displacement of people in a torrent cities -- in japan, and the continued rise of communism, soviet, union and china. c-span or court at this event in 2013. in baruma, -- was educated in holland and japan. he's won several awards for his work. among them the international prize, and the journalism award. the publication he writes for -- the guardian recently published his highly learned, and highly entertaining review of the british museum exhibition sex and pleasure in japanese art. among his previous books are teaming the gods. religion and democracy on three continents. murder in amsterdam. the limit of tolerance, and inventing japan, 1863 to 1960. four in years zero, most of what he wrote while he was a fellow at the command center in 2011 and to this in 12, to the series and think of his fellows felicity was so productive. he produced a brilliant portrayal of the world emerging from the devastation and unspeakable horrors of world war ii in europe and asia. skeptical about the idea that we can earn much from history, he nonetheless wanted to know he writes with those who lived through the war ended and including his own father went through. for it and helps me to make sense of myself and indeed all of our lives in the long dark shadow of what came before. the wall street journal called your zero remarkable in its magnificence and modesty and the new york times describes it as elegant, humane, luminous. -- honored last fall as a lab realign has published more than 25 bucks including several questions of stories and many novels. among the money, london fields, comes errol, and most recently state of england. he received the james tate black memorial prize for his memoir experience and was named one of the 50 greatest british writers since 1945 but the london times into this an eighth, 1945 seems to be a team theme here tonight. we are extremely fortunate to be able to listen in on a conversation between these two extraordinarily gifted writers are also. friends they will talk for about 25 minutes and then take a few questions from the audience. they are mics from the front on both sides. please come up to the mic rather than trying to speak from your chair. then they will sign books. so when they're finished speaking please let them get up to the table to sign. please welcome ian baruma, and martin. >> the first thing to be said ian is that this is a tremendous book, it's a amazing task of organizing a great deal of kaleidoscopic material the aftermath of the war was determined by the war itself and shaped by the years that preceded it. i have been spending recent years writing about this war and writing about it. apart from being uniquely devastating, 55 million dead. many a ruined city and all the devastation we know of, it looks increasingly weird and grotesque, some aspects of the war. it wasn't blundered into the first world war. there was one man. the japanese experience is slightly different but fit almost be considered separately. but one man brought this about. the only time that hitler ever made me smile is i think just before the invasion of poland. which set the war in motion. but he was questioned by a general. i haven't gotten any nerves but the war. i'm worried that if one is gonna come up with a peace proposal. says he was set on it ever since 1980. and the fact that this one man says flipped germany, says the best educated country on earth. the best educated country that's ever been in the pedantic expression of the best, which is what happened. the weirdness of much of the aftermath is here in the war. do you have -- the great perks that no one can answer. it was said that the jews went like mad at slaughter. you could flip that a bit and say the germans would like month to slaughterhouse. do you have any with your german connections and feeling for germany? i think he is exceptionally well equipped to write such a book because of connections with, england holland, germany, and crucially japan. >> i don't think it necessarily helps to know germany well or japan well explain the human propensity for extreme violence. one of the reasons i'm happy to be on stage with u.s. because i think we share a horrified fascination with why people are capable of doing terrible things. i think there are people who say you can explain it because the germans had a extremist mentality, which goes from luther to hitler. for the japanese are uniquely barber or cruel. anything like that. i don't believe that for a minute, and i think your question is a good one. how is it that one of the most highly educated and civilized nations of europe it is so much extraordinary violence? yes, it was hitler who let it but he couldn't have done it on his own. people had very active participation. i think hillary is one example and props but most extreme example in modern history, but there are others on a smaller scale of a political regime that deliberately exploits peoples basic instincts. the idea that there is torture and all of this is a little trite and also really not true. not all this would make great torture but i think it is true that if the authorities, the government, gives people license to do whatever they like with other human beings, you will find a large number, one cannot put a particular number on this bill will find a particular number that will do their worst and that leads to torture and killing. even if people lived perfectly happily together before that and i think that attracting that people say for example in the bulk and worries, people explained serbian violence against bosnian my slums and said these are ancient hatreds. they explode at a certain time. i don't think hatreds are necessarily ancient even though all kinds of myths keep on coming back and are manipulated by politicians and leaders and so one in order to put people up to the violence. but i don't think there is such a thing as a smoldering hatred like a volcano that suddenly burst out spontaneously. it's always orchestrated. one