Nazis, Germans and cold war propaganda

Saddam Hussein addresses an Iraqi court in 2006. ‘The recasting of the second world war as “the war against Hitler” prepared the ground for the claim they were launching a “war against Saddam Hussein”, rather than a war against Iraq,’ writes John Wilson. Photograph: David Furst/Getty

Your correspondents (Letters, 2 July) don’t mention the strangest feature of Lord Evans’ letter of 30 June – that he describes the substitution of “the Nazis” for “the Germans” as the enemies in the second world war as a current development. In fact it dates back at least to 1955, when it was decided to rearm West Germany to threaten the Soviet Union, and Britain was swamped with pro-German propaganda to get the British people to accept this. If anything it has become less since the end of the cold war; for example it is now admitted that the Wehrmacht, and not just the SS, committed war crimes systematically on the eastern front.

This cold war propaganda has helped present-day warmongers. The recasting of the second world war in Europe as “the war against Hitler” prepared the ground for the claim that they were launching a “war against Saddam Hussein”, rather than a war against Iraq.
John Wilson
London