Howard Zinn Quotes

The second atomic bomb had just been dropped.

On March 9-10, 1945, over three hundred B-29 Superfortresses, loaded with 2,000 tons of incendiary bombs flew over Tokyo bombing the city in waves for 6 hours. Over 250,000 buildings were destroyed and more people killed than would be in either Hiroshima or Nagasaki which were destroyed by atomic bombs. The fact that the Japanese would not surrender even after such complete destruction of their capital and largest industrial city, was used by American leaders in assessing whether to use the atomic bomb afterwards. There were many who believed that the atomic bomb would not be enough for motivate a Japanese surrender as Japanese culture prohibited surrender. Indeed, even after the 1st atomoc bomb, the Japanese did not surrender, and after the 2nd, the war council was split 3-3 and the Emperor historically broke the tie. Even the atomic bomb might not have worked. Later generations found this resistance to surrender hard to understand but Japanese culture was amazingly strong then.

“Lebensraum” was a German expansionist concept of the time which has no good English translation. Literally, it means “living room”. The Germans had this notion that the German race and nation had to have more land to accommodate the growth of the German people. And because the Germans were a superior race, they were entitled to the land surrounding Germany in which to have Germans grow and thrive. The “inferior” peoples who lived on the land could be exterminated so that Germany would have this expansion room. The “Death’s Head units” were special German elite troops who used the Death’s Head as a symbol on their uniforms. Some of the Generals were concerned that the rest of the world would condemn Germany and possibly interfere if they exterminated the Poles. Hitler pointed to the example of the Turks who had killed most of the Armenians in the Armenian Genocide in the early 20th century. They got away with it with no outside interference, and there were no international consequences for Turkey. Hitler, convinced that the Armenian genocide was the precedent, thought Germany could easily get away with murdering the Gypsies, seriously handicapped, homosexuals, Russians, Poles and Jews. For other quotations on the Armenian Genocide, see {51838}, {638251}, {620602}, {620603}, {620604}, {620605}, {620600}, and {620606}

This speech to over 100,000 people galvanized the Indian nationalists They had been asking the British to change the constitution to give India more independence. Churchill was opposed to any policy that would diminish the British Empire, but needed the Indians as men of India served in the British Army in every major theater of WWII. So instead of saying "No" Churchill held out the possibility but at a later time. He argued that it was inopportune to alter the Constitution in the midst of a world war.

The bombing of Tokyo to which she referred, killed over 100,000 Japanese in a single raid, more than each of the two atomic bombs. However, those who, in hindsight, raise the issue of the morality of using the atomic bombs, say nothing about the firebombing. The graphic is of Dr. Libby when she was working with Enrico Fermi to create the first nuclear chain reaction to prove the feasibility of a nuclear bomb. She was the only female on the team.

Duklja was the capital of the Empire of Serbia in the 12th century when Serbia controlled the entire region.

Although generally a right wing conservative, Clark today sounds like almost like an extreme leftist on the issue. At the time however, many thought that he had taken leave of his senses. He not only was completely contrary to bipartisan national policy but opposed by almost universal American public opinion. He is one of the very few significant American officials to oppose the war policies.

This telegram was one of the more bizarre episodes leading up to WWII. The “solution” that Rothermore was praising was the German Army seizing and occupying a large part of Czechoslovakia – the Sudetenland -- in violation of the WWI Peace Treaty that Germany had signed. Further, Rothermere knew perfectly well that England and France were bound by treaty to come to the military aid of Czechoslovakia and war between Britain and Germany could break out at any moment. Yet he sent the telegram encouraging Hitler in his aggression. The Daily Mail, Rothermore’s very conservative newspaper supported English Fascist Oswald Mosley and wrote articles favorable to Mussolini and Hitler. There was a small but powerful part of English Aristocracy who were pro German and pro Fascist including the King, Edward, Duke of Windsor {584507} who was persuaded to abdicate and relegated to the Bahamas where his views were not so public. The Daily Mail catered to that part of the English Aristocracy.

She had saved over 2000 Jewish Children in the Warsaw Ghetto from Death by the Nazis. As a member of the Polish Resistance, she was caught be the Germans, badly tortured, and sentenced to death which she narrowly escaped.

The Professor was explaining the explanation of the so-called “Frankfurt School” of WWII policy advisors Franz Neumann, Herbert Marcuse, and Otto Kirchheimer.

The allies—mostly under American Pressure—only tried the highest ranking Nazi war criminals. Many wanted to try the rest, but they did not prevail. Lord Russell, the English prosecutor at Nuremburg resigned in protest as he had case files on over 100,000 Nazi war criminals who were never prosecuted. The main object was to use those officials to establish a strong anti-Communist government in post war Germany.

This was the point of view that was adopted by the Western Allies about the German Nazis and collaborators in the other European nations. However, not everyone agreed at the time with this policy. Lord Russell, the British Nuremburg Prosecutor resigned over this policy. He had case files against over 100,000 Nazi’s who had committed war crimes that he was not allowed to pursue. There was one Western county that did not follow this policy—Norway. They actually tried, convicted and jailed 10 percent of their entire population for collaboration. Their rehabilitation was just fine without the services of these criminals and they became the richest per capita country in the West including the U.S. The issue will be debated by historians of each generation.