Dialog International

Feel the Hate. German Blog Attacks Barack Obama

One of the more popular right-wing blogs in Germany is Politically Incorrect with about 25,000 daily visitors.  It has the image of the American flag as part of its banner, and it proudly proclaims that it is "pro-amerikanisch" - pro-American.  But if an American happens to be black with the name Barack Obama then the blog and its numerous commenters become very hostile indeed.  In fact, "PI" -as it is commonly called - has become a forum for anti-Obama hate in Germany.  Here we can read the misinformation about Senator Obama and his campaign in German that we find on racist blogs in the US such as Michelle Malkin and LittleGreenFootballs. In a typical PI post we learn that "Obama verachtet Amerika, er hat seinen Anti-Amerikanismus mit der Muttermilch aufgesogen." (Obama hates America, he suckled anti-Americanism at his mother's breast). It goes without saying that PI tells its readers that Obama is Muslim, who grew up in a mosque, and whose secret agenda is the Islamicization of America. Here is a typical comment on the blog (Senator Obama is usually identified as "Hussein"):

Na vielleicht wird sie täglich stolzer, wenn ihr Hussein die Islamisierung der USA vorantreibt, wenn er bald dem iranischen Mullahhitlerrregime in den Hintern kriecht, sich die USA aus den Terrorstatten verkriechen, auf dass dort die Koranschulen sprießen, wenn ihr Mann das bekannte Kenedy-Zitat in “Isch bin ein Mohammedaner” umgewandelt hat und Zuwanderung aus der bildungsfernen Unterschicht gepaart mit alten kommunistischen Ideen dem Land seine Identität rauben. (Maybe she (Michelle Obama) will be so proud when Hussein advances the Islamicization of the US, as he sucks up to the Hitler-Mullahs in Iran and takes the US out of the places that breed terror so that Koran schools can flourish, after her husband has changed the famous Kennedy quote to "Ich bin ein Mohammdeaner"and destroyed his country's identity by permitting the immigration of an uneducated underclass while implementing communism.)

Each day brings more hate-filled gems such as this. Incidentally, the blog and its numerous fans often call Obama and Muslims in general  "Musel" or "Muselmänner" - an extremely derogatory term for Muslims, also used by the Nazis to mock the emaciated condition of prisoners in concentration camps. 

A Green Party member of the Bundestag, Fritz Kuhn,  recently responded to a question concerning PI by the blogger Dietmar Naeher (whose blog Politisch Korrekt I recommend):

vor dem Internet-Weblog "Politically Incorrect" kann aus meiner Sicht nur gewarnt werden, dieser Blog behauptet, proisraelisch und proamerikanisch zu sein und lehnt doch mit jedem neuen Beitrag genau die Werte ab, für die diese pluralistischen Demokratien stehen. Behauptet wird, angeblich unterdrückte Nachrichten über die Islamisierung Europas zu verbreiten, in Wahrheit wird Hass gegen alle Moslems geschürt. Dem Islam und allen Moslems wird unterstellt, nichts als Hass und Intoleranz zu verkörpern, dabei ist es dieser Blog, der nur aus Hass und Rassismus besteht und das perverserweise als Kampf gegen Intoleranz ausgibt. Der Blog versucht nichts anderes, als den Islam und die Muslime im wahrsten Sinne des Wortes zu verteufeln. (I can only issue a strong warning concerning the blog Poliitically Incorrect. This blog claims to be pro-American and pro-Israeli but with each post rejects the values of these pluralistic democracies. They say that they are only publishing news about the Islamicization of Europe that supposedly has been suppressed, but in fact they are only spreading hate against all Muslims. They imply that Islam and all Muslims harbor only hate and intolerance, but it is in fact this blog that consists of nothing but hate and racism, even as it perversely presents itself as fighting against intolerance.  The goal of this blog is nothing less than the demonization of Islam and Muslims.)

Will the owners of the blog Politically Incorrect remove the US flag from its banner once President Obama has moved into the White House?

UPDATE: The Bundesverfassungsschutz (Federal Office for Protection of the Consitution) investigates Politically Incorrect.

Fascinating Woman: Gesine Schwan

The office of federal president in Germany is largely ceremonial and Horst Kohler has done a good job over the past four years.  This week the Social Democrats broke an unwritten rule by putting forth the candidacy of one of their own - Gesine Schwan - to run against their coalition partner.  I was vaguely aware of Schwan, since she had already run and lost against Köhler; I assumed she was just a party loyalist.  But Gesine Schwan is not just a politician.  It turns out she is that rarest of individuals in politics: an original thinker. 

