Europe: A History (11 page)

The rival, fascist version of history started later, and nourished more briefly. To some extent it grew up in response to Communism, and in the hands of the Nazis became one of the instruments of their New Order. In the initial phase, 1922–34, it contained a certain socialist flavour both in Germany and Italy, but was dominated by the Italian variant and by Mussolini’s dream of a restored Roman Empire. From 1934, when Hitler began to remodel Germany, the direction changed abruptly. The socialist element of National Socialism was purged. The German variant of fascism took the driving seat, and overtly racial theories came to the fore. As a result, there appeared a virulent brew of racism and German imperialism that was served up by all the ideological agencies of the Nazi Reich as long as it lasted.
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Despite Nazi-Soviet hostility, Nazi ideology was not so completely different from that of Stalinism. The racial element was predicated on the special mission supposedly awarded to the German nation as the most vigorous and healthy branch of the white Aryan race. The German imperial element was predicated on the criminal ‘Diktat’ of Versailles, and on Germany’s supposed right to recover its leading position. Together, they formed the basis of a programme which assumed that Nazi power would spread across Europe, and eventually beyond it. There were serious incompatibilities with fascist ideologies elsewhere in Europe, especially in Italy, whose nationalism had always possessed strong anti-Germanic overtones. But these did not have the time to ferment.

The historical thinking of the Nazis contained the most extreme versions of ‘Eurocentrism’ and ‘Western civilization’ that have ever existed. The ‘Master Race’ was identified with Aryan Europeans, wherever they lived in the world. They were the only true human beings, and were credited with all the most important achievements of the past. All non-Aryans (non-whites and non-Europeans) were classed as genetically inferior, and were placed in descending categories of
Untermenschen
or ‘subhumans’. A parallel hierarchy of biological merit was established within Europe, with the tall, slim, blond, Nordic type—as tall as Goebbels, as slim as Goering, as blond as Hitler—considered superior to all others. The Slavs of the East (Poles, Russians, Serbs, etc.), who were wrongly classified as a racial subgroup, were declared inferior to the dominant Germanic peoples of the West, and were treated on a level with various non-Aryan subhumans. The lowest categories of European inhabitants were those of non-European origin—principally gypsies and Jews—who were blamed for all the evils of European history, and were deprived of the right to life.

Nazi strategy was largely constructed from these absurdities, where the distinction between ‘West’ and ‘East’ was paramount. Beyond the removal of recalcitrant governments, Hitler harboured few designs against Western Europe, of which he felt himself to be the champion. He despised the French, whose Frankishness had been much diluted, and whose historic hatred for Germany had somehow to be cured. He disliked the Italians and their Roman connections, and felt them to be unreliable partners. He respected the Spaniards, who had once saved Europe from the Blacks, and was puzzled by Franco’s reluctance to co-operate.
With the exception of certain degenerate individuals, he admired the ‘Anglo-Saxons’, and found their persistent hostility towards him distressing. In his own terms, their behaviour could only be explained as that of fellow Germanics who were preparing to compete for mastery of the Master Race. All he wanted from them was that they should leave him alone.

All of the Nazis’ most radical ambitions were directed against the East.
Mein Kampf
clearly identified Eastern Europe as the site of Germany’s
Lebensraurriy
her future ‘living space’. Eastern Europe was inhabited by an assortment of inferior Slavs and Jews; its genetic stock had to be improved by massive German colonization. The ‘diseased elements’ had to be surgically removed, that is, murdered. Eastern Europe was also the sphere of Soviet power; and the ‘nest of Jewish Bolshevism’ had to be smashed. When the Nazis launched the German invasions of Eastern Europe, first against Poland and then against the Soviet Union, they felt they were launching a ‘Crusade’. And they said so explicidy. They were told by their history books that they were marching in the glorious steps of Henry the Fowler, the Teutonic Knights, and Frederick the Great. They claimed to be speeding to the ultimate showdown of‘a thousand years of history’.

