A new documentary came out last month that I’ve been beseeched to watch, in light of recent discussions. It’s called The US and the Holocaust, by the famed Ken Burns — widely considered one of the foremost High School History Class filmmakers in all the land. The documentary is very long, something like seven hours in total, but I did my duty and watched. And I’m glad I did. Because it turns out the documentary is a perfect example of “revisionist history” — a term that gets angrily shouted whenever anyone seeks to critically examine some historical record. Typically the term “revisionist” carries the connotation of “bad” — as in, it’s bad and suspicious and dangerous that you’re engaging in “revisionist history,” especially as related to such-and-such sacrosanct historical topic. Please stop doing that. Well, I can confidently report that the new documentary falls squarely into the “revisionist history” category, although I wouldn’t tell Burns to stop working his craft, because his productions are always a useful window into generic conventional wisdom.
I guess Burns forgot to mention that great anti-war figure George Washington who warned against foreign entanglements. And he surely would never support the idea of George's never put party above nation. Something very much out of favor today.
Remember: The US Naval War College concluded decades later that Roosevelt formally and irreversibly contravened Washington's admonition against entanglement in European affairs in June 1941 when he secretly ordered the US military occupation of Iceland
Just disgusting. I used to respect Burns, now I detest him. Those of us counciling peace will never get to say “we told you so” if the crazy war hawks get their way. We have dangerous lying leaders. Trump kept us OUT of wars. Bring him back.
“they wanted no part of the foreign wars that the moneyed conservative Eastern class so much enjoyed and benefited from. The people knew that they were the ones who would do the dying” Vidal was talking about WWII but it still applies. Seems Ken Burns has gone from exquisitely calibrating conventional wisdom to actively serving the regime. The USA did little to nothing for Jewish refugees during the war. The heroic narrative has been greatly enlarged ever since. It seems here Burns is using the heroic tale to create propaganda. This is closer to messaging than it is to a balanced account. What you leave out can be a tell. Why is he supporting a senile puppet?
Guessing most or all of his friends are connected and rich well meaning white liberals. Look at what happened to Steven King. I’m guessing these types of rich influential cultural producers have their well connected friends whispering in their ears nonstop. FFS King wrote a whole book supporting the Oswald did it alone thesis. Wonder where his inspiration came from? I’m sure he has friends in the intel community. So my conclusion is these types know very well they are indulging in propaganda. It’s just that they have been persuaded it’s for the good of the public to tell us what to think.
It is both: they truly believe and they are consciously manipulating. His work is a concoction in support of a cause and in their earnest judgment a necessary counterweight to the atrocious people who don’t understand.
Kind of wish "Ken Burns" had remained a photo slideshow transitioning effect.
More seriously, history is messy. Only in retrospect can you judge it, but you can only live it going forward without the benefit of being able to sneak a peek at the ending. Beware of the person who tries to simplify it and turn it into a caricature or a slogan. They're trying to sell you something, and most of the time it's something you will really, really regret buying when you look back . . . that's if we live through this one and have a chance to look back.
I'm old enough to remember worrying about nuclear holocaust. I had thought those days were gone, but here we are. I'd say that history will remember these people poorly, though history remembering would require someone to be around to relate that history, and I'm not sure anyone will be. (If you can't tell, it's been hitting home a little lately how close we are to annihilating the human race, though at this point, I'm not too sure that's the worst thing. Another species can have its turn.)
But, in short, thank you so much for reminding me why Substack is such a valuable place and giving me hope that not all the intelligent, thoughtful people are dead or silence.
PS Any article that brings in the late great Kurt Vonnegut warms my heart.
I was extremely disappointed in Burns’ work this time around. Normally he’s very detailed in his research and interviews - which is why his series are loooong. But his approach her seems driven by a bizarre and irrational panic. A phenomenon that seems to infect the minds of elites these days ever since Trump came to power.
It seems Trump, and now Putin, have the magical power to turn once level headed individuals into raving lunatics. Did anyone see Sam Harris justify any action to ensure Trump not be elected?
