Learning from History--Gaza and Ukraine
October 17, 2025
This letter to my friend, Lindsay Schmauss. thanking her for sending me the book, Aftermath, illuminates the reflections I drew from the book.
Dear Lindsay,
I am very grateful for your having decided to send me this book, Aftermath, by Harald Jahner. I just finished reading it this morning. I was immersed in it, more and more, as I read on. History which I had known, anecdotally, was fleshed out with facts--on recovering from the devastating destruction, the great migration, black market, the role of art (fascinating), and everyday life--all brought to life with individual stories and remarkably selected and penetrating verbatim citations from novels and movies of the time. (I am struck by the absence of a similar mining of literature and film to illuminate the post-WW II years in the US. I would recommend the movie, The Best Years of Our Lives, as a brilliant depiction of what it was like for veterans returning to America after the war. BTW, I am going to see if I can get Hans Habe's novel).
All of this takes me to what is happening now in Gaza and Ukraine.
By far the most mind opening and moving part of the book for me was Jahner's nuanced and insightful treatment of the role of memory and perception of what had occurred among the German public. The fact that in the following decade that there was a desire to move forward, without trying to identify or punish members of the Nazi party and the suppression of memory for sake of moving ahead. Again and again, everywhere, we witness people's natural tendency to adapt to the current circumstances simply to survive. I had no idea that former Nazis were included in the Adenauer government and that there was push back against the "de-Nazification" actions by the bulk of the German public. In hindsight, much good came from this.
I embrace what Habe writes in his novel, Off Limits: “The optimistically conceived phrase that life goes on is in fact a measure of the damnation of the world. Life goes on because human conscience is lifeless.” At the same time, I have to say it is unduly harsh. For life does need to go on. But not without seeing truth in the past which points to what we must do better in the future.
I had not realized that it was the “following generations” which tried to and largely did come to terms with the past and in doing so many blamed their parents. As Jahner aptly writes, “Repression only ever plays a waiting game. The younger generation later assumed the task of ‘dealing with the past.’”
So, too, do the young need to do that today in America. And we should never forget there will be on-going attempts to put the past aside or dilute the contemporary relevance of the vestiges of the past. Again, Jahner, “It's only in the last two decades that we have started to have any conception of the extent to which very ordinary Germans backed National Socialism.”
I am persuaded and incredibly impressed by Jahner's perceptive and honest portrayal of how multiple factors came together to enable Germany's recovery and position it now as a powerful bulwark of democracy though not immune to continued pressures from the far right.
Jahner describes the purpose of the book being to “explain how the majority of Germans for all their rejection of individual guilt, at the same time managed to rid themselves of the mentality that had made the Nazi regime possible.” He lists many factors contributing to this: the radical shock of disillusionment stemming from Germany's utter and undebatable defeat and the indictment of its leaders, the bitter education of the black market, the relaxed way of living as embodied by the Allies (there is no overestimating the impact in my view which the “proximity” of everyday relationships between the victorious allies and Germans had on people coming to understand and appreciate each other as individuals). And there was the economic miracle enabled by the people and the infusion of economic assistance (Marshall Plan).
I think of how unique and positive these collective and other factors are compared to what happened or more precisely did not happen post the demise of the Soviet Union in 1989-1990. The aid was not provided to power an “economic miracle.” There was NOT the self-evident and undeniable decimation of what the old regime stood for. There was not the interaction of people from the West with Russians to create human relationships and learn from one another, really learn and gain mutual appreciation.
So, too, I compare what happened in Germany to the aftermath of slavery in the US. Here, too, memory for many if not most (especially but not uniquely in the south) did not come to grips with the horror of the institution of slavery and its aftermath. Something we are still working on. Yesterday, by coincidence, Yale University published a book, three years in the making, showing the involvement of Yale's founding and continuing leaders with the institution of slavery. In fact, slaves helped construct the oldest building still being used on the campus. As the book is published, the University is laying out a comprehensive action plan to address inequities in education and economic development which still exist. I only hope the effort will be sustained.
Jahner closes his book with a quotation from Karl Jaspers which we should try to honor at all times, for all time:
"Germany can only return to itself when we communicate with one another. Let us learn to talk to one another. ..Let us hear what the other person thinks. Let us not only assent but reflect in context, listen for reasons, be prepared to reach a new insight. Let us inwardly attempt to assume the position of the other. Yes, let us actually seek out that which contradicts us. Grasping what we have in common within contradiction is more important than hastily fixing exclusive standpoints which the conversation draws hopelessly to an end.”
Lindsay, thanks again for sending me this outstanding book.
Love, John
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