HITO 133: War and Society/World War II
Course Description:
Sixty years after it ended, the Second World War remains the most total and most destructive conflict in human history. It involved all the major industrial powers, wrought unparalleled destruction, and targeted civilians to an unprecedented extent. In this course, we will examine primarily the European and/or Atlantic dimension of this global conflict (students interested in the East Asian dimenson of World War II should consider taking Prof. Fujitani's course HIEA 113 "The Fifteen Year War in Asia and the Pacific" in Winter 2007). The course will pay some attentition to the major military and diplomatic choices of the main actors in Europe and the United States. But its main emphasis will be on the war's impact on the societies and individuals who fought it. How did societies try to mobilize social, economic, and ideological resources for the purpose of destruction? How did the war transform the belligerent societies? How did non-combattants, especially women and children, experience the war? What were the motivations and experiences of ordinary soldiers ? The course, moreover, will also discuss “other” wars that formed and integral part of this enormous conflict, such as the civil wars between collaborators and resistance movements in Nazi occupied Europe or the Nazi war against the European Jews. Finally, the course will consider basic issues of morality, justice, and memory as they manifested themselves in the war’s conclusion.
Course Readings:
R.A.C. Parker, The Second World War. A Short History
Richard Overy, Why the Allies Won
Nicholas Stargardt, Witnesses of War. Children's Lives under the Nazis*
Ruth Kluger, Still Alive. A Holocaust Girlhood Remembered
Albert Camus, The Plague
These books are available for purchase at Groundworks Bookstore.
Additional readings will be placed on e-reserve in Geisel Library.
Course Schedule:
Sept.21: Introduction
*Roger Chickering and Stig Foerster, "Are We There Yet? World War II and the Theory of Total War"
Overy, Why the Allies Won, 1-24
Week 1: Origins:
Sept.26: The Legacies of the First World War
Sept.28: Nazi Expansionism and Western Appeasement
Readings:
Parker, The Second World War, 1-20
P.H.M. Bell, "Armed Forces, Strategy, and Foreign Policy in France and Britain"
The Hossbach Memorandum
Discussion: Was war inevitable? Did appeasement make sense?
Week 2: The War in the West
Oct.3: The Fall of France
Oct.5: The Battle of Britain
Readings:
Parker, The Second World War, 20-59
Marc Bloch, Strange Defeat (selections)
Ernest May, Strange Victory (selections)
Discussion: Why did France fall? Why did Britain survive?
Week 3: The War in the East
Oct.10: In class showing of "Stalingrad"
Oct.12: The Eastern Front
Readings:
Parker, The Second World War, 60-72, 95-114
Overy, Why the Allies Won, 63-100
Omer Bartov, "The Conduct of War. Soldiers and the Barbarization of Warfare," Vol. 64, Supplement: Resistance Against the Third ReichJMH (Dec.1992), 32-45
Catherine Merridale, Ivan's War, 1-22, 153-225
Directives for the Behaviour of the Troops in Russia, Army High Command, May 1941
Discussion: What motivated ordinary soldiers to fight an extremely brutal war on the Eastern front?
Week 4: The War at Home I: Ideology, Propaganda, and National Unity
Oct.17: Ideology and Propaganda
Oct.19: Remaking National Bodies
Readings:
Overy, Why the Allies Won, 282-313
Stargardt, Witnesses of War, 57-102
Robert Westbrook, "'I Want a Girl Just Like the Girl that Married Harry James.' American Women and the Problem of Political Obligation in World War II"
The Atlantic Charter
Discussion: Was it a “good war”?
Week 5: The War at Home II: Economic and Technological Mobilization
Oct.24: MIDTERM
Oct.26: Economic and Technological Mobilization
Readings:
Albert Speer, "Sins of Omission"
Overy, Why the Allies Won, 180-244
Parker, The Second World War, 131-172
Discussion: Were Democracies or Dictatorships better equipped to mobilize resources for war?
Week 6: The War at Home III: Women and Children
Oct.31: Women at War
Nov.2: Children at War, War against Children
Readings:
Jill Stephenson, "The Home Front in ‘Total War.’ Women in Germany and Britain in the Second World War."
Stargardt, Witnesses of War, 3-56, 105-167
Discussion: Was the war good for women? How did children experience the war?
Week 7: The War at Home IV: Living with the Enemy--Collaboration and Resistance
Nov.7: Collaborationist Regimes
Nov.9: Resistance and Civil Wars
Readings:
Albert Camus, The Plague
Discussion: How did one choose between collaboration and resistance?
Week 8: The War Against the Jews
Nov.14: The Holocaust
Nov.16: Visit by Prof. Ruth Kluger
Readings:
Stargardt, Witnesses of War, 168-225
Ruth Kluger, Still Alive
Discussion: How was it possible?
Week 9: Endings
Nov.21: A Brutal Peace: Bombing, Rape , Expulsions
Nov.23: No Class -- Thanksgiving Break
Readings:
Overy, Why the Allies Won, 101-179, 314-30.
Stargardt, Witnesses of War, 229-312
Question: Was the Allied bombing of German cities justified? Did all means justify the end of victory over Nazism?
Week 10: The Aftermath: Morality, Justice, Memory
Nov.28: Victor's Justice? Retaliation, Purges, Trials
Nov.30: The War Remembered
Readings:
Stargardt, Witnesses of War, 315-366
Judt, "The Past is Another Country. Myth and Memory in 20th Century Europe"