Nations, like peoples, make mistakes. The people who supported Hitler are dead, but many nations, organizations, and people groups that supported the Nazis in World War II are not. What about other evil-doers in history? How do these nations portray their involvement with villains? Many ignore it, hoping that people who know will forget or die and people that do not know will never learn. Others such as Germany persevere over it, endlessly apologizing and integrating permanent shame into their national psyche. A few admit their guilt, memorialize it in museums and textbooks to warn future generations, and balance sharing the good with the bad in their national or organizational life.
By Mark D. Harris, MD, MPH, MBA, MDiv, ThM, PhD, DBA
My family and I visited our family in Prague in the Czech Republic earlier this month. Along with family time, we caught some sites, of which many, due to our nerdy nature, were museums and battle sites. As a soldier and military historian, many military museums showed up on our list. White Mountain, the site of a seminal battle between Protestants and Catholics (1620), was little more than a cairn on a small rise in the ground. Vitkov Hill which marked a major Hussite victory over a Papist army, was a sizeable hill with the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and a towering statue of Jan Zizka, the victorious Hussite commander on his mount. The ancient, medieval, Renaissance, and early modern history in the National Museum was spot on. The problem began with the 20th century.
Prior to World War 1, the Czech and Slovak lands and peoples formed part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. As such, they fought on the side of Germany and the Ottoman Empire against the British, French, Russians, Rumanians, Serbians, and Italians. Sophie, the wife of Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne who was assassinated with her husband in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914, was Czech (Bohemian).
Czechs and Slovaks shared in the triumphs and travails of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. They struggled in the initial invasion of Serbia (August 1914), were overwhelmed by the Russians at the Battle of Lemberg (Sept 1914), repelled the Brusilov offensive (June-Sept 1916), and battled back and forth with the Rumanians (1916-1917) and Italians (1915-1918). One of the greatest defeats in history occurred when the Austro-Hungarian forces had to surrender 120,000 men including thousands of Czechs at Przemysl in early 1915. Out of 1.5 million Czechs who mobilized for World War I, about 150,000 were killed or wounded in the course of the war.
The Czech Republic
A casual visitor would never know it. In the National Museum, he or she would read about Czechs in the trenches of France or the mountains of Italy risking their lives to defeat the Central Powers. The visitor would hear tales of Czechs fighting against the Germans in Russia. Only a visitor who had extensive knowledge of World War I would know that the Czech and Slovak peoples in the Austro-Hungarian Empire supported Germany far more than they helped the Triple Entente (France, Russia, and Great Britain). German and Austrian (including Czech) soldiers moved into Ukraine in 1917 after Russia sued for peace to support the nascent government against the ascendent Bolsheviks.[1]
The situation was little better at the Army Museum. The exhibits for World War I were excellent, but still, the role of Czechia in the Central Powers was dramatically underplayed. The small minorities of Czechs fighting for the Triple Entente certainly helped their allies, but many more aided the Central Powers. I was in for a pleasant surprise at the Museum of Technology. In exhibits from aircraft to motor cars, the Czechs, who accounted for most of the industry in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, were correctly placed alongside Germany.
The Czech reticence to tell the truth about their inclusion in and participation with the Austro-Hungarian Empire may come from many concerns:
- The Central Powers, including the Czechs, lost the war.
- There is some evidence of atrocities committed by Austro-Hungarians against Serbs, Roma (Gypsees), and others.
- These glaring historical omissions may be more recent, reflecting people’s aversion to be associated with Germany after World War II.
To their credit, the Czechs were forthright in many areas. The Communism Museum and the Nuclear Bunker presented the unvarnished history of the horrors of Communism in Czech from 1948 to 1988. The conflict between King Wenceslas IV (“Good King Wenceslas”) and St John of Nepomuk, in which the king killed the saint, brought into question the goodness of the king. Real history has a way of both exalting and indicting its subjects.
Egypt
Nancy and I visited Cairo in 1994, accompanied by our three-month-old daughter, and we toured the Egyptian Military Museum.[2] As is typical, ancient and medieval history, and even history during the Muslim conquest was well done. However, the presentation of Egypt’s mid and late-20th-century struggle with Israel was deceiving.
The 1948 war, called the War of Independence by the Jews, was framed by the museum as butchery and ethnic cleansing by the Israelis against the Palestinians. Actually, the surrounding Arab nations had vowed to suffocate the new Jewish state in its cradle. The United Nations mandate allowed the state of Israel to proclaim independence on 14 May 1948, which Israel did. Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and others attacked on 15 May. After nine months, Israel prevailed.
The Egyptian Military Museum showed the 1956 war as an Arab victory against Great Britain, France, and Israel. It was, insofar as the USA forced Britain and France to withdraw and the USA and USSR forced both sides into a ceasefire. Arab arms played a smaller role in their victory than international Cold War politics. The resounding Israeli victory against Syria and Egypt in 1967 was not mentioned at all. If one believes the Egyptian military museum, it never happened.
The 1973 war began with an Egyptian surprise attack on Israel’s Bar Lev Suez Canal defense lines. Through solid planning, tactical surprise, and individual valor, the Egyptians broke through. Equipped by the Soviets, the Egyptian Army drove deep into the Israeli Sinai. Casualties were heavy, and Israel struggled to mount a defense. Days passed and slowly the tide turned. Israel counterattacked and drove the Egyptians back. The Israeli forces crossed the Suez Canal and encircled an Egyptian army. The Egyptians repulsed Israeli tanks, but Cairo was in danger. Again, the US and USSR imposed a cease-fire. Simultaneously, Syrian forces initially pushed the Israelis back from the Golan Heights. Within days, Israel counterattacked, and Syria withdrew. The Egyptian Military Museum displayed the first half of the war and said nothing about the remainder.
The Rest of the World
In eight years of living in Germany, I found that German museums highlight the bad, such as the Holocaust, and downplay the good, from Beethoven and Einstein to Virchow and Von Goethe. France leaned the other direction, glorifying Napoleon while ignoring his tyranny and destruction. Great Britain and the US seemed to be in the middle, celebrating victories but not hiding defeats. Things change over time, however. Great Britain cannot stop apologizing for its empire, the greatest in world history, which did both good and evil. America is following the same self-flagellating path.
The Bible neither whitewashes nor blackwashes history. David is portrayed in Scripture as a great king, a man after God’s own heart. King David is also portrayed as an adulterer and murderer. Abraham was mighty and faithful, but he also endangered his wife Sarah more than once to protect himself from foreign rulers. Jephthah was a mighty man of war and faithful judge, but his foolish vow destroyed his only child, his daughter. Samson singlehandedly broke the Philistine stranglehold on Israel, but his lust clouded his mind, drained his faith, and ended his life.
Conclusion
No group of nations, nation, organization, or person is without error. The Bible is clear when it says that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Whitewashing failures is a path to repeating those failures. Likewise, blackwashing successes is a path to doing nothing at all. Both are wrong. The best path is honesty and balance.
[1] Serhii Plokhy, The Gates of Europe : A History of Ukraine (London: Penguin Books, 2016).
[2] My preference for military history goes back a long time. It has been forced, more or less, on my children.
