And topics list on the upper right side of the page. Ian burumoa examines after world war ii and looks at the transformative nature of the war from the displacement of people in the better warn cities in europe and japan to the creation of the United Nations and the continued rise of communis commn the soviet union and china. This is about one hour and 15 minutes. Ian buruma the henry r. Luce professor of human rights and journalism was educated. Hes won several awards for his work among them the International Prize and the shore and steamed journalism award. The publication he writes for and within new york review of books, new yorker, New York Times and the guardian, which the guardian recently published a highly learned and highly entertaining review of the British Museum exhibition sex and pleasure in japanese art. Among the previous books are really jenny and democracy on three continents, murder in amsterdam will europe and tolerance and inventing japan 1863 to 1964. In the year zero most of which he wrote while he was a fellow at the center in 2011 and 2012 to the serious fellow that he was so productive he has a brilliant portrayal of the world emerging from the devastation and unspeakable horrors. Skeptical about the idea that we can learn much from history, he nonetheless wanted to know the end including his own father when he went through. He helps me make sense of myself and in need all of our lives in the long dark shadow of what came before. They call cold war zero magnificent in its modesty and the Financial Times describes it as elegant, humane and luminous. Mark in a most who was honored as the New York Public Library lying and has published more than 25 books including several collections of stories and many novels among them many, times aero and most recently the state of england. He received the james tait black memorial prize for his experience and was named one of the 50 greatest british writers since 1945 by the london times in 2008, 1945 seems to be the theme tonight. We are fortunate to be able to listen in on a conversation between the two extraordinarily gifted fighters who are often friends. They will talk about 45 minutes and take a few questions from the audience. There are microphones on both sides please come up to the microphone rather than try to speak from your chair. And then they will sign books. So please when they are speaking with him get off to the table to sign. Please welcome speak 11 and mark ten amos ian buruma and amos. [applause] something to be said. And of course this is a term in this book. It is amazing organizing a great deal of material. The aftermath of the war is determined by the war itself and its shaped by events that preceded it. Apart from being uniquely devastating in the 55 million dead and many ruins and all the devastation that we know of, it looks increasingly weird and grotesque from some aspects of the war ended wasnt blundered into. There was one man, the japanese experience is slightly different but it can be almost considered separately that one. The only time hitler ever made me smile is i think it was just before the invasion of poland which set the war in motion questioned by the general case i havent got any nerves about this. He was set that her since 1980. The fact that this one man flipped germany, the most, the best educated country on earth, the best educated country that there had ever been into this exploration of the best deal, which is what happened but it was still remarkable, and thouge weirdness of much of the aftermath is sort of inherent. Its the great crux that no one can ask. It was before they went like land to the slaughter. You could click that a bit and say they went like lambs to the slaughter house and got to work you have george urban connections in feeling for germany. And i think that he did exceptionally well because of the connection with england and america and germany and crucially in japan. I dont think that it helps necessarily to know germany well or japan while to explain the human propensity for extreme violence. I think that we shar shared thet of horrified fascination with white people are capable of doing terrible things. I dont think there are people who say that you could explain this because they have and the extermination that they meant how deep it goes from hitler or the japanese that are uniquely barbaric and cruel. I dont belief that for a minute. And i think that your question is a good one. How is it that one of the most highly educated and civilized countries in europe produced so much extraordinary lives because yes it was hitler the planet it, that he couldnt have done it on his own. He had a very active participation. And i think hitler is one example and has the most extreme example in modern history that there are others on a smaller scale of the political regime that deliberately exploit peoples basic instincts and i think the idea that there is a torture in all of this is probably not true either, not all of it would make good talks. But if it is true that the authorities at the government give people license to do whatever they like with other human beings, you will find a large number, and one cant put particular numbered of this, but you will find an efficient number of people who will be there and at least two torture and killing. Even if people have lived perfectly happy with one another before that command again