The Implications of World War II on Young People - Essay Example

What were the Implications of World War II on Young People? Introduction This essay presents an analysis of how young people in Germany, the United States of America, France, Belgium and England were affected by the Second World War. For purposes of clarity, the argument in the essay is presented in the form of three interrelated sections, which are based on the consequences of the war on young people in different regions of the world. In the first section, the focus is on how young people living in Germany at the time of the Second World War were affected by the war. In the second section, analysis is based on the consequences that the war had on young people in England, France and Belgium, considering that these countries were important theatres of the war. In the third section, the manner in which the Second World War affected young people in United States is presented. Throughout the essay, it is argued that the effects of the Second World War on young people in the regions identified were manifested either directly or indirectly and that their consequences were either beneficial or destructive to young people. Whereas direct participation in the war resulted into direct consequences to young people who formed part of the entire population at the time, the long-term effects of the war which were later witnessed in social, economic and cultural aspects of the society were manifestations of the indirect effects that the war had on young people at the time. The Impact of the Second World War on Young People in Germany The first way in which the Second World War affected young people in Germany was in the form of the direct impact that the war had on them. Generally, Germany and Poland had the largest number of casualties arising from the Second World War.1 The large number of deaths in these countries was as result of civilian casualties, deaths from the holocaust and deaths of military personnel directly participating in the war. It is in response of this that both governments engaged in social and cultural exchange programmes as a way of coming to terms with the events of the war.2 Another direct way in which young people in Germany were affected by the Second World War arose from feelings of guilt as a result of their direct participation in the application of the Nazi ideology and the war itself.3 Prior to the Second World War, the youth in Germany played a significant role in the building of the Nazi party. Furthermore, the growing activities of the Nazi party strongly depended on the role of the youth population in Germany. That is why the leadership of the Nazi party sought to achieve massive recruitment of young people into the cause and indoctrinate them with the Nazi ideology. The aim of this strategy was twofold: to indoctrinate the young German population with Nazi ideas and separate them from parents and teachers who were considered as individuals holding traditional views that contradicted with the Nazi philosophy.4 Therefore, even before the actual onset of the Second World War, the young people in Germany were already being influenced to join the cause of the Nazi party. This would continue throughout the course of the war, and in the process, affect a huge number of young people in the country. It is the strong association between the Nazi party and the youth population in Germany that led to the role of Nazi movement being labelled as a youth movement in Germany.5 Furthermore, it is following the contribution of the youth in Germany to the cause of the Nazi movement and their direct participation in the Second World War that resulted to a situation in which their guilt was acknowledged. Feelings of guilt arose from the concept of collective memory in which the role that individual youths played in the war was ascribed to the entire youth population of the country. Feelings of guilt and the need to come to terms with the effects of the Second World War was a dominant feature among the German population in general and that of young people in particular after the war.6 In general, there was the need to reconcile the past of the country with the present, following the unification of East and West Germany. The manner in which individuals in the German population in general was affected by the aftermath of the war varied depending on whether they belonged to the former East or West Germany. Whereas the major challenge facing citizens of the former East Germany was to come to terms of the direct impact of the war and how this shaped their future in a federal republic that was created after the reunification, the concern for the population of former West Germany was how to overcome the feelings of guilt following the events of the war and form a new identity for the future.7 This implies that many young people in Germany found it difficult to reconcile their sense of identities with the events that had taken place during the period of the Second World War. These feelings of guilt arose not only from direct participation in the war by some of them but also as a result of the collective identity of the people of Germany and their interpretation of the their role as a nation in the Second World War.8 It was in response to this state of affairs that many young people in Germany resorted to violent youth gangs which were focused on xenophobic attacks as a way of filling the void left by the need to reconcile the past with the prevailing situation in the country after the war. Immediately following the war and in the subsequent years, Germany experienced a surge in the number of street gangs within its urban areas. Immediately following the end of the war, street gangs emerged around the urban areas in Germany and took on the activities