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6 - Versailles and Vietnam
- Edited by Andreas W. Daum, State University of New York, Buffalo, Lloyd C. Gardner, Rutgers University, New Jersey, Wilfried Mausbach, Freie Universität Berlin
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- Book:
- America, the Vietnam War, and the World
- Published online:
- 05 January 2013
- Print publication:
- 14 July 2003, pp 123-148
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Summary
World War I began in August 1914 with the German declaration of war against Russia and France. It ended four-and-a-half years later with the military defeat of the German army. The first modern war, World War I witnessed the use of new weapons that caused horrible injuries and mass destruction. Nearly two million German soldiers were killed, and two-and-one-half million returned from the front as “war cripples.” The so-called Great War was the first total war that involved countries' entire populations in the production and execution of war. This involvement also meant hardship, sometimes extreme, for noncombatants and demoralization on the home front.
The Vietnam War was never declared. It began as a conflict between France and the Vietnamese nationalist movement during World War II, when the Japanese temporarily displaced the French as colonial rulers and thus created an opening for the communist Viet Minh. The United States first sent military advisers to Vietnam in 1950 as part of its strategy to contain communism; troops followed later. The conflict in Southeast Asia took place thousands of miles from the United States, whose territory was never threatened. American civilians were not directly involved, whereas three million Vietnamese were killed. Approximately three million Americans served in the armed forces during the United States' direct involvement in Vietnam; fifty-eight thousand of them were killed. The longest war of the twentieth century ended in 1975 with the fall of Saigon, two years after the armistice of Paris had allowed the United States to withdraw its troops.
2 - Between Pain and Silence
- Edited by Richard Bessel, University of York, Dirk Schumann, German Historical Institute, Washington DC
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- Book:
- Life after Death
- Published online:
- 05 January 2013
- Print publication:
- 05 May 2003, pp 37-64
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Summary
When a war ends, coming to terms with its violence and its victims is one of the most important and urgent tasks postwar society must perform. After 1945 Germany had to cope with the deaths of about seven million soldiers and roughly half a million civilians, many killed in air raids. In addition, there was an unknown number of refugees and prisoners of war. At the same time, the German people were confronted with the moral and political consequences of a military catastrophe, the destruction of many towns, occupation, and the undeniable crimes that the Nazi regime and the Wehrmacht had committed during the war.
In the context of these crimes and the experience of total war, the former interpretation of the fallen soldiers as heroic and patriotic warriors, serving in a just and noble cause, could no longer be maintained as a master narrative. Looking back at the years before 1945, most Germans had very ambivalent emotions: They remembered rather good times for themselves - compared to the postwar years the 1930s appeared normal - but no longer could deny the horrible times for the victims of German aggression and persecution. In this respect, it is of great interest to ask what period Germans perceived as the era of violence, who was seen as victims and who as perpetrators of violence. In short: What was the legacy of war in the German mind?