Comments on: No Doubt: Frank Capra’s "Why We Fight"

By: Bart

Bart — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 16:09:58 +0000

My father joined the US Army in WWII from Puerto Rico. It was not until his infantry regiment deployed from the Island to Panama and South America in 1944, that he experienced the officers separating out the "colored" from the "white" Puerto Ricans, that he realized the US Army was racist. The colored were sent to separate units. At the same time US films told us the Nazi's believed they were the master race. White Continental Americans themselves believed they were superior to minority soldiers. My father quickly learned about segregation, "Jim Crow" laws, and racism within our ranks. No doubt the Allies were more moral than the Axis, but the USA would take decades more to overcome its own racist thinking.

By: Woody Tanaka

Woody Tanaka — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 15:55:22 +0000

That does, however, raise the question (or should, to the historian) of whether ther Allied power were "moral" or merely "more moral" than their opponants.

After all, these very same Allies were, in turn,: 1) (UK)occupying native peoples around the world in the millions, 2) (US) interning citizens of Japanese descent and enforcing horrific racially discriminatory laws, 3) (USSR) enforcing a totalitarian system little better than that being fought.

Moreover, the methods used by these same Allies were not, in any sense, moral.

So I think that no thinking person can suggest that, objectively, the Allies were objectively moral societies who fought in objectively moral ways.

By: Rob Citino

Rob Citino — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 20:43:14 +0000

Geoff Megargee-

Great point. The 1940s were a lot more cynical and hard-edged than we sometimes think. After all, these were the same people who had just lived through the Depression. I think soldiers on all sides fought for a simple reason–to survive the ordeal. But I also believe that, at the margins, knowing you were fighting for something moral might have made some difference. And we also shouldn't underplay the impact of the Capra-esque narrative on the Allied home fronts.

–RC

By: Patrick H.

Patrick H. — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 02:32:17 +0000

Of course the Germans could have won the propaganda war. As long as the real, hard evidence of the holocust was limited. Gobbels was a master of the propaganda war and he readily used the ideas of his enemies. Couple with the fact that there was a sublte anti-semitic attitude in the world. That is why Capra's film series was so important. Men who had been torn from their homes and sent to some of the most hostile enviroments in the US and then the world needed to not only trained to fight, but given the mental edge to destroy the Axis powers.

By: Mike H.

Mike H. — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 05:39:45 +0000

From everything I have been told by my uncles and aunts (mostly my aunts…my uncles never talked about their wartime experiences too much), the Axis powers were, indeed, evil, and needed to be stopped. The sad facts of the war was we had to make a "deal with the Devil",(the USSR and Stalin) in order to win against Germany. My Uncle John saw Bergen-Belsen and only spoke of it once in all the years I knew him…and then to tell me to "Sock any Damfool who ever said that the Holocaust was a lie". I told about my Uncle Bernie in another post. Personally, I have no doubt as to who were the "good guys" and the "bad guys"…and, Robert, I agree, we won the battle of ideas, too, with Frank Capra's work…among many others. Good read, and thought-provoking!

By: Patrick Miano

Patrick Miano — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 21:00:21 +0000

Most convicted murderers are sorry – that they got caught. In the same vein, it is my honest belief that even the most rabid German, Italian, and Japanese opponents of the Axis governments (with the exception of the Communists) would have been able to live with it if their countries had won. Nothing makes you regret a war more than losing it, despite what the moralkists say. Of course Capra was not objective. Why should he have been? Only fools think the world would be basically the same today if the Axis had won. Simplistic as its themes were, "Why We Fight" told the truth.

By: Kenny Johnson

Kenny Johnson — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 15:52:23 +0000

I always got a kick out of his "Your Job in Germany" for the post-WWII occupation forces.

"You'll see ruins, you'll see flowers. You'll see some mighty fine scenery. BUT DON'T LET IT FOOL YOU! YOU ARE IN ENEMY COUNTRY! Be alert! Suspicious of Everyone, don't take chances! You are up against something more than tourist scenery, you are up against German history. It isn't good."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1v5QCGqDYGo

By: Geoff Megargee

Geoff Megargee — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 15:29:59 +0000

Good piece, Rob, as always. One thing I wonder about, though. Yes, we live in an age of cynicism and skepticism — but those weren't unknown traits in the 1930s, either. Do we have any indication of what GIs thought about such films? How many of them dismissed them as propaganda, at least until they saw the Germans' camps for themselves?