Summer Reading: The Candy Bombers

This month marks the 60th anniversary of the Berlin airlift, an extraordinary moment in American and German history. In The Candy Bombers: The Untold Story of the Berlin Airlift and America’s Finest Hour (Putnam Adult, 2008), Andrei Cherny tells the story in intimate and uplifting detail – read it and be proud of the Americans who conceived and executed the mission that changed Germany and proved to our friends and our enemies that America would not abandon its interests. Not only would we stay, we would stay and make things better.

This month marks the 60th anniversary of the Berlin airlift, an extraordinary moment in American and German history. In The Candy Bombers: The Untold Story of the Berlin Airlift and America’s Finest Hour (Putnam Adult, 2008), Andrei Cherny tells the story in intimate and uplifting detail – read it and be proud of the Americans who conceived and executed the mission that changed Germany and proved to our friends and our enemies that America would not abandon its interests. Not only would we stay, we would stay and make things better.

The Candy Bombers reminds us of the distance between the end of fighting and the end of hostility; between the end of war and the beginning of peace; between the end of dictatorship and the beginning of freedom; between the end of destruction and the beginning of rebuilding. Post-war Germany was America’s first (simultaneous with Japan) foray into nation building – for people that many Americans hated, and who hated Americans in return. From the book:

• In 1947, “the Germans were ‘full of resentments,’ Time magazine reported. ‘Most of all they resented the bombing of their homes and cities. The Americans, they felt, have gone much too far beyond the evident necessities of war. Deep in many a German heart, the conviction grew that Americans were unfit for human society.’ Considering the source, Americans were far from troubled by the sentiment.” (109)
• “‘Americans are discovering that the Germans are still far from ready to settle down as a peaceful and law-abiding people,’ (Westbrook) Van Voorhis said… Two years after the end of the war, the broadly held conviction that the United States’ occupation of defeated Germany would be quick had been discarded.” (116)
• “Another thirteen had committed suicide over that Christmas. Rival gangs fought bloody battles among the wreckage. Food had grown scarce and people had become desperate… Berliners, Melvin Lasky wrote from the city in 1948, were ‘a ruined, poverty stricken, brutalized people, with little to eat, everything to fear, nothing to hope for.'” (133)
• (In early 1948) “American GIs were finding walls graffitied with the number ’88.’ Initially, they were confused. Eventually they realized the numbers stood for the eighth letter of the alphabet: ’88’ was ‘HH’ – ‘Heil Hitler.'” (126)

Read it for who we were, who they were and where we have gone together. Remember while you do that American troops were a real political and military factor in Germany for decades.

Read it too with an eye toward the result of our victory in Iraq – yes, victory. Even MSN has noted the decline in violence. But more important, Iraq has begun to behave like a normal country. The military ensures security (with help), the government governs, and the parliament has passed the laws that were the benchmarks of progress in the eyes of the American Congress. The economy is improving, Arab governments are returning diplomats to Baghdad (though not Egypt, Saudi Arabia or Jordan) and regional elections will take place again in the fall.

As Germany had to undo the vile social and political effects of eleven years of Nazi rule, Iraq has to unwind 23 years of Saddam’s legacy of totalitarian brutality, rape rooms and poison gas. We stayed then because it was in our interest – we can do no less now.