of the best examples of this in my book in 1945 is what happened particularly in checks lackey a, pull, and large german populations, whose families lived there for centuries and suddenly after the war the polish and the checks were given license by their own leaders, the allies did nothing to stop it. they were told now you can do with you like with the germans. we can't live with these people anymore. they have to be expelled. in a way, do your worst. people did, several months. now chairman nationalists like to claim that would happen to the german populations in poland and czechoslovakia, or with the germans in germany suffered from the soviet red army which is also horrendous in terms of race and killing a torture. somehow, this was just as bad as what the germs to others which obviously is not the case. >> you subject to the roles of icing, and trying to not rewrite, but put eight different complexion on these. it was said in the but you didn't do is the hero wise the allies. one hiroshima. to, a load bombing. the return of the ethnic germans, the figure you come to is 10 million people -- ethic germans, half 1 million dead, perhaps 1 million more. -- the way we revived colonialism. give it a shot in the arm and also saying revived colonialism and things like that resistance in france in particular wasn't that. certainly, that has become the mid. the truth was something like collaboration. not resistance. i find myself very much reacting against that in sort of a visceral way. there is no moral equivalence. once you remember look, churchill referred to the moral rot of war. an interesting concept that i sought raised, worst get old, the bigger they are, the faster the rage. six years and, this kind of a loss of patients is a mild way of putting it. but we don't feel that? do we? he said we created the inundations and the european community. i would say we destroyed hitler. that was the achievement. >> it was a necessary achievement, of course. one cannot take away the heroism of that. i think the bleaker conclusion one can draw is that very often heroes can very quickly turn into villains. for example, the soviet red army fought like villains. the sacrifices of the german soldiers was extraordinary. they felt like i lions and without it they wouldn't have defeated hitler. but they behave like beasts often. when they invaded germany likewise. >> they were an army every. pests >> the senator in army said that when a woman is raped she switches off the probe recreational mechanism. that there were million deaths. >> yes, indeed. not just -- they were not only guilty. because of the japanese occupation of countries in southeast asia such as malaysia, the asians in those countries local populations certainly did not want to go back to the state where the british in the french to some extent did have an illusion to simply go back to prewar or take back their colonies. now the nationalists in these countries had often collaborated with the japanese quite understandably because they saw that as they are chant deliberate themselves from their european colonial masters. after the war, in europe, these nationalists were depicted as collaborators. collaborators with fascism. who was sent to algeria and other places as soldiers to put down the anti colonial nationalist rebellion's with brute and often atrocious force? people who fought in the resistance against the nazis. so my point really is that human behavior including the sort of atrocity and extreme violence he is not a matter of character or of culture, it's a matter of circumstances. it's the same people who behave like heroes in certain circumstances can behave like animals and others. >> yes and that finding that if you find yourself -- if you find you have someone completely at your mercy. the human thought that comes next is torture. we should make note in general of stevens a book, the better angels of our nature, why violence is declined. one sort of rears back from his conclusion that violence has declined and continuing to decline. of the reasons he abuses one very important notion that took a lot of re-distracting itself off the war is who has a monopoly of violence? it must be the state. it's a founding i idea of what makes a nation state. >> not in this country though. >> no, no, exactly. i have always thought that americans have not accepted that precept. they want to be able to stand up to the u.s. army if things should get tyrannical in the white house. but that has been -- the police is what stops violence going back a couple of centuries. also, you may be interested to know that the novel made a big difference. steven does not like the word empathy. he said he had a mother screaming at one of her two children in the streets. that is unquestionably what the novel promoted. do you think this is a radical? the idea that you torture somebody? >> no, i do not think so. i do not think high culture makes us into better human beings. this is one of george's diners great hobby horses that how is it possible that analysis officer who could play showman absolutely beautiful and read could the next day go to work and pull out people's fingernails? i do not think it's rarely all that mysterious. nor do i think higher education makes us into more moral human beings. i really do think it's a question of, well as i said, of circumstances. for i suppose if you think of more recent wars, it's a real moral dilemma because when you talk about the monopoly of force, saddam hussein certainly monopolized force in his state and in an extremely brutal matter. it was a state in which torture was widespread in which people were guests when -- >> he came up through the torture. >> indeed he did. he was a torture. he monopolized it. one could argue is one thing people fear more than a brutal dictatorship and it's anarchy in which it's every man for himself and chaos, which we see, to some extent, we see it in libya now, we see it to some extent in iraq. which