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The Politics of Retribution in Europe
The presentation of Europe's immediate historical past has quite dramatically changed. Conventional depictions of occupation and collaboration in World War II, of wartime resistance and post-war renewal, provided the familiar backdrop against which the chronicle of post-war Europe has mostly been told. Within these often ritualistic presentations, it was possible to conceal the fact that not only were the majority of people in Hitler's Europe not resistance fighters but millions actively co-operated with and many millions more rather easily accommodated to Nazi rule. Moreover, after the war, those who judged former collaborators were sometimes themselves former collaborators. Many people became innocent victims of retribution, while others--among them notorious war criminals--escaped punishment. Nonetheless, the process of retribution was not useless but rather a historically unique effort to purify the continent of the many sins Europeans had committed. This book sheds light on the collective amnesia that overtook European governments and peoples regarding their own responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity--an amnesia that has only recently begun to dissipate as a result of often painful searching across the continent.
In inspiring essays, a group of internationally renowned scholars unravels the moral and political choices facing European governments in the war's how to punish the guilty, how to decide who was guilty of what, how to convert often unspeakable and conflicted war experiences and memories into serviceable, even uplifting accounts of national history. In short, these scholars explore how the drama of the immediate past was (and was not) successfully "overcome." Through their comparative and transnational emphasis, they also illuminate the division between eastern and western Europe, locating its origins both in the war and in post-war domestic and international affairs. Here, as in their discussion of collaborators' trials, the authors lay bare the roots of the many unresolved and painful memories clouding present-day Europe.
Contributors are Brad Abrams, Martin Conway, Sarah Farmer, Luc Huyse, László Karsai, Mark Mazower, and Peter Romijn, as well as the editors. Taken separately, their essays are significant contributions to the contemporary history of several European countries. Taken together, they represent an original and pathbreaking account of a formative moment in the shaping of Europe at the dawn of a new millennium.
In inspiring essays, a group of internationally renowned scholars unravels the moral and political choices facing European governments in the war's how to punish the guilty, how to decide who was guilty of what, how to convert often unspeakable and conflicted war experiences and memories into serviceable, even uplifting accounts of national history. In short, these scholars explore how the drama of the immediate past was (and was not) successfully "overcome." Through their comparative and transnational emphasis, they also illuminate the division between eastern and western Europe, locating its origins both in the war and in post-war domestic and international affairs. Here, as in their discussion of collaborators' trials, the authors lay bare the roots of the many unresolved and painful memories clouding present-day Europe.
Contributors are Brad Abrams, Martin Conway, Sarah Farmer, Luc Huyse, László Karsai, Mark Mazower, and Peter Romijn, as well as the editors. Taken separately, their essays are significant contributions to the contemporary history of several European countries. Taken together, they represent an original and pathbreaking account of a formative moment in the shaping of Europe at the dawn of a new millennium.
368 pages, Paperback
First published February 29, 2000
About the author
István Deák
18 books7 followersIstván Deák was a Hungarian-born American historian, author and academic. He was a specialist in modern Europe, with special attention to Germany and Hungary.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
i-get-the-picture
November 17, 2018An interesting collection of academic (mostly micro-) studies of the politics of retribution in various Post-WWII European countries (e.g., Hungary, Greece, Belgium, France 1954); with a thoughtful introduction and epilogue (dated 2000) by Tony Judt.
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April 16, 2021[Tony Judt: p.301]
“… the Eastern Europeans have multiple analogous reference points: 1918-21, 1938, 1939, 1941, 1944, 1945-48, 1956, 1968, and now 1989. Each of these moments in time means something different, and nearly always something contentious and tragic to different nation or ethnic group, or else to succeeding generations within the same group. For Eastern Europeans that past is not just another country but a positive archipelago of vulnerable historical territories to be preserved from attacks and distortions perpetrated by the occupants of a neighbouring island of memory, a dilemma made the more cruel because the enemy is almost always within: most of these dates refer to a moment at which one part of the community (defined by class, religion, or nationality) took advantage of the misfortune of another to help itself to land, property, or power. These are thus memories of civil wars, and in a civil war the enemy is still there once the fighting stops – unless some external agency has been so helpful as to impose a final solution.”