people often say for example in the balkan war people explain the environment again. They should find ways at a certain time. I dont think that the hatred even though there are all kind of mass but keep them coming back and manipulated by politicians and leaders and so on in order to put people up to violence. But i dont think there is such a thing as the smoldering hatred that suddenly burst spontaneously. Its always orchestrated. And i think that one of the best examples of this in my book in 1945 is what happened particularly in czechoslovakia or poland where the large german populations whose family has lived there for centuries and suddenly they opposed that they were given license by their own leaders and given away by the allies that did nothing to stop it. They have to be expelled and do your worst and people did for several months. Now, german nationalists like to claim that what happened in poland and czechoslovakia and with the germans and germany suffered from the soviet red army which was also hard on this in terms of rate and killing and torture and so on this was just as bad as what the germans did to others in the subject of the roverelative sizing not to rewre but to put in a different complexion on these. It was said an in his review in the New York Times that what you did and doing the buck was deheroize and that goes along the lines of the allied bombing, dressed being that paradigm and at the turn of germany that hes come to people and ethnic german half a million dead, that is a bit more. We agreed to return the russian pow to certain enslavement. And at the way that weve revived colonialism and saying that the resistance in france particularly was not that. The truth was Something Like collaboration. But i find myself very much reacting against that sort of in a visceral way. And there is no equivalent. One should remember that as churchill cites the war and the interesting concept that i saw raised is that they get old and the bigger they are, the faster the age. Six years and a lots of patience is my way of putting it. But he said while we created the United Nations and the european community. But we destroyed their. That was the achievement. It was a necessary achievement, of course. And why take away the heroism of that and i think the bleak convolution that one can draw is that very often the heroes can click turn into villains. The soviet red army fought in the sacrifices of the soviet soldiers for extraordinary and they fought like lions and it was a necessary fight and with them they wouldnt have tv did hitler, but they behave like beasts often when they invaded the germany. Likewise, that senator when a woman is raped she switches off the procreation of all mechanisms yes, indeed. The soviets were not the only ones who were guilty. Because of the Japanese Occupation of the countries in Southeast Asia and so on, but in the country the local populations certainly didnt want to go back to the state where the dutch and the french and the british system extent have the illusion they could go back to the prewar and take back the colonies. Now im at the nationalists in the countries had often collaborated with the japanese, quite understandably because they saw that as their chance to liberate themselves from the european colonial masters. But after the war in europe, these nationalists were depicted as collaborators. So, who was sent to algeria and the Dutch East Indies and other places to put down the anticolonial rebellion with atrocious force people that fought in the resistance against the knots easing to so my point is that Human Behavior including the atrocity and extreme violence is not a matter of character or if culture but its a matter of circumstances if the people that behave like heroes in certain circumstances can behave like animals and others. That finding if you find you have someone completely at your mercy, the fraud comes next is torture. We should make note in general life balance declined and once we are back at the conclusion that violence has declined, continuing the decline and one very important notion that it took a lot of reestablishing itself after you had the monopoly of the violence and that must be the state. This is the sounding idea of what makes the nationstate. Not in this country. Know ive always thought that americans just havent accepted the preset and they want to be able to stand up to the u. S. Army if things should get tyrannical in the white house. But there have been the police going back centuries and that gathering force. Also you may interested in the novel that made a big differen difference. He doesnt like the word empathy. He said he heard a mother screaming at one of her two children screaming show some empathy. The question is what the novel really promoted. And easing that this is a erratic . Know, i dont think so. And i dont think high culture makes us into better human beings. This is one of George Steiners great hobby horses how is it that they can play schuman absolutely beautifully and the next day go to work i dont think that it is all that mysterious, nor do i think that Higher Education makes it into more. I really do think it is a question of, as i said, of circumstances. And i suppose if you think of the more recent war is a dilemma because if you think about the monopoly of the force, Saddam Hussein certainly monopolized the force in his state and a brutal