Claus Mahlzahn has a piece in Der Spiegel on "Why Germany Needs Gesine Schwan":

Gesine Schwan ist vor allem eine brillante Denkerin. Sie braucht das höchste Staatsamt nach ihrer akademischen Karriere nicht; das Amt aber braucht Menschen wie sie. (Above all Gesine Schwan is a brilliant thinker.  She doesn't need this top  government job after her academic career; but the job needs her.)

Back in the 1980s, Gesine Schwan ruffled feathers in the SPD when she criticized the party's Ostpolitik for being to cozy with communist regimes and not engaging with dissidents.  She was rewarded for her intransigence by being removed from her position of the SPD "Commission on Basic Values".

Schwan has a good relationship and understanding of the United States, having held research positions at Princeton and the New School in New York.  In 1999 - well before George W. Bush - she published a book on anti-Americanism: Antikommunismus und Antiamerikanismus in Deutschland. Kontinuität und Wandel nach 1945.

For the past several years she has been running the European University Viadrina, a small, privately endowed university in eastern Germany, where one third of the students are Polish.  Schwan speaks fluent Polish.

The Sueddeutsche Zeitung has published some notable quotes of Gesine Schwan.  I translate two:

«In Ostdeutschland steigt die Gefahr, dass die Demokratie selbst infrage gestellt wird. Ich beobachte eine forcierte DDR-Nostalgie. Man glaubt, viele Regelungen - vor allem im sozialen Bereich - seien dort besser gewesen.» (There is a growing danger in eastern Germany that Democracy itself is under attack. I can see a growing nostalgia for the GDR. Many feel that the regulations - above all with respect to social programs - were better back then.)

«Für mich sind die Menschen in ihrer Würde gleich, aber nicht in ihren Lebenschancen. Da gibt es furchtbare Diskrepanzen. Die Politik ist dazu da, diese so weit es geht auszugleichen.» ( I believe that all human beings are equal in their dignity, but not in opportunities.  There are terrible discrepancies.  The purpose of politics is to create a level playing field as much as possible).

I don't know whether Gesine Schwan has enough support to beat the popular Horst Köhler.  If she loses, I hope she will continue to play an active role in German politics. 

 

Read Until You Drop

Have you read a book today?  Time is running out if you want to finish 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. This list of books (novels, actually)  was compiled by Peter Boxall of Sussex University who asked 105 critics, editors and academics to submit lists of the most important novels.  From their responses he constructed this mandatory reading list.  The Listology Blog was kind enough to put the list in a very readable format according to date of publication. As one would expect, the list is rather English-language centric, but the selection of German language novels is good and often pleasantly surprising.  Let's have a closer look (all titles are in English translation, as they are on the list).

The list makers were definitely partial to Austrian writers. Peter Handke is represented with 3 novels, Jelinek with one, but Thomas Bernhard has FIVE novels (too much of a good thing?).  The older great writers are represented as well: Joseph Roth, Karl Kraus, Robert Musil (2 novels), Stefan Zweig.  Sadly missing is Elias Canetti; but what is unforgivable is the absence of Hermann Broch - generally regarded as a great modernist equal to James Joyce.  And what happened to Schnitzler?

German novels are well-represented by the triumvirate of Thomas Mann, Günter Grass, and Heinrich Böll but the list also goes much deeper with novels of Heinrich Mann, Uwe Johnson, two women novelists - Anna Seghers and Christa Wolf (2 novels). Hermann Hesse is honored with 3 titles on the list, as is W.G Sebald (who is perhaps more British than German?).  As expected, Wolfgang Koeppen is missing, but this great postwar novelist remains all but invisible to Anglo-American readers, despite excellent translations by Michael Hofmann. On the other hand, the inclusion of Bernhard Schlink and Patrick Süsskind (2 novels apiece) left me a bit cold.

There were two German writers on the list I have not read:  Uwe Timm and Gert Hofmann (Michael's father).  I was able to order Timm's DIe Entdeckung der Currywurst  from Amazon without difficulty, while it appears to easier to find Michael Hofmann's English translation of his father's book The Parable of the Blind than the German original (Der Blindensturz).

