Armageddon - Max Hastings [377]
Those who fulfil law-abiding and peaceful lives find it hard to grasp what it must be like for men who have committed unspeakable crimes against their fellow humans to return to an after-life in civilization. All men who participate in wars find themselves obliged to do things which, if they are decent people, they afterwards regret. That was the case with many American and British soldiers, and some German and Russian ones, after the Second World War. More than a few were traumatized for years by events in which they had participated. Other Germans and Russians, however, including those who must be categorized as war criminals, suffered no guilts or doubts. They developed a mechanism for justifying their actions, and for expunging memories, which has served them well. How else could the mass-killers, so many of whom went unpunished, have continued to go to work, visit the local café, shop at the supermarket, watch television, kiss their children and grandchildren goodnight until death claimed them in their beds? It is necessary for mankind to be capable of forgetting, and for societies to know how to forgive. But it must be a matter for regret that many individuals who bore responsibility for terrible deeds escaped a reckoning.
The Western allies were obliged to conclude the Second World War having freed western Europe from the tyranny of Hitler while acquiescing in the subjection of eastern Europe to that of Stalin. He had got there first. More than any other combatant, the United States chose to focus overwhelmingly upon its military objective, the destruction of Hitler, with limited regard for the political future, save a general commitment to self-determination for all nations. This was intended to be altruistic, but it also proved naive. The British were wrong after the war to seek to blame the United States for the Soviet Union’s seizure of eastern Europe. It is hard to see how this could have been prevented, given the Western allies’ sluggish conduct of the war, for which the British bore at least as much responsibility as the United States. But despite all the efforts of Roosevelt’s apologists to argue that his conduct towards Stalin reflected merely a pragmatic view of strategic realities, the balance of evidence suggests that the U.S. president was indeed slow to perceive the depth of horror and cruelty which Stalin represented. Roosevelt treated Churchill and his fears about eastern Europe with a condescension merited only by American might, not by superior judgement. The president fully recognized Soviet perfidy only in the last weeks of his life, as Moscow systematically breached all its Yalta undertakings to support pluralism in the governance of the “liberated” countries of eastern Europe.
Churchill could have attended Roosevelt’s funeral in April 1945. The logistical difficulties were surmountable, as Roy Jenkins has observed. Yet he chose not to do so. It is difficult not to regard the prime minister’s absence as a reflection of the alienation between himself and the president, which grew grave indeed in the last months of Roosevelt’s life. By 1945, the Russians cared little for British remonstrances, but they respected the power of the Americans. Stalin’s recognition that the United States would do little to frustrate his designs upon eastern Europe confirmed his belief that he possessed freedom of action there.
So much public sentiment was lavished upon the partnership between Britain and the United States during the war years, above all through the rhetoric of Churchill, that it is important to emphasize that affection played no part in the decisions or actions of either ally. At all times, tough negotiation and hard-headed calculation determined American