Interpreting the Visual Evidence
The End of the Second World War and the Onset of the Cold War
The need to defeat Nazi
Germany brought the
United States and the
Soviet Union together
in a common struggle,
in spite of their contrasting political systems.
Both nations emerged from the
Second World War with a renewed
sense of purpose, and both tried to use
the victory against fascism to promote
their claims for legitimacy and leadership
in Europe. These circumstances placed a
special burden on European nations and
their postwar governments, as they
were forced to take sides in this global
confrontation at a moment of weakness
and uncertainty.
The images here, all from May 1945
in Czechoslovakia, display several different
possibilities for representing the
German defeat in this Eastern European
country. Image A shows a Czech civilian
rending the Nazi flag, with the Prague
skyline in the background and the flags
of the major Allied powers and Czechoslovakia
overhead. Image B depicts a
triumphant Czech laborer wielding a
rifle and socialist red flag standing over
the body of a dead German soldier.
Image C depicts portraits of Stalin and the Czech president Edvard Benes above
two columns of Soviet and Czech soldiers
marching together under their respective
flags. Benes, who had been
president of Czechoslovakia before the
war, was returned to office in October
1945, only to be forced to resign in 1948
after a successful coup by the Sovietbacked
Communist party.
Images
Questions for Analysis
1. fiogf49gjkf0d fiogf49gjkf0d How do these three images portray
the victory over the Germans? |
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2. fiogf49gjkf0d fiogf49gjkf0d How do these images deal with
the question of Czechoslovakian
na tionalism? |
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3. fiogf49gjkf0d fiogf49gjkf0d Which of the three images most coincides
with the Soviet view of the
Czech situation? |
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