This is Democracy – Episode 38: World War II

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This

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is Democracy,

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a podcast that explores the

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interracial intergenerational and intersection of unheard voices living in the world’s most

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influential democracy.

Jeremi Suri 0:18
Welcome to our new episode of This is Democracy. Today we’re going to talk about the legacies of World War Two, probably the military conflict and political and social conflict that did more to shape the 20th century than than any other conflict. We have two of the foremost experts and best teachers of the subject with us. My colleagues, Professor Tatiana, Liechtenstein Good morning. Good morning. And Professor Michael stuff. Are you Michael, I’m well thank you. Michael and Tatiana are also integral parts of the Normandy Scholars Program at the University of Texas, which is a program that is designed among other things to provide students with an immersion in the history of World War Two. Before we talk about the legacies of World War Two, our subject for today we have of course, I’ve seen setting poem from Zachary Siri, Zachary, what’s the title of your poem today? Jews them? Well, let’s hear about Jerusalem.

Zachary Suri 1:16
Era learned species remembering the mistakes of yesterday’s that we might learn and forever may not repeat what precedes and we hope that we have learned from the Wars of our constant Belgium’s the careless bloody bed loans, and we have learned not to ignore the impossible seldom the natural forward backward momentum. We remember us the newly suburban Lacey’s, but sometimes we are prone to forget, forget to pray, pray against the next mean mainstream that is now the fray. stay asleep, ears on full we cannot cease we must not go the eternal tugboat, the boat mosquito mosquito, the suffering of the infant soldiers parade, the second coming of hurt of the bombs away. What does left of the spark but desolate gray, the raised villages of phonic it’s children’s Crusade, it’s now but the dying tune the long lament of them. But the fire began for today that is much more than what we might ever know. And I sing the song of freedom and the hope of freedom. I sing a greatest generation or generation passed on for generations. A Tree Grows deep from Liberty High Priestess, O Jerusalem far ahead of my generation, I can almost touch you, I can almost reach you.

Jeremi Suri 2:30
I love the many references in there, including the one that Kurt Vonnegut, Zachary, what is your poem about

Zachary Suri 2:37
my poems really about how World War Two and the events leading up to World War Two influenced how we conduct policy today and how we always try to remember the mistakes that we’ve made in the past and how we’re striving for a future that is far off, but we can almost see it.

Jeremi Suri 2:55
It’s aspirational, but we’re not there. Right. So Tatiana, you study the Eastern Front in Europe in particular, which is an area that often Americans don’t know very much, much about. How does the war redefine the aspirations of that region of the world?

Tatjana Lichtenstein 3:15
Well, I think one of the the Eastern Europe was the scene setting of massive campaigns of ethnic cleansing and genocide during World War Two.

And these were

forces that really redefined those societies completely. There was a region that had been multi ethnic, multi religious, multi lingual, really consisting of very large multi ethnic states for a long time, even during the interwar period when they were nominally nation states. And the both the Soviets and the Germans targeted people on ethnic grounds the Germans, obviously more than the Soviets, and displaced, dispossessed and deported, murdered millions of people. And by creating sort of, like, dividing societies along class or ethnic lines, those divisions really did not disappear. After World War Two, they really deepened. And in many ways what happened during the war, set the stage for their organizational societies after the war, the idea of a multi ethnic society became something that wasn’t realistic. And we that’s why we in the wake of the war, we see the displacement forced expulsion of millions of people with the ally consent. As part of that there was wild explosions and also planned deportations of millions of people to create ethically homogeneous states.

Jeremi Suri 4:44
So what looked like Wilsonian national self determination and the end of Empire and the creation of states like Poland, and Czechoslovakia and others, was actually a force movement of people in a homogenous ation of the region. Well,

Tatjana Lichtenstein 5:00
after World War One, the

it was nation states where there was a dominant nation, but these were multi ethnic states, like Poland, for instance, had very large minorities, ethnic polls, whatever that meant, constitute about 64% of the population dress with different minorities, including 10%, Jews, bros, Ukrainians, but the Russians and Germans. And these were all citizens of the state, they had minority language rights and so on. But during World War Two, but especially because but not only because of German deepening of ethnic tension, and really using ethnic tension as a pretext, and then, you know, as a principle for reorganizing, occupied territory, according to racial lines, this idea that decrease groups could coexist after the war became impossible. And it also became aware of course, for reordering society and putting new authorities in power.

Jeremi Suri 5:58
Right. Right. And of course, the Holocaust was part of this.