of petty crime and involvement in the black market as a survival means following the collapse of the German economy after the conclusion of the war.9 The formation of youth gangs in Germany following the Second World War was not a uniform occurrence. Rather, the process followed complicated patterns that defined not only the purpose of the different gangs but also their modes of operation. Basically, three different types of youth gangs emerged in Germany following the end of the Second World War: those that operated mainly in the neighbourhood areas within urban areas, those that were modelled on the skinheads’ style of youth gangs and the violent street gangs akin to those that developed in the United States.10 Whereas the gangs that were formed in the neighbourhoods were largely concerned with territorial battles with rival gangs, the skinheads’ gangs continued with racist agendas of a superior Arian race that had dominated the Nazi thinking in Germany prior to and during the war. This ideology and general involvement in crime by the skinheads’ gangs was shared by the street hooligan gangs that emerged later in Germany. The impact of Second World War on young people in England, France and Belgium Some of the countries in Europe formed the main theatre of war during the Second World War. Because of this, several countries in Europe (England, France and Belgium being the leading ones) bore the greatest impact of the Second World War. The impact of the war was felt on all sections of the society. But most importantly, the course and final outcome of the war had major implications on the lives of young people in England, France and Belgium in particular. This was seen in several ways. To begin with, there was a sudden rise in the level of delinquency and general crime in France, England and Belgium following the end of the Second World War.11 This was similar to the situation in Germany following the end of the war. The high level of delinquency was manifested in the form of street gangs which were entirely made up of young people in the country. The street gangs engaged in a number of criminal activities within urban areas in England, France and Belgium after the end of the war. This was an issue of public concern within the affected countries. Further, the process by which young people mobilised themselves into amorphous groups and started engaging in criminal activities was mainly created by the direct effects that the Second World War had on individuals across Europe. There are two main ways by which this can be explained. First, the Second World War, just like the First World War, led to a collapse of the economies in several countries across Europe.12 This was felt in the form of mass joblessness and loss of homes among many members of the populations in the countries. Secondly, the young people who had been exposed to the horrors of the Second World War, just as was the case in the First World War, were affected psychologically. Many of the young people became hopeless and without a purpose in life. But the most important of them was the mass migrations that were triggered by the war. The Second World War caused mass migrations across Europe as large populations became dispossessed and persecuted.13 This situation contributed to movement of people into France, Germany and Belgium as they fled from the theatres of the war in Eastern Europe and Germany. Further, increased cultural exchanges between the United States and European Countries, predominantly England, transferred the cultural influences that the war had on the United States to Europe.14 Therefore, these conditions, together with the mass migrations that happened during and after the Second World War, precipitated the right conditions for development of street gangs within European countries following the end of the Second World War. Another way in which the Second World War affected young people in England, France and Belgium was in the direct impact that the war had on that section of the population. This was seen in the form of a sudden increase in the number of children who were born immediately after the end of the Second World War. Later to be known as the baby boomers, this section of the population whose members were born after the war defined sudden changes in the demography of European countries in general and France, England and Belgium in particular. The Impact of Second World War on Young People in the United States There are several ways in which the Second World War affected young people in the United States. In general, many young people in the United States were affected by the war in two broad ways: as a result of direct consequences of the war or as a result of living at a time when the effects of the war were evident in the social, economic and cultural values of the society. Also, these effects varied in regard to time, with direct effects being witnessed during and immediately after the war while indirect effects were witnessed in the years that followed the end of the war. The Second World War drastically affected the demographics of the United States. Changes in the demographic composition of the country as a result of the war can be seen in terms of differences in the number of children who were born prior to the war and those that were born immediately after it. The conduct of the war and its social and economic consequences on the United States determined the approach that young people took in terms of carrying out their responsibilities as adults. This happened in several ways. For instance, young men who reached their young adult stages during the 1950s benefited from the economic expansion programmes that were instituted immediately after the war.15 Furthermore, since the people who belonged to this age group