The Savage Peace - 1945

[bennydorano]

One for the War buffs. On BBC iplayer for those interested & missed it, some harrowing accounts of reprisals against Germans in the aftermath of VE Day.

"Enjoy the war as the Peace will be savage".

[sensethetone]

Shocking Stuff.

[upthehoops]

Watched most of it. Riveting program but the scale of atrocities was shocking. I was totally unaware of the extent of the brutality that followed WW2. Must see program for any one interested in 20th century history .

[bennydorano]

Prague stuck in my mind. Described as a city that came through the war relatively unscathed and was considered a cushy posting for soldiers, the reprisals here seemed disproportionately harsh.

some seriously shocking stuff. I'd no idea this kinda stuff had occurred either.

[armaghniac]

Watched most of it. Riveting program but the scale of atrocities was shocking. I was totally unaware of the extent of the brutality that followed WW2. Must see program for any one interested in 20th century history .

This end of things is largely forgotten. Even quite well informed people seem not to know that 12 million Germans were moved at the end of the war, for example, and while everyone has heard of the Lusitania, the name Wilhelm Gustloff might not as easy in the pub quiz.

This sort of stuff not only went unpunished, but largely unremembered

Prague stuck in my mind. Described as a city that came through the war relatively unscathed and was considered a cushy posting for soldiers, the reprisals here seemed disproportionately harsh.

Perhaps. But the German's had been as brutal as anywhere in places like Lidice and they fought in Prague at the end, burning down buildings, when the game was up.


The basic problem is that if you launch destruction it is hard to get it stopped.

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[Hardy]

The chaos and brutality across Europe, but particularly in the East, immediately after the war are well documented in Savage Continent by Keith Lowe. It's one of the best histories I've read in the last few years and certainly the most harrowing.

[StGallsGAA]

If you're interested in this The Devil's Tinderbox is an excellent read.  It sets out how the allies experimented in the mass destruction of German civilians as the war closed by the process of creating fire-storms in Frankfurt, Cologne and finally how they perfected it in Dresden with horrific effectiveness.