Tatjana Lichtenstein 6:01
Absolutely. Absolutely. And, and

this, the murder and dispossession of Jews and creating that racial hierarchy really made it impossible to reconstitute those societies after the war. But but the Jewish lost and the massive genocide is only one part of that much broader story of displaced organization.

Jeremi Suri 6:27
Right. Michael? How How did Americans view this for Americans may eighth 1945 was v day right victory in Europe. But what Tatiana’s talking about is a much more complicated experience. How did this affect Americans in Europe at least,

Michael Stoff 6:44
I think it’s important to remember the degree to which American perceptions of the war were shaped by the rhetoric employed particularly by Franklin Roosevelt, right? As early as December of 1940. You know, Jeremy, because you’ve written about Roosevelt, he talks about the United States being an arsenal of democracy, that phrase, and the idea here is in some way to overcome the isolation is by turning the United States into the quartermaster of the Allies without having the United States yet involved in the war. Lindley says the follow up here, and that occurs, oh, four months after Roosevelt gives this Arsenal for democracy speech in 1940. The Atlantic Charter soon follows and it talks quite openly about and I quote here, respect for the rights of all people to choose the form of government under which they will live this award, amen. And you can see those warnings woven into the peace treaty is Japan and Germany are both told that they will ultimately choose the form of government that their people wish to choose. So you have already a rhetorical and words matter, a rhetorical set of images that Americans believe at least, they’re fighting for. Now, of course, on the battlefield, men are fighting to, to stay alive, right and to keep their friends alive. But in the larger sense, this war is already being depicted before the United States enters it as a war to, to to extend democracy and to preserve it to keep it safe. After the war, of course, in the reconstruction and occupation of Japan and Germany, democracy is implanted in countries that do not have a long history of democracy. And that is perhaps, I think, the signal achievement of the early post war period. And this takes time. So for example, when we saw policy makers comparing the Iraq War and the aftermath to World War Two, right, and Japan and Germany, you had very different circumstances here. And largely in a ignorance of, of history. In Japan, it was seven years before the United States left, having created institutions that that survived to this day in Germany, 10 years before West Germany becomes an independent nation. So these things take take a great deal of time. I think Americans were enormously patient in the post war period. They were of course, animated by a growing Cold War, which in effect replaced the Second World War and the demons of Nazi ism, with what what at least one historian is called Red fascism. Right? The idea that that, that communism now was new, was really the new totalitarian slash, fascist threat. And it’s in the aftermath of the war, that this notion of democracy really is extended. In part, as Tatiana was talking about, in part, having to do with with the Holocaust, and the violations of human rights we get in the aftermath of the war, creation of new institutions designed to protect human rights, among other things. The UN, which by the way, never mentions the word democracy and its charter, but does echo the we the people claim of the early days of the American Republic, suggesting, of course, that democracy is is is, is, is, at least in part, a human right. And we get that overtly in the the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which clearly says that, that the the, the the world now has, as a human right democracy, the right of people to express not only their thoughts freely, but to choose the form of government that they will now have as a human right. That’s extraordinary.

Jeremi Suri 10:54
I’m so glad you brought up the UN Declaration of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1940, largely written, in fact, by Eleanor Roosevelt,

Michael Stoff 11:03
who certainly was in charge.

Jeremi Suri 11:05
Yes. How do we understand Michael, the the relationship between the brutality and destruction and continued displacement that that Tatyana was talking about and that you’ve written about with regard to the atomic bombings of Japan? And this emphasis upon human rights in new institutions? Is that a reaction? How do how did Americans and Europeans and others conceive of building a new world in the context of this destruction, it’s hard for us to imagine in our own world today?

Michael Stoff 11:40
I guess it depends on which Europeans and which Americans you’re looking at enough. There were those who believed that the war signaled the end of the old regime, and a new day, year zero, many of them called it, believing optimists optimistically, that this would be a new pair clean a, that, that the disaster of the war, the horrors of the war, would inevitably be like Armageddon and lead to a new age, it is out of that hope. And of course, the pessimism that followed in seeing exactly what Tatiana is describing that someone like George Orwell ends up writing 1984, which is published in 1948, a dystopian version of the hopes that many people had, but also a version of reality, that that matched reality, particularly in Eastern Europe, in the Soviet Union, and increasingly in Asia, as well.

Jeremi Suri 12:40
to China, what do you see a major difference in the way people in your region of the world saw the end of the war and the way Americans and West European allies might have seen the end of the war?

