Happy New Year!

Sorry for the lack of posts, but I took an unintended blogging vacation. I will be back with more Ghosts post soon....

Eric

Ghosts of Occupation Past -- How bad did things get?

Before the Iraq war, one of the more common arguments again was that the war could create famine among the civilian population. That prediction, thankfully, did not come true. Well, in the aftermath of WWII, there were major food problems in occupied Germany.

According to this article, the rations in the British zone were lowered to 1040 calories per day!

Allies Asked to Pool Food To Avert Crisis in Germany
By KATHLEEN McLAUGHLIN By Wireless to THE NEW YORK TIMES.
New York Times; Mar 1, 1946; pg. 1

Talk about a lack of post-war planning! We were fighting the Germans for 4 years and we still had no plan to feed them after the war! Please remember this when you hear complains about the lack of post war planning. We obviously planned for the things that counted.

Here is another blurb from the AP regarding the morale of the occupation force:

6,000 GI's in Europe Are AWOL
New York Times; Mar 3, 1946; pg. 36

PS Another blogger is posting French cartoons from the First Gulf War. They are also very revealing.

Ghosts of Occupation Past -- Germans Return to Nationalism

As we return to the Ghosts series, the Germans are returning to nationalism.

GERMANS RETURN TO NATIONALISM
By DREW MIDDLETON By Wireless to THE NEW YORK TIMES.
New York Times; Feb 25, 1946; pg. 3

Allow me to emphasize a passage:

"But former German officers and soldiers are the most active adherents of the new nationalism. They criticize but seldom support the political parties now in being and they are insolent, mischievous and bitter opponents of the Allies' occupation.

German policemen say that the attacks made against Germans working for the military government in the various zones are almost invariably planned and carried out by war veterans."

Like Yogi Berra said, it's deja vu all over again....

Holy Cow! We've captured Karl Marx!

Congrats to our armed forces and to Iraqis everywhere!

PS, so can we look forward to fewer "Vietnam quagmire" analogies? You know, since we never captured Ho Chi Min?

Ghosts of Occupation Past -- Russian Elections

Once in a while, I interrupt my regularly scheduled Occupation coverage with other interesting articles that I find. This one is about elections in the Soviet Union (if you are new to my blog -- that's where I was born, so it's interesting to me).

PRAVDA FINDS POLL SUPERIOR TO OURS
By BROOKS ATKINSON By Wireless to THE NEW YORK TIMES.
New York Times; Feb 18, 1946; pg. 12

This is the kind of history that makes you long for more repetitions of Florida 2000.

I have one problem with the article: is the reporter just another Duranty or is he writing tongue in cheek? I can't figure it out. Before you answer, consider the last paragraph:

"On the whole the news is discouraging to Americans this morning."

Either this guy, Atkinson, has a very dry, sarcastic writing style (which seems to be absent from his co-workers covering Washington and Germany) or he is commie sypathieser. If it wasn't for the last paragraph, I'd say it's the former...

In any case, at least he mentions that the voters had no choice. I don't think that modern journalists even mentioned that fact when covering Saddam's "elections" last fall.

Ghosts of Occupation Past -- Fumblin' the O

This article is a great insight into the minds of the New york Times journalists. Not only did they call a meeting to emphasize how the US is "fumbling" the occupation, but htey offered an example of how it should be done -- the Soviets.


U.S SEEN 'FUMBLING' ITS JOB IN GERMANY
New York Times; Feb 15, 1946; pg. 6

It's easy to laugh at the naïveté of the speakers with the benefit of hindsight. Since that time the concept of Soviet re-education has taken on a dark meaning. We also don't see the innocence in setting up Communist headquarters backed by the Red Army.

It's hard not to conclude from this article how wrong journalists can be. Another example from the last paragraph (not copied) quoted Anne O'Hare McCormick:

"...you learn in the Soviet orbit that the United States has no reason to be afraid of Russia, militarily, economically, politically, unless we abdicate our power."

Yeah, and Uncle Joe is a big cuddly teddy bear.

PS I'm off to a conference and won't be able to post articles until Wednesday.

Ghosts of Occupation Past -- The more things change...

Two stories regarding the occupation from inside the Beltway. They might as well have been written today...

The first deals with the political infighting between State and the War Department:

RULE IN GERMANY HITS SNAGS IN U.S.
By W.H. LAWRENCE By Wireless to THE NEW YORK TIMES.
New York Times; Jan 24, 1946; pg. 9

As usual, the occupation authority had trouble recruiting talented personnel:

The next story is also a common theme in Washington today -- the military defending themselves against charges of failure:

RULE OF GERMANY DEFENDED BY ARMY
By SIDNEY SHALETT Special to THE NEW YORK TIMES.
New York Times; Feb 1, 1946; pg. 6

...

There goes that silly "official viewpoint" -- blatantly ignoring the wisdom of the journalist class!

[Sorry for the truncation, but the rest of the sentence was not that interesting and didn't want to do another jpeg.]

Ghosts of Occupation Past -- Dark German Outlook...

Another dark dispatch from Germany.

DARK GERMAN OUTLOOK ENCOURAGES RESISTANCE
By DREW MIDDLETON By Wireless to THE NEW YORK TIMES.
New York Times; Jan 20, 1946; pg. 66

Ghosts of Occupation Past -- US Prestige

In our idealization of the past, we sometimes forget how bad and messy things got on the ground.

U.S. PRESTIGE DROPS AFTER GI PROTESTS
By DREW MIDDLETON By Wireless to THE NEW YORK TIMES.
New York Times; Jan 13, 1946; pg. 1