German Antifascist Refugees in America and the Public Debate on “What Should be Done with Germany after Hitler,” 1941–1945

2007 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 279-305 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marjorie Lamberti
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Public Debate ◽  
United States Government ◽  
Postwar Germany ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
The Right ◽  
Historical Accounts ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Second World

The debate over “what should be done with Germany after Hitler” became so intense in America in 1943–44 that competitive organizations were created to influence public opinion and official postwar planning. German refugees fought on both sides in the crossfire of opinion. Recent historical scholarship has discussed the failure of the German political emigration to gain formal political recognition from the United States government and the right to participate in Allied planning for postwar Germany. Though correct, this contention should not obscure the significant role that some of the anti-Nazi exiles played in framing the public debate on the treatment of Germany. They swam against the tide of extreme anti-German sentiments at the height of the Second World War, and their views found considerable resonance among American intellectuals. The public debate on the Allied policy for postwar Germany was more extensive than many historical accounts suggest in focusing on the proposals of Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau and the infighting within President Roosevelt's administration. German antifascist emigrants in America devised the arguments and rhetorical tools against the movement for a draconian peace long before the political controversy over the Morgenthau Plan in September 1944. Their contribution to the wartime debate on Germany's future helped to prepare Americans to accept the modification of Washington's tough policy for occupied Germany before the Cold War turned a onetime enemy into an ally. By the terms in which they cast this debate, they contributed also to the marginalization of the Holocaust in the wartime discourse on Germany more than historians have hitherto recognized.

Hunger and the Remaking of History

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alice Weinreb
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
The United States ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Third Reich ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Second World

This chapter analyzes occupied Germany between 1945 and 1949, the years that saw the transition from the Second World War to the Cold War. During this time, the country was divided into four zones, each occupied by an Allied power (the United States, the USSR, France, and Great Britain.) This chapter argues that these years, known in Germany as the Hunger Years, played a key role in shaping modern discourses of human rights through assertions of the right of all individuals to food. Specifically, in the wake of the Third Reich, the hunger of German civilians acquired a moral weight that effectively depoliticized the category of “rights.” Analyzing civilian and medical debates about the causes and consequences of German hunger, the chapter explores the ways in which the different Allied rationing programs interpreted responsibility for Nazi crimes, and the ways in which Germans reacted to, challenged, and appropriated these categories.

Cold War Exiles and the CIA

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Tromly
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
West Germany ◽  
United States Government ◽  
Home Base ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Secret War

During the height of the Cold War in the 1950s, the United States government unleashed covert operations intended to weaken the Soviet Union. As part of these efforts, the CIA undertook support of Russian exiles, populations uprooted either during World War II or by the Russian Revolution decades before. No one seemed better prepared to fight in the American secret war against communism than the uprooted Russians, whom the CIA directed to carry out propaganda, espionage, and subversion operations from their home base in West Germany. Yet the American engagement of Russian exiles had unpredictable outcomes. Drawing on recently declassified and previously untapped sources, Cold War Exiles and the CIA examines how the CIA’s Russian operations became entangled with the internal struggles of Russia abroad and also the espionage wars of the superpowers in divided Germany. What resulted was a transnational political sphere involving different groups of Russian exiles, American and German anti-communists, and spies operating on both sides of the Iron Curtain. Inadvertently, CIA’s patronage of Russian exiles forged a complex sub-front in the wider Cold War, demonstrating the ways in which the hostilities of the Cold War played out in ancillary conflicts involving proxies and non-state actors.

scholarly journals The Right to Survival in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea

2010 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-117 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jiyoung Song
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Confucian Tradition ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
North Korean Defectors ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Over Time

AbstractFor the past decade, the author has examined North Korean primary public documents and concludes that there have been changes of identities and ideas in the public discourse of human rights in the DPRK: from strong post-colonialism to Marxism-Leninism, from there to the creation of Juche as the state ideology and finally 'our style' socialism. This paper explains the background to Kim Jong Il's 'our style' human rights in North Korea: his broader framework, 'our style' socialism, with its two supporting ideational mechanisms, named 'virtuous politics' and 'military-first politics'. It analyses how some of these characteristics have disappeared while others have been reinforced over time. Marxism has significantly withered away since the end of the Cold War, and communism was finally deleted from the latest 2009 amended Socialist Constitution, whereas the concept of sovereignty has been strengthened and the language of duties has been actively employed by the authority almost as a relapse to the feudal Confucian tradition. The paper also includes some first-hand accounts from North Korean defectors interviewed in South Korea in October–December 2008. They show the perception of ordinary North Koreans on the ideas of human rights.

scholarly journals Abramchik and Ostrovsky: the struggle for leadership among the Belarusian post-war emigration

2021 ◽  
pp. 272-290
Author(s):  
Evgenii V. Kodin
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
The United States ◽  
Intelligence Agency ◽  
Communist System ◽  
Close Cooperation ◽  
Direct Delivery ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
To Receive