manner it was a state in which torture was widespread and people were gassed. He was a torturer. He monopolized trade one could argue there are things people fear more than a brutal dictatorship and its anarchy in which its every man for himself and chaos, which we see to some extent in libya now and to some extent iraq and that isnt well that means things would have been better if we left Saddam Hussein alone, that it is something that people should think about a little bit more before they casually say while, we as americans it is our duty to fight the dictatorship and bring freedom and liberty for us to do so. They had ubiquitous torture and care for. It is a dictatorial order for most people and is probably still to be preferred for the violent anarchy. And violent anarchy in many ways you have until 1945 until the order was reimposed. Ideology. The period 1940 to 1945 is the second war. But there was no religion on the face of it and ideology is obviously religion was like heroin and ideology was like methadone. [laughter] it brings you tumbling down but not a bit of its 100 million for communism and fascism. Hes not seen for centuries because of ideology. It isnt always so clear. At its most violent phases theres not a huge distinction between religion and ideology because it was also the religious cult in which people could be tortured to death for trading on a speaker with his image on it and that his religion at its worst. It has nothing to do. It is a cult. If you think the group overemphasizes and is determinative of young peoples behavior throughout their life, the great study of that is policed reserve battalion 101 where its established the killing falls that went off behind. They kill women and children and then no one ever got punished for speaking chancellor. They were not sent they would be transferred and all that you might have in the meantime is a bit of jostling and anyone being punished for requesting the chancellor. Yet they would kill women and children all day every day. There was a sort of wear and tear. After a while, the killing is a strain and even it was considered to be more efficient to have gas chambers in them and people that operate at the gas chambers were not usually germans either it was left up to the victims to do that, so its not necessarily the case. While we are on this subject ive often thought that the reason why the violence in the civil war, and again to come back to the ethnic germans, the reason why they are so particularly brutal and it goes togetheto get a repudiation thet famous instant was when he set up on i cant remember now, his son. You see it over and over, people who set upon their neighbors. It wasnt enough to kill people. It have to go it was only preceded by humiliation of some grotesque kind. And i think that this is simply speculation. I think one of the reasons is that it isnt easy for one human being to murder another human being especially if they identify them with their neighbors if they look like you and so forth and it makes it easier if you reduce your victims to the status of an animal, some abject creature crawling around in the mud then you are killing an animal and no one very human being which is what you have to reduce people to that state. Its why the victims were called cockroaches on the radio. Its easier to call people cockroaches. How they terrorists speak to anyone that still has sympathy at all. And what these people left to themselves, no selfrespect, no common decency, etc. , that is the wave h. Eight their childr children. And they are in possession of what you think of them and. If you i would be in german and they were machinegunning mental patients and people had gone mad killing people in the east and i thought something wasnt quite right in germany. But on the same experience in 45 after, the Russian Troops often teenagers rated hospitals and great people sometimes wonder if on their death beds. When you write about violence there is the danger of the pornography and we are frightened of it and therefore fascinated but one always has to be a bit careful that you dont start to rustle in the description of it because there is a pornographic element of it and how one guards against it that we have no answer to it. Its a factor. They call it the literary lecturing, unwelcome rich human experience. And its close to sex. Thats why there is a pornographic element. People read about violence with a fascination of it entirely unrelated to the fascination about reading about sex. Many of [inaudible] but in line with what pinkers argument one might note there was a standing ovation in congress when he got his sentence commuted and it was over the phone called the battle hymn that was on top of the charts. I think it explains a little bit what happened in world war ii and afterwards as well and its a particular situation where soldiers are in a foreign country. They dont understand the language. They are often country boys and you can be shot at by anybody. The distinction being guerrilla fighters and soldiers and so on. It almost doesnt exist. You have no idea whos going to be shooting at you. There is than a great temptation to be triggerhappy and just shoot at groups and shoot them all and i think i dont think me lai was an act of necessarily despite the directions of calculated savingn come out of fear. They have taken many they have taken a lot of losses. Again