Harry Turtledove Message Board
Feather the Stone posts on 8/25/2007 7:37:16 PM
So the Germans didn't try the guerrilla/terrorism option because the worst Nazis had been arrested, and the people at large was too hungry? And then, a decade later, they've got a democratic government making sensible choices and clearly democratic? I still feel it was a bit fast... did most of those screaming Nazi fanatics and indoctrinated Hitlerjugend kids just turn into good citizens because of the Cold War and fear of a Red invasion? Interesting... I wonder if there are lessons there for TL-191. (American occupation in Japan also somehow managed to produce a rather democratic and liberal country -- the Japanese may have their weird sides, but not like during WWII anymore.)
Crimson Kid posts on 8/25/2007 2:05:46 PM
The C.S.A.-Germany parallels exist particularly thinking of the French desire for a war of revenge against Germany after the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71) that established the German Empire--roughly comparable to the Second Mexican War in the ATL, which resulted in Remembrance Day being instituted in the U.S.A. (OTL France needed to engineer a situation wherein she had sufficient powerful allies to win, being weaker than Germany, which isn't parallel to the ATL situation.)
After losing World War I, OTL Germany wanted revenge against the Allies and turned to Hitler just as in the ATL the C.S.A. turned to Featherston. Most people in the ATL U.S.A. simply thought that the American victory in the Great War made things more or less "even" between the two neighbors, but in the C.S.A. it easn't seen that way--the Freedom Party Confederates felt they had to "settle accounts" for their defeat in the Great War, just like the Nazis in OTL Germany prepared for a war of revenge after losing in World War I.
Makkabee posts on 8/25/2007 11:54:48 AM
So, the USA and CSA had been fighting on and off for more than 80 years. Germany and France had been fighting for more than 800. Until 843 they'd been part of a single state -- the Frankish empire of Charlamagne and his son Louis the Pious. Charlie's grandsons divided the empire into three pieces, Germany and France squished the third piece (Lotharingia, a small chunk of which is now known as Lotharingen in German and Lorraine in French) and spent roughly the next 1000 years fighting over the spoils.
And of course you've got a history of conflict between France and England that's almost as long. If they can get over it, so can the Yankees and Rebs, eventually -- so long as government policy actually rewards reconciliation instead of copying the assinine and hopelessly illogical policy the US pursued in Canada between the wars.
John Gizzi posts on 8/25/2007 10:39:50 AM
I'm the John Gizzi Yes I'm the real Gizzi All you other John Gizzis Are just imi-gizzin' So won't the real John Gizzi Please Giz up Please Giz up Please Giz up.
mark taha posts on 8/25/2007 8:42:37 AM
Morgenthau plan never implemented-thank God.
Jack posts on 8/25/2007 8:19:02 AM
Far from unresolvable, there are many many comments to the effect that it could go either way. Eventually the Rebs should realize that, tempting as having their loved ones killed as hostages may sound, having a strong infrastructure, educational system, and representative government is probably a slightly better proposition. Finally, you're misrepresenting German history in the late 1940s. The Allies authorized mass expulsions of Germans, ie ethnic cleansing, from the many territories that eastern European members of the AF were claiming as the spoils of war, territories that still haven't been returned and probably never will be, as most Germans have forgotten they were ever theirs. And those who weren't expelled were severely mistreated. The economy of Germany was forcibly deindustrialized under the Morgenthau Plan. The standard of living was DELIBERATELY SET at Great Depression levels, and nutrition levels approached starvation levels with international relief agencies being kept out, except of course to feed non-Germans living in Germany. Not much resistance -- because hard core Nazis were being locked up, soft core Nazis left the party because it had failed to live up to its promise of an escape from the conditions described above (and of course to save their skins) and everyone was too hungry to resist.
Feather the Stone posts on 8/25/2007 6:43:05 AM
It's interesting that OTL Germany didn't start guerilla or terrorist actions the moment the Allies occupied them. Did they ever do anything after Dönitz surrendered? I mean, did all those enthusiastic Nazis just stopped hating the Allies after defeat, and decided to just take care of their personal lives (like the soldier Potter met at the end of IatD)? And that even before the Allies started treating them well? Is it the case that the CS anti-US hate (which, after all, was a defining fact in its very identity, since they became a country fighting the US) so much harder to treat (or change into at least fear) than the hate I'd imagine Germans would feel against the occupying Allies? (I suppose in the end Turtledove makes US-CS hate look as unresolvable as Israeli-Palestinian hate. I suppose it all boils down to exactly how capable of changing you think human nature to be.)
Makkabee posts on 8/23/2007 6:42:37 PM
Feather, the change you describe could take place eventually, but it will require massive changes in education and a softening of the initially harsh occupation policy to prevent white southerners from lumping everything together with "yankee lies and oppression" and that softening will only happen if continued guerilla resistence collapses. Hopefully US authorities will figure out the need to apply the carrot as well as the stick and build up a base of loyalist southerners who see accomodation as their region's best chance. At the point the series ended things really could go either way, and speculative essays on the future of the timeline would interest me a great deal.
Jack posts on 8/23/2007 12:27:41 AM
Berg, his name is Feather the Stone, not Father of the Stone. West Germany, which was a sovereign country, was treated well by NATO, but before that, the US and the UK were okay as administrators in their zones, but France was quite vindictive, perhaps because, unlike the others, it had not had the chance to work out its grudges by actually defeating the Germans. The Soviets treated their zone badly even after creating East Germany. Bomb damage was left unrepaired for more than forty years because the Kremlin thought they needed to be reminded of their shame. Mak, if you're Featherston in disguise, admitting that you're Featherston in disguise is somewhat counterproductive.
Berg posts on 8/22/2007 6:11:02 PM
To Father of the Stone. The US in TL-191 appears to be handling the CSA much harsher than German was handled OTL, so I doubt it will follow a course like Germany.
The Germans were lucky OTL because of the Cold War. Both the East and West Germans were treated like Allies by either the USA or USSR depending on which part of Germany you were in. Both were willing to look over Nazi pasts and de-nazification fell out of favor due to it.
Click Here for Messages:
1 - 10
11 - 20
21 - 30
31 - 40
41 - 50
51 - 60
61 - 70
71 - 80
81 - 90
91 - 100
101 - 110
111 - 120
121 - 130
131 - 140
141 - 150
151 - 160
161 - 170
171 - 180
181 - 190
191 - 200
Note: the views expressed here are only those of the posters.