In terms of cross-over novelists - writers better known for their works in drama or poetry - I was puzzled by the inclusion of Bertolt Brecht's Three Penny Novel; Rilke's The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge would have been a better choice.

The offerings  get a bit skimpy  once we move back to the 19th century, although Fontane's two masterpieces: Effi Briest and The Stechlin are thankfully listed.  And the list-makers partially atone for their omission of Broch by listing Hölderlin's Hyperion on the very short list of 18th century novels (along with Goethe).

Don't have time to read 1001 novels?  Then try to read the 50 Greatest Novels of the 20th Century  compiled by the Sueddeutsche Zeitung.  Here you will find Koeppen (Das Treibhaus), Schnitzler (Traumnovelle), Rilke (Malte) and Canetti (Die Stimmen von Marrakesch).  Still missing: Hermann Broch!

Take the Train

As Americans head out this weekend for the Memorial Day holiday they are more likely than not driving their cars - and moaning about gas prices that now average US$4 per gallon. In this era of skyrocketing fuel costs Germany (and Europe) have a definite competitive advantage.  The truth is, you can live quite nicely in or near any city in Germany and not own an automobile. Not that Germans don't love their cars; they do. Passionately! But they don't drive them as often as Americans, and, more importantly, they don't need to drive them as often.

Writing from Berlin, the economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman is positively ebullient in his praise of Germany's public transportation infrastructure:

"I have seen the future, and it works."

"We’re living in a world in which oil prices keep setting records, in which the idea that global oil production will soon peak is rapidly moving from fringe belief to mainstream assumption. And Europeans who have achieved a high standard of living in spite of very high energy prices — gas in Germany costs more than $8 a gallon — have a lot to teach us about how to deal with that world."

Among American cities, only New York City, and possibly San Francisco, have a public transportation system that can compare with any European city.  And even then, the options for traveling from the suburbs into New York City are woefully inadequate (I should know. I commuted to NY for seven years).  Last week I was in Atlanta and had to rent a car to reach my destination (within the Atlanta city limits).  Krugman writes:

"Greater Atlanta has roughly the same population as Greater Berlin — but Berlin is a city of trains, buses and bikes, while Atlanta is a city of cars, cars and cars."

When I bring this issue up with Americans I always get the same arguments: "Americans like their freedom." "America is too big for a railway system."  "Europeans are different."  But a sensible public transportation policy is a matter of political will and political leadership.  It doesn't happen by itself.  Three German academics followed up on Krugman's piece with a Letter to the Editor:

Germany worked hard to become the positive example Paul Krugman describes. Our study, to be published by the Brookings Institution, finds that Germany achieved its standing through deliberate policy choices.

After World War II, Germany rebuilt its cities and accommodated the automobile by abandoning trolley lines, widening urban roads and building automobile parking garages in downtowns.

Since the late 1960s, policy makers have reversed this trend. Today German transport and land use policies are geared toward multimodal transportation by providing infrastructure, services and safety for walking, cycling and transit, and by making car use more expensive and less convenient.

In Germany, it is precisely the combination of transportation options for alternative modes and restrictions on automobiles that have made more sustainable travel behavior politically feasible and publicly acceptable.

The United States can learn from Germany how to successfully promote alternative modes of transport in a country that loves its automobiles.

I definitely want to read the Brookings Institute report on this when it comes out.

Review: Susan Jacoby's The Age of American Unreason

I admired Susan Jacoby's 2004 book Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism, which poked giant holes in the notion that the United States began as a "Christian nation".  In her most recent effort - The Age of American Unreason - she traces the decline of Enlightenment reason in America and the disastrous consequence of this today in public education and political discourse.  The book was meant to be a sequel to Richard Hofstadter's great 1963 study Anti-Intellectualism in American Life, but Jacoby has fallen far short of that goal.

Susan Jacoby does do a good job at compiling a great deal of depressing statistics.  For example:

• Approximately 45% of those with no education beyond high school believe in the literal truth of the Bible.
• 60% of white evangelical Christians contended that the Bible, not popular representation, should shape U.S. law.
• In that context, 2/3 of all Americans were unable to name one Supreme Court Justice.
• 25% of all biology teachers in the US believe that humans and dinosaurs cohabited the earth.
• Despite their religiosity, the majority of American Christians were unable to name the Four Gospels of the New Testament.
• A majority of Christian's polled believed that Jesus said:"God helps those who help themselves." - a well-known quote from Benjamin Franklin.
  