Burns now has this historically inaccurate documentary lashed around his neck now - it’s his own 1619 project. Absolutely horrible work and blatantly propagandist.
It’s truly fascinating, isn’t it. And I can’t wrap my head around it at all. There’s no rationality involved. And to watch Sam Harris agree with underhanded activities “in defense of democracy” was super wild.
Yes, Ken Burns is a revisionist, and he always has been. He's a 1970s antiwar protestor who set out to put out his own version of history. No doubt he came up with his "Holocaust" project because of an influx of cash from the usual suspects. The Holocaust is to Jews as slavery is to black activists - without it, no one would pay them any attention. I have read Charles Lindberg's diary and several biographies of him. He was NOT pro-Hitler, but he had lived in Europe for several years and knew the capabilities of the various military aviation forces of the belligerent nations, and he feared that the war would destroy Europe (which it did.) FDR and members of his administration hated him because they knew he was speaking truth. There were many who opposed US involvement in the war, including Henry Ford, who gave Lindbergh a job in his Willow Run bomber plant - unlike other industrialists, he wasn't afraid of Roosevelt. Lindbergh was actually a strong conservative and held the conservative view that America should stay out of Europe's wars.
As for Norman Thomas, few Americans have ever heard of him. Pete Seeger and Woody Gutherie were communists and followed the communist line of supporting Uncle Joe Stalin after Hitler broke their alliance and attacked the USSR.
If you want to watch something worthwhile, I would suggest the works of TimeGhost History. They have a full week by week coverage of the First World War with tons of additional specials
The fundamental point, which I think escapes you, is that those who opposed U.S. engagement in Europe, including entry into WWII, were wrong from every imaginable perspective. Staying out of Europe after WWI was bad policy from a realpolitik perspective, from a moral perspective, and from a prudential perspective.
The issue is not whether America Firsters were fascist sympathizers, racists, and anti-semites--some very clearly were, but only a minority. The question is whether they were blind to the realities of their age. The answer is that they very much were, just as you are blind to the realities of the situation in Ukraine.
It may be entirely true that many of those pushing for greater support for Ukraine lie or have base commercial motives. It is also entirely beside the point. Ad hominem is never sound argument. Ken Burns's perspective on the past, however defective, isn't the reason Western nations should keep pouring money and arms into Ukraine to hold off the Russians. The case for vigorously opposing Russia's invasion is based not on a distorted view of history, but on a clear view of the reality of our present. Joe Biden and Ken Burns are not bigger threats to world peace and security than Vladimir Putin.
IHF - you make the counter argument well. I don’t agree with you, in fact I would argue the opposite. Russia and Putin repeatedly warned that NATO on their boarders would be unacceptable and the provocateur is the Atlantic alliance. This could’ve been avoided but it was consciously pursued, purposely provoked.
You’re making this claim through the lens of hindsight which has revealed to you the course of the events. You’re also leaving out the role that a nuclear armed Soviet Union played in American policy to police the world. It’s fairly obvious that our interventionist policy originated more from our fear of a nuclear Soviet Union more so than any moral hindsight about how we had missed an opportunity to stop Hitler.
And you don’t understand that it took WWII for America to make its most dramatic turn toward world policing. Prior to the war the idea of Americans running about Europe solving their conflicts NR Lucy’s would have been (rightly) seen as reckless. Understand that Europe’s history is one of near constant wars, culminating in WWII. The idea that we should have ever been involved in the never ending battles between these idiotic empires was absurd.
Amongst many European elites, fascism was viewed positively as both Mussolini and then Hitler seemed to solve the problems of young democracies in the post WWI continent (the post monarchy). The elites, obviously jealous of power vested in the populace through representative governments, saw fascism as a logical pathway to regain power they’d lost when monarchy died. So at the time it wasn’t obvious to the majority of Americans, much less the Europeans, that Hitler was about to destroy the continent. This love of fascism dies fairly quickly as Hitler began serious actions against Czech and obviously Poland. But his retaking of the lost territory wasn’t viewed as being a significant signal he’d begin the next world war. In fact there was some high level of guilt in the UK about the treaty of 1919s devastating effect on Germany.
