Iraq v. WW II

[Paul Mackin]

On Wed, 2003-06-04 at 10:32, Otto wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <Bandwraith at aol.com>
> To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, June 04, 2003 2:03 PM
> Subject: Re: Iraq v. WW II
> >
> > In a message dated 6/4/03 12:35:33 AM, ottosell at yahoo.de writes:
> >
> > << The difference is that the allies pretty well knew what was
> > going on in the
> >
> > nazi death camps, but WW II wasn't fought to save the European
> > Jews & nobody
> >
> > had claimed that before. But the Nürnberg-trial showed the world that
> >
> > the Holocaust was the biggest crime of all in WW II.
> >
> >  >>
> >
> > By 1943, at the latest, Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill were debating
> > how to reconstruct Europe (and the world) after the defeat of The Axis.
> > All the while, of course, Churchill had access to "Hitler's mail" thanks
> > to
> > Bletchley Park. The Foreword forwards Orwell's reluctance to include
> > the horror of the camps and what rough beast lurking in the heart of
> > modernity they represented. By doing so, Pynchon points to the huge
> > question in the background: Why didn't the allies make public, in the
> > strongest possible terms, the horror of the camps, of which they
> > knew perfectly well about?
> >
> 
> One answer that I have heard several times has been that
> it was so horrible (which it indeed was - as we all know)
> that the nazis, Goebbels especially, could have used those
> accusations to claim that it's only allied propaganda.



> Think of Theresienstadt which has been used for the purpose
> to tell the world that Jews were treated well; in Germany they
> said: look, the Führer gives a city to the Jews:
> "Der Führer schenkt den Juden eine Stadt."
> 
> Personally I'm not sure if I buy that argument, but it has been made
> and I'm not one who criticises the allied leaders for deciding the way
> they did. I think instead they could have bombed the railroad tracks
> a little bit more to hinder the Holocaust machinery, make it more difficult.
> 
> > Part of the answer lies in Pynchon's comments about "doublethink,"
> > and notice the specific Orwellian quote forwarding O's concern for
> > the (dis)ability of British socialists to accept the simultaneous right
> > and wrong of "such things as concentration camps and mass
> > deportations" (xi). Although ostensibly about British Socialists and
> > their acceptance of Stalinism, P's technique here is designed as much
> > to draw attention to the reticence, felt or not, of the allies regarding
> > The Holocaust, as it was happening.
> >
> > respectfully
> >
> 
> That's the second point, the allies knew that Stalin wasn't much better than
> Hitler but they needed the Soviet leader to defeat Germany. It's been the
> Red Army, the Eastern front, Stalingrad & the heroic efforts of the Russian
> people that in the end broke the nazi's neck,

With the help of about $11 billion in American Lend-Lease.


 not the allied bombing of
> German cities or Patton's tanks.
> 
> I don't dare to think about what would have happened if Hitler hadn't
> attacked the Soviet Union.

Hitler might have been able to invade Britain making Germany's ultimate
defeat more problematic.

And what it Japan hadn't attacked Pearl Harbor.


One way the existence of the Eastern Front made the British and American
sweep across Germany swifter than it otherwise would have been  was the
fact that since Germany was going to lose anyway it was better to
surrender territory to the Western Allies than to the Russians. Not that
Hitler was concerned with these details.. His people were however.