The post-war Belarusian emigration, both in Europe and in the United States, was divided into two main groups: the supporters of the President of the Belarusian Central Rada R. K. Ostrowski (Astrouski) and the Chairman of the BNR Rada N. S. Abramchyk. The declassified CIA documents indicate that this was not just a rivalry for the right to speak and act on behalf of the entire Belarusian emigration, but also to receive substantial dividends from close cooperation with the American intelligence agency in the implementation of plans to destabilize the situation in Belarus through the preparation of various kinds of espionage and subversive operations, up to the direct delivery of agents to the territory of the BSSR in the 1950s, as well as in information and propaganda work against the Soviet Belarus. This confrontation took various forms: from accusations of direct collaboration with the Nazis during the war (Ostrowski) to the self-appointment as the head of the Belarusian Folk Republic (Abramchyk). The visions of the future of free Belarus and its foreign policy between these actors differed, as well as the means and methods of struggle for the liberation of the Belarusian people from the communist system. At the same time, both Abramchyk and Ostrowski understood well that in order to strengthen their positions among the Belarusian emigration, close relations with those who built and financed the anti-Soviet policy of the West during the Cold War were important. First of all, it was about the American intelligent services. And here Abramchyk won an obvious victory, and Ostrowski’s main former comrades-in-arms were soon going to move to his camp.

On the group matrix and the morality of the nuclear deterrent: The worldview of Gregory van der Kleij

2018 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 368-376
Author(s):  
Harold Behr
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Moral Dilemma ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Group Matrix ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Nuclear Arms Race ◽  
High Level ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Second World

This article presents the writings of Gregory van der Kleij, group analyst and Catholic priest, whose experiences of the holocaust during the Second World War shaped his thinking, not only as a therapist but also as a campaigner against the nuclear arms race. The author re-visits two significant articles on the group matrix published in this journal in the 1980s and introduces the reader to a little-known monograph addressed to the Catholic community which examines the moral dilemma faced by Christians during the Cold War. The monograph contains an exhortation to rise up in protest against what Gregory considers to be ‘the madness’ of high-level thinking on the morality of the nuclear deterrent.

Israel's Moment

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Herf
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Jewish State ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
New Research ◽  
The Cold War

Israel's Moment is a major new account of how a Jewish state came to be forged in the shadow of World War Two and the Holocaust and the onset of the Cold War. Drawing on new research in government, public and private archives, Jeffrey Herf exposes the political realities that underpinned support for and opposition to Zionist aspirations in Palestine. In an unprecedented international account, he explores the role of the United States, the Arab States, the Palestine Arabs, the Zionists, and key European governments from Britain and France to the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia and Poland. His findings reveal a spectrum of support and opposition that stood in sharp contrast to the political coordinates that emerged during the Cold War, shedding new light on how and why the state of Israel was established in 1948 and challenging conventional associations of left and right, imperialism and anti-imperialism, and racism and anti-racism.

Privatization—Chipping Away at Government

2020 ◽  
pp. 106-128
Author(s):  
Donald Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Common Good ◽  
Public Services ◽  
The United States ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
The Public ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
Policy Debates ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Right

This chapter focuses on the right wing's astonishingly successful efforts to privatize public goods and services. Privatization has been one of the highest priorities of the right wing for many years, and the chapter shows how it threatens both labor and democracy. Intentionally blurring the lines between public and private institutions, private companies and market forces undermine the common good. This chapter documents the history of privatization in the United States, from President Reagan's early efforts to Clinton and Gore's belief in private markets. Showing how privatization undermines democratic government, the chapter describes complex contracts that are difficult to understand, poorly negotiated “public–private partnership” deals, and contracts that provide incentives to deny public services. With huge amounts of money at stake, privateers are increasingly weighing in on policy debates—not based on the public interest but rather in pursuit of avenues that increase their revenues, profits, and market share. Privatization not only destroys union jobs but also aims to cripple union political involvement so that the corporate agenda can spread unfettered. Nevertheless, community-based battles against privatization have succeeded in many localities, demonstrating the power of fighting back to defend public services, public jobs, and democratic processes.

The Right to Anonymity in Political Activities

2013 ◽  
pp. 202-220
Author(s):  
Knut Fournier
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Right To Privacy ◽  
Political Activities ◽  
Political Consequences ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Right To Privacy ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
The Right ◽  
Political Value

The complexity of the right to privacy is particularly striking when the issues at stake are, ultimately, other political rights and freedoms such as the right to free speech and the right of association. The surveillance of individuals and groups by the state has strong political consequences: the surveillance of political activities re-defines what the private sphere is, and displaces its limits, in a context in which more information is becoming available to the public. Multiple recent developments, exemplified by the role of the right to privacy in movies, exacerbated the tensions between Europe and the United States over the notion of privacy. The future EU data protection laws will create a right to be forgotten, whose political value is still unknown.

In a Changing America

Arthur Szyk ◽  
2004 ◽  
pp. 217-232
Author(s):  
Joseph P. Ansell
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Early Years ◽  
The Political ◽  
World War ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Freedom Struggles ◽  
Second World

This chapter encompasses Arthur Szyk's final years. It shows his continued dedication to freedom struggles around the world even as it contemplates on the dwindling number of exhibitions he held during this period. During this time, the United States was also turning inward after the Second World War. This attitude was one which Szyk did not share and which his work, with its liberal and international themes, did not support. Moreover, the chapter reveals his growing sympathy towards the Soviet Union, which was so evident in the political cartoons and related works from the years of alliance during the Second World War. It also shows that, by the early years of the Cold War, his health was somewhat precarious, forcing him to choose his activities carefully.

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