Given that France, the largest army in post WWI Europe, had no political appetite to take on a treaty violating Germany (and we know the UK suffered from the same inability), how would the United States have prevented Hitler’s movements?
As for the charge of hindsight, of course I plead guilty. However, there were strong voices at the time saying, with foresight, what I am now saying with hindsight. In virtually every European nation, for every public figure that saw Hitler as a "manageable" problem that could be dealt with through diplomacy and negotiation one can find another equally clear about the threat Hitler posed to peace.
But the problem long predated 1932.
If you look at the diplomatic history of the late '20s and early '30s, you find recurring opportunities for the United States to have engaged itself productively with its once and future European allies to address the structural issues--both economic and political--that contributed so heavily to the rise of far-right movements and governments. For example, a great many commentators at the time called out the United States's approach to the vexing, inter-related problems of German reparations and Allied war debt to the U.S. as being especially unhelpful. If the U.S. had been prepared to look at forgiving a large chunk of the Allied war debt, then it is clear that the reparations issue would quickly have disappeared.
You rightly point out that France had no appetite to take on Germany, but that was primarily because England refused to commit unequivocally to supporting her, and England's refusal to do so had a great deal to do with its leaders clear sense that England could no longer afford to project its power into Europe. There is no doubt that public aversion to renewed war was a powerful force across the board. However, a significant component in that mood was the void left by the withdrawal of American engagement. America could not have directly prevented the rise of Nazism, but it could have provided leadership, economic, and moral support to the neighbouring countries who were prepared to act in a coordinated way, but not alone. America could never have run around Europe "solving their conflicts", but it had many chances to join in with other nations to throw its weight in the right direction, and it didn't.
Finally, the idea that Europe's history is one of "near constant wars" is deeply ahistorical. The United States fought four serious wars in the 1800s, and several smaller actions--more than any European country fought over that period. Even Prussia/Germany only made it to three. Between the end of the Napoleonic wars and WWI Europe was, in fact, in one of the longest periods of extended peace in its history.
“In virtually every European nation, for every public figure that saw Hitler as a "manageable" problem that could be dealt with through diplomacy and negotiation one can find another equally clear about the threat Hitler posed to peace.” This is not true. When something could have been done, when Hitler first took power and began to ignore the treaty and build his army, there was no parity of opinion amongst leaders in the UK or France about the threat Hitler posed. Everyone understood that enforcing the treaty meant war, and every western player involved in WWI had no viable pathway to convince the public to attack Germany again. Nobody, and I mean nobody, wanted another war except Hitler and his closest inner circle. Had France mobilized very early in Hitler’s treaty violation, war would likely have been averted. But it was also impossible at that time.
Churchill seems to be the exception. It wasn’t until it was too late that some became emboldened enough to speak out against appeasement. But even then most remained hopeful and most were concerned that talk such as that coming from Churchill would in fact be that catalyst that started war.
Regarding American financial support to Europe, you’re forgetting that event that actually saves the Nazi Party from complete oblivion- the Great Depression. It would have been politically impossible to send massive amounts of cash to Germany to bolster their economy during this time period. Your again packaging current, post war geopolitics into an era that new no such thing and at that time has no such money regardless. Certainly not in the sums that Weimer Germany needed to fend off Hitler’s Nazi party messaging.
“Finally, the idea that Europe's history is one of "near constant wars" is deeply ahistorical. The United States fought four serious wars in the 1800s,...” Of all the things you’ve said in this post, this is probably the craziest.
I suppose Burns also forgot to mention Joan Collins? I joke. But I wonder what myths were made in the late '60's about World War II and if they different than the ones made now.
What great reporting, how very unique and perceptive. Your explication of American opposition to ww2 and the link to the latest military engagement is compelling. I wonder are people in the know (historians) giving you a thumbs up? Does an honest interlocutor dispute this supposition?
IMHO Ken Burns blew up his career with 'Holocaust'.....how dare he equate the Holocaust with illegal immigration today. The man is truly daft.
He’s probably got all the money he needs. Now he wants the power to tell you what to think
He probably has an amazing ESG score!
