Allied powers and Germany after WW2

[Rostov]

Why are the events after the end of ww2 are not widely known? They are as important as the ww2 itself, and the defeat of Germany.

[LineDoggie]

Which exactly do you mean, your statements dammned Vague. Do you mean the Allied Military Government operations? DeNazification? Rise of West Germany?

[SoSo]

These events aren't widely known because the treatment of the defeated Germans, civilians as well as POWs, was by any civilized standard inhumane and criminal. The Allied powers are ashamed of the things they did, and would rather it all be forgotten.
Thousands of German POWs and civilians perished after the surrender due to hunger, treatable illnesses and exposure to the elements. Their deaths were entirely preventable.
While the Nuremburg tribunal prosecuted German officers for having abducted foreign nationals from their home countries for the purpose of using them as slave labor, the Allies were doing the very same thing with German POWs. They were ill-treated by any standards, fed almost nothing and compelled to do backbreaking work for long hours. Many didn't get back home to Germany until after 1950. Countless others never made it home at all. And it wasn't just the Soviets who did these things.
Today, people who criticize this conduct still face the anachronistic charge of being "soft on fascism." I'm not a Nazi apologist. But I believe the Allies would have done better to have scorned the ways of their defeated enemies, not imitated them.

[Lambert58]

Forum is: Political Discussions and Rants.

plz do your best to make sure your topic fits. my best guess is this needs to be in the military history department.

Someone close this puppy out.

[Kilgor]

Germany was divided for a few decades, then David Hasselhoff sang on top of the Berlin wall and it was all over.

Thats it.

[Loki77]

Germany was divided for a few decades, then David Hasselhoff sang on top of the Berlin wall and it was all over.

Thats it.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v283/Jenisi/Funny%20Icons/david-hasselhoff-07.jpg

[Eoin666]

While the Nuremburg tribunal prosecuted German officers for having abducted foreign nationals from their home countries for the purpose of using them as slave labor, the Allies were doing the very same thing with German POWs. They were ill-treated by any standards, fed almost nothing and compelled to do backbreaking work for long hours. Many didn't get back home to Germany until after 1950. Countless others never made it home at all. And it wasn't just the Soviets who did these things.

German and Italian prisoners used to dig ditches for some reason outside my mother's house when she was a little girl, she used to take out cups of tea for them, when someone in the street told her off, my grandmother said "they were all someone's sons" this from a woman who's own son-in-law was killed after only being married to her own daughter for 6 days. The German prisoners here in the UK were very well treated, many never made it home as they stayed on and made new lives here, in Canada and the US. Obviously the situation in Russia was different.

But compare that to the living skeletons, military and civilian who arrived back here from prison camps in Thailand and Burma, or rather the 50% or so of those captured who survived did.

[Violet Fashion by Mindy]

The end of WW2 overshadowed by the events of the Cold War. Originally the plan was to leave Germany and agricultural nation with a smaller population, hardly any heavy industry and so forth to prevent Germany for once and for all to wage war.

But with the growing tensions with the USSR, Korea, and then Vietnam Germany was largely overshadowed with the exception of the Berlin Airlift and the fact that Japan was not yet defeated.

There is also the fact that WW2 saw the worst that mankind has to offer. Both sides killed millions of innocents in a war that no other war in history comes close to equaling. Nobody wanted to remember.

[WarDancer]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v283/Jenisi/Funny%20Icons/david-hasselhoff-07.jpg

I just threw up in my mouth!!

[deagle]

nothin really happend post-ww2 until now i guess.

[Macs.]

nothin really happend post-ww2 until now i guess.

Yep. You are right.

This message comes from a bombed-out house in West-Germany.

[PeterRJG]

nothin really happend post-ww2 until now i guess.

Not true. There was Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk, NEU!...and Doro Pesch!

[toki]

Not true. There was Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk, NEU!...and Doro Pesch!

All from my hometown. The rest of Germany is still a bombed out wasteland.
Where Macs lives the allies still drop candy parachutes.

[Macs.]

They actually really do.

I also listen to the occupiers radio station, trying to hush some of that forbidden rock 'n roll - "THE EAGLE - Serving Americas best" - Appartenly I am one of Americas best, they tell me.

[Herman the II]

All from my hometown. The rest of Germany is still a bombed out wasteland.


Düsseldorf right?
Still looks wasted....

http://www.abload.de/img/k37093.jpg

Deutsche Bank- Königsalle

http://www.abload.de/img/akademiestrasse-hafeoqq.jpg

Akademiestrasse/Hafen

http://www.abload.de/img/kaufhofr3q.jpg
guess..

[toki]

Düsseldorf right?
Still looks wasted....

http://www.abload.de/img/k37093.jpg

Deutsche Bank- Königsalle

http://www.abload.de/img/akademiestrasse-hafeoqq.jpg

Akademiestrasse/Hafen

http://www.abload.de/img/kaufhofr3q.jpg
guess..
interesting!!!! where did you get them:
TODAY:
1.
http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/6557/dscf00126ag.jpg
my old highschool is 50 m to the left.

2. (at least the same place. Probably a few m away and different angle. The basin wasn't there even 25 years ago.)
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1302/752934483_705b6ebcb3.jpg?v=0

3.
http://www.foto-wasserfuhr.de/74cba1fefb1a63761e0c6790e0a46e64_890_9049.JPG

[Rostov]

The end of WW2 overshadowed by the events of the Cold War. Originally the plan was to leave Germany and agricultural nation with a smaller population, hardly any heavy industry and so forth to prevent Germany for once and for all to wage war.

But with the growing tensions with the USSR, Korea, and then Vietnam Germany was largely overshadowed with the exception of the Berlin Airlift and the fact that Japan was not yet defeated.

There is also the fact that WW2 saw the worst that mankind has to offer. Both sides killed millions of innocents in a war that no other war in history comes close to equaling. Nobody wanted to remember.

I was away for a bit, and let this topic go, i hope this hasnt been answered yet.
I'll elaborate my original point.

WW2 was the main historical event of the time. The defeat of Germany was another event, but after that, all events that happened in Germany are not well known. The partition of Germany, the Soviet blockade and all other important events that were making history. In my opinion, the events that happened in Germany after it's defeat, directly caused Cold War. Cold War was the main historical event that has been initiated by WW2, but it seems that Cold War's actual conception (events in Germany after it's defeat) are not very popular.
Could these events actually explain the distrust between West and Russia?

[toki]

Could these events actually explain the distrust between West and Russia?
I wonder which kind of secretive event you mean? Why so you think so little is known? What do you mean? You can just open a book about postwar history.

Coldwar became clear before he end of WW2. It was obvious. Communism and western European/American interests were there before WW2. When both sides fill a vacuum that was Germany after WW2, you have to decide what's going to happen. Germanys own 'plan' just delayed that step.

And because of that Germany was treated different than actually planned, not the other way around. Morgenthau plan was abandoned because of Communism at the Door step, not becaused the allies trusted Germany. It was not about Germany or Germans at all, but its strategic position.

The distrust was older then WW2. Do you think America loved communistic Russia? It was the neccessary evil. The enemy of your enemy is your friend. Strategic alliances in times of war are stronger than political/ideological/economical differences. End the war and the walls come up again.

You make it seem as if cold war was triggered by mysterious events in Germany. No, it came as expected.