its the dehumanization of the enemy. Quote uncouth unquote kooks in a remote village to a lot of those fearful provincial soldiers from the Rural America who would not have seemed to be entirely human. I would just like to read a sentence. What this book does so well is capture the amazing complexity and all the different theaters in different situations. And how ramified it all was. This is talking about yugoslavia the parties in several wars going on at the same time slot along ethnic political and religious rights. Versus muslim serbians versus communist versus slovenian communist. It sounds to me like syria. But i mean, look at greece and indonesia. Churchill again said they rule through villages and even after they have done that they dont win. Revolutionary violence. Right, what wars do justice dictatorships often do in foreign occupations is they deliberately manipulate resentments, divisions and so on that existence societies anyway. In france the vichy regime would have never come to power if it would have been for the German Occupation. Increase again the antagonist between the left and the right goes back to prewar period when they had the rightwing dictatorship and the leftwing opponents often were locked up in jail. The germans occupy greece. The resistance comes from the left often communist. The old card become collaborators with the germans and that goes on after the war. And so greece ended up in a brutal civil war and it couldve easily become a civil war and france was simmering and belgiug flemish nationalists were deliberately inflamed by the German Occupation against the frenchspeaking will lose. There was no monarch to keep things together because he was trying to make a deal with the germans and so on so what have that are the war than, its not that you top of the dictator or bring the brutal enemy to heal. In some ways the problems go on and the problems which have been made worse by war. How do you contain not . Having sort of the national figure, a king or a queen or degaulle in the case of brands who has the legitimacy to sort of patch things up and to go at it very deliberately by talking about everybody being antigerman and now its time to hold together again as though it hadnt happened but it was probably necessary thing to do because otherwise the country would have been torn apart. The other reason there were several wars starting with the soviets in western eyes clearly divided the world install and told the french and italian communists it would not support a revolution there. Talk a bit about japan because of very extreme process went on their with macarthur. The revamping of japan full root branch and twig. Which came as a great relief to the empire. I dont think anybody really likes to be the emperor prefers to have an english breakfast. Talk about the process. The difference between germany and japan is that, which is the other thing of course after world war ii the allies often had a very hazy idea of what had produced all of this horror. As you said in the beginning, what explains what the nazis did and what the germans did . From one of the most common theories at the time and that was one that churchill for a long time believed it was all because of pressionism, the pression military spirit that produced all of this. Of course later we knew better. Depressions where the officers who tried to assassinate hitler although some of them had been quite enthusiastic nazis before. In germany it was fairly easy because a clear takeover in 1933 by a criminal regime that came to an end in 1945 in the nazi party was hitler so in germany you could make the case that there was some truth to it rated to get rid of the nazi elements in the government, you get rid of not so germany could be restored to a decent european country. After all that it was the country of mozart and beethoven and all that. There was a real culprit. Do not see party bss and hitler. There was no equivalent to the nazi party and there was no in fact. There was an enormous amount of killing china particularly also Southeast Asia but there was no deliberate systematic attempt to exterminate an entire people so there had to be another explanation. In japan the explanation was precisely the spirit militarism and something deeply wrong with our Japanese Culture so while in germany you could denounce a fine revived the best of culture feeling rather ignorant allies after the war is there something so wrong about the Japanese Culture that its feudalistic and warrior like. The whole culture was turned upside down. The kabuki plays about feudalism and to democratize japan along american lines they had to be really sort of educated in a very fundamental way which were some comical instances of this. There was one man anything from kansas, the officer in charge of the town somewhere in japan, in rural japan to thought that square dancing was the answer because square dancing with democratize the japanese. There was the case of the first screen kiss in the cinema. The idea was japanese men and women have to be able to treat each other like equals and that means like americans they have to deal they have to be old to show their affection openly and not in this futile way that was hidden. It was good to have the kids so the American Occupation authority, the occupational authorities decreed that they had to have the first cinematic kiss which was hugely