I guess Burns forgot to mention that great anti-war figure George Washington who warned against foreign entanglements. And he surely would never support the idea of George's never put party above nation. Something very much out of favor today.
Remember: The US Naval War College concluded decades later that Roosevelt formally and irreversibly contravened Washington's admonition against entanglement in European affairs in June 1941 when he secretly ordered the US military occupation of Iceland
Just disgusting. I used to respect Burns, now I detest him. Those of us counciling peace will never get to say “we told you so” if the crazy war hawks get their way. We have dangerous lying leaders. Trump kept us OUT of wars. Bring him back.
It’s also highly ironic that they’re the nazis they want to warn everyone is coming
“they wanted no part of the foreign wars that the moneyed conservative Eastern class so much enjoyed and benefited from. The people knew that they were the ones who would do the dying” Vidal was talking about WWII but it still applies. Seems Ken Burns has gone from exquisitely calibrating conventional wisdom to actively serving the regime. The USA did little to nothing for Jewish refugees during the war. The heroic narrative has been greatly enlarged ever since. It seems here Burns is using the heroic tale to create propaganda. This is closer to messaging than it is to a balanced account. What you leave out can be a tell. Why is he supporting a senile puppet?
Is he fully conscious of his political manipulation or is he a true believer?
Guessing most or all of his friends are connected and rich well meaning white liberals. Look at what happened to Steven King. I’m guessing these types of rich influential cultural producers have their well connected friends whispering in their ears nonstop. FFS King wrote a whole book supporting the Oswald did it alone thesis. Wonder where his inspiration came from? I’m sure he has friends in the intel community. So my conclusion is these types know very well they are indulging in propaganda. It’s just that they have been persuaded it’s for the good of the public to tell us what to think.
Perfectly judged Grape Soda!
It is both: they truly believe and they are consciously manipulating. His work is a concoction in support of a cause and in their earnest judgment a necessary counterweight to the atrocious people who don’t understand.
That is exactly how opposition to the 2003 Iraq War will be portrayed in 2083.
Kind of wish "Ken Burns" had remained a photo slideshow transitioning effect.
More seriously, history is messy. Only in retrospect can you judge it, but you can only live it going forward without the benefit of being able to sneak a peek at the ending. Beware of the person who tries to simplify it and turn it into a caricature or a slogan. They're trying to sell you something, and most of the time it's something you will really, really regret buying when you look back . . . that's if we live through this one and have a chance to look back.
I'm old enough to remember worrying about nuclear holocaust. I had thought those days were gone, but here we are. I'd say that history will remember these people poorly, though history remembering would require someone to be around to relate that history, and I'm not sure anyone will be. (If you can't tell, it's been hitting home a little lately how close we are to annihilating the human race, though at this point, I'm not too sure that's the worst thing. Another species can have its turn.)
But, in short, thank you so much for reminding me why Substack is such a valuable place and giving me hope that not all the intelligent, thoughtful people are dead or silence.
PS Any article that brings in the late great Kurt Vonnegut warms my heart.
The Vietnam War, The Cuban Missle Crisis, the 2008 Crash - none of these are as scary & ominous, as what we're going through now.
I was extremely disappointed in Burns’ work this time around. Normally he’s very detailed in his research and interviews - which is why his series are loooong. But his approach her seems driven by a bizarre and irrational panic. A phenomenon that seems to infect the minds of elites these days ever since Trump came to power.
It seems Trump, and now Putin, have the magical power to turn once level headed individuals into raving lunatics. Did anyone see Sam Harris justify any action to ensure Trump not be elected?
Burns now has this historically inaccurate documentary lashed around his neck now - it’s his own 1619 project. Absolutely horrible work and blatantly propagandist.
TDS is real
It’s truly fascinating, isn’t it. And I can’t wrap my head around it at all. There’s no rationality involved. And to watch Sam Harris agree with underhanded activities “in defense of democracy” was super wild.
