Experiment in occupation : witness to the turnabout, anti-Nazi war to Cold War, 1944-1946 / Arthur D. Kahn.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kahn, Arthur David.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Kahn, Arthur David.

World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American.

World War, 1939-1945.

Military government.

Germany.

Cold War.

Military government--Germany.

Germany--History--1945-1955.

History.

Genre:

Personal narratives -- American.

Personal narratives.

Physical Description:

xvii, 227 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

University Park, Pa. : Pennsylvania State University Press, [2004]

Summary:

In the early months of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, President George W. Bush and his associates declared that the American occupation of Germany after World War II provided a model for the American occupation of Iraq. In fact, it is a dubious model. In a 13 January 1945 editorial on the crisis provoked by riots of thousands of American troops demanding to be sent home, the New York Times even reported: "France, Great Britain and Russia are already contemplating the possibility that they may have to take over our occupation zone in Germany, and the smaller nations are afraid to speak until they know whether the United States will carry out its commitments or whether the tragic years after the last war are to repeat themselves."

As a participant in many of the events he writes about in Experiment in Occupation, Arthur Kahn traces the developments leading to this near breakdown and offers a richly detailed account of the process by which the fight against Nazism came to be transformed into the Cold War. He reveals how those in the Military Government of Germany who were dedicated to carrying out the war aims promulgated by Roosevelt and Eisenhower for a thorough democratization of Germany were ultimately defeated in their confrontation with powerful elements in the Military Government and in Washington who were more intent upon launching a preemptive war against the Soviet Union than upon the eradication of Nazism and German militarism. Kahn's portrayal of events in postwar Germany provides warnings for current and future American experiments in foreign occupation.

Contents:

Why we fight!

Soviet partisans and Soviet suspicions, Summer 1944

"We do not call upon the Germans to revolt", Fall 1944

The capture-liberation of Metz

The Battle of the Bulge, Winter 1944-1945

Mainz: investigating a pre-VE Day military government, Spring 1945

Interrogating victims of Nazism and Nazis

Wuerzburg: another military government experience

"What we Russians like to consider as a typical American!"

Policy clash in military government

"Crack Patton's military government wide open!", Summer 1945

"If only you Americans weren't here...!"

Patton's last stand

Elections, the American cure-all, Fall 1945

Rehearsal for McCarthyism

Triumph of the Cold Warriors

A military government in crisis, Winter 1945-1946

Elections: the American panacea II

Democracy, American zone style!

Summing up and the collective guilt issue, Spring 1946

Demoralized GIs

Epilogue: 1946-1947.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0271023147

OCLC:

53186581