Victors, Vanquished and Who Writes History

I recently had the pleasure to celebrate my 30th wedding anniversary where, somewhat under the influence of alcohol, I entered into a discussion of my July 3rd post "From the Outside Looking In" with some of my friends.  The following is a response to them in letter form:

Hi Guys.

I have returned to London and after recovering from jet lag and partying I re-read the blog from July 3rd.  I think I understand why you thought it might have been difficult to determine my nationality given the perspective from which I write.

To be frank I think over the years whenever I write about Germany I try to make a distinction between good Germans and bad Germans with an eye to their recent history and my relationship to it.

For if indeed history is written by the victors we run the risk of not only allowing the victors to write the history of the wars, but to also allow them to rewrite the entire history of the vanquished.  That is what I was trying to present in the blog using the English take on the American Revolution.  As we discussed I am sure that the Vietnamese take on the Viet Nam war is very different from ours.  Indeed,  the next time you go on a golf outing go to Bayeux in Normandy and check out the French take on William the Conqueror's "trip" to Hastings.

Recently I inherited a book from my father-in-law written in 1901 entitled "A Century of German Victories".  They had no sense of guilt or shame but rather pride in their military prowess.  And yet when one thinks of the modern German state we invariably find the seeds of the Third Reich in the creation of Prussia. 

I am not pretending to suggest that there is no connection.  But I think however that it is along the lines of the minority report-an excellent science fiction book and ok film-where even if the majority of predictions presume result 'x' there will be a report which predicted result 'y' which was never allowed to come to fruition.
 
History is not a straight line although the concept of manifest destiny goes a long way to suggesting that there are geopolitical themes which are almost inevitable.  That doesn't have to result in genocide, though there may be a case to be made given the slaughter of the Indians in America's charge to the West and the destruction of European Jewry encapsulated in Germany's Drang nach Osten.

But that is not what I was writing about on July 3rd.  I was trying to give a voice to a nation's history "before the deluge" that is not normally granted to it.

I would hope that all nations are given the opportunity by third parties to understand not only how the world sees them-but to also get a glimpse as to how they see themselves.

It could give a new meaning to the idea of globalism.

Regards,

mz