is not to say well that means things would've been better if we had left saddam hussein alone, but it does pause -- it's something that people should think about a bit more before they casually say, well it's, you know, we, as americans, it's our duty to fight dictatorship and bring freedom and use military force to do so. >> they should've listened to what's the downside which is iraq is a very difficult country to govern. >> he was right. >> helicopter gunships, poison gas and ubiquitous torture in terror. >> terrible, brutal dictatorial order for most people is still to be preferred to violent anarchy. and violent anarchy, in many ways, which you have in 1945 until order was reimposed with. for >> ideology, the period in 1914 -- 1940 to 1945 feet, it was not a war of religion on the face of it. ideology looking back was obviously that ideology, religion was like heroin and ideology was like methadone. it brings you trembling down to religion but not a fitted. on hundred dead for communism and nazis and fascism. for barbarity is not seen for centuries because of ideology. >> and also the borderline for ideology and religion is not always so clear. its most violent phases and much of it was very violent. there is not a huge distinction for between religion and ideology because it was also a religious cult in which people could be tortured to death for trailing on a newspaper with images on it. that is for -- religion is worst, really. face not to do with ideology, it's a cult. >> it's to do with the peer group, isn't it? i mean, you know, it's considered -- i mean one of them, if you think that peer group is far as a determinant of young people's behavior and in fact throughout their lives, the great study of that is christopher browning's police reserve battalion 101 where it's established that the killing squads that went out behind for poland and russia who, you know, we're going to kill everyone in the village. what was that? 30,000 dead? kill all day, kill women and children and then all day. no one ever got punished for seeking food transfer. they were not sent to the front. they were not sent to some penal commander of the front. they would be transferred. all you might have in the meantime is a bit of jostling as people say. you are letting that side down. there is not a single case of anyone being punished for requesting a transfer. and yet rather than shaming themselves and hurt the group, they would kill women and children all day, every day. >> yeah, they did not necessarily enjoy it. there was a sort of wear and tear on the nerves of ss. which is why of course the gas chambers were employed because after a while, the killing faith is a bit of a strain. even if they got drunk, which they did and so it was considered to be cleaner and more efficient to have gas chambers and the people who operated the gas chambers were not usually germans either. it was left up to the victims to do that. so it is not necessarily the case that the killers founded easy but i suppose you can get used to anything. the other thing is while we are on this beautiful subject, i have often thought that the reason why the violence and civil wars and, again, to come back to the ethnic germans after the war in poland czechoslovakia, the reason they are so particularly brutal and the killing -- almost always goes together with humiliation. you see it in india. i mean the last famous instance was the seeks set upon the -- what was it? i cannot remember now. in any case in india you see it over and over. in partition, you saw it. people who set upon their neighbors and it was not enough to kill people the way the jews were killed also. it was not enough just to kill them, it had to go. it was all proceeded by humiliation of some grotesque kind. i think that this is simply a speculation. i think one of the reasons is is that it's not easy for one human being to murder another human being especially if they identify with, if they were your neighbors and looked like you. it makes it easier if you reduce your victim to the status of an animal. some abject creature crawling around in the mud and then you are killing an animal and no longer human being, which is why you have to reduce people to that state. >> an animalization. >> yes. that is why in rwanda victims were called cockroaches on the radio. it's easier to kill cockroaches than it is your neighbor. >> the self fulfilling for is marvelous to watch. in the ghettos of portland and i think if the holocaust had never happen, we would regard that a sort of a -- beast quality. how the polish jews were terrorized, looted, exploited and had to work for their conquer win. fear is a report that said i visited the ghetto in warsaw, if there is anyone who still has sympathy, they should just go and have a look at what these people left themselves, no self respect, not even common decency, etc, etc. the way they treat their children, their children are starving. what do you think the sort of imposition of what you think of them? and then cumulus reporting of your indignation? four >> through other unpleasant in these concentration camps. 