Unlike Communism, Nazism was not granted seventy-five years in which to elaborate its theory and practice. It was destroyed by the combined efforts of its neighbours, before the Greater Reich could be consolidated. It never reached the point where a Nazi-run Europe would have been obliged to articulate its posture towards the other continents. Yet if the Soviets had succumbed, as they very nearly did in 1941–2, Nazism would have become the driving force of a Eurasian power of immense size; and it would have had to prepare for a global confrontation against rival centres in the USA and Japan. Conflict would surely have ensued. As it was, Nazidom was kept within Europe’s bounds. Hitler was not given the chance to operate beyond the world of his fellow Aryans. Both as theorist and as political leader, he remained to the end a European.

Though Nazidom once stretched from the Atlantic to the Volga, the Nazi version of history was only free to operate for a very brief interval. In Germany itself, its career was limited to a mere twelve years—less than the school days of one single class. Elsewhere, it could only sow its poison for a matter of weeks or months. Its impact was intense, but fleeting in the extreme. When it collapsed in disgrace in 1944–5, it left a gaping vacuum that could only be filled by the historical thoughts of the victorious powers. In Eastern Europe, occupied from 1944–5 by the Soviet army, the Soviet version was imposed without ceremony. Western Europe, liberated by the Anglo-Americans, was left open for ‘the Allied Scheme of History’.

The Allied Scheme of History

Contemporary views of Europe have been strongly influenced by the emotions and experiences of two World Wars and especially by the victory of the ‘Grand Alliance’. Thanks to their triumphs in 1918, in 1945, and at the end of the Cold War
in 1989, the Western Powers have been able to export their interpretation of events worldwide. They have been particularly successful in this regard in Germany whose receptiveness was heightened by a combination of native guilt and Allied re-education policies.

The priorities and assumptions which derive from Allied attitudes of the wartime vintage are very common in accounts of the twentieth century; and are sometimes projected back into more remote periods. They may be tentatively summarized as follows:

—The belief in a unique, secular brand of Western civilization in which ‘the Atlantic community’ is presented as the pinnacle of human progress. Anglo-Saxon democracy, the rule of law in the tradition of Magna Carta, and a capitalist, free-market economy are taken to be the highest forms of Good. Keystones in the scheme include the Wilsonian principle of National Self-determination (1917) and the Atlantic Charter (1941).

—The ideology of‘anti-fascism’, in which the Second World War of 1939–45 is perceived as ‘the War against Fascism’ and as the defining event in the triumph of Good over Evil. Opposition to fascism, or suffering at its hands, is the overriding measure of merit. The opponents or the victims of fascists deserve the greatest admiration and sympathy.

—A demonological fascination with Germany, the twice-defeated enemy. Germany stands condemned as the prime source both of the malignant imperialism which produced the First World War, and of the virulent brand of fascism which provoked the Second. Individuals and nations who fought on the German side, especially in 1939–45, bear the stigma of‘collaboration’. (N.B. German culture is not to be confused with German politics.)

—An indulgent, romanticized view of the Tsarist empire and the Soviet Union, the strategic ally in the East, commonly called ‘Russia’. Russia’s manifest faults should never be classed with those of the enemy. For Russia is steadily converging with the West. Russia’s great merits as a partner in the ‘anti-fascist’ alliance, whose huge sacrifices brought fascism to its knees, outweigh all the negative aspects of her record.

—The unspoken acceptance of the division of Europe into Western and Eastern spheres. Whereas ‘Atlantic values’ are expected to predominate in the more advanced West, Russia’s understandable desire for security justifies its domination over the backward East. It is natural for the Western Powers to protect themselves against the threat of further Russian expansion, but they should not interfere in Russia’s legitimate sphere of influence.

—The studied neglect of all facts which do not add credence to the above.