popular among audiences in japan. We knew when the kiss was going to come and they burst into wild applause. In any case unlike germany, they had to be reeducated which was a key phrase at the time. The japanese were so frightened that the americans would do to what they did to the chinese and other asians. They would be raped and massacred and so on. Whereas in fact the u. S. Occupation was mostly the u. S. Were relatively benign and it came at such a relief that most of the japanese were also thoroughly sick of war in the military. We are more than happy to be the pupils of american reeducation efforts and indeed even the emperor probably was. We are sort of coming to the end. Perhaps you could tell what happened to your father and then the very nice epilogue to your book. Well, what gave me the idea to do this book was really my fathers story. Which is as follows and it half doubtful me for a long time. He was a law student at the university in 1941 and if you are are a lawsuit and the thing was to join the fraternity because that is where you made your contacts and so on. To join the fraternity then and still today it meant you had to go through an initiation and that meant a lot of hazing and bullying and humiliation and being me to jump around like a frog and so on. The fraternitys in 1941 were actually damned by the German Authorities because they thought they were sources of resistance. It went on for another year but underground so all the hazing was clandestine as it were. You also as a student had to sign an oath of allegiance to the nazi of dictation and 75 cent of the students refused to do this and if you refuse you were forced to work in german and my father like others went into hiding in someone screwed up. The resistance told him to come back to his hometown and he was met by my grandfather was in bad health. There were a lot of German Police around and it was announced that those young men who didnt sign the oath had to go to germany in may be the end of the didnt their parents would be arrested. My father was great so he ended up in berlin. He lived through the bombings day and night, the u. S. Air force during the day, the red army, the battle of berlin. He collapsed in the middle of it from exhaustion and hunger. He had fleas in his case. He was particularly frightened. He had fleas and lice or vice versa but he was nursed back to some kind of health by a german prostitute and ended up in a misplaced persons camp and back in the summer of 1940. He went back only to be sold told by senior members because the initiation and 41 had gone on the underground. They had to do the whole thing over again. There were those that suffered far worse than my father who suddenly were forced to jump around like frogs and so on. I said to my father, how is it possible you could have put up with this nonsense after all youve experienced . He said its the way it was and also we thought that was normal. Thats the key word because i think there was yearning for some guided normality to go back to the world before the war. To him it represented the normal world. Now he is still alive. He is 90. He is not a particularly traumatized man. He is a particularly antigerman but certain things from his war experience did linger and one of them was the horror of fireworks and allowed bang. Crowds were not his favorite place to be stuck either. In 1989 we decided, my sisters and i we would spend new years eve in berlin. It was only second time after being back and there we were in the it was very festive in my father was happy to be there. These enormous crowds of people with champagne bottles and singing and sitting on the wall and all that. It was the end of the night and suddenly fireworks exploded and we had lost their father in the crowd. We couldnt find him. We looked for him and build them back to the hotel. At 2 00 in the morning he staggered into the room and he had been hit by a fire rocket. The reason i used this story is in 1989 was seen by many as now finally world war ii was over. Eastern europe is now finally free. Now george bush talked about the new order and the new world order and finally we are in this better with world that we had hoped for. I somewhat mischievously use that and go to show unfortunately the brave new world will never come. I think its time for you to to [applause] please stick your hands up. Its hard for some people to get there. Im glad it has cooled off a bit i was feeling a bit like Albert Brooks in broadcast news. [laughter] yes. Maybe this is for both of you. We cant hear you. Is this on . Be no. Is that better . Triggered by mr. Amos comment on hiroshima and some of the allied atrocities. I certainly agree that there is no moral equivalence and i buy into that, but it seems to me one of the inequalities of world war ii was targeting civilians on both sides and wars were professional military people killing professional military people. That was on both sides. The germans and the ur af and the u. S. Air force german bombed german civilians, some of whom may have been like most of this is in the room, a political and so on. If you comment on that. Is of the likely these killers in poland, you get used to it and there are two reasons why they were british began to bomb deliberately. Civilian populations in cities like hamburg and later other cities. One was an illustration of how well history because the generals who