50 saw -- >> he fainted nearly? >> yes. >> if you had been a german in 1942 and heard that it can explore, and he's pasha, that they were machine gunning mental patients to clear pet space for people have gone there while killing women and children in the east. i thought something is not quite right. >> no, but on the other hand from 1945 after the liberation, russian troops often teenagers freighted hospitals and raped people who were sometimes on their death bed, patience. we have to be a little careful with. when you write about violence, there is of course the danger of the pornography of violence and we are frightened of it and therefore fascinated by it and as a writer one always has to be a bit careful that you do not start to revel in descriptions of it because there is a pornographic element. how fun one i'm guards against that, i have no clear answer to it but it's a factor. >> for as we sit here. very closely aligned to what's prima lovey called for literally electorally when you come to these. horribly for an unwelcome lee rich to even experience it. >> it is close to six. that is why i think there is a pornographic element. people read about violence and the fascination that is not entirely unrelated to the fascination for reading about sex. many of the americans had bleep. in line with tankers argument, one might note that there was a standing of a shun in congress when he got to his sentence commuted. there was a rockabilly song that was on top of the rockabilly chart for months. americans didn't find my lies shocking. not en masse anyway. there was sort of a horror that americans, americans are just as capable of doing these things as germans are. it belies a different case because people often wonder about the rape event king in 1937 when the japanese took the japanese -- chinese capital at the time in there was massive reap, looting and killing, and so on. it's often explained as the japanese are particularly cruel and barbaric. how is it circumstances that army behave like that even though in the war in 1905 the japanese were was known for its discipline and how well it treated its p.o.w.'s, and so on. and i think it explains a little bit of what happened in world war ii and afterwards as well. it's a particular situation when they're in a foreign country. did i understand the language. they're at sea. often country boys. it could be shot at by anybody. the distinction between guerrilla fighters and soldiers and so one almost doesn't exist. you go into a town or village. have no idea who's gonna be shooting at you. there's a temptation to shut them all. i don't think, it was calculated seat-ism. these things could also come out of fear. >> they took a lot of losses. >> ad hoc -- as had the japanese. again there's the dehumanization of the enemies. black pajamas in the remote villages to a lot of those fearful soldiers didn't seem to be entirely human. >> i want to read this sentence because it captures the amazing complexity and all theaters, different situations. and how ramming fight it all was the stalking about yugoslavia. parties fought along ethnic, religious, ethnic lines. -- versus muslim, bosnians versus slovenian guardsman, versus simply mean ian slovenian -- >> sounds like syria. >> look at greece and indonesia. churchill again said was their role to rip villages. they've done this even after they had done that. revolutionary [inaudible] >> would words do just as dictatorships often do and foreign occupations is they deliberately manipulate resentments, divisions that exist in societies anyway. in france the regime wouldn't have come into power if it wasn't for the german occupation. in greece again, the antagonism between the left and the right goes between the prewar period when they had a right wing dictatorship, and the left wing opponents invaded greece. the resistance comes from the left. often communists. the old guard become collaborators with the germans, and that goes on after the. we're so grease and it up in a brutal civil war, italy could easily become a civil war. and france was simmering. in belgium, the dutch speaking flemish nationalists were deliberately inflamed by the german up occupation it's against the french speaking. there was no monarch to keep things together because he was tainted by trying to make a deal with the germans and say. one whatsapp and after the war is not that you would toppled the dictator or bring the brutal enemy to heal. in some ways, the problems though. on the problems which have been made worse by war. how do you contain that? having a national figure. a king or queen or the gall in the case of france, sort of has the legitimacy to patch things up and he did it very well by talking about france and everyone being at the german, and now it's time to pull together again so it's as though you don't have the regime, but it was probably the necessary thing to do because of the was the country could've been torn apart. the other reason you don't have civil wars in france and italy is that the soviets in the west clearly divided the world and told friends and the italians that they would not support a revolution there. >> talk about japan. a very extreme process went on there with mcarthur. the revamping of japan. the twig. the emperor had to confess that he was human and not divine. >> it came as a great relief to the emperor. i don't think anybody really likes to be adored. the emperor referred to have his english breakfast and the human. >> talk about the process. >> the difference between germany and japan, 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 or. as you said in the beginning, what explains what the nazis, dead with the germans did. one of the most common theories at the time, and it's one that churchill for a long time believed in and it was because oppression-ism. the procession military spirit produced of. this of course later, we need better, >> pressures were the officers -- >> who tried to assassinate hitler in 1944. although, some of them have been quite enthusiastic announces before. nevertheless, in germany it was fairly easy because there had been a clear takeover in 1933 by a criminal regime that came to an end in 1945. there is a nazi party that was hitler. in germany you can make the case. there was some truth to it that if you get rid of the nazi elements in the government. you get rid of all atheism sure we could be restored to a decent country after all it was the country of mozart, all that. there was a real culprit. the nazi party. >> do you not to five. >> in japan it was not so simple because there is no equivalent to the hot nazi party. there is no hitler. it was no holocaust even though it's eight enormous about of killing in china, also southeast asia. there was no deliberate systematic attempt to exterminate people. there