Licia Corbella and Paul Berton: Vets vs. History ... Is the Canadian War Museum a place to honour soldiers or discuss history?
Bombing raids by Canadians targeting German cities and factories are a controversial legacy of the Second World War. The Canadian War Museum in Ottawa tried to acknowledge this, but wording for a display panel has been sent for a re-write following pressure from veterans, who argued it was disrespectful to the brave airmen who fought the Nazis. Sun Media's Licia Corbella and Paul Berton choose sides in the fight between honouring veterans and explaining history.
CORBELLA: The words from that controversial panel at the Canadian War Museum are a disgrace to the memory of the brave Canadian and allied men -- many of them really just boys -- who risked all to crush certain evil. The War Museum is doing the right thing by rewriting that panel. I don't know why Canadians feel such a need to disparage their best, brightest and most valiant.
BERTON: That's ridiculous. Canadians don't want to disparage soldiers -- far from it -- but we do expect museums to reflect history and not sugar-coat it.
CORBELLA: Right, and its take on history is really messed up. In his autobiography, Albert Speer, Hitler's armament minister said of the allied bombing campaign: "It made every square metre of Germany a front. For us, it was the greatest lost battle of the war." Why isn't that mentioned in the panel?
BERTON: The highly regarded historian Margaret MacMillan has been quoted often on the answer: "A museum is not a memorial." The fact is German war production increased each year until 1944 despite the bombings. To be sure, the bombings caused the enemy harm, helped the allied war effort, and may well have been justified -- but it was controversial, then and now. How can we ignore that? ...
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CORBELLA: The words from that controversial panel at the Canadian War Museum are a disgrace to the memory of the brave Canadian and allied men -- many of them really just boys -- who risked all to crush certain evil. The War Museum is doing the right thing by rewriting that panel. I don't know why Canadians feel such a need to disparage their best, brightest and most valiant.
BERTON: That's ridiculous. Canadians don't want to disparage soldiers -- far from it -- but we do expect museums to reflect history and not sugar-coat it.
CORBELLA: Right, and its take on history is really messed up. In his autobiography, Albert Speer, Hitler's armament minister said of the allied bombing campaign: "It made every square metre of Germany a front. For us, it was the greatest lost battle of the war." Why isn't that mentioned in the panel?
BERTON: The highly regarded historian Margaret MacMillan has been quoted often on the answer: "A museum is not a memorial." The fact is German war production increased each year until 1944 despite the bombings. To be sure, the bombings caused the enemy harm, helped the allied war effort, and may well have been justified -- but it was controversial, then and now. How can we ignore that? ...