WWII and its context(s) in GR

[jbor]

Probably a good time to recap some of the (other) basics --

* the persecution of Jews and "undesirables" and their incarceration in
concentration camps, ongoing in Germany since 1933

* the exodus of Jewish people from central and eastern Europe, which had
been underway since the early 20s at least (cf the proliferation of those
melodramatic Yiddish movies in the US in the late 20s, 30s and 40s)

* the British and French govts' continuance of the policy of appeasement
after the annexation of the Rhineland, the Anschluss (proclaimed 13 March
1938) and the invasion of the Sudetenland, despite all of these being in
direct contravention of the Treaty of Versailles (this policy of appeasement
confirmed in the Munich Pact of 29 September 1938)

* Kristallnacht (9-10 November 1938)

* German invasion of Czechoslovakia and the Polish Corridor initiates the
British Declaration of war (3 Sept 1939)

* the bombing of Pearl Harbour in 7 December 1941 provokes the US to declare
war on Japan on 9 December 1941, and then on Germany and Italy on 11
December 1941


As far as I can see, the motivations for the various Allied Declarations of
War on Nazi Germany were largely territorial and/or retaliatory in each
instance, and had very little if anything at all to do with the Nazi
persecution of the Jews, which must have been reported to some extent, was
at least strongly rumoured, and might even be claimed as common knowledge in
political circles throughout the mid to late 1930s. The "who knew about
what?" and "why were they at war?" questions of complicity and guilt apply
to the Allies as much as to the Germans depicted in the novel. It's all very
well to react retrospectively to the setting, context et. al. but Pynchon's
narrative vision is (generally) located *within* the historical moment, and
different perceptions and priorities certainly applied prior to the
Nuremberg Trials (and what does Slothrop ponder about that particular
pageant at 681.30 -- "No one he has listened to is clear about who's trying
whom for what ... ") Further, I think it's important not to overlook the
fact that Pynchon in *GR* is interested in the immediate (and more distant)
pre-war contexts as well: references to the Kristallnacht, Novi Pozar,
Ramsay MacDonald, FDR and other British and US politicians of the 30s,
Versailles, Passchaendale et. al. I don't believe that it is simply a
question of 1945 and then what came after; and I don't think Pynchon at all
subscribes to the historical rupture theory (cf. the ironic positing of 1904
as a one of history's "nodes, critical points" 451-2), any more than he
would subscribe to (any variations upon) Jakob Burkhardt's Great Men theory.

best