The End of World War II in Europe Michael S. Neiberg [email protected].

The End of World War II in Europe

Michael S. [email protected]

The Horrors of Europe:Is Europe Still a Model for the USA?

• “I never dreamed that such cruelty, bestiality, and savagery could really exist in this world” – Eisenhower to his wife, Mamie

• Ike urged Marshall to bring the entire US Congress to see the camps for themselves.

Eisenhower and other senior American officers tour a liberated concentration camp

Domestic Problems

• Racial tensions and Riots across the nation

• Economic concerns: will the Depression return

• “Reconversion” of US industry and the integration of 12,000,000 young men

Racial violence in Detroit, 1945

Other Major International Problems

• Rebuilding of Japan• Civil War in China• Resettlement of Jews in

Palestine• Colonial issues in India,

Vietnam, and Malaya

George Marshall in China, 1946

US Strategic Choices:Mass Demobilization

• Europe “has degenerated into a state worse than that of animals” – a US soldier after seeing the Buchenwald concentration camp.

US Strategic Choices:Stay Mobilized

• "Let's keep our boots polished, bayonets sharpened, and present a picture of force and strength to the Red Army. This is the only language they understand and respect” – George Patton.

US Strategic Choices:Constructive Engagement

• “What Rome was to the ancient world, what Great Britain has been to the modern world, America is to the world of tomorrow” – two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Walter Lippman.

The New World

• No peace conference like 1919

• European states devastated– Agriculture, transport,

and industry all destroyed

• US and USSR now in charge and their goals in conflict

Potsdam Conference17 July to 2 August 1945

• Unconditional Surrender for Japan

• “The freely expressed will of the Japanese people” will determine its government

• Each power to take reparations from its sector of Germany

• Germany to be “denazified”• Surrender of Japanese

forces in Korea and Vietnam agreed.

Clement Atlee, Harry Truman, and Josef Stalin at Potsdam.

What to do with Germany?

• Morgenthau Plan• British desires to rebuild

Germany• USSR wants to

devastate it• USA wanted Germany in

a new alliance• Partition Starving children reaching for food in

Germany, 1946

Unresolved Questions

• Can the USA trust Stalin?

• Will the Germans try again?

• When will America’s allies be ready to help?

• Is a Cold War inevitable?

US Strategy

• The “Long Telegram”

• Demobilization

• Need to rebuild our allies reshape Europe

The New Secretary of StateJanuary 21, 1947

• First general to serve in that role

• Non-partisan image (GOP controlled Congress)

• Had no interest in elected office

Can America Meet Its New Challenges?

• “I found the problems to be almost identical with those of the war years. There was the same problem between East and West; the same limitations as to our capability; the same pressures at home and abroad.”

The First Phase, 1947-1953

• George Kennan’s “Long Telegram” and the policy of containment

• “Lessons” of World War II• Truman Doctrine• Creation of NATO and

Warsaw Pact• Korean War, 1950-1953

US and Soviet soldiers meet onthe Elbe, April, 1945

New US Defense Policies• 1950: NSC 68

recommended tripling defense budget

• 1952: US introduced peacetime conscription

• 1953: US builds first H-bomb

• 1950-1953: US sends more military personnel to Europe than to Asia

• 1955: (West) Germany rearmed

The King gets drafted, 1958

Phase Two: 1953-1979

• USSR and USA want to avoid nuclear war

• So they fight “proxy” wars in the Third World

• Connections to wars of anticolonialism

• Few direct confrontations

Soviet advisors in Vietnam, 1966

Final Phase, 1980-1991

• Reagan and “evil empire” rhetoric

• SDI and massive US military spending

• Alliances with Saudi Arabia to reduce USSR oil values, bring Arab states into US alliances

• Defeat USSR with economic effort, not direct military confrontation Building tight US – Saudi links seemed

like a good idea at the time

Soviet Initiatives• Perestroika (restructuring)

and Glasnost (openness)• USSR spending 50% of its

GDP on defense• Sign bipartisan

disarmament agreements• Seek to use the US as a

partner not an enemy• Dismantle Warsaw Pact,

remove troops from Eastern Europe

“I was talking about another time and another era” – Reagan when asked about his “evil empire” statement of 1982

The End of History?