The World at War: 25 - Reckoning, 1945 and After

The bombing is stopped the fires around. Europe lies in ruins. The dead are gone forever. The living carry on. Every forever same no gas no water no telephones no tram. It's. Kind to count the cost. It's time to start again. During war or. Spring time one hundred forty five the end of the board in Central Europe. The end of the thousand lives. OK. I'm tied a message a time without pretty. Good. At time of brutality rape. Red band. German come back from the eastern lands that tried to conquer but some of the lives of four generations. Had been bad master. Now they pay the price. At least they are alive. The last hours of the Bama an army and a solution. It has made war on the world. Now it saves what it can smooth as a German troops to surrender I was want to relate they were happy for the most part to surrender they were interested in getting to the American system preference to surrendering to the vanishing Russian. The defeated army but even at the end not always a broken one. The habits of a lifetime die hard. But at last the bloodletting is nearly over. If you had a European civil war that began in one thousand fourteen it was a long armistice in that war. Finally comes to an end in one hundred forty five in a process of coming to the end what happens is that sweeping into Europe from the outside by the Russians and the Americans and they meet at Targo on the Elbe River and may have one hundred forty five. With the result that no European nation Wednesday Earthian civil war after the winner is a European soul are in fact outsiders the Russians and the Americans most of all the Americans so that you have. The physical control of the continent and they hands of three outsiders really because the brakes were a part of it although they only contributed twenty five percent of the whole total ties and Howard's Agel American force Britain the United States and Russia not control the Congress and they will decide what's going to happen to. NY The Russians not Americans had wanted this war. Now comrades in arms. They've won a great victory in the General's meat they can speak the language of combat of tanks in the gun. But have they anything in common except soldiers told. Or. The the. Russians were overjoyed but we also know there was handshaking and backslapping exchange of souvenirs I have a Russian watch somebody is gold wedding band. I lost my watch and I was all sorts of insignia from. The uniform and all of a friendly all the rest of a friend in love and didn't speak English and yet they were asked to this boat. Beautiful language that educators say at Oxford and Cambridge a member speaking to one of the I thought oh I'll never forget your face is long as I live it is another wall. Never forget chill I could He was rather young he was quite young and he was a pleasant but you always kept feeling that they really hated us. Which I'm sure they did I. State to force during the war had been propagandized in the seeing Russia's democracy. Land of freedom lovers was centrally broad social aims and about the same as those of the West which seem to make sense since they were clearly an enemy of the Nazis and we were an enemy of the Nazis us it appeared we had a great deal in common. Fellow down against. The president of the United States of America. Conferences come April nine hundred forty five a month before beating United Nations organization is bomb. Charter of the United Nations which you are not signing and saying silence up here upon which we can build for a better world and there was great hope in the world. This what in fact happened that this was the last war that the victors would now be able to cooperate and pieces they had and war to see to it the four policemen as Roosevelt like to refer to Britain France U.S.S.R. and United States. Sometimes a five place on China thrown in. Would be able to see to it there would be no more aggression in the world that. The war that the war had meant something that had been fought for something rather than simply against Naziism is a time for making friends and there's a time for action not time for action is here now. By nation the delegates stand up for the great new child of a habit altogether. Fifteen nations standing side by side you anonymous for peace. No final signing of the charter. China signing first as the first nation attacked us was not the wanting to MCO signature topping the long less to come. For Russia and the shadow Gromyko commit says country so to be agreement on objective of the side of the bomb after things unlike some compromise and collaboration for main stage of things upon which the world know puts its hopes better world was going to emerge and one part of this of course was it would be a non cloning or world on a world of self-determination and this was felt very deeply and one hundred forty five even by the most cynical of the world's leaders. I suspect even Stalin felt like I'm sure that Harry Truman felt it and Winston Churchill felt that a common people everywhere felt it. Germinated means even in defeat the key to the problems of milk she stopped at the wall so her leaders have to be punished. The Germans themselves have to be made to pay for the suffering they have called them but they can only pay if Jim that it means a heap of rubble. What if a country is dismembered and some which no one wants Geminid to be strong again. Yet no one can face the consequences of keeping How to ruin whatever. The answer. Military control. Photon is of occupation will supervise German has recovered. The watchful eye generals will build her up not only in order to make good again what she is just. Right. Germany can remain whole United but must never be able to threaten the peace again. July nine hundred forty five a military administration gets underway. American