fought in world war ii had memories of world war i and the last thing they wanted was a war of attrition. They thought that bombing would demoralize the enemy population and they would then turn against their leaders and bring the war to a speedier end which turned out to be a completely faulty analysis and in fact it often did the opposite. They talk about the air war and the defeat. There is another reason which is the british were desperate. I think hamburg was 42. There was no way that the british then, it no, it must have been earlier. There was no way to fight back at that stage against the formidable german enemy and it was felt that they had to do something. They thought that bombing german cities was at least a token of fighting back. In the beginning they try to bomb harbors and railways stations and things like that but it was too costly because they didnt have the kind of equipment that allowed you to bomb from a great height. That is why they thought this new tack in a bombing civilians and demoralizing them and once they started doing that it got progressively worse and then something that would still have thoughts of an atrocity except by the way when he came to the fuzzywuzzy is in the colonies because the first instance of bombing civilians at the was in iraq. When churchill was the minister of war and harris was already involved that is one that started. It got progressively worse and more vindictive and then in japan it was even worse than that exist the cities were made of wooden houses and they dropped phosphor bombs and they had firestorms. The famous phrase by curtis lemay the air force general bombing back in the stone age. People associate vietnam when they say that. Late 44 they were bombing japan and Robert Mcnamara later in the famous documentary by aaron donald said if the allies had lost the war they wouldnt be involved. The moral equivalence idea, people have said its just as bad as the death camps. Is different. Is different for this reason among others, tens of thousands of people died. Only a handful of s. S. Were in the rebellions in the camps. Thats absolutely true. They didnt do it because there was an ideological program of exterminating germans or japanese. It was an act of war. It was an atrocious act of war but it was an act of war. The war against the jewish had nothing to do with any kind of military exercise. It was purely about killing. My questions segues into that did america really have to drop the atomic bombs on japan or were they so weak they would have surrendered anyway . They probably would have put the question is when and the americans wanted to finish the war as quickly as they could because they were running out of money and most americans were sick of the war and they wanted the boys to come home. The appetite was very low and there was also the fear that stage that the soviets would invade japan first and so they wanted to avoid an invasion at all costs. Was it really necessary . We will never know for sure. What we do know is that even after the second war is not the sake the Japanese War Council which they were the ones who have to decide whether to surrender or not and it had to be unanimous decision. Diehards in the war Council Still wanted to fight for the last man, woman and child. It was the only the second time in his reign that the emperor. [inaudible] but he did step in and surrendered. The main reason i think was the japanese were afraid that the red army would get there first commonest inspired rebellion. The other thing that it did was gave the diehards in some way an excuse to surrender because they could say we havent lost face. We were not defeated but with a weapon like that its like boxing your opponents under the gun. It served as a way out. Weather was absolutely necessary as i said we wont now because they would have surrendered but it may take more time. I would like to know what martin thinks because you have written on this more than i have really. Its the moral question. Is there a moral difference between firebombing tokyo and killing more than 100,000 people in a few nights and using an atom bomb and 67,000. Lets say killing an equivalent number of old. Is there a difference morally between one weapon in another . We should say about russia they had two bombs one uranium and one plutonium and they spend an incredible amount of money. They had to make those two things count. It comes up all the time, the moral difference. Did you feel there was a moral difference in syria when chemical weapons were used . No, it wasnt immediately clear to me because of course using chemical weapons is absolutely horrific but i think the red line was they rhetorical mistake. If you think about 100,000 people being killed and suddenly they have to say we have to go to war because they used chemical weapons. I think chemical weapons and biological weapons, their explanation was one should have certainly in terms of International Policing you have to have see of course i would be entirely in favor of that but to say theres a moral distinction im not so sure about that. They do kill lots of people. Yes but i mean then you would have to say gassing people also kills people more quickly and more efficiently than shooting them. Was there a moral distinction between the gas chambers and shooting people in the neck . The gas chambers and away gas was not cheaper. Yes, thats a practical