Eighty years ago, in May 1945, World War II ended in Europe amid the worst destruction in human history. Its countries’ postwar responses to the conflict—and what evolved into their remembrances of it—were widely varied.
Even after the humiliation of defeat, nearly half of West Germany’s population still considered Nazism a good idea badly carried out, and their political leaders largely avoided the topic of the Holocaust. Soviet-dominated East Germany maintained that as communists, they had always opposed the Nazis. Italians presented themselves as brava gente, or good people, even though fascism was born in their country. France, where the Vichy government collaborated with Nazi occupiers, retold its history as one of active resistance to the Germans. The Soviet Union glorified its victory against Nazi forces while ignoring their initial alignment with Hitler. Yet in Germany, a generation of children of Nazis eventually began to demand a more honest assessment of the responsibility of the nation’s people rather than solely blaming Hitler and his henchmen.
Writer Adam Tanner, who spent much of his career living and reporting in Germany, Russia, Italy, and the Balkans, reflects on how these nations have come to terms, or not, with their actions in World War II.
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