Plan B Forum

As top Russian officials were summing up the results of 2019, one subject stood out in President Vladimir Putin's pronouncements: Poland and its role in World War Two. Over the past seven days, he mentioned it no fewer than five times at key meetings - some of which had little to do with history or even foreign policy. In an unusual outburst at a Defence Ministry board on 24 December, he described the Polish ambassador to Nazi Germany as "scum and an anti-Semite pig". Two hours later, he brought the subject up again at a meeting with parliamentary leaders. State Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin thanked Putin and demanded an apology from Poland.

BBC News

What's up his nose is this resolution from the European Parliament. It's worth reading in full and I cannot sensibly summarize it. Among other things, it "Calls on all Member States to commemorate 23 August as the European Day of Remembrance for the victims of totalitarian regimes at both EU and national level, and to raise the younger generation’s awareness of these issues by including the history and analysis of the consequences of totalitarian regimes in the curricula and textbooks of all schools in the EU; calls on the Member States to support the documentation of Europe’s troubled past, for example through the translation of the proceedings of the Nuremberg trials into all EU languages"

But there's this:

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/do ... 21_EN.html

15. Maintains that Russia remains the greatest victim of communist totalitarianism and that its development into a democratic state will be impeded as long as the government, the political elite and political propaganda continue to whitewash communist crimes and glorify the Soviet totalitarian regime; calls, therefore, on Russian society to come to terms with its tragic past;

16. Is deeply concerned about the efforts of the current Russian leadership to distort historical facts and whitewash crimes committed by the Soviet totalitarian regime and considers them a dangerous component of the information war waged against democratic Europe that aims to divide Europe, and therefore calls on the Commission to decisively counteract these efforts;

Does it serve any useful purpose for the Euros to be poking the bear?

I missed that, Meade so thanks for bringing it up.

I read the "European Parliament resolution of 19 September 2019 on the importance of European remembrance for the future of Europe" at the link you posted.

Of course I am in general agreement about the need for Europe to come to terms with its past and for it to be part of the education of children - how else do we ensure, to the best of our ability, that it shouldn't happen again? I'm not sure that I agree that the Molotov Ribbentrop Pact "paved the way for the outbreak of the Second World War" - it didn't help but there was a lot of way paving done long before that. Secondly the resolution is long on Hitler and Stalin (as it should be) but I think a little short on other lesser examples which were just as evil and just as consequential to the victims but on a smaller scale such as Dyer's massacre at Amritsar.

And it wasn't the 'Americans' - whoever they were - but the Europeans who colonized North America by murdering many of the indigenous peoples and introducing the slave trade, so that too should be part of the remembrance and the reckoning.

I agree. History must be taught and emphasised but I'm not sure that there is any benefit to issuing resolutions about things that happened as long ago as the Amritsar massacre - which is worthy of study as the micro example of the consequence of the macro empire. So to speak. Otherwise before long we'll be crying over the Fetterman massacre, poor old Black Kettle etc. and offering reparations for Indians done in by settlers and the settlers done in by the Indians and so on. One thing history shows is that there are no (or very few) clean hands.

What bothers me about this particular resolution is that it looks a lot like shouting Fire in a crowded theater. Does it serve a useful purpose at such a time as this? Putin's reaction is of course fatuous; it wasn't the Poles who filled the earth with 22,000 of their own officers in the Katyn Forest. It wasn't the Poles who sat outside Warsaw in 1944 while the Polish Home Army lost their struggle against the Nazis. All these facts should be taught; as should the significant agreement between Hitler and Stalin (signed by the lesser lights) that gave Germany the green light on Poland so Stalin could carve out his piece.

But do we need European countries (those saints of restraint and kindness historically) to be wagging fingers at the (dead) Hitler and the (live) Russia and suggesting we all do it on a day in August? Can't we all just get along?

This stuff almost makes me want to unsnooze my fathers cousin (an expat living in Poland and a fervent trump supporter) to see his take on this but I have learned that if there is one ability all trump supporters have it’s cognitive dissonance.

My stepfather told the story of a discussion he had with a young German while touring that country in 1983. Between his broken German, and the young man's slightly better English, it was established that the young man was no student of German history. He made the statement that Germany had never been defeated in war. My dad got the feeling that some students are taught that way from the start.

I think it is important to tell the truth about history but we don't have to tell it all the time.

On the other hand the fact that Putin is alive and in power is sufficient to justify this.

yrs,
rubato

MGMcAnick wrote:My stepfather told the story of a discussion he had with a young German while touring that country in 1983. Between his broken German, and the young man's slightly better English, it was established that the young man was no student of German history. He made the statement that Germany had never been defeated in war. My dad got the feeling that some students are taught that way from the start.

I remember being in Germany in 1976. And I specifically recall finding that the older Germans - say 50+, who'd lived through the war - were much more outward looking that their younger, my age, counterparts. It seemed to me that the younger Germans were more focused on their cars and status than the older ones who had seen it all before. I don't think that they denied the defeats of WW1 and WW2 in my recollection.