Why did Reconstruction in the South largely fail when DeNazification in Germany largely succeeded?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

Was it because the latter was forced to confront their sins while the former rewrote history to revel in it?

[Sanity Claws]

1. Reconstruction ended 1877

Germany's denazification never ended. Today if you use the Nazi salute, you will be arrested.

[sheshe2]

26. Well.

Today if you use the Nazi salute, you will be arrested.

Not if you are a Republican.

Today if you use the Nazi salute, you will be arrested.

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-38057104/hail-trump-white-nationalists-mark-trump-win-with-nazi-salute

[912gdm]

28. poster was referring to German law. n/t

[David__77]

2. Reconstruction ended with counterrevolution.

The gains of reconstruction were wiped out largely.

That said, plenty of former Nazis player important political roles in West Germany, mainly on the right politically.

[liberal N proud]

3. Following the Civil War, southerners were forced to use northern resources to rebuild

There were a lot of bitter feelings.

In Germany, they rebuilt it themselves.

[Sneederbunk]

9. Germany rebuilt it themselves? Ever hear of the Marshall Plan?

[Calista241]

15. The Marshall Plan was a funding strategy.

So the Germans did all the work, and made all of the crap, but it was paid for by Uncle Sam.

[Sneederbunk]

16. The Marshall Plan was a resource.

[ProudLib72]

32. But the European Coal and Steel Community regulated Germany's production

I've always found this interesting. What was meant as a deterrent to production of war materials led to the creation of the EU. In other words, they took lemons and made lemonade. The south just sulked.

[Blue_true]

33. The plan was to put as many surviving Germans as possible to work rebuilding.

A lot of the stuff was make work, but it gave people jobs to support themselves.

[shanny]

4. short version: Lincoln's veep wasn't a fan.

Andrew Johnson supported "states' rights"...you can imagine how that went

[DemocratSinceBirth]

6. We failed to make them realize they lost.

[TwilightZone]

13. Nah, they knew.

A lot of the revisionist history nonsense didn't start until decades later and peaked between 1920 and 1940.

Most of the statues and plaques went up between 1890 to around 1920, then more in the 1950s/1960s during the Civil Rights era. Many historians generally credit white supremacy and racial strife as the reason they went up as much or more so than the CW.

[eppur_se_muova]

19. Maragaret Mitchell (author of Gone With the Wind) only learned when she was 10.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Mitchell#Girlhood_on_Jackson_Hill

Margaret learned the gritty details of specific battles from these visits with aging Confederate soldiers. But she didn't learn that the South had actually lost the war until she was 10 years of age: "I heard everything in the world except that the Confederates lost the war. When I was ten years old, it was a violent shock to learn that General Lee had been defeated. I didn’t believe it when I first heard it and I was indignant. I still find it hard to believe, so strong are childhood impressions."

[TwilightZone]

22. Very interesting - sounds about right, timing wise.

By then, roughly 1910, one of the larger revisionism movements would have been in full swing. It started around the time of the 50th anniversary of the CW (the anniversary was often used as an excuse). That's the same movement that peaked in the 20s-40s, though a lot of the monuments were already in place by then.

Movements used to take a lot longer to develop. Not anymore. I sometimes feel like Trump has wiped out 50 years of progress in a couple years.

Interesting monument timeline from the SPLC:

[uponit7771]

39. +1

[msongs]

5. germany is much smaller area and was way more heavily occupied, then rebuilt by the

occupiers for a decade. and in fact still has occupation forces to this day

[qazplm135]

7. Germany wasn't split

it was getting rid of an ideology that was in the whole country.

America was split, and the ideology was confined to a region.

It's a pretty complicated comparison and trying to make it about just one thing isn't really viable.

[GP6971]

8. I would venture that

the Marshall Plan contributed to it. However, we were in Germany a couple of years ago and saw Nazi graffiti in Aachen and Stuttgart.

[moondust]

10. Germany was occupied

by Allied forces U.S., Britain, France, and USSR for 45 years after WWII. They could have easily stopped any revival of Nazism before it went anywhere. Germans had no real choice but to face down their demons and rehabilitate. I applaud them for it.

Germany is about the size of Montana.

The Confederate South was a much larger land mass--too large for the Union army to occupy. With no one around to police lingering treasonous behavior, many Confederates never really rehabilitated. On the contrary, they kept their flags hanging on their walls and built statues to their heroes as "reminders" of their "heritage." Confederate culture never died.

[BannonsLiver]

29. Actually it could have been occupied

But it would have required continued conscription which few had the stomach for by the end of the war.