The Allied scheme of history grew naturally out of the politics and sympathies of two world wars, and has never been consciously or precisely formulated. In the hurly-burly of free societies it could never establish a monopoly, nor has it ever been systematically contested. Yet half a century after the Second World War it
was everywhere evident in academic discussions and, perhaps unknowingly, in the conceptual framework which informs the policy decisions of governments. It was the natural residue of a state of affairs where Allied soldiers could be formally arrested for saying that Hitler and Stalin ‘are equally evil’.
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In the academic sphere, the Allied scheme can be seen at work in institutional priorities and structures, as well as in debates on particular issues. It has contributed to the crushing preponderance of research in history and political science that is devoted to Nazi or Nazi-related themes, and to the prominence of German studies, especially in the USA. It helps explain why the analysis of East European affairs continues to be organized in separate institutes of ‘Soviet’ or ‘Slavonic’ studies, and why the sovietological profession was notoriously reluctant to expose the realities of Soviet life.
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It was responsible in part for the excessive emphasis on Russian within the Soviet and Slavic field, often to the total exclusion of non-Russian cultures. It was present, above all, in the assumptions and illusions surrounding views on the Second World War. Half a century after that war was fought, the majority of episodes which contradict the Allied myth continued to be minimized or discounted,
[ALTMARKT] [KATYN] [KEELHAUL]

Many wartime stereotypes have been perpetuated, especially regarding Eastern Europe. One can observe a clear-cut hierarchy of perceptions at work which are related to the degree of subservience of various nations to the Allied cause. The Czechs and Serbs, for example, who had a long tradition of co-operation with Russia and of hostility towards Germany, fitted well into the Allied scheme. So they could be hailed as ‘brave’, ‘friendly’, and ‘democratic’—at least until the wars in Bosnia. The Slovaks, Croats, and Baltic nations, in contrast, who were thought to have rejected the friends of the West or to have collaborated with the enemy, deserved no such compliments. The Poles, as always, fitted no one’s scheme. By resisting German aggression, they were obviously fighting staunchly for democracy. By resisting Soviet aggression, they were obviously ‘treacherous’, ‘fascistic’, ‘irresponsible’, and ‘anti-democratic’. The Ukrainians, too, defied classification. Although they probably suffered absolutely the largest number of civilian casualties of any European nation, their main political aim was to escape from Soviet and Russian domination. The best thing to do with such an embarrassing nation was to pretend that it didn’t exist, and to accept the old Tsarist fiction about their being ‘Little Russians’. In reality they were neither little nor Russians,
[UKRAINA]

In the political sphere, the Allied scheme has been the foundation stone of the USA’s supposed ‘special relationship’ with the United Kingdom, and one source for the exclusion of democratic Germany and democratic Japan from bodies such as the UN Security Council. It was explicit when a British Prime Minister scolded the French President over the relative merits of Magna Carta and the ‘Rights of Man’, or when the prospect of a European ‘superstate’ was blasted in tones reminiscent of Pitt or Churchill. It underlay the vote in the British House of Commons in favour of a War Crimes Bill which limits those crimes to offences committed ‘in Germany or in German-controlled territory’—as if no other war
crimes count. Arguably, it was present when a national Holocaust Memorial Museum was opened in Washington.
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The hold of the Allied scheme was perhaps most strongly evident, however, in reactions to the collapse of communism after 1989. The outburst of‘Gorbymania’, the priority given to the integrity of wartime allies (first the USSR and then Yugoslavia), and the wilful confusing of patriotism with nationalism in Eastern Europe can only be explained in terms of pre-set historical reflexes. It was only by a slow process of readjustment that Western opinion learned that ‘Russia’ and the ‘Soviet Union’ were not the same thing; that Gorbachev headed a deeply hated regime; that the Yugoslav Federation was a communist front organization; that the most extreme nationalism was emanating from the communist leadership of Serbia; or that Lithuania, Slovenia, Ukraine, or Croatia were distinct European nations legitimately seeking statehood. The realization that ‘the West’ had been misled on so many basic issues was bound to swell demands for the revision of European history.

Eurohistory

The movement for European unity which began in Western Europe after 1945 was fired by an idealism that contained an important historical dimension. It aimed to remove the welter of ultra-nationalistic attitudes which had fuelled the conflicts of the past. All communities require both a sense of present identity and the sense of a shared past. So historical revision was a natural requirement. The first stage sought to root out the historical misinformation and misunderstandings which had proliferated in all European countries. The second stage was to build a consensus on the positive content of a new ‘Eurohistory’.