troops occupied like to see a city well within the Russians own of occupation. Now the Americans pull back across the river though. Russians move into. Germans wearing box full nervous less might see their Russian conquerors for the first time. When the fighting stopped the Army's ended up here but the occupation zones had been decided early out of the big three conference of yellow stuff. That would have a force of the Russians own had the food and raw materials the Western So American British French had the industry for the occupation to work as intended they would have to be a trade between them. Battle in the capital began the home of the Allied control come so the testing ground for the plan to work together. Now there's been some question as to whether we were not we just went a little premature and fixing the zones in till we saw how the armies were to come out and there's some evidence to indicate that there are leaders. Underestimated the striking force of the Anglo-American Ali says invaded Europe because when we adopted desirable positions we gave out facts in the entering the i Pad on the other hand we got back I think good pieces of West North Korea which is an occupy the Soviet thing that stands out here is that the Russians do latter West come into Berlin which is what eighty miles within their results they didn't have to do it and they could have acted in Berlin as they acted in Poland they could have just said To hell with you or not let you in. We're not going to live up to the agreements that we signed it got on us we're going to hold on ever lead after all we captured we paid the cost. Hundred thousand Russians died early in July nine hundred forty five the Big Three meat for the Potsdam conference a crowded agenda for this first meeting of Victor. But for the way this one question. Domini What does Starlin want to add to our first reaching the Italian vote for it in one of them on of which the Russell's Manchester right sure until the meeting about down what he wanted was basically there. To join Shah the security of is own country regardless of course of the interests of his name for my sin agree of him during the war of course and I went up to it I said Marshall this must be a great satisfaction to you after all the. Trials that you've been through in the tragedy that you've been through to be here in Berlin and he looked at me and said sorry Xander got Paris. The conference takes no new decisions about Europe it simply confirms what has been decided at the outside six months before what is new is the move. Despite smiles for the newsreels the Western leaders and Starlin do not to get on. The feeling especially in the state and most expected with President Truman wise or a hostile as another Hitler they didn't think always made a great mistake in the war and backed the wrong side not a bit of it but they were perfectly clear that Hitler was much of a greater medicine that Hitler had to be Christ and that the crushing of her absolutely depended upon the Red Army. The Red Army had three hundred divisions in your they are stallions Trumka the source of his strength of the company. Suddenly you are faced with the fact that the Americans are demobilizing or rather the time past and what they were doing was it was a redeploying telling the army out of Europe taking him back to the states and getting it ready to send over in Japan because expect at that time to have to invade the home islands for the final defeat to pass house in values the President Truman and he sat there all the doors and turning great secrecy the greatest secret of the war the fact that the Americans had an atomic bomb which they were going to drop. Their zone in which he sought to bring the water and even said the reason for his decision was this it so thousands upon thousands of at outliers would otherwise be dust that frightful mess going to take place on the source depended so. He warned me that I had my time myself suddenly the position of the Japanese having surrendered. Then I saw a church oh and just to do the same thing. He says they will surrender and what are you going to buy that assuming just told me I haven't been to the salt. August nine hundred forty five the bomb is drop the Japanese do so and yes it is to have been delayed way. Bad dreams of conquest shot and they too are the most see a bear Konkona they do not know what lies in store. Americans want to Japan rebuilt as quickly as possible and a highly industrialized Japan to emerge from the war with then well within the American orbit Truman made a decision a pipe stand that no one would be allowed into Japan except for American troops the Aussies weren't allowed in the British were not lead and of course most of all the Russians were not let out. The Concorde outcome General Douglas MacArthur but there's a medic an adviser says American court. He will try and remake Japan in America's image. The prisoners are freed us Amman who've been Japan citizens of God. They are the masters. In Europe is just still some of. That a seven hundred thousand concentration camps are but. Maybe enough to be alive to be reunited and to have survived. To go home. Six million for most slave labor. Cold Russian Yugoslav as Tony and check friend. Free to pick up the threads of their lives now that that German masters of gone. Prisoners of war with no country to go to deportees German soldiers deserted. It was very difficult to tell the difference between a German record G. and A Polish trip or G. in the part of Germany that I was located in them I wouldn't know which to which you could be pretty well sure if there were I'm being things on their back and carrying bags but they hadn't gotten struck they were almost certainly refugees. Well perhaps S.S. guards in still in prison clothes. Some choose death. Himmler lot of the