Tatjana Lichtenstein 12:54
Well, I think it’s sort of again, it depends on who we’re talking about, I think very much to the government’s in exile, for instance, use this rhetoric of democracy and choosing government and the kind of society to actually advance for instance, in Czechoslovakia, the idea of ethnic cleansing after the war. So they, they use that the government’s in exile as

Jeremi Suri 13:13
well. And the argument was that this is what people want, this is what

Tatjana Lichtenstein 13:18
we need to undo what was done after World War One, which wasn’t to correct kind of assembly of states. So that’s, that’s, that’s one element. But I think very much so this idea that this was a new beginning. And the really, things that could not be done in the interwar period didn’t reach kind of fruition, could be now done sort of more radically, almost. And that includes the ethnic cleansing, that society could simply be reorganized, and then we can move towards a future of peace. And that includes, and this is before the communist takeover, right after the war, that the state begins to nationalize major industries. So really sort of take in charge. And this happens to that those democratic, if you will, you know, rebuilding years, just after, in some states, not all states in Eastern Europe. But I think this idea of a totally reorganized society. And I think many people also experienced that because they were moved by their governments that this was kind of a new beginning. And you know, one has to remember that I yes, there was Soviet in position of power, but in a place like for instance, Czechoslovakia, it’s huge property support for

Jeremi Suri 14:27
sure, sure. Especially in the first months and years. Absolutely. So touch on the one of the the topics that often comes up is the creation of social democracy. And and Michael was referring to this in a way already with the the Atlantic Charter, which in a certain way lays out a new deal for the world. And FDR is terms, is it is it fair to talk about, in addition to the ethnic cleansing the post war period, opening a moment when there’s a perception that the state will do more to protect the welfare

Tatjana Lichtenstein 14:59
of citizens? Absolutely. And that’s, that’s both in Eastern and Western Europe, and that the state is going to take charge also stability for citizens and and, and building kind of a new society. And, and also the state taking charge of social mobility really, and reorganizing society, have to remember some of these classes, sort of countries lost the entire middle class, right, right. In places where class and ethnicity really intersected, and such as Poland, lost an enormous amount of their middle class because of the murder of Jews, right. So so the reorganization of society and this kind of the social mobility actually began during the war. But it’s really something that is encouraged in different ways by the new socialist regimes. Interesting.

Jeremi Suri 15:45
But Michael, is it fair to talk about social democracy as an outcome of the war for the United States also,

Michael Stoff 15:51
I think the record of the United States is mixed on the homefront, to be sure, it is almost Janice faced. On the one hand, we find during war when democracies are notoriously bad at organizing themselves, when authoritarian governments enjoy newfound vitality precisely because they can deliver quickly in more time, the American democracy at home survives, electoral politics continues as usual. And we we don’t see any major breaks in that democratic process. On the other hand, there are groups that don’t fully participate in that, in that democracy, African Americans, Latinos, for example. And we also see a plethora of race riots, including the famous servicemen’s riot in in Los Angeles, and we see the internment of Japanese Americans. So on the one hand, you see the continuation of

Jeremi Suri 16:59
the democracy. On the other hand, you see the continuation of the weaknesses of American democracy. that’s a that’s a great point. I’m so glad you brought that up. And in fact, we have a student question that follows perfectly from that. Vivian lo wants to know about how we can not simply reenact the greatest generation story, but also understand and learn from these limitations at the time. Can we hear Vivian’s question,

Unknown Speaker 17:24
what are some lessons we can learn from the violations of democracy during World War Two, for example, Japanese internment to reduce the chances of those acts recurring and current or future conflicts,

Michael Stoff 17:36
Michael? Well, I think one of the things that’s absolutely critical in instances like Japanese internment is presidential leadership. And I think here is one area where Franklin Roosevelt failed, failed to take the leadership. And here’s one instance, much later, in which George W. Bush does take, yes, that leadership step does say, for example, that Muslims are not our enemies in the wake of 911. That had a remarkably calming effect. That’s not to say there were no incidences of discrimination and even violence against Muslims. But it does suggest that leadership at the pinnacle makes a huge difference. And I think that you place the right person at the top, and you can do a great deal to alleviate some of the problems that inevitably occur in war, when you are dealing with an enemy who all too often is demonized. Right?

Jeremi Suri 18:37
Right. One can say one of the most important roles of a leader is to anticipate the mistakes people are likely to make in certain circumstances. Tatiana, the phrase never again, is also used in Eastern Europe and elsewhere. What does it mean in that context?

Tatjana Lichtenstein 18:51
Well,

never again, when I backtrack a little bit, I want to say, we talked about social democracy, I think important just to remember for Eastern Europe, that there were no democratic states after a 48 that very much the rhetoric of one of people’s democracy, but they are not democracy. So that’s that’s important to remember as a major difference.

