It was the nefarious, insidious Huns and Japs against the gallant, valorous Allied heroes. But hold on for a minute! Perhaps things were not so black and white – might they even be the other way around?
By Mark Weber ∙ April 1, 1985
Franklin Roosevelt often lied to further his goals. In a radio address broadcast to the nation on 23 October 1940, for example, he gave “this most solemn assurance” that he had not given any “secret understanding in any shape or form, direct or indirect, with any government or any other nation in any part of…
By Charles Lutton ∙ December 1, 1984
Sir Oswald Ernald Mosley “Bomber” Harris died on 5 April of this year, at the age of 91. As Air Officer Commanding in Chief Bomber Command from February 1942 until the end of the Second World War, he was in charge of Britain’s massive “area bombing” campaign directed against German cities. At least half a…
By Walter Trohan ∙ December 1, 1985
Perhaps the most telling aspect of World War Two historical orthodoxy is its one-dimensional view of war criminals; by current definition these are the losers of a war. The winners decide the degree of the losers' culpability and the depth of their depravity. Apart from this victor's morality play is the reality of the difficult-to-envision…
By Keith Stimely ∙ April 1, 1984
Das Führerhauptquartier 1939-1945 [The Fuehrer Headquarters 1939-1945] compiled and edited by Gerhard Buck. Leoni am Starnberger See [D-8137]: Druffel Verlag, 1983, 176pp, DM 36.00, ISBN 3-8061-0830-7. Die große Zeit des deutschen Films 1933-1945 [The Great Age of German Films 1933-1945) edited by Michele Sakkara. Leoni am Starnberger See [D-8137]: Druffel Verlag, 1980, 184pp, DM 36.00,…
By Charles Lutton ∙ April 1, 1984
Stalin's Secret War by Nikolai Tolstoy. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1981, 463pp, $18.50, ISBN 0-03-047266-0. Pawns of Yalta: Soviet Refugees and America's Role in Their Repatriation by Mark R. Elliott. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1982, 287pp, $17.95, ISBN 0-252-00897-9. Our “present” has to a large degree been shaped by the events of…
By Charles Lutton ∙ December 1, 1984
“Good words are a mask for evil deeds.”– attributed to Joseph Stalin During both the First and Second World Wars, the nations warring against Germany and her allies portrayed their fight as a “world war for humanity.” Despite the opening of hitherto closed government archives and the testimony of political participants, the general public, with…
By Karl Otto Braun ∙ April 1, 1985
During my career as a German diplomat, I had three superiors. The first was Alfred Rosenberg, head of the Foreign Political Office of the National Socialist Party. The next was Foreign Minister Freiherr Konstatin von Neurath, an “old school” conservative. The last was Joachim von Ribbentrop. After the war these men were condemned as criminals…
By Mark Weber ∙ December 1, 1985
In a secret wartime memorandum recently made public, Winston Churchill told his advisers that he wanted to “drench” Germany with poison gas. Churchill's July 1944 memo to his chief of staff Gen. Hastings Ismay was reproduced in the August-September 1985 issue of American Heritage magazine. “I you to think very seriously over this question of…
By Michiko Hasegawa ∙ October 1, 1985
In striking contrast to the situation in North America and Europe, historical revisionism enjoys widespread support and even official sanction in Japan. The growing willingness of the Japanese to reassess their nation's role in the “Greater East Asia War” received worldwide attention during the so-called “textbook controversy” of 1962, when new Japanese high school history…
By Robert J. Chapman ∙ July 1, 1985
It has been often said that the first casualty of war is truth. Belligerents have always had their own versions of history, particularly with regard to responsibility for wars. And yet certain basic facts and events have not been totally suppressed, if only due to the lack of total media technology and control. Roman statesmen…
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