S.S. takes poison some surrender or a court. Front runners did headless general in full dress uniform. Admiral Dern it's last leader of the Third Reich I'll bet she pay out what to do with these broken Munster Starlin that they Yalta Conference was attended by President Roosevelt and that's to Churchill said that he thought the term fifty thousand of the German General Staff and after service should be gathered together and some are less executed he wasn't joking. President Roosevelt thought he was and present them grows outside our well perhaps forty nine thousand but Churchill said that he'd rather be taken out into the garden and shot at once and be a part a toll such an inequity. But the Russians persisted almost until the end. In saying that there should be no crowd these men were criminals and they should be a major clerics get rid the moment they were court. But there is a war crimes trial that Nuremberg get listed the charges crimes against peace crimes against humanity waging aggressive war the defendants are all German. Hearing is called to plead guilty or not guilty. The price if I get the character office and drop the. Topic make sure it is but I literally cannot. I informed the court live in the court that independence when not entitle. To make a statement. You must plead guilty or not guilty. Again a mason Synod I can actually. Rudolf Hess. Died. It will be ended as a plea of not guilty. To I think you would say the purpose was to follow on that first was retribution the punishment of people who would launch this war against the world and not only the war but whole. Prior to the commencement of the war and during it. Of course committed the most terrible crimes against humanity as for instance by exterminating certain a certain million Jews the second. Trial. Was us we helped to lay down the rules of international law for the future not only making the waging album aggressive war on the wrong for but for the first time making the statesman whole lead their countries into an aggressive war personally responsible for what they'd done well. Women children died. Rather surprised at the parents of the defendants I thought. Find seen these people in the path of mom and of those I wouldn't look at them twice and I think that was true of all of them except perhaps school. Ribbentrop call both slow pretty miserable creatures and girl who looked a very remarkable personality he did dominate the court he was the outstanding personality in the court. And you know sometimes in the course of a long trial like that. Lasting over two hundred days. Lasted and something would go wrong. You would ask a witness a question on the on so you expected to get would be yes and the witness or Don said no I don't that point you'll have to be very careful not to catch Gooding's I He was sitting at the corner of the front row and if you'll glanced across all cultures I when the was an incident like that he would raise his eyebrow and shake is a had you know rather smiling way and it will be their difficult not to smile back. Gooding cheats the gallows with a son. Rest. In prison will set free. They have brought the revolution to Germany and death to yield. Them out adventure. Now they pay the reckoning for Hitler's rise. The. British. Come back to Asia in Thailand to. An empty victory. India's no longer those Sile two million of our troops fought for Britain in Britain's Well now they want their own country to be free. His Majesty's African troops they want freedom to Malaya Burma. Britain is too weak to hold them even a few months. The main effect of the war against Japan in the Far East was they not ashamed of the spirit of nationalism in Asia a large part of a share of course have been under British rule and most of that that was not under British rule this and the Dutch roll of some European row and the people were beginning to us part to the creation of their own political institutions they the demonstration by the Japanese that the British could be beaten and beaten very severely. Naturally I encouraged in the eyes of the people of South East Asia the belief that they too might be able to secure are a much stronger position against the British and they previously dreamt possible this had a great effect on opinion in India and all that over Southeast Asia. Suddenly I find myself responsible as the supreme commander for an enormous area as a globe. With a distance of six thousand miles across it and says far from learned about. The hundred twenty eight million starving and rather rebellious people just been liberated. With a hundred trying to see a thousand prisoners one in turn is many of whom are dying when we have had a tie and recover quickly and at the neighbor getting at some seven hundred thousand Japanese soldiers sailors an avenue. To take a surrender design put into prison camps waiting times for tests and back. Even though he had that his hand a big problem but I had no idea what I really was in for and I read it was in those trying to reestablish civilization and the Rule of Law and Order to this vast part of the world we didn't even know what the conditions are going to be I had no stars really trained or qualified to help me in this tossed except some professional civil affairs officers from various countries concerned with one idea was to go back and carry on where they left off. Jail for years before. The police are not ideal either. Indonesians do not want the Dutch bank. If order must be maintained in the East Indies that is only one force to do it the Japanese on man Patton years of them there and it's thinkable as well. It's a sound odd now awful war but at the time and instilled a sense of what it was I to do if I was to order them to lay down their arms and concentrate themselves prison camps and leave the outside world that policeman any at all that will