Abstract
This chapter examines the period between the retreat of the Nazis and the armies of their allies from various parts of Europe, which generally can be dated from 1944 to the establishment of a new order that took until 1947 in some parts of the continent. The events during this interregnum overlap with the transition from war to peace, which is itself hard to date precisely because of the continuation of the fighting into the post-war period in many parts of Europe. In order to come to terms with the immediate post-war as a time of ongoing violence, one has to start with the war itself. The chapter then goes on to discuss the character of the violence, the role of state structures, the place of retribution and vengeance, and ends with reference to the post-war victimhood of women and of Jews.
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Notes
- 1.
Keith Lowe, Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of World War II, London: Penguin, 2013, p. 28.
- 2.
Ian Kershaw, To Hell and Back: Europe 1914–1949, New York: Penguin, 2015, p. 472.
- 3.
István Deák, Europe on Trial: The Story of Collaboration, Resistance, and Retribution During World War II, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2015, p. 142.
- 4.
Stathis Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence in Civil War, Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
- 5.
Norman M. Naimark, “The Persistence of ‘the Postwar’: Germany and Poland”, in Frank Biess, Robert G. Moeller (eds.), Histories of the Aftermath: The Legacies of the Second World War in Europe, New York: Berghahn, 2010, p. 17; Timothy Snyder, Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin, New York: Basic Books, 2010, pp. 326–331.
- 6.
István Deák, Europe on Trial …, p. 91. Holly Case, Between States: The Transylvanian Question and the European Idea During World War II, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009.
- 7.
Max Bergholz, Violence as a Generative Force: Identity, Nationalism, and Memory in a Balkan Community, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2016.
- 8.
Holly Case, The Age of Questions, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018, pp. 130–133.
- 9.
On the foibe killings and their repercussions, see Arnold Suppan, Hitler-Beneš-Tito: Konflikt, Krieg und Völkermord, Part 2, Vienna: Verlag der ÖAW, 2014, pp. 1343–1347, 1691–1698. See also Glenda Sluga, “The Risiera di San Sabba: Fascism, Anti-Fascism and Italian Nationalism”, Journal of Modern Italian Studies, No. 1, 1996, pp. 401–412.
- 10.
Donald Bloxham and A. Dirk Moses, “Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing”, in Donald Bloxham and Robert Gerwarth (eds.), Political Violence in Twentieth-Century Europe, Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press, 2011, p. 125.
- 11.
For the fate of the Donauschwaben, see the English version of the Suppan volumes cited in note 9: Arnold Suppan, Hitler, Beneš, Tito: National Conflicts, World Wars, Genocides, Expulsions, and Divided Remembrances, Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences, 2019, pp. 647–649.
- 12.
Ian Kershaw, To Hell and Back …, p. 473.
- 13.
The terms “forced removal” or “population transfer” are not much better. See Richard Bessel and Claudia B. Haake (eds.), Removing Peoples: Forced Removal in the Modern World, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. See Alf Lüdtke’s useful discussion of terms, “Explaining Forced Migration”, pp. 16–22. See also Matthew Frank, Expelling the Germans: British Opinion and Post-1945 Population Transfer in Context, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008, pp. 8–9.
- 14.
For mostly successful attempts to theorise violence in situations of ethnic cleansing, see Christian Gerlach, Extremely Violent Societies: Mass Violence in the Twentieth-Century World, Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press, 2010; Jacques Sémelin, Purify and Destroy: The Political Uses of Massacre and Genocide, London: C. Hurst & Co., 2007; Michael Mann, The Dark Side of Democracy: Explaining Ethnic Cleansing, Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
- 15.
See Roger Peterson, Understanding Ethnic Violence: Fear, Hatred, and Resentment in Twentieth-Century Eastern Europe, Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press, 2002, pp. 49–50.
- 16.
Gregor Thum says the number was 4–4.5 million, in Uprooted: How Breslau became Wroclaw during the Century of Expulsions. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011, p. 65.
- 17.
See the discussion of numbers in Norman M. Naimark, Fires of Hatred: Ethnic Cleansing in Twentieth-Century Europe, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001, pp. 119–121.
- 18.
Timothy Snyder, Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning, New York: Tim Duggan Books, 2015, pp. 178–181.
- 19.
Norman M. Naimark, Fires of Hatred …, pp. 127–128.
- 20.
On the secret police forces and their limitations, see Molly Pucci, Security Empire: The Secret Police in Communist Eastern Europe, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2020.
- 21.
See Padraic Kenney, Rebuilding Poland: Workers and Communists 1945–1950, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997, pp. 139–141.
- 22.
See especially, István Deák, Jan T. Gross, Tony Judt, The Politics of Retribution: World War II and its Aftermath, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000; Tony Judt, Postwar: A History of Europe since 1945, New York: Penguin, 2005; Jan T. Gross, Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland After Auschwitz: An Essay in Historical Interpretation, New York: Random House, 2010; István Deák, Europe on Trial …
- 23.
István Deák, Europe on Trial …, p. 204.
- 24.
John Coetzee, Disgrace, London: Secker and Warburg, 1999, pp. 111–112.
- 25.
Cited in Keith Lowe, Savage Continent …, p. 147.
- 26.
Tony Judt, Postwar …, p. 61.
- 27.
This observation comes from conversations with the German historian of Nazism, Norbert Frei, who taught at Stanford in spring 2019.
- 28.
Andrew H. Beattie, Allied Internment Camps in Occupied Germany: Extrajudicial Detention in the Name of Denazification, 1945–1950, Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press, 2019, p. 111.
- 29.
Andreas Kossert, Kalte Heimat: Die Geschichte der deutschen Vertriebenen nach 1945, Berlin: Siedler, 2008.
- 30.