have to be another explanation. -- militarism, there was something deeply rotten about japanese culture. so why germany could do not survive and revive the best of german culture, the feeling amongst the rather ignorant allies after the war was that there's something so rotten about japanese culture that is fatalistic, warrior like. the whole culture has to be turned upside down. so could be you keep place. it -- would have to be manned. everything having to do with food to listen and to democratize japan along american less they would have to be reeducate in a very fundamental way. there were chemical instances of this. there was one man i think from kansas. a u.s. officer in charge of the town in rural japan who 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 that we have to treat each other like equals and like americans have to show their affection openly and not in the fetal way that it's always hidden. it's good to always have. because the american occupational authorities. the occupation authorities to click decreed that they had to have the first cinematic case which was hugely popular with young audiences in japan who knew when the case was going to happen and burst into applause. in any case, unlike germany they had to be reeducated which was a key phrase at the time. and the japanese were so frightened, that they would do to them what they did to the japanese and other asians. they would be raped and massacred and so on, it was the occupation army and mostly the u.s. in japan, it came as such a relieved that most japanese were so sick of war and everything evidence to with war in the military were more than happy to be the peoples of american reeducation efforts. and indeed, even the emperor probably was. >> more coming to the end of it. perhaps you can tell to anecdotes. one about what happened to your father, and then the very nice a blog [inaudible] >> but give me the idea to do this book was really my father story. which is as follows. it baffled me for a long time. he was a law student at the university of utrecht in 1940. one if you are a law student the thing to do was to joint effort fraternity. to join a fraternity and still today meant that you had to go through a initiation. the meant a lot of hazing and bullying and to militia, and being made to jump around like a frog and being beaten up and so. one fraternities were banned by the germans because they thought it was a source of resistance. and you tracked it went on for another year but underground. the hazing was clandestine if you will. you also as a student had to sign allegiance to the german authorities. 75% of students including my father refused. if you refused to are forced to work in german authority. -- somebody screwed up and the resistance told him to come back to his hometown and he was met by my grandfather who's in that health, and there was a lot of german police around, and it was announced that those young men who didn't sign the oath advocate to germany immediately, and if the didn't their parents would be arrested. my father was afraid that this would happen to his parent so he ends up in berlin. he lived through the bombings. the air forces during the day, the red army, he was almost shot by a soviet soldier. he collapsed from hunger. vermin, all that. police in his case. those who didn't have fleas had lace. he was nursed back to some kind of held by a german prostitute, ended up in displaced camp and then ended up back in holland in the summer of 1940 and went back to university only to be told by senior members of the fraternity that because of the initiation in 1941 had gone on underground they had to do the whole thing over again. and there were boys hoof suffered far worse than my father who were suddenly forced to jump around like frogs. so i said to my father, how is it possible that you could've put up with this nonsense? after all you have experienced, he just shown to shoulder inside, well, it's the way it was and also that we thought that was normal. i think that is the key word because i think they were yearning for some kind of normality or to go back to the world as being before the war. to him and to others, this represented the normal world. he was not as particularly -- he's still alive, he is 90. he is not a particularly traumatized man. he was never even particularly anti german but certain things or more experienced. and sort of loud bangs. german crowds were not his favorite places to be stuck in either. in 1989, we decided by sisters an eye that we would go spend new year's eve in berlin. it's only the second time that he had been back. there we were, at the wall, it was all very festive and my father was very happy to be there in this enormous crowd so people through champagne bottles and singing and sitting on the wall and all that. suddenly the fireworks exploded and we had lost our father in the crowd. we could not find him. we looked for him, look for him and then went back to the hotel and about 2:00 in the morning, he staggered into the room and he had been hit by a fire rocket. the reason i use this story is that in 1989, it was seen by many as now finally world war ii is over. this is the. an eastern europe is now finally free. but george bush talked about the new order, new world order. finally we are in this better world. the end of history, etc. i somewhat mischievously used that antidote to show that unfortunately the brave new world will never come. i think it's time for you to -- [applause] please stick your hands up. >> it's better if they come to the mic. >> okay. it is hard for some people to get their. >> if it is too hard, talk loud. >> i am glad it cools off of it, i was feeling like albert brooks in broadcast news. >> just a question for -- >> we cannot hear you. >> is this on? >> now. >> can someone turn it on? >> speaking to it. >> that is better. >> just a question may be directed to both of you and triggered by mr. a mrs. comment on hiroshima and some of