Vladimir Gelfand. Diary 1941-1946/Seeking Peace in the Wake of War: Europe, 1943

Sandrine Kott, Peter Romijn, Stefan-Ludwig Hoffmann, Olivier Wieviorka "Seeking Peace in the Wake of War: Europe, 1943-1947"

Gebundene Ausgabe: 360 Seiten Artikel: Seeking Peace in the Wake of War: Europe, 1943-1947 (NIOD Studies on War, Holocaust and Genocide) AUTOR(EN) / HERAUSGEBER: Sandrine Kott (Herausgeber), Peter Romijn (Herausgeber), Dr Stefan-Ludwig Hoffmann (Herausgeber), Professor of History Olivier Wieviorka (Herausgeber) Verlag: Amsterdam University Press. Niod Studies on War, Holocaust, and Genocide; Auflage: 1 (15. Juni 2016) Sprache: Englisch ISBN-10: 9089643788 ISBN-13: 978-9089643780 Größe und/oder Gewicht: 15,2 x 2,5 x 22,9 cm Preis: 101,99 € Price: $100.58				ISBN: 9789048515257 Release date: 17-11-2015 Available: Directly Edition: PDF Pages: 360 Editor: Peter Romijn, Sandrine Kott, Olivier Wieviorka, Stefan Hoffmann Also available as: Hardback Series: NIOD Studies on War, Holocaust, and Genocide Preis: € 98,99

There is hardly a diary or travel report that does not express indignation about the fact that after the defeat the Germans suddenly no longer wanted to be Nazis and that they concealed or withheld their ‘true’ feelings, which could only have been hatred of the occupiers. For this reason, the initial friendly interactions with the German civilian population immediately after the war appeared politically suspicious. The prohibition on fraternization issued by the Allies to punish the Germans and to protect their own soldiers in the case of a guerrilla war soon proved to be pointless, as the diaries richly illustrate. For German and Soviet diarists as well, the interactions between vanquished and occupier – not only the open liaisons between Allied soldiers and German women – were the most significant impressions of the initial post-war months. This all too unconstrained interaction with the defeated enemy became the prevailing issue of the occupation, to which the Western democracies responded differently from the Soviet Union. Even more than the violence at the end of the war, it was the lawlessness and terror through which the Stalinist regime sought to prevent this contact between occupier and vanquished in everyday life that cost the Soviet Union any moral credibility it had earned in the war against Nazi Germany. Whereas the British and the Americans came to Germany with a strict prohibition on fraternization that they gradually loosened the closer the vanquished and the occupiers became in everyday life, the Soviet troops were completely separated from the German civilian population (and the Western Allies) beginning in 1946 and all private contact with Germans was forbidden. Many Soviet officers and soldiers subsequently deserted to the West, often with their German lovers. In the diary of young Soviet lieutenant Vladimir Gelfand – the most important subject of which was his relationships with German women (and the formal calls he paid to their families) – desperation about the restrictions imposed by the victors was already evident in August 1945, when the first measures regarding the barracking of Soviet soldiers were introduced:

Now it is time to rest a bit, to see what one has never seen before – the world abroad – and to become acquainted with that which one knew so little about and which one had no clear idea about – the life, the mores and customs abroad – and finally also to go into the city, to see people, to talk to them, and to drive around, to enjoy a tiny bit of happiness (if this should exist in Germany). We have been forbidden to speak to the Germans, to spend the night at their residences, to purchase anything from them. Now the final things have been forbidden – to visit a German city, to go through the streets, to look at the ruins. Not only for soldiers, for officers as well. But this can’t be true! We are humans, we cannot sit in a cage, all the more so when our duties do not end at the barracks gate and we’ve already had it up to here with the conditions and life in the barracks, darn it all. [...] What do I want? Freedom! The freedom to live, to think, to work, and to enjoy life. Now all this has been taken from me. I have been denied access to Berlin.

Over the next two years Gelfand, who was stationed outside Berlin, was able repeatedly, albeit with increasing difficulty, to arrange assignments in the city. ‘Here there is more freedom’, he noted on 14 January 1946, after such a visit. On the streets ‘one frequently sees Red Army soldiers walking arm in arm with German women or embracing them. There is no separate entrance for cinemas and theatres, and the German restaurants are always quite full with officers.’ During subsequent visits, the last of which occurred in late 1946, Gelfand was troubled by the conspicuous contrast between the vanquished, who enjoyed ever more freedoms and abandoned their fearful respect of the occupiers, and the Soviet victors, whose freedoms were curtailed in every respect – an impression reinforced by visits to a homeland ravaged by war under Stalinist rule. The changes in the way ‘Russians’ were depicted in British and American diaries and travel reports on the basis of contacts on the ground in occupied post-war Central Europe is a significant issue that has received almost no attention to date. In the spring of 1945, the Allies still dismissed German reports of Red Army violence as Nazi horror propaganda. Beginning in the summer of 1945, however, the diaries included with growing frequency descriptions of threatening, even sinister experiences with the Stalinist regime. These intensified the catastrophic impression of the demolished cities and of the desolate humanitarian situation in post-war Germany, leading left-liberal journalists such as Victor Gollancz to intervene on behalf of the vanquished in the tradition of English social reformers. In their everyday encounters with Germans, Western observers were confronted with a dilemma that the British commander of the Tiergarten district of Berlin summarized in his memoirs in 1946: ‘It was quite impossible to harbour feelings of any hostility towards these unfortunate wretches.’ British and American diarists certainly also regarded the suffering of the German civilian population as just punishment for German crimes, not least those committed in extermination camps.

Stefan-Ludwig Hoffmann is associate professor of history and director of the Human Rights Program at the University of California, Berkeley. Sandrine Kott is professor of contemporary European history at the University of Geneva. Peter Romijn is head of the research department at the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust, and Genocide Studies and professor of history at the University of Amsterdam. Olivier Wieviorka is professor of history at l Ecole normale superieure in Cachan, France."

Editors: Stefan-Ludwig Hoffmann, Sandrine Kott, Peter Romijn, Olivier Wieviorka. "Seeking Peace in the Wake of War: Europe, 1943-1947 (NIOD Studies on War, Holocaust and Genocide)". Published by Amsterdam University Press, 2016, Amsterdam, the Netherlands

When World War II ended, Europe was in ruins. Yet politically and socially, the years between 1943 and 1947 were a time of dramatic reconfigurations that proved to be foundational for the making of today’s Europe. This volume homes in on the crucial period from the beginning of the end of Nazi rule to the advent of the Cold War. It demonstrates how the everyday experiences of Europeans during these five years shaped the transition of their societies from war to peace. The essays explore these reconfigurations on different scales and levels with the purpose of enhancing our understanding of how wars end.