Abstraction in service to the status quo. Incroyable
Yes, Ken Burns is a revisionist, and he always has been. He's a 1970s antiwar protestor who set out to put out his own version of history. No doubt he came up with his "Holocaust" project because of an influx of cash from the usual suspects. The Holocaust is to Jews as slavery is to black activists - without it, no one would pay them any attention. I have read Charles Lindberg's diary and several biographies of him. He was NOT pro-Hitler, but he had lived in Europe for several years and knew the capabilities of the various military aviation forces of the belligerent nations, and he feared that the war would destroy Europe (which it did.) FDR and members of his administration hated him because they knew he was speaking truth. There were many who opposed US involvement in the war, including Henry Ford, who gave Lindbergh a job in his Willow Run bomber plant - unlike other industrialists, he wasn't afraid of Roosevelt. Lindbergh was actually a strong conservative and held the conservative view that America should stay out of Europe's wars.
As for Norman Thomas, few Americans have ever heard of him. Pete Seeger and Woody Gutherie were communists and followed the communist line of supporting Uncle Joe Stalin after Hitler broke their alliance and attacked the USSR.
If you want to watch something worthwhile, I would suggest the works of TimeGhost History. They have a full week by week coverage of the First World War with tons of additional specials
https://www.youtube.com/user/TheGreatWar
Their Between Two Wars series (also the best history program I have ever seen)
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrG5J-K5AYAU1R-HeWSfY2D1jy_sEssNG
Finally, they are currently doing a week by week of World War Two (currently at October 1943)
https://www.youtube.com/c/WorldWarTwo/videos
Own need only watch Burns's "Baseball" to see that he has been dabbling in revisionist history for a long time.
Maybe someone should tell Burns that nuclear war is bad?
The fundamental point, which I think escapes you, is that those who opposed U.S. engagement in Europe, including entry into WWII, were wrong from every imaginable perspective. Staying out of Europe after WWI was bad policy from a realpolitik perspective, from a moral perspective, and from a prudential perspective.
The issue is not whether America Firsters were fascist sympathizers, racists, and anti-semites--some very clearly were, but only a minority. The question is whether they were blind to the realities of their age. The answer is that they very much were, just as you are blind to the realities of the situation in Ukraine.
It may be entirely true that many of those pushing for greater support for Ukraine lie or have base commercial motives. It is also entirely beside the point. Ad hominem is never sound argument. Ken Burns's perspective on the past, however defective, isn't the reason Western nations should keep pouring money and arms into Ukraine to hold off the Russians. The case for vigorously opposing Russia's invasion is based not on a distorted view of history, but on a clear view of the reality of our present. Joe Biden and Ken Burns are not bigger threats to world peace and security than Vladimir Putin.
Disagree.
IHF - you make the counter argument well. I don’t agree with you, in fact I would argue the opposite. Russia and Putin repeatedly warned that NATO on their boarders would be unacceptable and the provocateur is the Atlantic alliance. This could’ve been avoided but it was consciously pursued, purposely provoked.
You’re making this claim through the lens of hindsight which has revealed to you the course of the events. You’re also leaving out the role that a nuclear armed Soviet Union played in American policy to police the world. It’s fairly obvious that our interventionist policy originated more from our fear of a nuclear Soviet Union more so than any moral hindsight about how we had missed an opportunity to stop Hitler.
And you don’t understand that it took WWII for America to make its most dramatic turn toward world policing. Prior to the war the idea of Americans running about Europe solving their conflicts NR Lucy’s would have been (rightly) seen as reckless. Understand that Europe’s history is one of near constant wars, culminating in WWII. The idea that we should have ever been involved in the never ending battles between these idiotic empires was absurd.
Amongst many European elites, fascism was viewed positively as both Mussolini and then Hitler seemed to solve the problems of young democracies in the post WWI continent (the post monarchy). The elites, obviously jealous of power vested in the populace through representative governments, saw fascism as a logical pathway to regain power they’d lost when monarchy died. So at the time it wasn’t obvious to the majority of Americans, much less the Europeans, that Hitler was about to destroy the continent. This love of fascism dies fairly quickly as Hitler began serious actions against Czech and obviously Poland. But his retaking of the lost territory wasn’t viewed as being a significant signal he’d begin the next world war. In fact there was some high level of guilt in the UK about the treaty of 1919s devastating effect on Germany.
