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Daniel Williams
English 111
Research Essay Final Draft
20 December 2015
The Two Demons of World War II
At an influential point in time, todays students will develop into the rulers of tomorrow.
They will govern the world with new radical ideas and brilliant policies. However, the wisdom
of today desperately needs to be passed on to the up and coming generation. Unfortunately, the
bright minds of the future are dimmed to implications of the past. Recent results of a survey
conclude that high schoolers are familiar with the bare skeleton of facts, but they are unaware of
the heart of the matter. About 82% of high school students know the generic details of who
started and ended World War II, but only 48% know of Americas darker actions during the war.
Majority of high schoolers do not yet understand that America did horrific acts, such as
concentration camps, that were strikingly comparable to Germanys own (Williams). Justifiable
or not, Americas misdeeds were the terrible consequence of its own government attempting to
protect its citizens at all costs:
There's a point, far out there when the structures fail you, and the rules aren't weapons
anymore, they're... shackles letting the bad guy get ahead. One day... you may face such a
moment of crisis. And in that moment, I hope you have a friend like I did, to plunge their
hands into the filth so that you can keep yours clean! (The Dark Knight Rises)
Nevertheless, they will need to be informed of the effects such decisions can have. Even though
America and Germany represented two different moralities of the time, the muck of war dirtied
both of their hands with paranoia, discrimination, and mass slaughter of innocent civilians.
In an effort to fully comprehend the acts and actions of America, a reference point of
comparison becomes necessary. Therefore, the atrocious deeds of Germany stand as a reference
point for evil during World War II. Starting out, Germany existed in a tragic state after World
War I. Economic ruin, political mistrust, and military humiliation all contributed to their

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paranoia. Gradually, German rule under Hitlers regime focused this paranoia into a strong and
caustic discrimination against the Jewish people. Thus, anti-Semitism borne of Hitlers hate
preceded the drastic measures taken by Germany to pursue revenge against the people who
supposedly were to blame for their troubles.
Similarly, America was driven towards public paranoia because of traumatic events
within the nation. On the infamous day of the attack on Pearl Harbor, seeds of distrust were
sown. Ignorance within the nation led to the entire population distrusting Japanese immigrants.
Unlike Germany, however, America was rocketed towards fear and distrust while Germany had
gradually reached this state. These Japanese citizens may have been citizens of the United States
for generations, yet they were persecuted for acts committed by foreigners with meager
resemblances. Then, President Roosevelt congealed these fears into a single, tangible act in 1942
that forever set America into a decline. The Japanese became an enemy race, like the Jews of
Germany, since any one of these individuals could be an agent of counter-intelligence or set
another Pearl Harbor-esque event into motion (Rondon). At this moment, as Roosevelt penned
his signature onto the nefarious act, America was dutifully following the footsteps that Germany
lay only three years prior.
Hitler infected the entirety of Germany with a single virus. This virus plagued the bodies
and minds of every inhabitant within miles, yet it infiltrated itself so subtly that it went
undetected. While Roosevelt looked out for the betterment of his nation, Hitler looked out for
the betterment of his dastardly, anti-Semitic plans. Thus, Discrimination budded its ugly head
into German society and spread virulent oppression. Many Nazi soldiers followed orders
enthusiastically, for their duty of forcing Jews into camps would benefit their glorious nation.
Nazism had two victims, the Jews and the soldiers. Years of propaganda brainwashing had
altered the moral compass of the soldiers, yet what they did was still unforgivable (Anus

