While thinking about Iraq and wondering about how long it will take us to secure a peace I thought back to WWII.

How did Nazi Germany occupy Poland and France (leave the jokes for another thread)?

How did the US transform Europe after the war?

Didn't the Nazi's face a resistance in France similar to what the US faces in Iraq?

Most Europe was also transformed politically, what was the time frame for that?

I'll try to answer a couple of them to the best of my ability.


I think the Marshall Plan aid was the biggest factor in determining how a country rebuilt after the war. The US basically used the Marshall Plan to coerce devastated countries to follow our policies.


I think the problem in France was a lack of military preparation. You've heard all of the jokes about how easy it was to conquer France if you've read anything by Dave Barry. I'm not too familiar with that situation, as the only college-level course I've taken on Europe was post-1945.


It only took a few years for most of Europe to decide whether they wanted to accept Marshall Plan aide or not, and I believe most of the Communist revolutions in Eastern Europe occured in 1946-1948 or so... Just a few years after the war ended. I'm not sure exactly what year NATO and the Warsaw Pact were formed, but I'd think that would be a pretty good indicator of the polarization of Europe.

With complete, unadulterated, brute force and terror. Anyone who so much as spoke against the Germans was rounded up and executed.

I wouldn't recommend this method for the US in Iraq.


I think the Marshall Plan is the most important answer, although there wasn't all that much transformation necessary in Western Europe. Those nations already had a history of Democratic ideals, even Germany had the groundwork laid before the Nazis came to power. The Marshall Plan was most important in the nations where Soviet Communism had to be contended with as a rival like Greece, Italy, Turkey, Austria, and of course, Germany. As for the rest of Eastern Europe, they had to wait 40 years for any kind of transformation.


Well, the French resistance didn't randomly blow up French civilians as a major method of fighting their war. They also weren't religious radicals who WANTED to die more than they wanted to live to see a free France.

Strength of numbers and military might. The armies of those countries were not set up to resist the German military machine



I really don’t think the US transformed Europe after the war. The UK, the Italians, The French, and the Russians, all kind of went about their own thing and recovering after the war. Germany was a different matter, and it was administered by the UK, the US and the Russians. But the US did not transform an entire continent.


Like David said, the two can’t be compared. The French resistance were patriots attacking the German occupiers. Germany was trying to annexe France, and punish its citizens. I don’t think that is what the coalition are doing in Iraq. These insurgents are attacking their own police and officals who are trying to rebuild their country. So their mindset is a complete different ideology to the French during WWII



Again, I don’t think it was transformed politically. Decisions were made to rebuild shattered economies, cities, and lives, but I don’t think it changed dramatically politically. It wasn’t if the countries of Europe were heading one way before the war, and then after they all went a different direction. Germany aside, the European countries I believe carried on more or less the way they always had done.

In short, I don’t think the situation in Iraq today can be compared to the events of WWII. Different ideologies, different time

Poland it initially carved up 50/50 with the USSR. To get a feel for the occupation, the first train load of troops to arrive in Warsaw was an elite Panzer division. The next train carried the SS. During operation Barbarossa the Wehrmacht took over the rest of Poland in a matter of days, pretty much because they were the best trained army in the world.

France was also split in two. Vichy France was technically an independent state but was administered by a Nazi puppet government. The other part of France fell into Hitler's Grossendeutschland and was administered by a governor taking his orders from Berlin.

The Wehrmacht had a massive presence in both countries, and with the quick capitulation of their own armies, there was simply noone able toremove them until Operation Overlord.



It didn't.



Not really. The French Resistance was a lot more covert and underground. They concentrated more on sabotage than attacking military targets. Guerrilla warfare was in its infancy then, but they did make an impact on the occupation. A favourite trick was string piano wire between lamposts - German trucks and bikes would speed past and the unly occupants would be garotted.



The UK, Ireland, France, The Netherlands, Belgium and so on all continued much as they had before the war. Spain (who remained neutral during the war) remained under fascist dictatorship, courtesy of Franco, until the 80s.
East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, Yugoslavia and one other country I can't remember were kept inside the Soviet Bloc until the USSR collapsed. Greece eventually got a democracy, and Italy recovered from Mussolini almost straight away.