Jeremi Suri 19:11
Actually, one thing I’ve noticed is that if a country calls itself a people’s democracy, they’re likely not that.

Tatjana Lichtenstein 19:17
Yeah. But I think I think never again, an Eastern European part meant stability, right stability, and the war, there was a massively disrupted in a way that few Americans can imagine. 20% of the population being lost, but dead in the wars is not uncommon. So it’s, it’s that kind of destruction, not just of Jewish people, but of many other peoples as well. That’s really key. I think, when I’m thinking about this question, I thought, one of the things to keep in mind is this way in which Wendy’s instance, has happened sort of after the Japanese in terms of the kite, how quickly the labeling of a group happens, right? And the distrust between neighbors begin and once and you don’t need all neighbors to fight each other. But once you have a few people willing to commit violence, it becomes very hard to restore trust among communities. That’s, that’s right. That’s right. Exactly. You have a question?

Zachary Suri 20:24
Yeah. I was wondering how we how do you think we get away from this sort of idea of a hero worshipping many of those who fought in World War Two, but also the the actions of, of the United States and World War Two? How do we put a broader context to that? In our national conversation?

Jeremi Suri 20:43
Great question. Yeah,

Michael Stoff 20:44
I think one of the ways we we get away from Hero worshipping is actually to speak to the people whom we label heroes, because they will be among the very first to tell you that they are not that what they did in the war was over largely an effort to survive in that war. And that war is is a horror. And very often you will hear veterans say, as I have many times, that the real heroes are not here with us today. That in fact, those of us who survived are not real heroes. So I think that’s a very dangerous kind of labeling that that goes on, because it elevates war to this heroic conflict. And war is much worse than that. How we put it in the proper context, come to Tatiana’s class, come to my class. In other words, I have a great deal of faith in in education, a properly taught. And this of course, brings us if you’d like to discuss it to the Normandy Scholar Program award to his wife, we created this program here at the university some 30 years ago, in an effort to teach students about the Second World War, in course sequence that really broadens the context. There are five professors who teach in it Tatiana teaches Poland and in the Holocaust, I teach the United States and World War Two we have other professors teaching Germany and, and, and, and the Soviet Union, France and France as well. And so we give a broader context through the interplay of these of these of these courses. And then, of course, in the last three weeks of the program, we take students to Europe, and they get to be there to be at the places that they’ve studied for the entire semester. And there is something powerful moving and contextualize in actually going to see my Dominic, one of the one of the death camps or walking Omaha Beach, and then up to the American Cemetery, and then compare that to the German center Metairie. These are very powerful experiences that I think add depth and texture to, to learning about the Second World War. Not everybody, of course, can go to Europe, not everybody can be part of the Normandy Scholar Program. But I think there are ways many ways in fact, of making the war come alive for students, not least through film, yes, both archival film and feature film and documentaries, which we make great use of in the Normandy Scholar Program. Well,

Jeremi Suri 23:34
what you do with that programs, extraordinary, Tatiana, yeah,

Tatjana Lichtenstein 23:36
can I just since we’re speaking on May 7, I think it’s important to remember when we talk about war, that the wounds of war do not end when the peace treaty or their unconditional surrender happens, right? That very deep wounds that last for years, sometimes for generations, both in the people who fought in the wars, but also the people who lived under patient, the societies that come after that, try to use history, as many of us do almost all societies to as a way to inform identities and to rebuild, to build models for for current generations. and Eastern Europe is a place where this memory could not be dealt with openly for almost two generations after the war. And it’s a very painful discussion that has happened in the last 20 years. It’s a fruitful one. Just like looking at the dark past in the United States. It’s a very useful and productive process, but it’s difficult. So it is in Eastern Europe as well.

Jeremi Suri 24:40
And I really want to underscore that point, especially for American listeners, Tatiana, here we are 74 years since the end of war. And as you and Michael have pointed out, it’s so deeply relevant for our society. There is a tendency, particularly Americans have to assume a war ends when the peace treaty is signed. And that’s the way of course not Michael’s textbook, but most textbooks lay things out. And as we’ve learned in Iraq, and as we learned at the end of World War Two, the last day of battle is only the midway point, if even that in the longer struggle. It’s so important for and

Michael Stoff 25:15
in some nations do a better job of dealing with their past and others. Yes, I think Germany has done a rather better job, for example than Japan is. Japan is still wrestling with its role in in that war, and still unable to take in my view, at least full responsibility for some of the things that Japanese soldiers and civilian leaders did during that

Jeremi Suri 25:38
and as Tatyana was speaking about Eastern Europe, this has a deep effect upon East Asia today in relations between Japan and North and South Korea. Absolutely, China, that this takes us to our second student question, which really brings us to what we want to spend the last couple of minutes on, how do we move forward? How do we use these lessons going forward? Miranda Rodriguez has a question lessons for college students today. Let’s hear Miranda,

Unknown Speaker 26:04
what are some lessons we as college students can learn from World War Two in order to prevent this event from repeating.