What should have happened is the southern aristocracy that funded the war should have been eradicated, and their lands confiscated and re-apportioned to freed blacks while troops remained garrisoned to protect the peace.

I also believe both Lee and Jefferson Davis, as well as many others both on the civilian and military side of the confederacy should have been tried for treason and executed.

Forced resettlement of southern whites to other areas of the country should have also been considered.

Hindsight is 20/20 but it’s clear now the North was far too conciliatory after the war. We’re still paying the price for that even today.

[moondust]

35. I've long wondered

what alternative plans for the future the Union generals and politicians considered after the war. Some probably just wanted the ugly mess to be over, hoping the Confederates would admit defeat and start over with better values or something having sacrificed so much and "learned their lesson the hard way." Maybe Lincoln had plans that no one ever got to see; his successor was probably not the best person for the job at hand.

[lunatica]

11. The opposing party was elected and they stopped the plan in its tracks

Elections have consequences.

The historical fact is that the parties were the opposite of what they are today. The Republicans were the ones who were FOR reconstruction and the Democrats were against it. Strange indeed!

[GulfCoast66]

12. Everyone who defeated Germany hated Nazis.

Northern whites were as generally as racist as southern whites.

Reconstruction had nothing to do with eliminating racism in the South. That did not bother them. It was about insuring they would not rebel again.

That’s the answer in a nutshell.

[Dan]

14. Personal thought

There was no sense of guilt over the nature of slavery.

I have often commented on miscegenation-and how southern slave owners could continue with the enslavement of their own children, but just attributed a large part of that lack of empathy and concern, to the nature of capitalism. For profit, enough profit - I guess they would have sold themselves into slavery. And yes, I am aware of the role that religion played in slavery....

As we experience this mess with Trump and the Russian influence, I remember reading years ago (when I studied the Cold War) a comment that was made by a USSR leader (I can’t recall the person), who indicated something like this.... A Capitalist would sell you the rope to hang him...

When the Civil rights Acts passed in the 1960’s, I remember people in the community saying (which turned out to be generally true) that some whites would prefer to go out of business than do the right thing. This did turn out to be true...

Some things have changed, and some, no so much. But the kids of today are much better in their relationships than my generation, the baby boomers. We, my generation, is the reason we have Trump - because we have never come to terms with our past.

My opinion.

[area51]

17. In the past I had read it was due to the federal troops being withdrawn.

one article on reconstruction.

[eppur_se_muova]

18. The "Compromise of 1877" ended Reconstruction. Dems let a Repug POTUS take office in exchange for ..

... removal of Federal troops from the South. Things went downhill for Blacks in the South after that, which is why the South never really reformed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compromise_of_1877

It was problems with the vote in the Electoral College which caused it all ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1876_United_States_presidential_election

[GulfCoast66]

21. Those are the logistical reasons. But not the emotional reasons.

Northerners were tired of their boys being down here supporting Black Rights, which they really never cared much about and many were hostile to. They saw black congressmen from the south and did not love that idea.

By 1877 it was obvious the south was in no position to attempt succession again. So they were eager to leave.

Obviously, there were some northerners who really believed in Civil Rights for freed slaves. But 12 years after the war they did not hold much sway.

I was raised in Louisiana and always believed that only Southerns were overtly racist. 33 years ago when I met my wife and met people from the Midwest I quickly learned the folly of that belief.

[raccoon]

38. Thanks for your posts here. To read some posts,

You’d think only white Southerners were racists and whites in all other states were totally ok with the idea of non-whites being their equals.

[roamer65]

24. Yes. It was because of the 1876 Hayes vs Tilden electoral shitstorm.

Interesting fact. Colorado had just become a state in 1876. They didn’t even hold an election for president. The state legislature simply awarded the 3 electoral votes to Hayes. How’s that for democracy?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1876_United_States_presidential_election_in_Colorado

[pecosbob]

23. Apples and oranges

Reconstruction was more closely comparable to the Marshall Plan and not Denazification.

[First Speaker]

25. Sheer, naked terrorism...

...to make a long story short. Yes, it was kind of an apples/oranges thing. The two situations weren't really the same. We had the option of walking away from Germany; we did not in the American South, just defeated in a civil war. But the basic reason is the Ku Klux Klan, and the other white supremacist groups, that crushed Reconstruction by armed force. Google "Battle of Colfax" sometime. The terrorists waited the North out, and the inherent racism of the northern whites eventually won out over their decent instincts. Had the Nazis really did what they threatened, and used the so-called "werewolves" to attack the occupying troops...well, who knows what might have happened.

[Dan]

27. Also don't forget

The political party (GOP?) sold out the Blacks as part of the deal to get the northern troops out of the south. Once the South had control - they disenfranchised Black voters, eliminated Black politicians, and as you stated then came the Night-riders, KKK, etc., combined with the return of the political power to the southern politicians. What of course followed was the Jim Crow laws, a sort of return to the rules pre-post Civil War.

[Wounded Bear]

30. Because far too many Northerners were racists, too...

Sure, they may have "wanted" to end slavery, but many Northerners didn't think of blacks as equals.

States' rights were still big, and that includes a healthy dose of "let them run their states like they want to" bullshit, and Southern whites were left to institute government racism and the KKK.

Once Lincoln was assassinated, the South didn't have a chance to move beyond the war and learn much from it.

[appalachiablue]

31. Southern 'Redeemers' & Northern 'Bourbon Dems.' united to 'return to business,' more..

(Wiki). The Redeemers were a political coalition in the Southern US during the Reconstruction Era that followed the Civil War. Redeemers were the Southern wing of the Bourbon Democrats, the conservative, pro-business faction in the Democratic Party. They sought to regain their political power and enforce white supremacy. Their policy of Redemption was intended to oust the Radical Republicans, a coalition of freedmen, "carpetbaggers", and "scalawags". They generally were led by the rich former planters, businessmen, and professionals, and they dominated Southern politics in most areas from the 1870s to 1910.

During Reconstruction, the South was under occupation by federal forces, and Southern state governments were dominated by Republicans, elected largely by freedmen and allies. Republicans nationally pressed for the granting of political rights to the newly-freed slaves as the key to their becoming full citizens. The 13th Amendment (banning slavery), 14th Amendment (guaranteeing the civil rights of former slaves and ensuring equal protection of the laws), and 15th Amendment (prohibiting the denial of the right to vote on grounds of race, color, or previous condition of servitude), enshrined such political rights in the Constitution.

Numerous educated blacks and free people of color moved to the South to work for Reconstruction. Some were elected to office in the Southern states, or were appointed to certain positions. The Reconstruction governments were unpopular with many white Southerners, who were not willing to accept defeat and continued to try to prevent black political activity by any means. While the elite planter class often supported insurgencies, violence against freedmen and other Republicans was usually carried out by other whites; the secret Ku Klux Klan chapters developed in the first years after the war as one form of insurgency...https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redeemers



~ Political cartoon from 1877 showing the Democratic Party's control in the South, by Thomas Nast. ~

[Xolodno]

34. Can't be confined to just one reason....or for that matter, a few.

1. Slavery may have been popular to eliminate in the North...but those of African Descent were not considered equal, by the majority. Ethnic and racial prejudices continued on long after the civil war. Ask the Irish, Eastern Europeans, Italians, etc. Lincoln even wanted to deport the slaves to Africa.

2. Slaves were replaced by slave wages. Some the worst things about slavery may have been eliminated or reduced (separation of families due selling their slaves, requiring them to fight each other to the death for sport, getting lashed for disobeying, etc.) However, they still lived in squalor, they got paid to tend the fields...then had to pay rent on the place they lived in....which they used to live in as a slave.

3. The South resented having to pay the industrial North for the rebuilding of its infrastructure, cities, etc. A lot of it was built by Northern interests prior to the Civil War and was paid for by the South...during the civil war, Sherman's march to the Sea and others, destroyed that infrastructure....forcing the South to pay the North for it again.

4. "Opportunists"...or Carpetbaggers. People who took advantage of the economic despair of Southerners.

5. The Northern Army was put together to end the Rebellion. And it succeeded. There was no significant plan afterwards, likewise, there was no significant plan to help the emancipated slaves afterwards.

6. Many of the Southern Politicians convinced the Northern Politicians they would, on Southern Gentleman's honor they would behave, help not just those who were White if the occupiers would leave. Long story short, found Southern Gentleman's honor was a myth.

8. The US as a whole turned a blind eye on how the South started to rewrite history...Even calling the Civil War the "War of Northern Aggression"....when it was the South that fired the first shots, began invasions, etc.

I'm sure there is more.

But in case of Nazi Germany, the occupiers had zero tolerance for any revival. And even then, I'm sure there are some elements that still survive.

[theboss]

36. Germany had little tolerance for any revival

Hitler thought that by leading Germany into the abyss in 1945, he would create a deep hatred in the German heart and a desire for future revenge.

