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September 22, 2009
Revenge: Jewish Fantasies, Russian Realities
Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds, following on Defiance, voices the Jewish musing on revenge against Nazis during and after World War II. Defiance was based on reality; Basterds was a fantasy (which I may see on video, but not at a theater).
I've wondered what would have happened had the atomic bomb been available a year earlier; would Roosevelt have dropped it on Berlin, or Dresden, or Hamburg and brought the war to an earlier end? What would Germany have done? Japan?
After the war, Jews sought justice in various ways, and bagged the biggest fish with the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem in 1961.
But the problem with revenge is it cannot be a controlled exercise. Once the bloodshed begins against enemies, the slaughter picks up a momentum of its own and can consume the executioners who started the process.
Consider this: Are some forms of revenge acceptable, and others not? We don't need the fantasies of Tarantino to show the relevance of that question. The Red Army in World War II provides the starkest example of revenge impulses gone berserk.
The Red Army became a pack of rapists as it moved west into Germany, according to historical research. While the fantasy might involve a clean swoop and slaughter of the SS and Gestapo, the reality was the Russian vengeance fell on the helpless in the path of the Red Army. Historian Antony Bever wrote in the London paper The Guardian:
Calls to avenge the Motherland, violated by the Wehrmacht's invasion, had given the idea that almost any cruelty would be allowed. Even many young women soldiers and medical staff in the Red Army did not appear to disapprove. "Our soldiers' behaviour towards Germans, particularly German women, is absolutely correct!" said a 21-year-old from Agranenko's reconnaissance detachment. A number seemed to find it amusing.
For a dramatic Germany perspective, the movie A Woman in Berlin portrays one woman's experience -- based on a book that the anonymous author was strongly criticized for in the 1950s. But the truth continues to come out.
My point: only in movies like "The Godfather" is revenge a surgically precise act. In the real world, the results can be ghastly.
Van | 09/22/09 at 09:10 PM | Categories:
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Comments
The discussion of 'Russian realities' is very kind in light of the Holocaust but, for me, it brings to mind another Russian reality (?) which this movie seems to ignore in favor of the real 'myth of the Holocaust' which is that Jews have always been innocent victims only. What about the Russian Revolution? Was that to some extent a real life 'revenge fantasy' of Jews against czarist Russia. What of Trotsky's plan to take 'surplus value' from the Russian peasantry, a plan Stalin implemented. Exploration of those historical events from the standpoint, in part, of how they could have been (or not) Jewish revenge would have been more interesting than Tarantino's movie.
Michael B | September 23, 2009 04:57 PM
It's not revenge, it's retribution. Eichmann was tried and convicted. Should no-one pay for the crimes they commit?
miriam | September 29, 2009 11:48 PM
Hamburg had already been destroyed by radar-guided bombing. Dresden had little military or political impact on the war.
Europe was a land war, whereas the Pacific was a sea and air war. I think it more likely that the atomic bomb would have been used on the battlefield to destroy entire German army formations first, and then against German cities only if the Nazis had refused surrender.
Solomon2 | October 6, 2009 03:27 PM
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