We did it by treated German POWs held in the USA well. Not just the US Government, but the American people treated them well. They had been told by the Nazis that America was weak, divided, and a mongrel race. The POWs saw the American people and society with their own eyes and then went home after the war.
And then built modern Germany.
We came to America as enemies, as Nazis, as believers in a lie. We left as friends, as democrats, as men who had seen the truth.
Many of the POWs who were employed on Kansas farms corresponded for decades with the families who showed them friendship as POW workers.
Playback has been disabled for this video (from which I got the quote above), but I encourage every reader to go watch it. If you don't - like I did - end up with watery eyes then we just cant be friends anymore. And to those who think this video is a one-off, there are more. So many more. You can watch them at the link (from Youtube suggestions) or you can watch this:
And a note to the Usual Suspects who fancy themselves as "Anti Nazi": this is what anti-Nazi is really about. This is how you turn actual, you know - Nazis - into anti-Nazis. It must really bust your chops to have Primary Sources telling you that your philosophy of life is full of shiest. You Commie Bastards.
Oh, this will too (note the substitution of the word freiheit - freedom - for freunde - I could translate for you but I wouldn't want to insult you; me, I think that Schiller would have approved of Bernstein's substitution at the fall of the Berlin Wall).
9 comments:
Funny, I was just watching some of those videos. And yes, treating the POWs as human beings made a huge difference. And helping via the Marshall plan was unheard of before and very effective. I wonder if those in Europe today still appreciate those measures?
The side effects of the Berlin Airlift are not to be ignored. The US, mostly, and Britain, flew in enough supplies to feed and continue to rebuild West Berlin. Besides food and coal, we delivered construction equipment, construction materials, rebuilt runways, created the modern air-traffic control system including incoming and outgoing air corridors and so much more.
We won the physical war.
We lost big time here in the states. The soviets took over our news media and Hollywood. They took over our teachers and our colleges (and, through that, the whole government education system.) They shut down nuclear development (all those protests? Soviet funded.) They paid and formented student unrest that still to this day shows up (what? modern Antifa and BLM and other ethnic and student and class oriented protest groups were all started and funded by... the Soviets.)
The Soviets, by the end of WWII, mostly controlled the US State Department. Which, even with the Soviets gone, still follows what the Soviets wanted.
Most of the environmental groups? Soviet funded.
The world-wide war on religion? Soviet funded.
The world-wide war on exceptionalism? Soviet funded.
They... won the psychological war. Bigly. Just look at the current Democratic Party.
Nailed it. But the Soviet government is no longer around.
WHO is funding this evil TODAY?
None dare mention their name, lest they be deleted!
A friend's grandfather was an Italian POW captured by the Brits. One day a British officer came into the compound and asked who wanted to go to America? Almost everyone raised their hand.
He went from Kentucky to Texas and finally Utah. Everywhere he went he was treated well by the guards and locals. He moved with his wife to the US after the war because he said there was opportunity here that never existed in Italy.
General Patton was convinced - as am I - that we defeated the wrong enemy in WW2.
Which is why they had him murdered.
But at least Roosevelt did get to fellate Joe Stalin, as he wanted to do! Surely Frankie knew that no Asian culture could tolerate losing face, and that by cutting of Japan's access to resources, they would have to attack. Then once they did, he promptly ignored the Pacific and started shoveling aid to the Commie swill!
Read "Stark Decency" by Allen Koop, about German PoWs in rural northern New Hampshire. Many very close friendships.
Unfortunately, most, if not all of those guys are dead now and Germany is reverting to authoritarianism. Not as anti-American as others over there but definitely not sharing our values.
Treating the Germans and Japanese right and rebuilding their countries was a big factor in the Cold war. But not the only one. Another factor was we outspent the USSR till they couldn't compete and collapsed. We are now paying a heavy price for that spending. And while the Cold war may have ended the battle against communism is still going....and arguably we are losing it.
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