Jeremi Suri 26:13
So to touch on it in a world today that seems so eerily similar to the early 20th century, with many powers many large countries more and more at odds with one another, with rising hatred and disputes over areas that could easily explode into war. What are some lessons we need to take from World War Two for today?

Tatjana Lichtenstein 26:39
I feel so strongly that caution just when we asked what Zach was saying about this hero worship, but to sort of idealising war as a solution. I think it’s just so important to back off that and I think any student who enters a history class will really see that are a literature class and war literature. We’ll see that that is that is. That’s not it’s, it sounds good. politicians do it all the time. It sounds like a quick fix. But it is so destructive, and we should really be the last last resort.

Jeremi Suri 27:15
Yeah, militarism is the last house of sound rules, right?

Michael Stoff 27:19
Michael, I would add two things in particular. One is when powerful nations abandon their international responsibilities and recede into what in the 1930s was called isolationism. under the title of America First, in the case of the United States, we risk far too much national self interest is never going to be abandoned. But we must also realize that there are international responsibilities as well. And you can see that mixture of idealism, international responsibilities and real Islam national self interest unfolding in the post war period, when, when we have one of the most fertile periods in in American diplomatic history. We can see a very shortly after the war, the Truman Doctrine comes along in which Truman says we will assist free people fighting totalitarianism, wherever there are problems with that, to be sure, but it suggests a new stance on the part of the United States. And this is followed up very quickly by the Marshall Plan. And by NATO. Those are very important, it seems to me instant international institutions, which among other things help to achieve a certain stability in the world, a necessary precondition to avoiding war. The second thing I would point to, to, to our students point out to our students, is that when nations abandon the rule of law, when nations abandon the rule of law, they risk terrible consequences. And you can see that happening in in Germany, for example, and and on occasion in the United States as well. And I think paying close attention to the rule of law is absolutely essential in avoiding war.

Jeremi Suri 29:15
So Zachary, it seems to me, what Tatiana and Michael have have made clear to us is, the horror of the war, produced a lot of negative outcomes, particularly in displaced populations, continued suffering, but also a set of lessons, lessons about avoiding war, anti militarism, we have strong peace movements and all of these societies after World War Two, one could argue we don’t have a third world war, because of the memory of World War Two. And and Michael’s, I think, beautifully eloquent point at the end about the rule of law and the importance of law for stability, and managing even the powerful to prevent themselves from going to war is your generation learning these lessons?

Zachary Suri 29:57
I actually think that that, that it’s really a struggle to, for to to teach children about these lessons, because I see that all around us even a lot, even more in adult populations, that that people are getting obsessed with battles and details and not really looking at the broader picture and studying the effects. And often when I when history is taught in the classroom is at least in in middle school, and elementary school, it’s too much focused on the battles, and on a very one sided view of good versus evil. And I think that that’s really dangerous if we want to avoid war.

Jeremi Suri 30:38
Yeah, I think one of the one of the lessons of today is that we have to go back to this history, and that we can get beyond the stereotypes. It doesn’t take that much work, because there are lots of great sources around us. We just have to move beyond the obvious good versus evil. And there are a lot of good things that the United States and other countries didn’t World War Two, but there are a lot of difficult legacies, and as Tatianna said so eloquently, having these difficult conversations. That’s that’s in Michaels terms, what leadership is all about,

Michael Stoff 31:10
I think to Jeremy, I’ve done now two of these podcasts with you. And one of the things that comes across again and again and again, is the importance of knowing history. As my old mentor john Bowen used to say you can’t tell where you’re going unless you know where you’ve been. That’s right.

Jeremi Suri 31:30
That’s absolutely right. And any mention of john Bluhm makes for a wise experience. Thank you, Tatiana, and Michael. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Zachary. And thank you for joining us, our listeners for this discussion of World War Two. And this is democracy.

Unknown Speaker 31:57
This podcast is produced by the liberal arts, the development studio and the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin. The music in this episode was written and recorded by Harrison lumpy, and you can find his music at Harrison lemke.com.

Unknown Speaker 32:11
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Transcribed by https://otter.ai