British psychology, WW2 nostalgia, and Brexit

This blogger recently was reminded of how commonplace events like "WW2 nostalgia" days are in Britain. This got me thinking about how this kind of thing compares with other countries that took part in WW2, and what motivation and psychology is behind these kinds of events in Britain.

"Remembering the past" is important for any country; but equally important, is why and how you're remembering it.

When France remembers its time during WW2, it might not be with a great deal of pride. Of course there are the actions of the "Free French" forces that should never be forgotten, and the unquestioned bravery of the French Resistance during the years of occupation. But for the civilian population itself, much of its memory would be tied up with being under the thumb of Nazi rule, or, in the case of the "Vichy" government, the moral stain of that administration's collaboration. In this sense, WW2 was a national humiliation that was only ended through the actions of their allied American and British "liberators". That memory stuck in the craw for a long time in post-war France.

Conversely, there is the experience of the USA during WW2. Fighting a war on two fronts (like the British Empire), against Japan and Nazi Germany, American involvement nonetheless was, with the significant exception of Pearl Harbor, a typically distant affair. Characterized by the wartime song "Over there", the continental USA was largely unaffected by the war on a day-to-day level. The USA paid dearly in military terms, but the country itself was barely touched by the war.
For this reason, the nostalgia that the USA might have for WW2 may be "justified" from a strict psychological standpoint, as it does not create an overly-misleading perception of that point in the country's history. From a prestige point of view, the Second World War was glorious for the USA, as it was one of the leading victors, and it heralded the beginning of the country's role as a superpower. In this sense, the nostalgia makes a great deal of sense, as they are celebrating the birth of modern idea of the USA.

Then there is the experience of the Soviet Union. Its "nostalgia" for WW2 comes through the context of what they called the Great Patriotic War. Like the USA, their war against Germany starts in 1941, albeit six months earlier than Washington. But the price the Soviet Union paid was enormous, both in manpower, resources and land. Much of European Russia was occupied by the Nazis for at least two years, while its cities, and Leningrad and Stalingrad in particular, suffered appalling civilian casualties, on a scale not seen in Western Europe. While the country did receive allied aid from the Arctic convoys, the country essentially had to fight for itself, and it was only through sheer determination, resourcefulness and strategic errors on the Nazis' side, that allowed them to turn the tide. The Soviet Union paid by far the highest price on the allied side, and its "nostalgia" is about remembering the heroic fight against an existential threat, which they then drove back all the way to Hitler's Chancellery in Berlin.
This blogger makes no comment on the nature of the Soviet Union itself, or its conduct after the war; more on that has been said here.

Britain's role in WW2 and its nostalgia come from a somewhat different angle. On the one hand, the nostalgia for celebrating its heroes is genuine and universal. On the other, there is another side to the nostalgia that seems to function as a psychological crutch to support the nation's post-war insecurity. The fact that the post-war situation also saw Britain lose its empire may not be a coincidence.


"British Empire" nostalgia?

It could be argued that in Britain, WW2 nostalgia is for many, in fact, "British Empire" nostalgia.

The manner of Britain's WW2 nostalgia has sometimes seemed vaguely troubling from a psychological point of view, as it is based on historical revisionism. Unlike as is often assumed, Britain did not "win the war"; it was on the winning side as allies of the Soviet Union and the USA. As mentioned earlier, the largest cost in manpower and resources was taken by the Soviet Union, with American resources and manpower proving pivotal to the invasion of France. The Soviet Union and the USA "won" the war; the British Empire, by the end, was unfortunately a worn-out and bankrupt also-ran on the same side (and soon to be shafted by both after the war's end - or even, arguably, during its closing stages). These are facts that have also been conveniently "forgotten".

