Distortion of History and the Effects of it Today

I might be conservative here, but I still believe that history should be the result of studying events of the past, understand them, analyze them and then write down the result of this process. Traditional historiography so far has not been accumulated by such means. I would guess that part of the fault could be explained by the lack of competence of many historians on specific spheres of life. For example, studying events with heavy military presence, such as wars or battles, requires much more knowledge and training of the historian in the military sphere, than a simple diligence and heavy gathering of information, which then was written in a particular methodological manner. Gathering and reading information is one thing, understanding this information is something different, but vital for the outcome of any research project, be it an article or a book. I believe that many historians simply misunderstood, or failed to understand completely the information they gathered, because they lacked the training in the particular filed needed for such comprehension.

Another part explaining the failure of traditional historiography to present the origins of WWII and the numerous events which let to its beginning could be the specific limits of information sources historians were forced to cope with. The Soviet archives only partially opened their doors to scholars just 15 years ago. Some vital German archives captured by the Soviets are still closed and unavailable for research. This circumstance must also be kept in mind.

The greatest reason, in my own view, however, was the political interests of the victors in the WWII. It was these interests which opened the way for massive misrepresentation of the events, their severe twisting and as a result the wrong analysis. The political interests represent the basic need to hide the “dirty laundry” of the victors and their own responsibility for the occurrence of WWII and its destructive effect on mankind. The result is known today: the Soviets fought their so called “Great Patriotic War” rather than their own expansionist objectives, and of course were the victim of the Nazi aggressor, not the cause for this aggression; the British fought fascism in Europe, rather than for their own strive to keep their empire intact and their influence on the main land geopolitics; the United States helped the fight against Nazism and against imperialist Japan in the name of Democracy, rather than for their own opportunistic plans, and Germany and Hitler wanted to conquer the world and were the greatest evil of all and responsible for all the misery and tragedies brought by the war! Anyone who questions this status quo is blamed to be a Nazi or an anti-Semitist… and life goes on.

Years and years this dummy historiography was propagandized the world over, shamelessly hiding terrible atrocities, the real reasons for millions of lives being lost, and directly or indirectly pardoning massive crimes against humanity, and misleading billions of people about one of the most tragic events in the history of human kind. To those who question or disapprove of the strong stance taken by the Jewish people since the 1960’s in remembrance of and responsibility for the Holocaust, I have one thing to say: They could not be more right in doing so! If we are to understand what went on back then, and to prevent its reoccurrence, we must do exactly the same and uncover to the end all other crimes, convict them and make sure that the future generations remember them and oppose them. Only this way could we prevent their reoccurrence, albeit in another political context. The freshest example being the scandal with the removal of the Red Army memorial in Estonia, which if history was not twisted so much over the years, was not going to occur and be an issue at all! History however presented the Red Army’s invasion of independent and sovereign states as “liberation from fascism” and here is the result, the modern Russian Federation and the majority of its people are protesting against the removal, instead of offering their apologies to the Estonians and removing this memorial on their own expense out of Estonia. Well, dear professional historians, what have you got to say about this now? The usual strategy, ignore and continue creating untrue versions of history for your own interest or the one of your governments? After all what do you care for a small nation such as Estonia, right? Your career does not depend on it!