consideration. Thank you for what you have said. I really like what you said about the fact that we are all very so differently from the ignorant people of this world. The question then is what formation should we be talking about to help humanity to make sure that people or are we doomed to believe that there is no information out there that we can put together to help humanity so that you know each time we get into a crisis situation it becomes a question of second senses and we just become violent . Along with this, i realize the last few years especially in this country the humanities have been taking a hit and studies in Tech Knowledge he and science seems to be what universities want to promote and they bring more money in i realize. Are they thinking also that the reading of humanities is not going to improve our wellbeing . I dont want to ramble too much but you were giving me wonderful and insightful ideas. If anyone of you will help me think through these. What kind of formation . Unless you are religious and you believe religion will make us behave better which in some cases may actually be true but its largely a question of institutions and law. You need to have a monopoly as the government. And you need to have laws that play a major role in making people behave then you need to have proper institutions and without proper institutions the law of the jungle prevails. As i said, i think when the law of the jungle prevails it doesnt matter whether you are german or american or japanese or black or white or yellow, the worst happens. [inaudible] im sorry . What about it . Im not saying all human beings are monsters trade Dietrich Bonhoeffer was heroic and he was a moral hero. [inaudible] yes, again if you have the government well, the government that works on peoples basic instincts its obviously not true that everybody then well behave like a monster. I think the number of people that behave like absolute monsters quite deliberate way is not the majority. The majority always tries to survive and look the other way that suits them. So the absolute monsters are not the majority. Nor are the moral heroes and the moral heroes are even rarer. Even in the worst circumstances you will have moral heroes and he stood up to the not too regime. Hes paid with his life. He was intensely decent moral human being and there were others in germany. [inaudible] that determines whether you are going to be a monster or a hero. That may be chewed but again, yes you are right but as i said before i think sometimes heroes can become monsters and possibly even the other way around. There wasnt much heroism in germany and there were many more monsters than there were here, i can assure you that in the camps in auschwitz about one in 10 of the ss were monsters who clearly derived satisfaction out of it. Thousands were heroes in prison. Its much more dangerous to be a moral hero than to be a monster. Its easy. Real hero is a minor consideration. Yes three at absolutely. Hi. On that same point you mentioned George Steiner and prima lovie said berlin was one of the best novels. Which novel . A loan in berlin or every man dies alone and i was wondering if either you or martin have opinions about moral integration about the moral or the other . Im not entirely clear what the question is. That novel was considered to be part of immigration so more or less he stayed in germany even though his british publisher state and recounted what ordinary german life was like any did not say he was a hero but he was able to give voice to what germans experienced during the war. When was that published . Was published in 2010 by penguin. It was published in 1947. It was the last book that he published after his death. He died before was published. I couldnt finish that novel. I got halfway through. He goes off on a huge red herring about the gestapo in all things like during the invasion of france he didnt come in until september 41. But the writing of that book was very courageous. Have you seen the diary of a man in despair by friedrich racked . Its a hate filled reaction to the nazis. Not a day by day diary but little chunks of and he hit it 10 feet deep in his garden but just to put pen to paper. Like the diaries of Victor Klemperer . Victor klemperer the linguistics professor also a heroic day by day account. I dont think heroic is quite the word but yes its a fascinating one. Your question of inner immigration is a very important one because not every system allows that. The difference i think between actually nazi germany unless you are jewish in which case you are doomed but if you were a nonjewish german or a fascist in most fascist states immigration was a possibility. He didnt stick your neck out and he kept quiet and you would survive. Under mao, or stalin you have to actively participate and voice your enthusiasm and you couldnt just withdraw. It was not an option. Thank you. My question is about japan and the japanese government is becoming more and more rightwing and 1990s and not the japanese government is trying to sell nuclear industries. What do you think about that . This is a long way from 1945. Although not entirely. Lets leave the nuclear question aside for a minute. The rightwing nature of the current Prime Minister, that does go back to 1945. The education japan in 1945, 46, 47 was that the americans wrote as you well know a new constitution and because