It is true that Britain was the first of those "allies" to declare war on Germany in 1939, but it quickly found out that it had bitten off more than it could chew. And it was more than pure luck that allowed Britain's armed forces to escape from being captured in 1940. The evidence actually points to the uncomfortable truth that the success of the Dunkirk evacuation in 1940 was in part down to Hitler's desire to reach a peaceful understanding with Britain, as he didn't wish to "humiliate" Britain, with whom he had a lot of personal respect. In fact, his perception of the grit of British forces was so high that he was shocked that they decided to flee from the continent rather than fight.
Evidence from the German archives at the time suggests that the delay at Dunkirk (the "halt order"), that enabled the British forces' escape, was not really to "allow" them to flee with their honour intact, but more through a misunderstanding of Britain's intentions; it seems Hitler was expecting the Brits to dig in for a fightback from the beach-head of Dunkirk. In this way, more generally he saw the British Empire's existence as a bulwark against what he saw as other "barbarian" races.

Hitler in fact looked up to the British Empire as Teutonic cousins whose global empire exemplified the natural superiority of (as he saw it) the wider "Aryan" race. In other words, the domination of that "island race" across the world was merely another pillar of what he saw as an overall German world domination. Defeating the British Empire's military capacity around the globe would have run against this motivation. The uncomfortable truth was that Hitler saw Britain and Germany as kin, with Britain's declaration of war against it judged as a kind of personal affront.
The idea that Hitler would have considered himself and the British Empire to have some kind of "common cause" would have been morally outrageous to Britain's sense of moral superiority (though it could be argued that sense of innate British "superiority" is in itself a kind of racism). Hitler's "unrequited love" of the country sits awkwardly with the self-perception that Britain has of its own moral certitude - how could an empire feel good about itself if it was secretly admired by the Nazis?  The answer, from a psychological point of view, was to destroy any hope Hitler had in thinking Britain would tolerate the existence of Germany under his rule. In this sense, Hitler's war on Britain could be seen as "revenge" for that rejection, with his visceral hatred of Churchill taking on the mantle of a personal vendetta.

Churchill's long animosity towards Hitler and Nazism in general could, it might be argued, have come from even an implicit sense of old English elitist snobbishness; as a member of the Victorian aristocracy, this isn't difficult to imagine. Apart from Nazism's raw hatred of the Jews, it's not hard to see Churchill viewing Hitler as a little more than a "jumped-up corporal", and Fascism in general as an uncouth, mob-culture ideology, anathema to his own sense of "British Empire" values.
And yet, Churchill himself had a career peppered with controversy. His views on the empire were shamelessly racist; more than many of his contemporaries, to the extent that some of his proposals to maintain discipline in the colonies would have been termed war crimes today had they been carried out as he intended.
It was the decision to bomb German cities and civilians during the summer of 1940 by the RAF that caused Hitler to end the "Battle Of Britain" and retaliate with the "Blitz". In these terms, Churchill's decision to bomb German civilians led to Hitler doing the same to Britons, while sparing Britain's air force from destruction. With the distance of time, such decisions now look morally dubious, with common Londoners becoming the targets instead of Britain's pilots (though whether Churchill could have predicted this is debatable). It then became a battle to destroy each other's homeland, and a metaphor for the destruction of each other's values. Churchill later sanctioned the senseless bombing of Dresden in the final weeks of the war, while in 1943 was complicit in causing the Bengal Famine, which led to the death of two million Indians. And yet this is a man that is idolized in British culture. This is the dangerous "false narrative" that uncritical nostalgia can create.
The wider point about Hitler was that - like Kaiser Wilhelm a generation earlier - fundamentally misunderstood Britain and its sense of prestige. Britain could not psychologically tolerate the thought of another nation challenging its own moral world view, and so had to be made out to be an existential threat to Britain's status. Hitler certainly justified the label as the "monster" of popular imagination, but the scale of that monstrosity was unknown in Britain until the end of the war; war against this "monster" was instead considered a kind of moral requirement for Britain's own self-respect, as well as to maintain its reputation and high standing around the world. The fact that some of the colonies began to rebel after the war was "won" supports this viewpoint.