• 2/3 of American high school graduates could not locate Iraq or Afghanistan on a map of the world.

The list goes on and on.  Everywhere there is a decline in literacy and a hostility to intellectualism in America. Jacoby does a good job on diagnosing the problem today, but she runs into problems in identifying the root causes. Nor does she have any real solutions for how we can extricate ourselves from this growing swamp of ignorance.

I do share Jacoby's dismay at the decline of Middlebrow culture in the US.  In her strongest chapter, she writes about the heyday of Middlebrow culture in the 1950s and 1960s, when middle-class American families would flock to museums, buy Britannica Encyclopedia for their children, subscribe to the Book-of-the-Month Club, etc.  They were open to acquiring knowledge as a gateway to a better life and highbrow culture.  But starting in the 1970s Middlebrow culture began to disappear with the rise of television culture and Christian fundamentalism. Today the average American watches 7 hours of television in a 24-hour period.

Blut und Boden

It is now apparent that Republicans will use the Blut und Boden (  Blood and Soil) strategy to beat Barack Obama in the general election this fall.  You see, Barack Obama is not really a true American.  Right-wing columnist Kathleen Parker explains:

Full-bloodedness is an old coin that's gaining currency in the new American realm. Meaning: Politics may no longer be so much about race and gender as about heritage, core values, and made-in-America. Just as we once and still have a cultural divide in this country, we now have a patriot divide.

     Who "gets" America? And who doesn't? 

The answer has nothing to do with a flag lapel pin, which Obama donned for a campaign swing through West Virginia, or even military service, though that helps. It's also not about flagpoles in front yards or magnetic ribbons stuck on tailgates.

     It's about blood equity, heritage and commitment to hard-won American values. And roots.

Needless to say, Senator McCain is held up as a "full-blooded American", while Obama has some African blood, and so American values are alien to him.  Parker even gives a nod to Hillary Clinton, the white candidate, who "gets it":

And, the truth is, Clinton's own DNA is cobbled with many of the same values that rural and small-town Americans cling to. She understands viscerally what Obama has to study.

So it is the DNA molecules that determine the character of true Americans.  Another right-wing commentator, Michael Medved, explains why Americans  - that is, "full-blooded Americans" - are the new Herrenmenschen:

In today’s ruthlessly competitive international economy, the United States may benefit from a potent but unheralded advantage: the aggressive edge sustained by the inherited power of American DNA.

According to this "scientific" view of American national character, the descendents of the original immigrants possess a "distinctive makeup of their “dopamine receptor system – the pathway in the brain that figures centrally in boldness and novelty seeking.”  Soon these advocates of nativism will be measuring skulls.

Of course, Parker and Medved conveniently overlook the fact that the real "full-blooded Americans" were nearly wiped out through genocide.

After California, Gay Marriage in Germany?

In a momentous ruling, the California supreme court upheld the right of same sex couples to marry, ending their second-class standing under law.  The decision was a victory for equality and justice, and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said he would "accept the court's ruling" and not support a constitutional amendment to overturn it.  The court cited previous decisions concerning interracial marriage as a foundation for its decision.

“An individual’s sexual orientation — like a person’s race or gender — does not constitute a legitimate basis upon which to deny or withhold rights,” wrote Chief Justice Ronald George, first appointed to the bench by Gov. Ronald Reagan.

The news from California rippled through the international media. In Germany, it made some reflect on the second-class status of gay couples in the Federal Republic. The TV network ZDF had a program on "Rainbow Families"  - same-sex couples with with children - "Immer noch Familien zweiter Klasse" ( Still Second Class Families) and found that full equality is still a dream in Germany:

Homosexuelle Partnerschaften müssen endlich die gleichen Rechte erhalten wie heterosexuelle Paare. Selbst das erzkatholische Spanien ist in dieser Hinsicht weit fortschrittlicher als Deutschland. (Homosexual partner relationships should receive the same legal rights as heterosexual couples.  Even arch-Catholic Spain is far more progressive in this respect than Germany.)

In Berlin the Green Party seized on the California ruling to launch an effort to push through the legalization of gay marriage this year.

