebrated raids of the war, it is important that we take time to honor the sacrifice paid by a quarter million Chinese. It is equally imperative that we as a nation refuse to allow Japanese leaders to disown their nation’s role in this and other wartime horrors.” Read the entire article here:
History News Network | The Horrific Unintended Consequence of Doolittle’s Courageous Raid on Tokyo.
History News Network | Did Bombers Win the War in WW Two?
Robert Huddleston, who served as a combat pilot in World War II, dispels the popular assumption that air power won the war against Nazi Germany. “The Allied strategic bombing campaign did not produce victory as propaganda promised: Defeat of the enemy came from a combination of sea, air, but mainly ground forces.”
History News Network | Did Bombers Win the War in WW Two?
Was Hitler a Normal Leader? | History News Network
It is so tempting (and easy) to see the world in black and white terms. Things would be so much simpler if we lived in a world with a stark contrast between good and evil. Granted, many people act as if they live in this black and white world, but I think most of us realize that this is delusional. However, there have been some moments in history that seem so clearly to conform to this good vs. evil worldview. World War II is one of them. But if you look closely, this comforting perspective begins to break down. Gavriel D. Rosenfeld has made it his mission to preserve this “moralistic” version of WWII.
He is concerned about what he calls the “normalization” of Nazi Germany. He contrasts this with “the commitment to moralism.” To illustrate, he points to the “[r]evisionist works of scholarship by conservative and liberal Anglo-American journalists and historians, such as Nicholson Baker, Patrick Buchanan, Norman Davies, Niall Ferguson, and Michael Bess, among many others, have deliberately blurred the once clear moral lines between the wartime behavior of the Allies and Axis, in the process relativizing the exceptionality and universalizing the significance of the Nazi era.” It seems that what Rosenfeld means by “moralism” is a clear delineation between good and evil. It would be great if the world was so black and white, but it is not! And I would argue that it has been this kind of moral thinking that has led to so much human suffering.
Rosenfeld contrasts his black and white morality with what he calls “normalization.” By which he seems to mean the “blurr[ing] of once clear moral lines.” However, it is the more sophisticated moral analysis opposed by Rosenfeld that is more authentic and productive of the peace and harmony that he seems to value. We must honestly confront the past even if we don’t like parts of it if we want to make the world a better place. This is not to claim that the Allies (U.S., U.K, and the Soviet Union) were the same in moral terms as Nazi Germany. There is absolutely no moral equivalency between the crimes of the Allies in comparison to the crimes of the Nazis!!!!! It is only to recognize that we were not purely good and the Germans were not purely evil.
History News Network | Was Hitler a Normal Leader?
History News Network | More than 80,000 People Died and Hardly Anyone Paid Attention?
On March 10, 1945 the Japanese in Tokyo awoke to what would become a nightmare. It was the beginning of what was the single deadliest non-nuclear bombing campaign during World War II (between 80,000 to 100,000 civilians were killed). It was part of a larger firebombing campaign undertaken by the U.S. in which 66 Japanese cities were targeted in an effort to break the morale of Japanese civilians in the hopes that they would press their leadership to surrender unconditionally. This strategy had been largely rejected by the US leadership on the European front in contrast to their British allies. But under the leadership of Curtis LeMay the morale bombing strategy was pursued in Japan despite its failure in Germany. These firebombing campaigns never broke the morale of the Japanese people.
The firebombing of Tokyo has been overshadowed by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as well as the enormity of the suffering that occurred during World War II across the globe. But Saotome Katsumoto, director of the Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damages, is trying to preserve and memorialize this event: “Through the living testimonies of these ordinary people I have strived to present a clear picture of that night of indiscriminate firebombing. The recounting of these experiences was painful for both the speakers and the listener, but for the sake of those who bore this pain and for all those who lost their lives, I have attempted to faithfully record the events of March 10, 1945.” This is a worthy goal. We should all remember and reflect on this tragic event.
History News Network | More than 80,000 People Died and Hardly Anyone Paid Attention?
Tokyo Air Raid (March 10, 1945)
Japan crown prince warns on ‘correct’ history – Yahoo News
In an interview Naruhito, the crown prince of Japan, said: “Today when memories of war are set to fade, I reckon it is important to look back our past with modesty and pass down correctly the miserable experience and the historic path Japan took from the generation who know the war to the generation who don’t.” You go Naruhito! Whether he intended it or not, it was a rebuke against Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s nationalist history that denies Japanese war crimes during WWII, particularly the use of comfort women.
Japan crown prince warns on ‘correct’ history – Yahoo News.
Crown Prince Naruhito
Update on the Japanese ‘Comfort Women’
More attempts by the Japanese government to deny the use of comfort women by the Japanese army during WWII. Nogawa Motokazu gives an update on the situation in Japan and concludes: “These moves of the government and the ruling party not only prevent any improvement of Japan-Korea relations but also inflict a second victimisation on the victims of Japanese military’s wartime sexual slavery, who are still living in many parts of the world. We should never forget this.” Read his entire article at:
History News Network | New Attack on the ‘Comfort Women’.
Credit: Robert G. Fresson from the New York Times article: “The Comfort Women and Japan’s War on Truth” (November 14, 2014)
History News Network | Air Power Was Supposed to Make Ground Wars a Thing of the Past. It Didn’t.
HNN: “Air Power was Supposed to Make Ground Wars a Thing of the Past. It Didn’t.
Pressure in Japan to Forget Sins of War – NYTimes.com
“Coming to terms with its militarist past has never been easy for Japan, which tried to set aside the issues raised by the war as it rebuilt itself into the peaceful, prosperous nation it is today. But pressure to erase the darker episodes of its wartime history has intensified recently with the rise of a small, aggressive online movement seeking to intimidate those like Mr. Mizuguchi who believe the country must never forget,” Martin Fackler by a far right nationalist group of “cyberactivists” known as Net Right to halt the erection of a memorial in the tiny village of Sarufutsu, where “[a]t least 80 Korean laborers died of abuse and malnutrition here as they built an airfield at the behest of the Japanese military during World War II.” This group is using intimidation to stop what it sees as blights on the image of the nation. Unfortunately, in this case they succeeded and work on the memorial came to a halt.
These nationalists believe that they are restoring honor to the Japanese nation but what is more honorable: Admitting your sins and trying to make amends or covering them up?
Pressure in Japan to Forget Sins of War – NYTimes.com.
History Chick in AZ 