World War 2

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  9/10/2022
  

  Philippe Pétain's Legacy Haunts the Island Where He's Buried

  The current French history wars have drawn battle lines over whether Pétain's service in the first world war or his collaboration during the second should be remembered. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Review of Books
  9/3/2022
  

  My Husband the War Criminal

  The posthumous release of Nancy Dougherty's biography of the Nazi secret police chief emphasizes his bureaucratic cunning. Does it minimize his ideological commitment to Nazism, or the crimes he carried out? 

• 
• SOURCE: Associated Press
  9/1/2022
  

  Poland Seeking $1.3 Trillion in World War II Reparations from Germany

  The Polish government referenced a recently completed report documenting the costs to Poland of war, and argued that reconciliation between the nations could best be served by a payment. 

• 
• SOURCE: The New Republic
  9/1/2022
  

  Review: What Took Freud So Long to See the Danger of Remaining in Occupied Austria?

  by Patrick Blanchfield

  "If Freud himself, so attuned to the dark undercurrents of human behavior and so critical of our wishful illusions, proved unable to think clearly even as his country became unrecognizable around him and as nightmare after nightmare became real, what are our chances now?"

• 
• 9/4/2022
  

  Is it Deja Vu All Over Again with "Appeasing Dictators," or Time for A New Lens?

  by Charles Spicer

  Invoking Chamberlain and appeasement is never a particularly useful response to an international crisis. Do the efforts, albeit unsuccessful, of a small group of British diplomatic outsiders to "civilize" leading Nazis, point in a better direction? 

• 
• SOURCE: NPR
  8/23/2022
  

  80 Years Ago, the Soviet Defense of Stalingrad Began

  Jochen Hellbeck explains that both Hitler and Stalin identified the city as a critical battle, committing both armies to the carnage that turned the course of the Eastern Front. 

• 
• SOURCE: Smithsonian
  8/25/2022
  

  How a Deadly Explosion Catalyzed Civil Rights Activism Among Black WWII Soldiers

  by Matthew Delmont

  Segregated Navy men had been assigned dangerous duty loading munitions onto ships without adequate training or appropriate limits on the pace of their work. The inevitable disastrous explosion at Port Chicago created a surge of racial justice and labor activism in the military. 

• 
• SOURCE: Forward
  8/8/2022
  

  Julius Klein Helped German Companies Hide Nazi Links. Why Does a Jewish Museum Honor Him?

  Julius Klein's work as a lobbyist for the West German government involved rehabbing the reputations of former Nazis, and led to his expulsion from the Jewish War Veterans of the United States, the organization whose museum now honors him with a permanent exhibit. 

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  8/14/2022
  

  Marc Gallicchio on Truman and the Transition to a Peacetime Economy

  As victory over Germany approached, Truman's economic and military advisors debated whether to begin to divert resources back into civilian production to ease what promised to be a difficult economic reconversion. 

• 
• SOURCE: Talking Points Memo
  8/9/2022
  

  You Do Not, Under Any Circumstances, Gotta Hand it To America Firsters

  by Eric Rauchway

  Critics of American aid to Ukraine have misconstrued the history of FDR's "Lend-Lease" aid to Britain and the USSR as a factor that pushed the world into total war. It's worth considering the political affiliations of people who made that argument in 1941. 

• 
• SOURCE: New/Lines
  8/5/2022
  

  What the Nazi-Soviet Fight in Ukraine Tells Us About the War Today

  by Pascal Trees

  A family archive of letters from a German soldier fighting the Red Army in Ukraine reveals the complexities of ethnic and national identity that are in dispute by Russian and Ukrainian partisans today. 

• 
• SOURCE: TIME
  6/3/2022
  

  Could the US Win a Modern-Day Battle of Midway?

  by Brendan Simms and Steven McGregor

  With growing Chinese naval power in the Pacific, two historians consider how well the Navy could respond to a confrontation on the high seas. 

• 
• SOURCE: Places Journal
  5/30/2022
  

  Gordon Parks's Photos Show the Labor Keeping Weapons of World War II Greased

  Gordon Parks's photographs showed the humanity of the workers in the nation's massive war mobilization, notably at a Pittsburgh grease plant. 

• 
• SOURCE: Smithsonian
  5/24/2022
  

  How the US Government Used Comics to Inform Americans About the Holocaust

  An irony of the "Maus" controversy is that the government used the medium of comics to inform the public about the discovery of the Nazi death camps. 

• 
• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  5/22/2022
  

  Can We Condemn One Empire Without Affirming Another?

  by Moon-Ho Jung

  The experience of left-wing Japanese Americans, who rejected Japanese imperialism while being oppressed by American nationalism, shows that war forces an artificial binary of national allegiance. 

• 
• SOURCE: CNN
  4/29/2022
  

  "Pachinko" Tells History of Korean Women in Mid-20th Century Japan

  The Apple+ series, based in a fictionalized narrative of Korean immigration to Japan, concludes with interview footage of eight women, now all more than 90 years old, who lived this history. 

• 
• SOURCE: World Socialist Website
  4/25/2022
  

  World Socialist Website: Tim Snyder Changes Conclusions on Ukrainian Fascism

  Have influential historians of Eastern European nationalism and antisemitism softened their assessment of Ukrainian nationalism because of the Russian invasion? 

• 
• SOURCE: The Conversation
  4/7/2022
  

  The Forgotten Story of the "Red Ball Express"

  by Matthew Delmont

  "From August through November 1944, 23,000 American truck drivers and cargo loaders – 70% of whom were Black – moved more than 400,000 tons of ammunition, gasoline, medical supplies and rations to battlefronts in France, Belgium and Germany."

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  4/4/2022
  

  Richard Overy's New Book Tells WWII as Global History of Imperial Conflict

  by Daniel Immerwahr

  "Whatever else the Second World War was about, it was, on both sides, a war for empire."

• 
• SOURCE: Fox 32
  3/14/2022
  

  Chicago's Ukrainian Community Includes Many Who Escaped WWII; They See a Repeated Nightmare

  The Ukrainian community in Chicago includes many who fled either Nazi or Stalinist forces as children 80 years ago.