«Es ist an der Zeit: Die Ehe muss in Deutschland für gleichgeschlechtliche Paare geöffnet werden», erklärte Grünen-Fraktionsgeschäftsführer Volker Beck am Freitag in Berlin. «Es ist Zeit für gleiche Rechte ohne Wenn und Aber.» Er kündigte eine entsprechende Initiative im Bundestag an. Anlass für seine Forderung war die Entscheidung des Obersten Gerichts in Kalifornien, das Verbot gleichgeschlechtlicher Ehen in dem US-Staat zu kippen. Beck meinte, das Urteil zeige einen Wandel des Begriffs der Ehe. «Der Geschlechterverschiedenheit der Ehe kommt keine prägende Wirkung mehr zu», erklärte der Grünen-Politiker. «Die Begründung des kalifornischen Urteils ist ein Meilenstein in der Rechtsgeschichte.Die Ehe sei bereits in den Niederlanden, Belgien, Spanien, Kanada, Südafrika und dem US-Staat Massachusetts für gleichgeschlechtliche Paare geöffnet. Umfragen zufolge befürworte auch eine Mehrheit der Deutschen Eheschließungen zwischen Homosexuellen, erklärte Beck weiter. ("It is time. Marriage in Germany must be opened to same-sex couples," said Volker Beck, the leader of the Green Party faction Friday in Berlin. "It is time for equal rights - no ifs, ands, or buts."  He announced a new initiative to push this through in the Bundestag. Beck's demand was precipitated by the ruling of the California supreme court overturning the ban on same-sex marriage in that state. Beck believes the decision marks a change in the concept of marriage. "Gender differences no longer carry the same weight," said the Green politician. "The decision in California is a milestone in legal history. Marriage is already open to same-sex couples in the Netherlands, Belgium, Canada, South Africa and in the state of Massachusetts.  Every poll shows that a majority of Germans approve of marriage for homosexuals.")

I'm sure that Beck can count on support  from the Liberals (FDP) in this initiative.  Not sure about the where the Social Democrats stand; the Queer faction of the LEFT party (Die LINKE) has not updated its Web site in months.

Surge of Executions in the United States

Last week Martin Schindhütte, a bishop in the EKD (Evangelische Kirche Deutschland), sent a letter to the governor of Georgia (USA) protesting the execution by lethal injection of William Earl Lynd:

Schindehütte erklärte in einem Schreiben an den Gouverneur von Georgia, Sonny Perdue, die Hinrichtung nach der sieben Monate währenden Denkpause sei besonders enttäuschend. Die EKD protestiert regelmäßig gegen Hinrichtungen in den USA. Seit der Wiedereinführung der Todesstrafe 1976 sind dort 1.100 Personen hingerichtet worden. Die EKD macht darauf aufmerksam, dass es kaum noch eine westliche Demokratie gebe, in der die Todesstrafe praktiziert werde. (In a letter to Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue, Schindhütte wrote that he was especially disappointed in the execution, coming after a 7-month moratorium on executions.  The EKD regularly protests against executions in the US.  Since the death penalty was reintroduced in 1976, 1,100 persons have been executed there.  The EKD points out that there is hardly another western democracy that has the death penalty.)

Now the EKD will be rather busy in their protest activities.  The New York Times reports on the anticipated surge in executions:

Roughly 15 death row prisoners are scheduled to be put to death between now and October, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. This flood of executions is the result of the Supreme Court’s ruling that upheld the constitutionality of a troubling form of lethal injection. The next few months, as states put their machinery of death into overdrive, are an ideal time for the nation to rethink its commitment to capital punishment.

Don't hold your breath that the nation will "rethink its commitment to capital punishment".  It is ironic that American "Christians" are particularly unmoved by the call of the EKP or the Vatican to abolish the death penalty.  Conservative Catholic justices now dominate the US supreme court, and they are the most ardent supporters of the death penalty.  Leading the charge is Justice Antonin Scalia, who explains why executing human beings is consistent with Christian doctrine:

"The more Christian a country is the less likely it is to regard the death penalty as immoral. Abolition [of the death penalty] has taken its firmest hold in post-Christian Europe, and has the least support in church-going United States.  I attribute that to the fact that, for believing Christian, death is no big deal."

Scalia also recently defended the practice of torture, so his decision to approve executions by lethal injections makes sense: subjecting a human being to excruciating pain as you kill him/her is no big deal.

Related Post: Friedrich Wilhelm Wagner and the Death Penalty

Gabor Steingart Mocks Americans in Wall Street Journal Piece

Last year I wrote about how Dow Jones board member Dieter von Holtzbrinck resigned his post in protest of Rupert Murdoch's takeover of the venerable Wall Street Journal. Von Holtzbrinck was very much aware of the business practices of Murdoch's News Corporation, and worried that the WSJ's legacy of journalistic excellence would be destroyed:

"I cannot prove that my worries are right. I can only refer to News Corp. business practices in the past." Von Holtzbrinck wrote.

