Grant Benson

HIST 3722

Ofer Ashkenazi

December 13, 2011

Question 2 – The Postwar Era in Europe

A fundamental argument that is present in Tony Judt’s Postwar is that the whole period

between 1945 and 1989 can be depicted as the “postwar era,” since the challenges Europe faced

throughout this time period, and the way it responded to these challenges, were shaped in the

first decade following the conclusion of World War II. In various instances of postwar Europe,

Judt’s argument is indeed supported. However, Judt’s views are not susceptible to criticism. The

purpose of this essay is to critically analyze Judt’s views on the time period he refers to as

postwar Europe. In doing so, light will be shed on the challenges and movements faced by

postwar Europe, as well as new challenges that await Europe in the new era the Judt explains

following 1989.

One of the better examples of Judt’s claims is British Prime Ministe r Margaret Thatcher’s

war against the European welfare state. At the conclusion of World War II, it was Britain who

put forth the most ambitious efforts to create a genuine ‘Welfare State.’1 It was an initial success

not just in Britain, but also all around Europe. Thanks to the emergence of welfare states,

European citizens generally ate more, lived longer, healthier lives, and above all, were more

secure than they had ever been.2 However, by the time the 1970’s rolled around, the European

welfare state was beginning to lose some steam due to a large generational gap of baby boomers

1 Tony Judt, Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 (Penguin Press, 2005), 75 2 Ibid, 77

entering middle age, on the verge of retirement.3 One of the weaknesses of the welfare state lies

in the fact that it’s expensive for the government to maintain services like education, health

services, and in this case, retirement.4 Eventually, this large generational cohort ceased to

contribute taxes and would begin to extract huge sums from European governments.5 By August,

1977, unemployment hit 1.6 million in Britain and continued to rise. Things only worsened in

1978 and 1979 with Britain’s “Winter of Discontent.”6 In stepped Margaret Thatcher, preaching

“Thatcherism,” which consisted of reduced taxes, free enterprise, privatization of industry, and

emphasis on the “individual.”7 Thatcher’s policies strengthened the state, cultivated the market,

and crushed labor unions.8 Britain’s economic performance indeed improved under Thatcher,

however, as a society it melted down.9 Race riots and labor union strikes marred the financial

success of Thatcher’s regime.10 However, there’s no denying the sheer scale in which Thatcher

changed Britain. Using Judt’s argument, this doesn’t happen without the emergence of the

welfare state in the aftermath of World War II.

Another important event known as the Historikerstreit (translated in English to

‘historians’ quarrel), occurred in West Germany in the late 1980s. It was a significant intellectual

and political controversy that dealt with German historical interpretation of the Holocaust. The

debate (which featured famous German philosophers Ernst Nolte and Jürgen Habermas amongst

others) centered on an attempt to explain how the Holocaust happened. Philosophers questioned

if the Nazi actions were uniquely evil in history, or were they comparable to the actions of

3 Ibid, 536 4 Ofer Ashkenazi, “The Iron Lady and Her War,” Class Lecture, November 15, 2011 5 Judt, Postwar, 536 6 Ibid, 540 7 Ibid, 541 8 Ashkenazi, “The Iron Lady,” Lecture 9 Judt, Postwar, 537 10 Ashkenazi, “The Iron Lady,” Lecture

Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union?11 The idea of a special “German path” to the Holocaust, or

the Sonderweg, was also a product of the Historikerstreit.12 One of the most significant

contributions came from the idea of the “Two Downfalls,” which were the defeat of the German

Reich and the mass murder of European Jewry.13 Characteristics of the Historikerstreit were also

seen in the media. The 1979 American made-for-television film Holocaust sparked much debate

in West Germany and brought the reality of the Holocaust’s history to the forefront. Edgar

Reitz’s Heimat was sixteen hour film that aired in a series of episodes on television. It depicted

life in Germany from 1919 to the present day. It sparked a resonant chord all throughout West

Germany.14 The Historikerstreit was a catalyst to study and analyze one the greatest atrocities

this world has seen and a lot of its roots lay at the end of the war.

Tony Judt outlines many events in his book that support his claim of “postwar” Europe.

However, there are events and movements that contradict Judt’s views. These movements were

intellectual and political trends that swept through Europe after 1968, most notably a new

feminist movement that gained followers drawing inspiration from feminists like Kate Millett

and Annie Leclerc.15 The movement was less political in nature and more about undermining the

very concept of the human subject. This thinking arose in the concept of gaining knowledge, and

having the right to acquire that knowledge regardless of gender. Judt even mentions himself that

this form of thinking is consistent with the views expressed during the Enlightenment,16 which

occurred well before 20th century, much less the end of World War II. This thinking suggests that

11 Ashkenazi, “Germany as Memory,” Class Lecture, November 17, 2011 12 Ibid 13 Ibid 14 Anton Kaes, “From Hitler to Heimat” (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1989), 163 15 Judt, Postwar, 482 16 Ibid

the feminist movement in Europe in the 1970’s was a product of cultural evolution, and not the

events that occurred in the ten years prior to World War II.

After the Berlin Wall goes down in 1989, Judt argues that Europe is now faced with a

new set of challenges, and that the government’s approach to them marks a new era in the history

of Europe that doesn’t fit with the postwar paradigm. Judt is right with these assumptions and

challenges that face the European Union in the modern day is perhaps the best example of this.

When the Iron Curtain went down, East Germany became a member of the community as part of

newly united Germany. This signaled a new era of European history as it waved goodbye to

“postwar” Europe. A challenge that Europe and the European Union face today is the unification

and acceptance of Muslims into European society. This challenge that faces Europe today is a

far-cry from what was present in postwar Europe.

In Tony Judt’s book Postwar, he makes the argument that decade after World War II

helped shape the challenges that Europe faced until 1989. This period of time was called by Judt

the “postwar era.” Some of the challenges that directly stemmed from the decade after the war

were Margaret Thatcher’s war on the welfare state and the German Historikerstreit. But, the

European feminist movement in the 1970s does contradict Judt’s argument. However, the

destruction of the Berlin Wall and the fall of the Soviet Union marked the end of the “postwar

era” and ushered in the start of a new era of European history.