the allied atrocities. i certainly agree that there is more no moral equivalence and i buy into that. it seems to me that one of the unique qualities of world war ii was targeting of civilians on both sides. i mean prior wars were basically professional military people killing professional military people. and that was on both sides. i mean the germans bomb london, the r.a.f., as you mentioned, and the u.s. air force, bombed german civilians. some of them who may have just been like the rest of us in the moon, maybe not particularly political and so on. i wonder if you would just comment on that? >> well there were two reasons. it's a bit like these killers and poland. you get used to it. there were two reasons why the british began to bomb, deliberately, so civilian populations. one was an illustration of how people often learn the wrong places of history because the generals who fought world war ii, had memories of world war i. the last thing they want it was a war of nutrition. they thought that bombing would demoralize the enemy population. they would then turn against their leaders and bring a war to a speedier in, which turned out to be a completely faulty analysis. in fact, it often did the opposite. it raises the morale like london can take it, the blitz, so on and so forth. >> they talk about the air war as being undefeated, not just in effect but a defeat for the bombers. >> there is another reason though, which is that the british were desperate. i think hamburg was 42 and there was no way that the british then -- no, it must of been earlier. there was no way to fight back at that stage against what was still a formidable to german enemy. it was felt that they had to do something. they thought that bombing german cities at least was a token of fighting back. in the beginning, they are trying to bomb harbors, railway stations and that kind of thing. it was too costly because they did not have the kind of equipment that allowed you to bomb from the great height. so they had to go to low we like flies. that is why they thought this new tactic of bombing civilians and demoralizing them. now once they started doing that, a got progressively worse. something that would've still been thought to be an atrocity except by the way when it came to the fuzzy was he's in the colonies because the first instance of bombing civilians i think was in iraq. when churchill was administer of war, i believe, and harris was already involved than. that is when it started. when they started the large scale of germany, you got progressively worse and more vindictive. in japan it was even worse than that because the cities were made of wooden houses and they got philosopher bombs and fire storms and it became worse. the famous phrase by curtis for lemay. he actually said that when they were in 44, late 44, when they were bombing japan. robert, later in the famous dock documentary by mcdonald said that if the allies had lost, or there would not be war going on. >> the equivalents idea is brought up one should stress that people have said just as bad as the death camps. >> it's a different thing. >> it's a different thing for this reason among others that the losses were staggering tens of thousands of people died delivering those bombs. only a handful ever got killed in the rebellion in the counts. >> yes, that is absolutely true. also they did not do it because it was some ideological program of exterminating germans are japanese. it was an active war. it was an atrocious atrocious act of war as it were the war against the jews, have nothing to do with any kind of military exercise. it was purely about killing. >> and in fact detracted from the war effort. >> yes. >> my question segue into that. did america really have to drop the atomic bomb -- bombs on japan or were they so weak they would've surrendered anyway? >> well they probably would've. the question is when? the americans wanted to finish the war as quickly as they could because they were running out of money. most americans were sick of war, they wanted the boys to come home so the appetite to prolong it was a very low. there was also the fear at that stage that the soviets would invade japan first and so they did want to bring it. they wanted to avoid an invasion at all cost. was it really necessarily? we will never know for sure. when we do know is that even after the second bomb, the japanese war council which was -- that they were the one who had to decide on whether to surrender or not. it had to be a unanimous decision. die hards, in the war council, still argue that they had to fight to the last man, woman and child. it was only the second time in his rain that the emperor did step in. i mean i'm sure he did not do it office on back but he did step in and say, no, no, we have to surrender. the main reason i think was that the japanese were afraid that the red army would get their first or there would be a communist inspired rebellion. the other thing, the adam bombs did, was that it gave the dye hearts in some ways unexcused to surrender because they could say, well this is -- we have not lost fall. we fought a war, we were not defeat about with a weapon like that it's like boxing somebody and your opponent suddenly draws a gun. what can you do? it's served as a way out. whether it was absolutely necessary, as i said, we will not know because they would've surrendered but it may have taken more time. the more interesting thing i would like to know is what mark thinks. you have written this, more on what i have written. the moral question is, 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 killing 60 set -- the numbers are perhaps not the relevant factor. that's a killing an equivalent number of people. is there a difference between a moral difference between one weapon and another? it is not always clear to me. >> you should not say about hillary hiroshima and nagasaki, they only had two bombs. one uranium, one plutonium and they had spent an incredible amount of money making those guns and they wanted it. you thought a demonstration does but they had to make those two things count. i do know, this thing comes up all the time with the moral difference. did you feel there is a moral difference in syria when chemical weapons were being used? >> no, it was not immediately clear to me because, yes, of course using common chemical weapons is absolutely horrific but i think the red line was a rhetorical mistake because if you do nothing for 100,000 people being killed by other means and you suddenly say, will we have to go to war because they are using chemical weapons, i'm a bit dubious about that distinction. >> well i think, you know, chemical weapons and biological weapons that they are exponential weapons. i think one should have fairly, in terms of international policing that you have to have a difference. >> to ban them, of course. to say that there was an absolute moral distinction, i am not so sure about that. >> not an absolute one but partly practical one. >> yes. >> that they do kill lots of people and they can go on. >> yes but then you would have to say gassing people also kills a lot of people more quickly and more efficiently than shooting them. was there a moral distinction between the gas chambers and sending in shooting people in the neck? >> the gas chambers, in a way, were a phenomenon because they probably got close with using bullets. gas was a lot cheaper than bullets. >> that was impractical. >> thank you. i have learned a lot from the things you have said. i really liked what you said about the fact that we are all very educated, does that mean we are better and we act so differently from the ignorant trait people of this world? for me the question then is, what's formation should we be talking about to help humanity, to make sure that people behave well or are we doomed to believe that there was no information out there that we could put together to help humanity? each time we get into a crisis situation, it becomes a question of second senses and we just become violent and along with this i realized a last few years, especially in this country, the humanities have been taking a hit and technology -- studies and technology and science seems to be what the universities want to promote. they bring more money and, i realize. are they thinking this way also that, you know, the reading of humanity's is not going to improve our well being? i do not want to rumble too much but you are giving me very wonderful and insightful -- >> the novel -- >> anyone of you will help me think through this weather, you know, what kind of information? will kind of studies? >> unless you are religious and you believe that religion will make us behave better, which in some cases may actually be true, but it is largely a question of institutions. and law. you need to have a monopoly as government. you need to have laws that play a major role in making people behave. you need a police force. you need proper institutions. and without proper institutions, the law of the jungle prevails. as i said, i think with the law of the jungle prevails it doesn't matter whether you are driven or american, or japanese or black or white, or yellow, the worst happens. >> what about -- >> would about him? [inaudible] >> i'm not saying all human beings are monsters. he was heroic, he was a moral hero. if you have a government, a government or occupation, that works on people's instincts it's obviously not sure that everyone that will behave like a monster. i think the number of people that act like deliberate monsters is not the majority. the majority tries to survive in another way if it's it's them. the actual monsters are not the majority, nor are the moral heroes. the moral heroes are probably even more rare. even in the worst circumstances you will have moral heroes and he was one of them. he stood up to the nazi mission. he paid for it with his life, he was a intensely moral -- others in germany. >> that determines whether you're going to be a monster or a hero. yes. that may be true, but again, yes, you are right, but as i said before, i think sometimes heroes can become monsters. possibly even the other way around. >> but he was nice. there wasn't much heroism in germany. and you know, there are many more monsters than they are heroes. i am sure of that. in the camps, and auschwitz about one in ten of the assets were monsters that clearly got sexual satisfaction from [inaudible] one in 1000 were heroes of the prisoners. >> it is much more dangerous to be immoral here in those circumstances. to be a monster is easy. >> the real monster, it's a minor consideration to the real hero. the modern hero. >> on that same point you mentioned george stein, or he said that it's one of the best novels describing the period. >> which? novel >> alone in berlin, or as is translated into the u.s. alone in berlin. i'm wondering if you have comments about the moral -- >> i'm not totally clear on that novel. >> yes that novel, he was in -- he stayed and recounted what ordinary truman life was and he didn't say he was a hero, but he was able to give voice to what's moments experienced during the war. >> when was the published? >> in 2010 by penguin in london. in 1940, seven it was the last book he published. after he died that was the last book he published. >> i couldn't finish that book. i got halfway through. he goes on a huge red herring on the gestapo. and things like he has him wearing the star during the invasion of friends which is in 74, it -- but the writing of that book was very courageous. have you seen the diary of a man in despair? would a absolute ski, think hate filled, very intelligent rushed to the next day rule. not a date, little chunks, ten feet deep in his garden, but penned to paper was heroic. >> like victor clump? or the diaries of victor clamber? the linguistics professor. a heroic day by day i can't. >> i don't know if heroic is quite the word. it's a fascinating one but the question of immigration is an important one, because of course not every system allows that. the difference i think between nazi germany and russia were jewish and which case you would do it, most fascist states, inner mobility was a possibility. you didn't stick or neck out and you would survive. under meryl, this was absolutely impossible or stalin. you had actually actively participate and with your enthusiasm. you couldn't withdraw or retreat. it wasn't an option. >> thank you. i'm in japan. 1948 commemorates the beginning of the nuclear war so to speak. the japanese tried to sell nuclear industries. but do you think about that? >> this is a long way from 1945. although not entirely. let's leave the nuclear question side for a minute. the right-wing nature of the current prime minister. that does go back to 1945. part of the reeducation of japan in 1940, five and 40, six 1947, is that the americans as you well know wrote a new constitution because the war was blamed on militaries and it was pacifist constitution. most japanese or perfectly content, part of it even, some japanese nationalists felt that it was robbing japan of its sovereignty. if you can't use military force under any circumstances under foreign policy than have to leave it up to somebody else. in this case to the americans. there's always been a vociferously minority that wants to change the constitution, and restore japan 's sovereign right to use its armed forces and anyway it's outfit. the mainstream in japan, and especially the left have always used the argument against the revision of the constitution saying look, japan is aware of it like an alcoholic. you can start with a drink under its nose because it will go back to its bad ways. look at what happened with, maddening, manila we should never be tempted. as long as the argument is used, the nationalist revisionist, the, right we'll say that every country's wars and its history. where's are terrible. there's nothing wish feel particularly ashamed about. let's revive the constitution and feel proud of ourselves. that's attitude of the current prime minister. what's disturbing about it is that history has become so polarized and politicized in japan that no one is really talking about, nobody attempts to find the truth anymore. it's all about what political agenda that you have. that determines your view of the war rather than facing mid-coolly in squarely as the germans have learned how to do. late, but they learned. >> i think they've learned. >> i am interested, very interested in germans peoples acceptance of hitler. i'm not sure it was as easy as you have depicted. were there not more than a score perhaps not as many as 30 plus against hitler -- were there not many many others? and were there not religious groups, military, groups and other groups of people who did not here for hitler, and many of him actively worked against him? for example, ellen, military intelligence were cooperating very, very closely. anglo-saxon,'s or angela merkel don't seem to realize that. is that not true? >> the only institution that stood up to hitler effectively was the army. i think the army just all the opposition in the army melted after france, in the summer of 1940. no one believed that he could conquer france in the way he proposed. he did it, and it did look like a miracle. even some very sound and good people like james fund milk or said just a couple of weeks i thought he's a bit rough around the edges but look at this, france, the historical enemy. but once the army had come on board it was the end of the opposition. >> many got rid of generals very quickly who didn't go along with him. so there were indeed people in germany who opposed it in the thirties but the use of terror is very effective. so it took more and more courage to oppose him openly, became almost impossible. >> once he was in power. >> there were many people who didn't like what was going on, many chose inner immigration because that was the only way to survive. i don't think it's angela american prejudice to say there was not much in the way of real organized opposition. there was some. there were opposition groups here and there in the army and elsewhere. but not much. >> the people. when the assassination attempt, the kernels plot failed, he had the nation behind him still in 44. >> most germans did okay. as long as he weren't jewish, and until people got badly bombed, they act better than people in occupied countries and life wasn't all that bad. i mean it was oppressive. it took a huge amount of courage to actively resist it. and i don't think there is a huge amount of it. >> he goes into this, it was very difficult to be brave and nazi germany. you have to be prepared to die. but you had to be prepared for torture. you had to withstand that because naming their names. and it's not very accessible to us, it's a very german thing, that in the occupied countries any criminal could die like a murder. in germany it was arranged so that any murder could die like a criminal. and she wouldn't be celebrated after your death. your wife would turn your photograph around. your parents wouldn't talk to you. your children would be told. >> that is an amount to your death. >> now. but sort of a in ignominious that the germans would find very difficult to conquer. he says that is actually stopped people. it's not the physical courage, it was the shame. [applause] >> thank you. thank you. thank you very much. >> weaknesses month we're featuring american history tv programs as a preview of what's available every weekend on c-span 3. tonight, programs on the military. we will travel to northeastern france with historian mitchell to tour to battlefields were american and french forces fought in the spring of 1918 to spot a german offensive towards paris. that starts at 8 pm eastern. enjoy american history tv every weekend on c-span 3. you are watching

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