Given that France, the largest army in post WWI Europe, had no political appetite to take on a treaty violating Germany (and we know the UK suffered from the same inability), how would the United States have prevented Hitler’s movements?
As for the charge of hindsight, of course I plead guilty. However, there were strong voices at the time saying, with foresight, what I am now saying with hindsight. In virtually every European nation, for every public figure that saw Hitler as a "manageable" problem that could be dealt with through diplomacy and negotiation one can find another equally clear about the threat Hitler posed to peace.
But the problem long predated 1932.
If you look at the diplomatic history of the late '20s and early '30s, you find recurring opportunities for the United States to have engaged itself productively with its once and future European allies to address the structural issues--both economic and political--that contributed so heavily to the rise of far-right movements and governments. For example, a great many commentators at the time called out the United States's approach to the vexing, inter-related problems of German reparations and Allied war debt to the U.S. as being especially unhelpful. If the U.S. had been prepared to look at forgiving a large chunk of the Allied war debt, then it is clear that the reparations issue would quickly have disappeared.
You rightly point out that France had no appetite to take on Germany, but that was primarily because England refused to commit unequivocally to supporting her, and England's refusal to do so had a great deal to do with its leaders clear sense that England could no longer afford to project its power into Europe. There is no doubt that public aversion to renewed war was a powerful force across the board. However, a significant component in that mood was the void left by the withdrawal of American engagement. America could not have directly prevented the rise of Nazism, but it could have provided leadership, economic, and moral support to the neighbouring countries who were prepared to act in a coordinated way, but not alone. America could never have run around Europe "solving their conflicts", but it had many chances to join in with other nations to throw its weight in the right direction, and it didn't.
Finally, the idea that Europe's history is one of "near constant wars" is deeply ahistorical. The United States fought four serious wars in the 1800s, and several smaller actions--more than any European country fought over that period. Even Prussia/Germany only made it to three. Between the end of the Napoleonic wars and WWI Europe was, in fact, in one of the longest periods of extended peace in its history.
“In virtually every European nation, for every public figure that saw Hitler as a "manageable" problem that could be dealt with through diplomacy and negotiation one can find another equally clear about the threat Hitler posed to peace.” This is not true. When something could have been done, when Hitler first took power and began to ignore the treaty and build his army, there was no parity of opinion amongst leaders in the UK or France about the threat Hitler posed. Everyone understood that enforcing the treaty meant war, and every western player involved in WWI had no viable pathway to convince the public to attack Germany again. Nobody, and I mean nobody, wanted another war except Hitler and his closest inner circle. Had France mobilized very early in Hitler’s treaty violation, war would likely have been averted. But it was also impossible at that time.
Churchill seems to be the exception. It wasn’t until it was too late that some became emboldened enough to speak out against appeasement. But even then most remained hopeful and most were concerned that talk such as that coming from Churchill would in fact be that catalyst that started war.
Regarding American financial support to Europe, you’re forgetting that event that actually saves the Nazi Party from complete oblivion- the Great Depression. It would have been politically impossible to send massive amounts of cash to Germany to bolster their economy during this time period. Your again packaging current, post war geopolitics into an era that new no such thing and at that time has no such money regardless. Certainly not in the sums that Weimer Germany needed to fend off Hitler’s Nazi party messaging.
“Finally, the idea that Europe's history is one of "near constant wars" is deeply ahistorical. The United States fought four serious wars in the 1800s,...” Of all the things you’ve said in this post, this is probably the craziest.
I suppose Burns also forgot to mention Joan Collins? I joke. But I wonder what myths were made in the late '60's about World War II and if they different than the ones made now.
(Star Trek. City on the Edge of Tomorrow)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uKWpWkcpdM
What great reporting, how very unique and perceptive. Your explication of American opposition to ww2 and the link to the latest military engagement is compelling. I wonder are people in the know (historians) giving you a thumbs up? Does an honest interlocutor dispute this supposition?