General Discussion

recommendations. When you mention that much of this work so far is by British or American authors I think that the societal/legal pressure within Germany to not mention things has played a part as well. There has all along been the underlying hesitancy so as not to be seen as "making excuses" for what happened.

The entire post WW 2 period from 1945-1960 is so poorly explained or understood today with regard to the impact and foundation it had to ongoing issues in Europe and around the world. The Western thinking that borders can just be redrawn and people moved here and there and things would "work out" demonstrates such colossal ignorance and was the Colonial powers thinking that they could just treat the world and people like a chess board and pieces. Much of the decision making at Pottsdam and Yalta was not about how these arrangements would be workable for the people and for peace but rather how an advantage could be had by one or the other of the Allied powers.

All of this is so poorly explained or understood in the West and I believe it is by design. The US and Great Britain have their desired memes about WW 2, Yalta/Pottsdam and the period after and there is a general acceptance of a simplistic portrayal that has the soldiers coming home to ticker tape parades and then life goes on. People in the US especially are generally exposed to a recitation of the period that is almost entirely dominated by scenes of battle and narration about troop movements etc. They mostly know about the internment of Japanese citizens on the West Coast but are absolutely shocked to learn about US citizens of German heritage who were rounded up and put in camps here in the US. It shocks them even more to learn of the complete plunder of intellectual/financial assets that took place after the fall of Berlin. You had US citizens of German heritage who were receiving royalties for example from German patents that their long deceased grandfather had owned and who now had that ripped away and handed to companies like Dow, Union Carbide etc. US citizens of German heritage lost businesses and homes just because they were German. But it is not discussed here or an apology given like was done for the Japanese.