“… the Eastern Europeans have multiple analogous reference points: 1918-21, 1938, 1939, 1941, 1944, 1945-48, 1956, 1968, and now 1989. Each of these moments in time means something different, and nearly always something contentious and tragic to different nation or ethnic group, or else to succeeding generations within the same group. For Eastern Europeans that past is not just another country but a positive archipelago of vulnerable historical territories to be preserved from attacks and distortions perpetrated by the occupants of a neighbouring island of memory, a dilemma made the more cruel because the enemy is almost always within: most of these dates refer to a moment at which one part of the community (defined by class, religion, or nationality) took advantage of the misfortune of another to help itself to land, property, or power. These are thus memories of civil wars, and in a civil war the enemy is still there once the fighting stops – unless some external agency has been so helpful as to impose a final solution.”
October 19, 2022
Tony Judt's essays in this volume are particularly valuable.
March 25, 2013
In his introduction to "The Politics of Retribution in Europe," Judt discusses the fragility of the European postwar settlement as a consequence of the change in memory that came at the end of the 20th century. The perspective of 1945 as the postwar rebirth of European society with a split between East and West disappeared with the collapse of the Soviet Union, and with it came a shift in memory of the decades after the war that were once seen as a time of prosperity and unity during which all of Europe forged on with a desire to forget what they did and knew.
The concerns of the book - collaboration/resistance, political justice, and "overcoming" the experience of war - are undertaken with a nod to the understanding of Europe as a whole, rather than split between East and West. The similarity of these themes between countries on both sides of the postwar divide are remarkable because of, not despite, the core differences between them. This is especially true in the sense that each country's history extends beyond the periodization of the war.
Judt says that "what happened before 1939, what happened between 1939 and 1945, and how the memory of those events was adapted or distorted or occluded after 1945" are only recently being tied together by historians in an attempt to better explain the larger context of the history of each country.
The presentation of Europe's history is changing, and I think the significance of this book lies in its efforts to explain from a modern perspective why the "collective amnesia" pervaded European thought and how that affected the postwar periods in terms of thinking about who was guilty and who was innocent, who deserved punishment vs who was seen as a hero, and other issues that emerged and needed to be solved in the wake of the war.
Definitely a great read for anyone with any interest in postwar European history. Some essays need a little more tooling perhaps, and I think there are possibly some contentious issues in the works by Jan Gross, but as a whole, it's excellent.
The concerns of the book - collaboration/resistance, political justice, and "overcoming" the experience of war - are undertaken with a nod to the understanding of Europe as a whole, rather than split between East and West. The similarity of these themes between countries on both sides of the postwar divide are remarkable because of, not despite, the core differences between them. This is especially true in the sense that each country's history extends beyond the periodization of the war.
Judt says that "what happened before 1939, what happened between 1939 and 1945, and how the memory of those events was adapted or distorted or occluded after 1945" are only recently being tied together by historians in an attempt to better explain the larger context of the history of each country.
The presentation of Europe's history is changing, and I think the significance of this book lies in its efforts to explain from a modern perspective why the "collective amnesia" pervaded European thought and how that affected the postwar periods in terms of thinking about who was guilty and who was innocent, who deserved punishment vs who was seen as a hero, and other issues that emerged and needed to be solved in the wake of the war.
Definitely a great read for anyone with any interest in postwar European history. Some essays need a little more tooling perhaps, and I think there are possibly some contentious issues in the works by Jan Gross, but as a whole, it's excellent.
July 22, 2008
An mixture of 'near' and not quite so 'near' history, mixed with current commentary, that holds up well on second reading. Especially the essay on how liberals betrayed human freedom to 'fight terror'.
September 16, 2015
If you want to understand modern day Hungary, do read the insightful chapter Istvan Deak wrote for this book.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews