This week Secretary of State John Kerry spoke of the situation in Syria and our national time of decision regarding possible military action as a \u201cMunich moment.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0He was referring to the conference that occurred in late September 1938 in Munich in which the leaders of Great Britain, France, and Italy met with Adolf Hitler and agreed to allow Germany to annex the Sudetenland, then part of Czechoslovakia.\u00a0 For myself, I think the analogy is problematical, but it tells us a lot about the abiding influence of that moment in history on people of Kerry\u2019s generation that he chose to describe the current situation in this way.<\/p>\n
Since I am teaching a course on \u201cGermany and the Holocaust\u201d this semester, I thought it would be interesting to discuss with my students their thinking and above all to point out the enduring significance of that moment.\u00a0 When I spoke of the Munich conference and a \u201cMunich moment,\u201d most of them had no idea what I was talking about.\u00a0 Some thought I was referring to the terrorist attack on Munich athletes during the 1972 Olympics.<\/p>\n
In short, John Kerry\u2019s analogy didn\u2019t work for them because they didn\u2019t know the historical reference.\u00a0 After some discussion, several of them recalled reading about it but for them the term \u201cMunich moment\u201d didn\u2019t resonate the way it clearly did for Kerry.<\/p>\n
I have found myself thinking about this a lot and wondering and realizing how much we sometimes assume about our shared historical references.\u00a0 That topic in itself seems to me to be worth much discussion\u2014\u201cMunich moment\u201d or not.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This week Secretary of State John Kerry spoke of the situation in Syria and our national time of decision regarding […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":233,"featured_media":104,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"custom_author_name":"","chapman_pin_hero_slider":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[19,20,21,22],"class_list":["post-102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news-and-events","tag-john-kerry","tag-marilyn-harran","tag-munich","tag-syria"],"yoast_head":"\n