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VICTORS against the DEFEATED (7 of 7)

The U.S. and Britain succeeded militarily against Italy without an occupation, leaving the Italians to deal with their own internal politics and fascists as they saw fit. This allowed the greatest friendliness to the United States and Britain.

The occupation of Germany by France, Britain and the United States ended in 1955, when their zones became the Federal Republic of Germany. Germans had some hostility to the occupiers, and in the beginning some tried to start an insurgency, but in the wake of World War II most Germans were sick of war and demoralized. They wanted merely to survive. Germany had had an advanced capitalist economy and Germans saw recourse in applying their skills to rebuilding. Germans were homogenous and respected order. Their nation had formally surrendered. Respect for the order created by the Western Powers helped. The insurgents of 1945 gained little support and faded away. The arrogance of occupation was largely forgotten or forgiven.

Japan was also a homogenous nation that had surrendered formally, with a population that respected order and authority. The general population had an increased distaste for war, and they met postwar deprivation with stoicism. Japan too had had an advanced capitalist economy, and the skilled were eager to create. The occupation force under U.S. General MacArthur largely impressed the Japanese. There was some hostility to foreigners, but it was not organized politically. Plans for resistance to the occupation had been discarded. The occupation benefited from leaving Emperor Hirohito in place and by functioning governments at the local and national level. The occupation ended and Japan received full sovereignty on April 28, 1952.

Additional Online Reading

Henri Philppe Petain, photo gallery. Simon Wiesenthal Center http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/gallery/pg46/pg5/pg46532.html Nuremberg trial. Wisenthal learning center http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/gallery/pg00/pg8/pg00828.html

Yale Law School, the enormous transcript of the Nuremberg trials http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/imt/proc/v1-06.htm

Nuremberg trials, defendants and verdicts - a summary http://www.mtsu.edu/~baustin/trials3.html

Tojo-san

http://www.euronet.nl/users/wilfried/ww2/tojo.htm http://bss.sfsu.edu/internment/postertojowartribunal.html

Worthwhile DVD

The Sorrow and the Pity (Chagrin et la Pitié), a motion picture by Marcel Ophuls (More than 3 hours long.)

Judgment at Nuremberg, a motion picture with Spencer Tracy, Judy Garland, Maximilian Schell, Burt Lancaster, Montgovery Clift, Marlene Dietrich.

Books

The Allied Occupation of Japan, by Takemae Eiji, 2002. (In Japan, Takemae Eiji is considered the doyen of Occupational scholarship.)

Embracing Defeat, Japan in the Wake of World War II, by John W. Dower, W.W. Norton & Company, 1999.

A History of West Germany: From Shadow to Substance, 1945-1963, Volume I by Dennis L. Bark and David R. Gress, Basil Blackwell Ltd., 1989.

The German Catastrophe, by Friedrich Meinechke.

Quisling: A Study in Treachery, by Hans Fredrik Dahl.

From the Ruins of the Reich: Germany 1945-1949, by Douglas Botting, Crown Publishers, Inc., 1985.

The Bitter Years: The Invasion and Occupation of Denmark and Norway, April 1940-1945, by Richard Petrow, 1974.

East Germany: What Happened to the Silesians in 1945? by Ursula Lange, Trans-Atlantic Publications, Inc, 2000.

Behind a Curtain of Silence: Japanese in Soviet Custody, 1945-1956 by William F. Nimmo, published by Greenwood Press, 1988.

Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, chapters 14 to 16, by Herbert P. Bix, 2000.