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Mundi). Nazism spread through their blood like a pathogen until they were unaware of
consequences of their orders bestowed by the Devil of Europe.
While the virus was still in its early stages within America, Roosevelts Executive Order
9066 imprisoned their Japanese victims. Adorning their prisoners with serial numbers, which
bear profound likeness to use of the Jewish Star of David, Americas treatment of the Japanese
was atrocious and demeaning. Hundreds of thousands of innocent families were ripped from
their homes and supervised by armed soldiers for as being as little as one-sixteenth Japanese (R.
Aitken & M. Aitken). With few provisions, poor sanitation, and overpopulation, it comes to no
surprise that some families were not fortunate enough to outlast the discrimination and hate of
Americans during this time. Even though Americas did not aim to kill off the enemies of the
state like the Germans had, countless prisoners died anyway. Reflecting on the duality of these
two nations, a question emerges: would America follow the same violent and destructive path as
Germany in regards of its own enemies of the state if the war had not ended as soon as it did?
Escalating and necrotizing, Germany became more desperate and dangerous. Paranoia
led to discrimination which justified mass slaughter. Everything fell into place within Hitlers
plans, and Germans were simply the cogs that ran this gruesome machine. Proposing the Final
Solution to eliminate the entire Jewish existence, Hitler redefined the meaning of cruelty. With
the only goal of wiping out an entire community of innocent citizens, the public followed right
along with it, too. Kpiski, a well-established psychiatrist and Polish prisoner of war,
illustrated in The Auschwitz Reflections that the slaughter could have stopped if only one cog
working the machine had chosen to not blindly follow orders for the machinery community.
Why did they continue in this direction then? It seems clear that self-preservation was a defining
factor as well as the numbing of the public, for in the machinery community, [sic] any sense

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of responsibility disappears. Climaxing at this single event, the Final Solution epitomizes the
worst war can bring.
Toeing the line between saving thousands of soldiers and maniacally slaughtering
hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have
questionable morality. On one hand, dropping atomic bombs on a civilian city makes America
no better than the Germans slaughtering innocent Jews. On the other, six long years of fighting a
war on foreign soil bore a burden on Americas mental state as a collective. Americas killing of
innocent civilians was used as a means to an end. Like Germany, paranoia ran deep and
developed into discrimination. Events climaxed with the single decision to end innumerable
lives. Had Hiroshima and Nagasaki been military headquarters, their bombing may not have
been as drastic. Yet, these were two highly populated cities. Families, wives, and kids lived here
without any connection to the war. There were all slaughtered mercilessly in the name of
efficiently ending the war. This single act not only ended the lives of one entire community,
but it also adversely affected the subsequent generations through cancer, radiation sickness, and
mutations (Bennett). America may have finished the war, but the cost came to be finishing off
hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women, and children.
Wars disease scars the pages of history with ghastly wounds that cannot be healed. It
marks the world with its death and destruction. By its resolution, every country involved
blackens a bit of its soul. This is what the future needs to know. The next generation and the
generation after that will be facing problems just like the ones today. Entering war with ISIS
extremists could result in even more morally questionable choices. Likewise, the developing
American paranoia and xenophobia towards Syrians could follow a terrible path into drastic
measures. With difficult choices like these, the leaders of tomorrow should at least be aware of

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the ever-present moral ambiguity and expanding gray-areas that shelter within it the filth of
countless evils.

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Works Cited
Bennett, Burton G. "Responsibility beyond 60 years." Science 309.5741 (2005): 1649.Opposing
Viewpoints in Context. Web. 8 Dec. 2015.
Kpiski, Antoni. "Anus Mundi." Archives Of Psychiatry & Psychotherapy 9.4 (2007): 8587. Academic Search Complete. Web. 8 Dec. 2015.
Kpiski, Antoni. "The Auschwitz reflections." Archives of Psychiatry & Psychotherapy Sept.
2007: 79+. Academic Search Complete. Web. 8 Dec. 2015.
Robert, and Marilyn Aitken. "Japanese American Internment."Litigation 37.2 (2011): 5970. Academic Search Complete. Web. 20 Dec. 2015.
Rondon, Yolanda C. "Is Korematsu Really Dead." Human Rights41.1 (2015): 23-24. Academic
Search Complete. Web. 20 Dec. 2015.
The Dark Knight Rises. Dir. Christopher Nolan. Perf. Gary Oldman, Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
Warner Bros., 2012. DVD.
Williams, Daniel. "World War II General Knowledge." Survey. 10 December 2015.