the war was blamed on militarism it was the pacifist constitution and most japanese are proud of it even does some japanese nationalists felt this was robbing japan of its sovereignty if you use military force under any circumstances and foreignpolicy. They have to leave it up to somebody else, your security and in this case to the americans. There has always been a vociferous minority that wants to change the constitution and restore the sovereign rights to use its armed forces as they saw fit. Now the mainstream in japan, especially the left, have always used the argument against revision of the constitution by saying look, japan is like an alcoholic or you can start waiving drink under its nose because it will go back to his bad ways. Look what happened in and we should never be attempted again. As long as that argument is used the interventionists will say every country has worsened its history and wars are terrible and they do bad things but no worse than any other country and theres nothing we should feel particularly ashamed about. Thats the attitude of the current Prime Minister and what is disturbing about it is history has become so polarized and politicized that nobodys really talking about attempts to find the truth anymore. Its all about what political agenda you have in that determines your view of the war rather than facing it coolly and squarely as the germans have tried to do. Im interested, very interested in the german peoples acceptance of hitler. Im not sure that, as easy as you have depicted. Were there not perhaps as many as 30 active plus against hitler the most famous of which was in 1944 but are there not many others and whether not religious and military groups and other groups of people who did not care for hitler and many of them actively worked against them . For instance allen dulles core operating very closely with the military intelligence that angloamerican historians seem not to realize that. Is that affect troop . The only institution that stood up and affected was the army. I think the army, all the opposition in the army happened in france in the summer of 1940. No one believed he could conquer france in the way he had proposed and he did it and it did look like a miracle. Very sound and good people said just for a couple of weeks or so i thought well, he is a bit rough around the edges but look at this. In france the historical enemy. Once the army came aboard that was the end of the opposition. And he got rid of generals very quickly who didnt go along with him. So there were indeed people in germany who opposed him in the 30s that the use of terror is very deft. And so it took more and more courage to oppose him openly and it became almost impossible. Once he was in power and there were many people who didnt like what was going on but many chose inner immigration because i was the only way to survive. But i dont think its angloamerican prejudice to say there was not there was not much in the way of real organized opposition. There was some. There were opposition groups here and there in the army. No, the people. When the assassination attempt, the colonels plot failed. He had the nation behind him in 44. And those germans did okay as long as you werent jewish and until people got badly bombed. They act better than people and occupy countries and life wasnt all that bad. I mean it was oppressive but it took a huge amount of courage to actively resist it and i dont think there was a huge amount of it. It was very difficult to be brave in nazi germany. You have to be repaired to die. You have to be prepared for torture. You had to withstand that because naming no names and its not very accessible to us. Its a very german thing that in the occupy countries any criminal could die like a martyr but in germany it was arranged so that any marketer would die like a criminal. And, you wouldnt be celebrated after your death. Your wife would turn your photograph around in your parents wouldnt talk to you. Your children wouldnt be told. That does not matter after your death. No, but its very a german would find it very difficult to contemplate. Von mocker said that is actually what stopped the old, not the physical fear but the shame. [applause] thank you very much. For more information visit the authors web site, ian buruma. Com. When president kennedy was shot at 1230 00 p. M. Dallas time within one minute several Dallas Police officers ran up the grassy noel. Why . Many people were pointing to it as the source of the at least some of the gunfire. The first officer a fellow named joe Marshall Smith had his gun drawn because he expected to find an armed gunman. Instead he and condit and man who is asked who he was and he presented secret Service Credentials. Smith was familiar with the secret Service Credentials. They were often in dallas for one reason or another. Two other officers reported essentially the same thing. Apparently there was more than one less secret Service Credentials up on the grassy knoll. There was just one problem. The secret service and the Warren Commission and everyone else who is looked at it has identified the vocation of every single secret Service Officer at that time. No one was in dealey plaza. All of the secret Service Officers are taught to go with these. They went to Parkland Hospital with the president and the Vice President , soon to be president johnson. Who were these people craig