Revenge : Jewish Fantasies, Russian Realities

Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, following on Defiance, voices the Jewish musing on revenge against Nazis during and after World War II. Defiance was based on reality ; Basterds was a fantasy (which I may see on video, but not at a theater).

I’ve wondered what would have happened had the atomic bomb been available a year earlier ; would Roosevelt have dropped it on Berlin, or Dresden, or Hamburg and brought the war to an earlier end ? What would Germany have done ? Japan ?

After the war, Jews sought justice in various ways, and bagged the biggest fish with the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem in 1961.

But the problem with revenge is it cannot be a controlled exercise. Once the bloodshed begins against enemies, the slaughter picks up a momentum of its own and can consume the executioners who started the process.

Consider this : Are some forms of revenge acceptable, and others not ? We don’t need the fantasies of Tarantino to show the relevance of that question. The Red Army in World War II provides the starkest example of revenge impulses gone berserk.

The Red Army became a pack of rapists as it moved west into Germany, according to historical research. While the fantasy might involve a clean swoop and slaughter of the SS and Gestapo, the reality was the Russian vengeance fell on the helpless in the path of the Red Army. Historian Antony Bever wrote in the London paper The Guardian :

Calls to avenge the Motherland, violated by the Wehrmacht’s invasion, had given the idea that almost any cruelty would be allowed. Even many young women soldiers and medical staff in the Red Army did not appear to disapprove. "Our soldiers’ behaviour towards Germans, particularly German women, is absolutely correct !" said a 21-year-old from Agranenko’s reconnaissance detachment. A number seemed to find it amusing.

For a dramatic Germany perspective, the movie A Woman in Berlin portrays one woman’s experience — based on a book that the anonymous author was strongly criticized for in the 1950s. But the truth continues to come out.

My point : only in movies like "The Godfather" is revenge a surgically precise act. In the real world, the results can be ghastly.