Wendy Lower, Nazi Furies: German Women in the Nazi Killing Fields, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2013.
- 31.
Evgeny Finkel, Ordinary Jews: Choice and Survival During the Holocaust, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017, pp. 95–97.
- 32.
See Norman M. Naimark, The Russians in Germany: A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945–1949, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995, pp. 68–140. See also Norman M. Naimark, “The Russians and Germans: Rape during the War and Post-Soviet Memories”, in Raphaelle Branche and Fabrice Virgili (eds.), Rape in Wartime, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, pp. 201–219.
- 33.
Miriam Gebhardt, Als die Soldaten kamen: Die Vergewaltigung deutscher Frauen am Ende des Zweiten Weltkriegs, Munich: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 2015.
- 34.
Fabrice Virgili, Shorn Women: Gender and Punishment in Liberation France, Oxford: Berg, 2002, p. 189; Keith Lowe, Savage Continent …, pp. 164, 170.
- 35.
István Deák, Europe on Trial …, p. 181.
- 36.
Jan T. Gross, Fear …, pp. 28, 109–110.
- 37.
Martin Conway and Robert Gerwarth, “Revolution and Counterrevolution”, in Bloxham and Gerwarth (eds.), Political Violence …, p. 155.
- 38.
István Deák, Europe on Trial …, p. 81.
- 39.
István Deák, Essays on Hitler’s Europe, Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2001.
- 40.
Norman M. Naimark, Stalin and the Fate of Europe: The Postwar Struggle for Sovereignty, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2019.
References
Bibliography
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Case, Holly. 2009. Between States: The Transylvanian Question and the European Idea During World War II. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
———. 2018. The Age of Questions. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Coetzee, John. 1999. Disgrace. London: Secker and Warburg.
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———. 2015. Europe on Trial: The Story of Collaboration, Resistance, and Retribution During World War II. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Deák, István, Jan T. Gross, and Tony Judt. 2000. The Politics of Retribution: World War II and its Aftermath. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Finkel, Evgeny. 2017. Ordinary Jews: Choice and Survival During the Holocaust. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Frank, Matthew. 2008. Expelling the Germans: British Opinion and Post-1945 Population Transfer in Context. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Gebhardt, Miriam. 2015. Als die Soldaten kamen: Die Vergewaltigung deutscher Frauen am Ende des Zweiten Weltkriegs. Munich: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt.
Gerlach, Christian. 2010. Extremely Violent Societies: Mass Violence in the Twentieth-Century World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Gross, Jan T. 2010. Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland After Auschwitz: An Essay in Historical Interpretation. New York: Random House.
Judt, Tony. 2005. Postwar: A History of Europe since 1945. New York: Penguin.
Kenney, Padraic. 1997. Rebuilding Poland: Workers and Communists 1945–1950. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Kershaw, Ian. 2015. To Hell and Back: Europe 1914–1949. New York: Penguin.
Kossert, Andreas. 2008. Kalte Heimat: Die Geschichte der deutschen Vertriebenen nach 1945. Berlin: Siedler.
Lowe, Keith. 2013. Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of World War II. London: Penguin.
Lower, Wendy. 2013. Nazi Furies: German Women in the Nazi Killing Fields. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Lüdtke, Alf. 2008. Explaining Forced Migration. In Removing Peoples: Forced Removal in the Modern World, ed. Richard Bessel and Claudia B. Haake, 13–34. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Mann, Michael. 2005. The Dark Side of Democracy: Explaining Ethnic Cleansing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Naimark, Norman M. 1995. The Russians in Germany: A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945–1949. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
———. 2001. Fires of Hatred: Ethnic Cleansing in Twentieth-Century Europe. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
———. 2010. The Persistence of ‘the Postwar’: Germany and Poland. In Histories of the Aftermath: The Legacies of the Second World War in Europe, ed. Frank Biess and Robert G. Moeller, 13–29. New York: Berghahn Books.
———. 2012. The Russians and Germans: Rape during the War and Post-Soviet Memories. In Rape in Wartime, ed. Raphaelle Branche and Fabrice Virgili, 201–219. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
———. 2019. Stalin and the Fate of Europe: The Postwar Struggle for Sovereignty. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Peterson, Roger. 2002. Understanding Ethnic Violence: Fear, Hatred, and Resentment in Twentieth-Century Eastern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Pucci, Molly. 2020. Security Empire: The Secret Police in Communist Eastern Europe. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Sémelin, Jacques. 2007. Purify and Destroy: The Political Uses of Massacre and Genocide. London: C. Hurst & Co.
Sluga, Glenda. 1996. The Risiera di San Sabba: Fascism, Anti-Fascism and Italian Nationalism. Journal of Modern Italian Studies 1: 401–412.
Snyder, Timothy. 2010. Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin. New York: Basic Books.
Snyder, Timzothy. 2015. Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning. New York: Tim Duggan Books.
Stathis, Kalyvas. 2006. The Logic of Violence in Civil War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Suppan, Arnold. 2014. Hitler-Beneš-Tito: Konflikt, Krieg und Völkermord, Part 2. Vienna: Verlag der ÖAW.
———. 2019. Hitler, Beneš, Tito: National Conflicts, World Wars, Genocides, Expulsions, and Divided Remembrances. Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences.
Thum, Gregor. 2011. Uprooted: How Breslau became Wroclaw during the Century of Expulsions. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Virgili, Fabrice. 2002. Shorn Women: Gender and Punishment in Liberation France. Oxford: Berg.
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Naimark, N.M. (2022). Violence in the European Interregnum, 1944–1947. In: Konrád, O., Barth, B., Mrňka, J. (eds) Collective Identities and Post-War Violence in Europe, 1944–48. World Histories of Crime, Culture and Violence. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78386-0_2
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