Generally, the pre-existing democracies continued as they had done before the war, the countries that the USSR invaded stayed communist until the Berlin Wall came down and everyone's been playing catch up since. Interestingly, two of the countries that were united under the USSR, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, tore themselves apart almost immediately afterwards.

One of the biggest results of WW2 was the complete exhaustion of Britain and the subsequent collapse of her empire

Franco always struck me as a selfish bastard, even as far as dictators go. Hitler and Nazi Germany helped him get to power, and he gives absolutely nothing back to Germany during World War II. The occupied Netherlands and Nordic countries probably supplied Germany with more volunteers than Spain did.

I think you should also mention that the Nazi's and Japan had their own "insurgents" even after the war was over, that allied nations had to deal with during the early rebuilding.

When thinking about long it will take to secure peace, I would suggest you look at the motivations of those who would undermine the peace in Iraq and how to deal with them, rather than try to draw historically comparisons.

As others have said, democracy was already in Europe. Hitler was elected by a legitamite popular vote. In Iraq you have a people who ahve suffered for decades under and oppressive dictator, who were betrayed by Americans at the end of the Gulf War, and who's religon isn't 100% compatible with Western ideals of liberty and freedom.

What ever peace is achieved will be of the Iraq's own choices, as the West cannot rebuild their nation like Germany, Poland, or Japan.

the french resistance was a joke, Poland had a much better resistance but the best resistence was in Tchecolosvakia...they really kicked the germans out by themselves

No high school history classes in PA?

*fixed

So Bush Sr. didn't urge the Iraqi people to rise up against the regime. But when Kurds and Shiites did rebel, the Bush White House decided they were better off with Saddam’s Ba’ath Party in power--and allowed the regime to repress the rebellions.

Thus, Bush Sr. bears direct responsibility for the recently discovered "mass graves of Iraqi Shiites" discovered by U.S. forces after Bush Jr.’s invasion.

Huh?

The entire world bears responsibility for that. Just like we all bear responsibility for Darfur, Rwanda, Bosnia, and everywhere else we claim the moral high ground and fail to act.

The whole world told the Iraqi's to rise up and they'd be backed?

I'm not gonna deny Darfur, Rwanda, and Bosnia. But this one specifically seems to be a case similar to Bay of Pigs where backing was not given to a certain group of people who expected it for survival. Especially against such a well funded and armed enemy like Saddam and his Ba’ath Party.

The Czechs(why is it spelled this way in English? the German spelling makes much more sense) and the Slovaks would have been justified in going after France and England as well - they got shafted by those guys in the mid '30s.

Spain had seen a lot of civil war in the late 30ies. Terrible things. Franco needed every possible soldier to keep his country under his control. Going into the 2nd world war would have been the worst thing possible for him and I bet the republicans, Basks and Catalans were waiting for that.

You can say Franco was a selfish bastard, but it helped him maintain his country another 40 years under his dictatorship.


For the rest, I agree with the others here. The plans for a United Europe (as it's still developping right now) started after the first World War and were really getting shape in 1941. Two ridiculously bloody and painful wars who basically changed nothing except a very bad reputation for Germany which will take centuries to disappear (if it will ever...)

And the British sure aren't going to let the Germans forget it, even if everyone else lets it go. Is there any reason for the anti-German feelings so prevalent in Great Britain? The French were more wronged by the Germans but they don't try to perpetuate the bloodthirsty Hun stereotype as much as the Brits do.

No idea.

Anyway, those strong anti-german feelings are still quite alive in Belgium and the Netherlands as well. Krauts is still a very popular word...

The curious thing about the Dutch is that they provided the greatest number of Waffen SS volunteers during the war - And apparently the Belgians provided a decent number as well.

It's so strange how many people actually believed the Third Reich had a great future.

And then as soon as the war ended, the resistance punished all collaborators as if they themselves started WW II. People who had family members collaborating then, sometimes still carry a bad name now.