He got the exact opposite. Germans became pacifists nearly overnight. This was a modern sophisticated country that never wanted to repeat the experience of 1945. So it structured itself in a way to avoid that. It also mattered that a quarter of the country was basically kidnapped by the Soviet Union. The choice was to embrace the protection of the US or face total annihilation.

The South was more akin to Germany after WWI - beaten but bitter. The bitterness was built around the fact that they suddenly had millions of former slaves suddenly as fellow citizens. It would have required three generations worth of harsh occupation to resolve that.

[Xolodno]

37. The German Government had little tolerance for any revival.

...and being a Nazi disqualified you from that government. If you were a recognized Nazi, you were a war criminal, and liable to being shot by firing squad, hung or on the run. The Nazi government and organization was firmly broken, in good reason because, they were all dead, in POW camps or heard about their leaders demanding to fight to the death...but fled to South American Nations. The rank and file soldiers, particularly after seeing/hearing the devastation of there homeland...particularly by the Soviets and forced realization they had no leadership, would have no choice for survival unless they denounced their views....even if they didn't mean it.

The Western Allies would not tolerate any revival and the ill fated "Werwolf" insurgency was met with extreme action, even going so far as to execute two teenage boys by firing squad to make a point. On the Soviet side, that's even a larger and brutal story.

The Germans considered the Slav's only slightly better than Jewish people, in other words, Jews were to be exterminated and the Slavs to become slaves and treated the worst so they knew how to "respect their masters"....of course the Slavs regrouped and made the Eastern Front something they never expected. The Western Allies treated you "humanely" if you surrendered to them...not so much on the other side.

So in essence, the mass loss of lives of Nazi supporters, being outlawed, having ALL your leadership gone and trying to take leadership ended in your death, pretty much ended it. And of course, it was required education to understand the horrible sins, failures, etc. of the Nazi Government...so that guaranteed future generations holding disdain for this past.

With that said, you still have pockets that still try to press their luck.

You can draw some comparisons to WWI with the Civil War, but at the end of the day, what the Allies imposed on Germany led to the rise of a radical government. Whereas in the US, the apathy allowed the South to obtain a status quo and keep it for some time.

We are making gains, Civil War monuments are being removed, states are starting to take a hard look at gerrymandering, etc. Yes we are losing on some fronts, particularly judges...but they eventually die. Just like all the Federalist party judges did. But as the Chinese Curse goes..."may you live in interesting times".

[theboss]

41. Your history of post war Germany is flat weong

The high command and the SS were tried. The Allies did have aspirations of total denazification but that ended quickly.

The one similarity between the end of both wars was that there was a desire for punishment that quickly became an acceptance that someone had to run the place.

[Xolodno]

43. I didn't say that.

Yes what was left of the high command and SS were tried, think I alluded to that when I stated "The Nazi government and organization was firmly broken, in good reason because, they were all dead, in POW camps or heard about their leaders demanding to fight to the death...but fled to South American Nations."

I didn't mention that directly, because I didn't think I had to. However, not all of the high command/SS were tried. At least not immediately, a number of them had to be "extradited"...or flat out kidnapped to face justice. One infamous one, held out in Syria...and lived out his life there. And of course some avoided it via suicide, end result was probably the same, but they left on their terms.

And De-Nazi-fication did not end quickly....unless you think 57 years as quick. West Germany wasn't allowed a viable army for some time....in other words, it took 57 years for Germany to prove to the Allies they could be trusted. Sure the Allied bases, in Germany remained due to the Cold War, but absent that, I don't think you can say they would have left anytime soon.

https://www.economist.com/europe/2012/10/13/no-shooting-please-were-german

And your final point, I disagree. The Allies were prepared this time to occupy until they were damn sure Germany would not repeat its actions. They just had two world wars within 30 years....and they weren't up for a third. In the Cold War, the Soviets were not in much of a position to conquest, but likewise, the Allies weren't in much of a position to defeat the Soviet Union, hence a stalemate.

And comparisons to the Civil War and Nazi Germany are difficult, WWII was a war between several nations, making allies of enemies to fight another enemy. A civil war is internal and puts family against family...and they usually want that bad business to end quickly.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

40. Lincoln abandoned his ill conceived repatriation plan long before his martyrdom

He was a prisoner of the prejudices of his era until he transcended them. His friendship with Frederick Douglass and his witnessing how heroically the freed slaves fought for the Union likely contributed to it.

[Trumpocalypse]

42. Because Eisenhower

marched every German through the concentration camps and made them see the evil they supported.