While Britain had "bitten off more than it could chew" in declaring war on Germany, the threat of actual invasion by Hitler was always a very remote prospect; for practical reasons as well as the "ideological" reasons already stated. It suited Hitler more for Britain to believe there to be a threat of invasion, as this would cause it to divert attention from his real aims ("Lebensraum") in the East. He wanted to bring Britain to the peace table by means of gradual deprivation and collateral attrition rather than by wiping out its armed forces, but was fundamentally mistaken in its effects on British psychology. The strategy could never have worked.
And so Britain during WW2 developed into the wartime saga we all recognize: the bombing, the rationing, the "making do". Britain was reliant on the USA for its survival after 1940, but its moral certitude was still intact. And Britain's WW2 nostalgia is more for a moral world-view than anything else: the idea that Britain, besieged from sea and air, was still able to maintain its independence and moral authority. The fact that it was reliant on the USA to preserve its "independence", and its "moral authority" was once admired by Hitler, is quietly forgotten. The nostalgia preserves the illusion.

Using a cultural reference, "Dad's Army" syndrome and Britain's WW2 nostalgia is all about "winning against the odds" while sticking to your principles. In that sense, from an ideological point of view it shares some ground with Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism; the idea that Britain is achieving things without the help of others (self-reliance) while also refusing to compromise (moral purity). These are values also common in the Protestant faith on both sides of the Atlantic. These are values also found, not coincidentally, in the minds of many Brexiteers.
Nothing is ever that simple, of course, and as already stated, this is factually inaccurate in Britain's case anyway. Britain's homeland was effectively an American protectorate after 1940 until the end of the war (and even, arguably, well into the Cold War), while its moral standing must always be put in the context of its imperial status.

WW2 nostalgia also coincides with the point at which the British Empire's reach was arguably at its height. While its influence was waning in the light of the rise of the USA, that country's isolationism left the British Empire as the world's great global potentate at the start of WW2. In this sense, Britain's status as an island meant the British Empire was an "empire of the sea", with its power projected through the Royal Navy. Its land forces were always fairly modest in size by comparison, especially in places like India, where its authority was held more through reputation and skulduggery than brute force. The nature of the empire's scope always meant that keeping it together was a matter of wits over brawn, with the fabled British education system playing a large role. This was one reason why Britain's rivals never considered her to be a power to be trusted; she always seemed to have a trick up her sleeve, as often proved to be the case. You don't get to be a global empire by always "doing things by the book".
Comparisons with the medieval maritime empire of the Venetian Republic come to mind. This was another potentate reliant on sea power, commerce and occasional dirty tricks to maintain and expand its influence, until its possessions sprawled across large tracts of the Mediterranean. Like the British Empire, its reputation preceded itself; from small beginnings, its authority gradually extended further and further afield, quickly taking advantage of opportunities that arose, while allowing a commercial system at home that encouraged adventurism.
When Brexiteers talk of the opportunities in the world outside of the EU they are instilling that same spirit of adventurism that saw Venice expand across the Mediterranean, reaching its zenith around the turn of the 16th century. This was the same time that Spain and Portugal were using seafaring as a route to riches around the world, with the likes of England and France to follow a hundred years later.
While Britain's military role in the Second World War soon became that of "sidekick" to American power, it did use its military intelligence to great effect for the allies. It is this perception of British intelligence overcoming foreign might that feeds into the historical narrative of "plucky" Britain; a narrative that adds to the nostalgia, and feeds the desire to reprise the same story in the modern era of Brexit.
As WW2 was when Britain's empire displayed its last flourish, WW2 nostalgia can also be seen as implicit nostalgia for the British Empire. With modern niceties, such things can never be stated so openly, and it is also true that many people's nostalgia for empire is also something subconscious rather than overt. But that longing for the past, when Britain was truly "great", cannot be understood without its imperial associations. And this raises some very obvious questions about the real psychology at work in WW2 nostalgia, apart from the ideas of independence and moral certitude mentioned before. It speaks of insecurity instead.

Meanwhile, with Brexiteers seeming to use the same "dirty tricks" that were once so familiar to the British Empire's rivals, the dye seems to be cast as to the direction they want to take Britain. Brexit is about "Empire 2.0", while the country's apparent WW2 nostalgia is a rose-tinted backdrop that acts as the "drug of choice" against the future stark reality of Britain outside the EU, as much as the wistful delusions that many have had about wartime Britain.
The WW2 nostalgia serves a purpose for the Brexiteers. If people can be so willfully delusional about what life was like during the Second World War, then why not about life outside the EU?