Well, von Holtzbrinck's concerns were very much justified:  since taking over the Wall Street Journal Murdoch has moved swiftly to transform America's premier business newspaper into a neoconservative rag. After firing key editorial staff, Murdoch has replaced coverage of business with right-wing political commentary:

PEJ examined the Journal's front pages from every other weekday edition between Dec. 13, 2007, and March 13, 2008, to determine if the paper’s agenda had changed, the report said.
Among its findings:
• "Business coverage dropped more than half -- falling from 30% in the months prior to the sale to 14%."
• "In the first four months of Murdoch’s ownership, the Journal has shifted its focus, opting for less business coverage and for more coverage of national politics and international issues."

In his effort to beef-up neoconservative commentary, Murdoch has found a kindred soul in Der Spiegel's Washington correspondent Gabor Steingart.  In his first op/ed contribution on May 10, Steingart mocks Americans desire to have universal health care, similar to the programs offered in Germany, France, and every other highly industrialized country:

When I begin to feel homesick for Germany, I have discovered a cheap and easy way out. I simply turn on the TV and listen to a Barack Obama stump speech.

The promised land of universal health care, secure pensions, a lot of green-collar jobs and stable bridges brings me back to my home country. My grandma, who has worked in a post office all her life, enjoys her pension without having ever observed the stock market. Everyone who travels through the countryside can see thousands of windmills, but never a collapsed bridge. And the best: My mom, my friends and everyone around them have access to first-class medical services.

After telling German readers for months that Barack Obama's candidacy was a "fairy tale", now Steingart tells the WSJ's readers that Senator Obama's programs to improve the lives of ordinary Americans are a fairy tale we can't afford.  Of course, he doesn't mention the $1 trillion price tag of the Iraq War debacle which Murdoch so fervently supports (as long as his own sons remain out of it).

Barack Obama is Murdoch's (and Steingart's) worst nightmare: A charismatic black candidate who wants to end torture, withdraw from Iraq, end the tax cuts for the wealthy and make health care accessible to all.  As the campaign progresses, watch for further hit pieces in the Wall Street Journal on Obama. No doubt many will have the byline of Gabor Steingart.

Review: After the Reich by Giles MacDonogh

Americans have a very benign view of the postwar occupation of Germany. In the conventional narrative, the US liberated the German people from Nazi tyranny, schooled them in Western-style democracy, brought them market-driven prosperity, and protected them from the evil Soviet empire.  But the historical truth is rather different, especially for the period from the Armistice in 1945 to the Berlin Airlift in 1948.  This is the period covered in Giles MacDonogh's book After the Reich: The Brutal History of the Allied Occupation.  With startling detail, MacDonogh tells a story of rape, ethnic cleansing, pillage, starvation and slavery that resulted in an estimated 3 million German deaths (1 million of which were POWs) after Germany surrendered. Of the two million civilians who perished, the vast majority were women, children and elderly Germans who fell victim to suicide, hunger, disease and mass murder.

The first chapters of the After the Reich are perhaps the most gruesome, since MacDonogh describes the fate of the women and girls in the Soviet occupied territories.  Hardly any - even as young as 8-years old or as old as 80 - escaped being brutally raped, sometimes as many as 25 times - 25 times a day.  This led to a wave of suicides, atrocious injuries of young girls, terrible venereal disease (when there were no antibiotics available) and pregnancies. Nor were the Russians entirely alone in their enthusiasm for rape: On April 17-18, 1945, French soldiers raped at least 600 women in the small Black Forest town of Freudenstadt, before going on to Stuttgart where they raped another 3,000 women and eight men.  American forces prohibited rape, but there were more than 600 courts-marshal involving rape charges against American soldiers.  Only the Brits come off better, since they preferred to barter cigarettes and chocolate for sex with the defeated enemy.

Then MacDonogh tells the largely untold story of the slaughter of more than 250,000 Sudeten Germans by Czech nationalists, as well as similar stories of ethnic cleansing in Poland, Silesia, and East Prussia - a predictable outcome from the Yalta Conference.  This sad chapter of postwar history deserves a great deal more study, and MacDonogh deserves much credit for bringing to the attention of American readers.