World War II German Military Studies: A Collection of 213 Special Reports on the Second World War Prepared by Former Officers of the Wehrmacht for the United States Army. 10 vols

Author(s):  
Ivan A. Tsvetkov ◽  

This article explores how the memory of World War II affects contemporary US-China relations. Despite the fact that both of these coun- tries were in the camp of the victorious powers, actively cooperated in the fight against a common enemy – Japan, and seemed to have retained the warmest memories of their “fighting brotherhood”, the study of their memorial prac- tices leads to much less optimistic conclusions. In the PRC, the memory of the Second World War up to the 1990s was deliberately removed from the socio-political discourse. Then, as part of the transition from the communist to the nationalist ideology, the interest in the events of the war years increased, but they were interpreted in a spirit of victimization, with an emphasis on the sufferings endured by the Chinese people as a result of external aggression. To- day, the memory of World War II is being used in China to underpin an active foreign policy, which is considered to be aimed at preventing the repetition of the terrible tragedies of the past. For Americans, victory in World War II was originally a symbol of the transformation of the United States into a Pacific power, a rationale for regional leadership. Until China claimed the same role, the memory of US-Chinese military cooperation could be used as a diplomatic tool; it was also possible to talk about the “foundation of friendship” on which bilateral relations were based. Today, this technique no longer works, a com - mon victory does not bring the United States and China closer, but drives them apart dragging the countries to the opposite sides of the barricades.


2006 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 635-644
Author(s):  
MARTIN H. FOLLY

The Second World War continues to be an attractive subject for scholars and even more so for those writing for a general readership. One of the more traditional areas of focus has been the ‘Big Three’ – the alliance of the United States with Britain and the Soviet Union. Public interest in the three leaders – Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin – remains high, and their decisions continue to resonate in the post-Cold War era, as demonstrated by continued (and often ahistorical) references to the decisions made at the Yalta Conference. Consequently, while other aspects of Second World War historiography have pushed into new avenues of exploration, that which has looked at the Grand Alliance has followed fairly conventional lines – the new Soviet bloc materials have been trawled to answer old questions and using the frames of reference that developed during the Cold War. This has left much to be said about the nature of the relationship of the United States with its great allies and the dynamics and processes of that alliance, and overlooked full and rounded analysis of the role of that alliance as the instrument of Axis defeat.


1995 ◽  
Vol 35 (307) ◽  
pp. 375-390 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jody Williams

Concern about the effects of certain conventional weapons, particularly landmines, is not new. Had that concern been lacking, the 1980 Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) would not have been formulated. Nor would some of the earlier studies on the issue by UN bodies have been written. What is new is a heightened interest in the problems caused by landmines, particularly in post-conflict settings. Several factors have contributed to the increased recognition that even though the CCW is in place, it has not addressed the ever-worsening situation on the ground. (The United States army estimates that 400 million landmines have been sown since the beginning of the Second World War, including at least 65 million in the last 15 years.)


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 85-130
Author(s):  
V. A. Veselov

In recent years, the history of World War II has transformed into a battlefield in its own right in the ‘war of memory’. Besides the clear fact that the current attempts to revise the results of this war reflect the contemporary international tensions, yet another factor should be noted. The ‘shadow’ of the Second World War appears to be very long. It manifests itself not only in the contemporary system of international relations, but also in the fact that we still view the world around through the prism of concepts that appeared during the state of war and still bear its mark. Particularly, the concept of national security. This paper examines the emergence and development of this concept in the United States. The author notes that although the concept of national security existed throughout the 20th century, before World War II it was identified primarily with the defense of the state. The paper examines how lessons of the Second World War led to a rethinking of this concept, and how approaches to national security evolved during the war and immediately after it. Special attention is given to discussions that preceded the adoption of the National Security Act of 1947, as well as to its initial results. The author demonstrates that the national security concept was based on a fundamental recognition of the existence of a special state between peace and war. For successful functioning within this state, the government needs to rely on a wide range of tools of both economic and military-political and ideological nature. Based on the lessons from the war, national security was viewed as an ‘overarching structure’, aimed not only at integrating various components of the state’s policy, but also at eliminating any contradictions that may arise between them. On the other hand, the author emphasizes that from the very beginning the national security concept had a pronounced proactive, offensive and expansionist character. Being considered as an antipode to the concept of collective security, this concept reflected the will of the US elites not only to get integrated in the existing system of international relations, but to create a new one, which would be based on the American values and would ensure the stable functioning of the US economy. The author concludes that it is precisely the multidimensionality of the national security concept caused by the multidimensional nature of the challenges of World War II that explains its continued relevance for the study of world politics.


