So here's a book I'd like to get my hands on: The Last Nazis, the historical accounting of the Nazi resistance in Germany from 1945 to 1947, where fascist forces used sabotage and terrorism in an attempt to resist the Allied occupation.
It didn't work out very well for them, obviously, but given that this is a poorly-understood chapter of history, and given that all military occupations always face this kind of resistance (I don't think there's ever been an exception), it would seem to have some bearing on circumstances today. Werewolf!, another history of the post-WWII resistance to the allies, looks just as interesting.
Of course there is one huge difference between that and current circumstances: there were not forces in countries surrounding Germany that wanted to see the allies fail, except Stalin's forces. Unlike Iraq today, where certain religious factions are able to import terrorists from neighboring countries such as Iran and Syria. Still and all, it's worth remembering always that no occupation is without a resistance, and without unanticipated difficulties.
Apparently there is a book called Hitler's Werewolves which covers the same subject. I just found out the library in my area has a copy, and put a hold on it. The Internet is a wonderful thing.
I read the various reviews of both books which cover the brief history of post-WWII German resistance to the four-power occupation following 1945.
One of these reviews notes comparisons between the occupations of Germany and of Iraq. Lest we draw false conclusions, the review warns:
1) Germany at the close of WWII not only was occupied for enemy armies but was also surrounded by hostile enemy states. There were no lands in Europe from which German guerilla forces could obtain succor. So different from Iraq, with its porous borders with islamic and unoccupied Iran and Syria, both of which cooperate significantly with dissident and armed elements of the Iraqi population groups; Syria in the case of the sunni baathists and Iran in the case of the shi'a.
2) Germany for the past 250 years has had no religious wars with the notable exception of the Nazi extermination of the Jews who lived in that country as well as all other European Jews on whom they could lay their hands during the war. Therefore, the main German population subsets -- Catholic and Lutheran -- had no long standing quarrel to take up after WWII and thus fuel domestic quarrels of the type that would lead to civil conflict. Iraq, on the other hand, is notably fractured by nationalist conflicts between non-Arab Kurds, sunni Arabs, and shi'a Arabs; all of whom are almost certain to continue in struggle against one another no what the outcome of the current US occupation.
The other post WWII occupation, that of the US in Japan, involved a population that his more racially and culturally homogenous than most others in the world.
All told, I would say that the occupation of Kosovo, with its absolutely mutually hostile Albanians and Serbs, is a better model for the future of Iraq than either postwar Germany or postwar Japan.
Based on these considerations, it would appear that the ancient Roman strategy of divide and conquer does not work when the subjugated population itself, rather than the subjugators, have done the dividing.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Found one last night, some arsehole I met in the pub was proud of the fact that he was the son of a Nazi. And sided with the Arabs, did not believe in the existance of Israel and kept refering to me as a Jew.
There was one other difference, and this is fundamental: German civilians were held in low regard in the initial occupation -- the last 6 months of the air war, for example, was focused on kiling German civilians to break the government's support. Dresden was not so much an aberration as a perfection of method.
Certainly the Russian Army had no problem killing large numbers of Germans -- men, women and children -- in any area where there was the least bit of resistance. Sherman had nothing on the Soviets. While the Americans were not similarly indescriminate, there was also no sense that we were in Germany to liberate them. Opposition was dealt with ruthlessly.
In Iraq, we are in large part there to liberate the Iraqis from a despot. The civilians get the benefit of the doubt that was never extended to the Germans.