be the on No I think that they had to carry on as they wait until they were effectively relieved as the only what I gave I didn't consciously employ them they carried on until I could leave when the allied soldiers as soon as possible. Americans are in Japan to stay almost everywhere else in Asia. White men prepared to lead. Reluctantly uncomprehendingly the dots go. The French are different they will not give up Indochina. Ten troops to take it back commanded the general look out a hero of the European in my final conversation with Jenin the cabin I was about to turn over the military response from side to press no time to urge him to try make friends spends with the local inhabitants friends with Oakland says with I said that's the way to prosecute him back for a friend or relationship identity you can impose by Micha beans got Oakland. Because I see the point. I'm sorry I'm a soda My instructions or take over the motorway and that of course is what he did. So the killing goes on. It goes on there to this day. Berlin in the first months of occupation. Judy prior lines once the handmaidens of Hitler's new on to. The the. Some of the victors have the time of their lives. To Germany was on a cigarette and chocolate bar economy this was right after the War Right after combat. As a consequence is very little that American soldier can buy if you will find good enough services are also. That's the same ole story to buying a girl if you want to get together isn't any rule in the book or any lot it's as you can or you're not going to do it. Black market for us. Blooming we had nursing and a piece of soap for us the most valuable possessions so I asked you. Practically prostituted yourself just to get a piece of so maybe can of coffee on maybe even though some secret people smoked I take it but you just did everything. I know people very very fine people who. Would have done anything and your new Some I feel human dignity brain you are so hungry when you are so without food without closing the SO IF. How could you blame a starving go they might not want stockings she might not want cigarettes all bicycle bottle but she did one badly something which could be provided by the appropriate typically British or American G.I.. Thing I had to give up smoking in the streets in those days I was a cigarette smoker and carelessly after a lot of rubble about you'd throw his cigarette on the floor for you knew you were the fellow most coarseness and they'd been trailing him because he saw it was smoking you know you're so he was smoking and I remember that in one of the cinemas I think it was in just a matter of seeing one of the big towns where there was going to be a performance for all the American G.I. is on the they had queued up before it started but of course the Americans don't allow smoking and cigarettes but they were all smoking in the queues and practically opposite every spoke there were a line of hungry looking men hunger for tobacco. Waiting until the doors opened and then as the cigarettes fell into the street there was a rat rush on the key place in that queue was just at the entrance to the cinema because that's where most of the cigarettes came down. In retrospect this being a cult or seems very dubious to me by the time it seemed by right we were convinced of our virtue and the chairman vice and it was very happy seemed to be able to tell them what to do. It's. Time to rebuild time for Germany to recover so it can start to pay. The Russians want twenty billion dollars in Revelation. Americans think that's more than Germany itself as were. The west won't help the Russians collect them much they stop sending good some hardware to ease. The Russians send little food and raw materials to the west. The allies are starting to fall out with a child. The you. The Germans caught in the middle. Get on with rebuilding them so. There are no slave labor no no. They had cleared the street and trams went by I should hate to try to ride back to the room. The people standing on the outside of the. Windows is cold and the people standing on the bus and though a patient queue to get on the stand when they stop but nobody ever seem to me to get off. Ask around your home and I'm with them by. Those looked in the missing persons register. Twelve million Germans driven from the eastern lands trying to find a job. Another no. Sixty million New York paeans of enough root. Some never find their way home again. November nine hundred forty five. The Germans live on fifteen hundred calories a day a third of what the American troops get it was a very hard time because it really suffered from hunger as the American had much food my mother decided to VERCO for them and I decided to. Write for them to me and my mother wasn't a kitchen and I was a waitress. Brought it was rather hard for me because the Americans ordered that I. Had to aspire or very. And I couldn't smile because I see American officer. Rails so proud and they treated as as Nazis. No peace conference ever takes place that is no new best side Germany is divided the occupation zones they come from church. Unintended unwelcome and permanent. If you have a unified Germany the blanks to the Russians then you have a Russian domination of the content of the whole of the continent you have a unified Germany that is altogether in the hands of the Anglo Americans then you have a Western domination of the continent that would rush out of her just claims to the security that was of course Stone's number one concern all through the war and afterwards so that dividing Germany along the Elbe was probably the best solution once tempted to use words like fair and just but I don't think they really apply here. It simply isn't. It's the workable solution were around and around me when I was in a contiguous territory they would install a Soviet system