Brutal Peace Chapter Seven Chapter

¶ … Brutal Peace" Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven of the Dark Continent by Mark Mazower is largely focused on chronicling the aftermath of VE, or 'Victory Europe' day. With the benefit of hindsight, the swift dominance of the Soviet Union over Eastern Europe and the rehabilitation of the West through the Marshall Plan may seem inevitable. But Mazower shows that this was far from the case and gives a compelling portrait of the shifting political alliances after Germany's unconditional surrender to the Allied Powers. Mazower begins his chapter by stressing the fact that when peace came to Europe, the conditions left by the years of war were so terrible it hardly felt like a peace at all, hence the title of the chapter: "A Brutal Peace." The death toll was high: not only were six million Jews slaughtered in concentration camps, but millions of civilians and soldiers had perished in the conflict. In addition to the military and civilian casualties, POWs and civilians forced to move were permanently or temporarily displaced, which caused mass political and social confusion and instability. The aftermath of the war demanded "reform and reconstruction" economically, politically, and socially but the degree to which this was realized was imperfect in the extreme (Mazower 225).

Initially, the aftermath of the war generated agreement between the great powers regarding certain key issues, reflecting the fact that during the war there had been a fair amount of common ground despite the ideological conflicts between the Big Three of America, Russia, and Great Britain (Mazower 225). Disarmament, de-Nazification, and punishing Nazi war criminals drew support from the leaders of all of the Allied nations. They agreed there was a need for substantial economic reforms, such as the breaking of old business cartels and land reforms. These were deemed necessary in Germany to create a more democratic political environment (Mazower 237-238). Germany was divided into four zones, controlled by America, Great Britain, France, and Russia, respectively. It was said that the fate of Germany "held the key to Europe's fate" (Mazower 237). But despite the rhetorical agreement amongst all of the occupying Allied powers, de-Nazification in Eastern vs. Western Germany had a very different character. Soviets were less interested in prosecuting war criminals and more interested in eliminating all individuals and aspects of culture deemed counterrevolutionary (Mazower 238). Destroying German capitalism and private ownership of agriculture was the priority, not feeding the hungry or finding former Nazis. However, Western de-Nazification was hardly superior -- it was done on a case-by-case basis, did not exclude former Nazis from public life, and most Germans believed that lower-level officials were prosecuted, while those really responsible for war crimes were set free in the American zone (Mazower 239). Interestingly enough, the French were probably the most successful in their de-Nazification efforts, given that they focused on German youth, and changing German culture more than former Nazis (Mazower 240).