Summary
Highlights
The end of World War II did not signify the end of deep-seated resentments, both national and ideological. The war's brutality left 70,000 Soviet villages and 1,700 towns destroyed, with 16 million dead. Even as the Soviets occupied Berlin, acts of retribution had already begun, with widespread rapes reported in Vienna and Berlin, and citizens enduring extreme deprivation. The post-war period proved to be horrific in unexpected ways, including the expulsion of Germans from Eastern European countries.
Anti-semitism was a pervasive European and global phenomenon, not limited to Germany, leading to significant Jewish emigration to Israel post-war. Despite the horrors, optimism persisted through underground resistance movements. However, the psychology of submission led to widespread collaboration, with neighbors betraying neighbors. French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre likened this submission to sado-masochism. The aftermath forced nations to confront difficult questions about the meaning of resistance and collaboration.
While the Nuremberg trials addressed Nazi crimes, a desperate Europe saw communities and individuals seeking revenge against collaborators. Many had aided or accommodated the Nazis out of support or destitution. This led to merciless retribution after the war; an estimated 10,000 were extrajudicially killed in France, with many more lynched in Italy, Belgium, and the Netherlands. Legal proceedings also saw severe sentencing: 55,000 tried in Norway, 100,000 imprisoned in the Netherlands, and thousands executed or imprisoned in Czechoslovakia.
France faced particularly complex questions about state collaboration, as Vichy France acted as a puppet state and deported 76,000 Jews. Yet, resistance also thrived, exemplified by figures like Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre. A famous anecdote between Picasso and a German officer highlighted the artists' perspective on complicity. Women in France who had liaisons with Nazis faced public humiliation, with their heads shaved—a historic punishment enforced zealously post-liberation, impacting around 20,000 women. Historian Stanley Hoffman distinguished between 'collaboration for the benefit of France' and 'collaborationism for personal or political gain', with the latter judged more harshly, though one could easily descend into the other.
The challenge of denazifying Germany was immense, with a significant number of professionals like doctors having been registered Nazi members. In 1946, 37% of Germans believed the extermination of Jews was necessary, and in 1952, 25% still held a good opinion of Hitler. Despite widespread collaboration, the need for Europe to forget the extent of fascist sympathy eventually superseded the drive for retaliation. By the end of the 1950s, few Nazis remained in prison. Sartre famously encapsulated this era for France, stating that the whole country both resisted and collaborated, acknowledging the equivocal nature of their actions and the 'subtle poison' that corrupted even noble deeds.