2018 ◽  
pp. 143-175
Author(s):  
Thomas H. Conner

This chapter discusses the measures taken in order to secure the safety of the American memorials and the employees who tended them during the Second World War. Concern over the spreading war and growing hardship culminated in the evacuation of all the American employees of the commission, along with their dependents, from France and Belgium in 1941. Surprisingly, the monuments only suffered minor damage during the war. This chapter also highlights the efforts of army captain Charles G. Holle and Colonel T. Bentley Mott, the last two Americans to lead the Paris office of the ABMC before the United States entered the war, to preserve the memorial sites. Mott actually returned to wartime France in 1942 to supervise such efforts directly, and ultimately spent months in German custody. When the Allied armies liberated the ABMC sites in 1944, General Eisenhower sent an extremely joyful cable to Pershing announcing the good condition of the cemeteries and monuments.


2021 ◽  
pp. 593-602
Author(s):  
Anton N. Uchaev ◽  
◽  
Elena I. Demidova ◽  
Natalia A. Uchaeva ◽  
◽  
...  

The article analyzes the specificity of the Canadian Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King’s attitude to the Soviet Union during the Second World War. The study analyzes the frequency of the Prime Minister referencing the USSR in his diary from September 1, 1939 to September 2, 1945, as well as his reaction to a number of the most significant events of the Second World War associated with the Soviet Union: the German attack on the USSR, the establishment of diplomatic relations between the USSR and Canada, the battles of Stalingrad and Kursk, the victory over Germany. In the course of work, both general scientific methods (analysis, synthesis, inductive method, comparative method) and special methods (historical-chronological and content analysis) have been used to study the materials of the diary. The use of the historical-chronological method is due to the need to correlate information from the diary with the overall historical picture of the studied period, and the use of content analysis helps to create a more reliable picture of Canadian Prime Minister’s perception of the Soviet participation in World War II. The article has made allowances for the fact that Mackenzie King sought to create his own positive image in his diaries, planning their posthumous publication. But, since the USSR was not a key topic for the Prime Minister (as evidenced by keywords statistics), it can be stated that the leader of the Canadian liberals was quite frank, at least as frank as a person who, in his lifetime, was known as an extremely cautious politician could be. It is clear, that King was well aware of the significance of the events on the Eastern Front. But throughout the war he retained both a negatively neutral attitude towards the USSR (due to its communist nature) and his perception of the Soviet Union as part of Asia and thus a step below the Anglo-Saxon world, which had a higher level of culture and moral principles. The objective reality, i.e. absence of hostilities in Canada, its maneuvering between Great Britain and the United States, and priority of economic and domestic policy for King, explains that a lesser part of his attention was paid to the events in the USSR in comparison with processes associated with England and the United States.


2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-74
Author(s):  
Hristov Manush

AbstractThe main objective of the study is to trace the perceptions of the task of an aviation component to provide direct aviation support to both ground and naval forces. Part of the study is devoted to tracing the combat experience gained during the assignment by the Bulgarian Air Force in the final combat operations against the Wehrmacht during the Second World War 1944-1945. The state of the conceptions at the present stage regarding the accomplishment of the task in conducting defensive and offensive battles and operations is also considered. Emphasis is also placed on the development of the perceptions of the task in the armies of the United States and Russia.


Author(s):  
Benjamin Mangrum

This chapter argues that ongoing concerns about the rise of totalitarianism led writers and intellectuals in the United States to oppose social-democratic institutions after the Second World War. Familiar accounts about opposition to these institutions center on conservative politics. In contrast, this chapter argues that liberal thinkers invoked forms of aestheticism to combat what they perceived as the possible rise of totalitarianism in the United States. In order to document this under-explored trend in American political culture, this chapter establishes connections across writing by Lionel Trilling, Vladimir Nabokov, Hannah Arendt, Friedrich Hayek, the New Critics, and the American reception of Friedrich Nietzsche. These figures in postwar cultural life invoked aestheticism in the arenas of literature, philosophy, political action, and economics as a prophylactic to the perceived intrusions of an activist-managerial state.


2018 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-35
Author(s):  
Catherine Vézina

El Programa Bracero, creado por Estados Unidos y México en 1942 durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial, se mantuvo hasta 1964. Los estudios sobre este programa señalan la importancia de los intereses domésticos de Estados Unidos para explicar la longevidad del mismo. El presente artículo se enfoca en los factores estratégicos propios de la lógica de la Guerra Fría que intervinieron en la decisión de mantener o cancelar este programa bilateral de trabajo temporal agrícola. Mediante un examen atento sobre la época del auge y del declive del programa, se replantean estos debates dentro del contexto nacional, pero también bilateral y panamericano. The Bracero Program, created by the United States and Mexico during the Second World War, survived until 1964. Studies that look at this program generally signal the importance of domestic factors in the United States to explain its longevity. This article analyzes dynamics of Cold War logic that played a role in the decision of whether to maintain or cancel this bilateral program for migratory agricultural work. By carefully examining the rise and fall of the program, these debates are reconsidered within a national context, as well as one that is bilateral and Pan-American.


1965 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 146
Author(s):  
Henry Zamensky ◽  
Stetson Conn ◽  
Rose C. Engelman ◽  
Byron Fairchild

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