had been very young at the time of the war, they had not experienced the direct consequences of the war as civilians. On the other hand, individuals who were born immediately following the end of the Second World War formed the baby boom generation. Such young people, who were not directly affected by the Second World War, experienced relative success in social and economic terms as a result of the economic expansion that had taken place in the United States after the war. However, their large numbers created a lot of competition which was experienced in the job market, thus leading to a slight reduction in incomes later in their adult lives.16 It can therefore be seen that the economic and social prosperity that followed immediately after the war gave rise to a sudden rise in the rate of birth within the country, giving rise to the baby boom generation. It is upon this generation that the indirect social and cultural effects of the war would be felt later in the decades that followed. Apart from changing the birth rates within the population in the United States, the Second World War also had direct effects on young people within the country. After the onset of the war and towards its end, young people in the United States were subjected to large scale operations of mobilisation and demobilisation. This happened in several ways. For example, many young people were conscripted into military service immediately after the attack on Pearl Harbour.17 Usually, conscription to the military has been found to influence not only the economic but also the social lives of the young people who get conscripted to the military. Also, such effects affect their loves long after they have retired from active service. This is because of the many different ways that military service in the United States shapes the social and economic lives of individuals in the form of incomes received after service and the approaches to family life that the individuals take as a result of the demands of their duties.18 Therefore, the large group of young people who were conscripted to military service in the course of the Second World War were affected by the social, economic and even health consequences of the war. These effects were reflected in their lives after the service. Furthermore, the social and economic consequences that resulted from the Second World War were some of the main factors that led to the other important way in which young g people in America were affected by the war: the rise of the popular youth culture. The emergence of popular youth culture was facilitated by an increase in the rate of urbanisation that occurred after the war. Because of the rise of the baby boom generation, mass mobilisation and demobilisation in the course of the war and shifts in economic productivity that resulted in increases in the numbers of people who migrated to cities in the United States, a new form of popular culture arose in the United States after the end of the Second World War.19 The impact of the changes can be seen when it is considered that prior to the war and immediately after its onset, a decline in productivity led to social and economic instability. This situation was further complicated by the shifts in industrial production that occurred during the war that took the form of workers moving from industries such as farm and contract construction to those that facilitated the conduct of the war such as railroad, machinery and iron.20 It is against this backdrop that the youth subculture that was dominant in the United States arose in the 1950s and existed through the 1960s. Predominantly, the influence that the Second World War had in shaping the emergence of this phenomenon can best be understood in terms of the conflict that emerged between the values of this group and conservative values that were held by adults at that time. Precipitated by the end of the Second World War was an American youth culture that was defined by scepticism towards erstwhile traditional views held by parents and adults in general.21 This type of culture, which was defined by several different aspects in terms of clothing style, taste of music and other attributes, was majorly fuelled by the mass media and formed a sizeable market for consumer goods.22 Not only did this type of culture that developed among the American youth after the Second World War challenge the traditional family values, it also presented the problems of rising rates of delinquency. It is because of these factors that the youth culture that arose after the end of the Second World War became a national youth culture in the United States and attracted a lot of criticism from conservative adults, parents and institutions. Conclusion The Second World War affected young people across different regions of the word in different ways. In Germany, the effect of the war was witnessed in the form of the need for the young people in the country to develop a sense of national identity following the events of the war. This was made necessary by the fact that many young people in Germany were active participants in the Nazi ideology prior to the war and even during its course. In European other European countries (particularly France, England and Belgium) the effects of the war on young people were precipitated in the form of massive immigrations into urban areas, which contributed to development of street gangs. Lastly, the effect of the Second World War on young people in the United States was predominantly seen in the form of emergence of a national youth culture a few years after the end of the war. Bibliography Agnew, John and Nicholas, J. Entrikin. The Marshal Plan Today: Model and Metaphor. London: Psychology Press, 2004. Bowen, J. 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