and if they were just no argument about it and we did do the best we could on poem and the tragedy of Poland of course is that she's got Germany for a neighbor on one side and Russia for a neighbor on the other side it's a terrible position to be in but it's always been the Polish dilemma in the Polish tragedy Poland has to fall into the orbit of one or the other. Given those choices and given the nature of the nature of style and I suppose if I recall I'd say well we're better off under Stalin zeal and we are under Hitler as he'll. I wish your. D.D. is safe return home country. Poland's touch of Russia's time. Make today in Moscow. The Russians paid an enormous price for victory of course but the Russians did get gains out of. The war most of all security for themselves in control of the spear append the opportunity to say of course quickly took a mango to exploit this year economically. Thank me for bled white by war has some how to rebuild the Soviet Union has survived and is one of the world's great pump. Now everyone knows. Where London one hundred forty five zero S. comes home. Britain has survived through a curious thing. You can picnic again but look out for an unexploded mine. No invasion no occupation. Yet the nation's treasurers exhausted what six years it has fought and been a workshop for war. The bullets have been bored with Britain's Well. It won't be needed for Britain has won the war and has nearly gone bankrupt doing. The British had as many problems if not more in recovering from victorious The Germans did in recovering from the fate of the. British. Britain get out of the war and I pray my brain like she lost a very great deal. I suppose if you want to look at positively she got a moral claim on on the world as the nation that had stood against Hitler along for a year and provided the moral leadership against the Nazis at a time when everyone else is willing to cave in to the Nazis. A medical ninety four to find. The boys come home again. Well this big winner and World War two is of course you know state by firearm we get much more out of the war than anyone else there's a paradox here that it is very quickly after the war is over Americans began to take the attitude that aha. Here it is again we got we got fooled once more as we didn't World War one we made this enormous effort we beat the Germans we beat the Japanese and who wins the Russians when the Russians get East Europe out of it we were suckers This is very widely felt in the United States was a strange attitude to hold when you look with whatever objectivity that one can muster about sex things is what the real results of the war were. Americans come home to a country I'm touched by bombs ocean a country twice as rich as when the bill became. More food than you can eat more clues to me to be where most feel that he could use. The only country in the world is money spent. A country with the atom bomb. And mouth who's. To say. Asked. The Germans to our Victor though they do not know it yet. The soldiers come home from internment camps put on ordinary clothes go back to work. Feudal Prussian present Germany is no more in its place the structure of a modern state. Ironically enough that was Hitler's work now in the West a new Germany will emerge. Rich and free and democratic and strong. England two changes though some voices Davis and civilian clothing debt to get your flu. Shot a bus or take it down to the station and your free learned shop home as fast as. The procedure as comprehensive as you can see that I love things to sort out what I man or woman leave the army. Civilian life now days is fairly full of snags and the it's so damn must be fully armed against any marches in the city street at last. Night's. Temper to. Britain soldiers come home to a land without much cheer to a land of Russian cargo killed that markets and our strategy. To a land of national health and the welfare state to a land of free men and women. To a world no longer a bore. Her slave. If we hadn't won the war when Amanda to Japanese and the Germans it's a HUGE are one and now you're sick you if you can imagine what kind of a world that would have been. It's true that. The problem of Russia and the Soviet Union or honor marriage sharply after the war. But I would say on the whole affair it was certainly the lessons of two evils it couldn't happen. And no. More or less. Principles on which democracies operate which is societies are based said he didn't get not sure of. Satisfaction Now the results of the war that I think this is inevitable given Soviet system on the INS to a large portion of the world's it still was able to exercise the said degree of freedom. Dixie an internal affairs not to buy any manner means that everything that is common as his perfect far from it. Di Maggio I think the world would have been quite intolerable and analyse and Japanese room the principal effects of the war on people and political systems brawl upon the countries in Eastern Europe islands most of all checks of aka hunger remain you know and those countries now these people's breath hoping or some of them by hoping that the war would liberate them from the threat of Nazi terror in it and in fact at the end of it they found themselves in the come in his book which I must say was less sinister than the now they block this was a very solid to chase went to the Second World War very much less sinister type of today. Replace to hide the sin is to put in there but this is not the freedom to which they had hoped and for which to a large extent we had fought the most important single result of World War two is that the Nazis were crushed the militarist in Japan were crushed the fascist in Italy were crushed and surely Justice has never been better served. Going to you. With you. For thirty years now. There has been peace in your. Put.