Geltung Blog WWII

 Galtung's conflict triangle is applicable to any sort of conflict. World war two is no exception.

Galtung's triangle can be broken into three different parts; Behavior, Attitudes/ Assumptions, and contradictions.understanding each party of the conflict in question can be broken down in these three sectors. 

On the latent level a contradiction in the axis powers specifically Germany lies within the disparity the country of Germany and the German people faced after the first world war. Left in economic ruin due to the immense debts after being declared the loser of World War One, Germany was cast aside by the rest of Europe. A shell of their former self in regards to territorial holdings and political sway a new political party formed which promised to return Germany to its prior status and more. The beliefs and actions of this political party would give way to the second world war.

Similarly, on the latent level. Hitler’s Nazi party believed that the Aryan race was superior to all other races. Hitlers growing popularity within Germany quickly made him the face of the party. Hitlers beliefs fueled the angst of the post first world war german people making his and his parties beliefs the beliefs of their own. After the period of economic hardship faced by Germany, the strong  nationalist beliefs pushed by the Nazi party created a notion that the soveirgn borders of Germany was not enough and surrounding states were actually part of Germany.  Germany viewed the borders of European countries after world war one as illegitimate and believed it was rightfully theirs. Contrarily, allied powers did not believe in the aryan superiority complex and fought to maintain current borders and swart the threat of worldwide innequality that would be brought upon by the Nazi party.

On the other side of Galtung's conflict triangle lies manifest behavior.  There is a lot of defining behavior during this war. On the side of the axis Germany’s view of the european borders manifested in the Nazi army invading and occupying neighboring countries with a goal of full control of Europe. While invading neighboring states the Nazi party rounded up jewish people to be put into concentration camps. As a part of  Aryan  superiority other races and religions besides christianity were viewed as less than human and were not entitled to the same human rights as Aryans. These two examples of axis power behavior during the second world war summarizes the attitudes and assumptions of the Nazis during this time in history. Allied behavioral manifestation in the D-Day invasion on the northern coast of France in order to bring the fight to the axis powers and liberate occupied areas of Europe. The allied powers also used an atomic bomb on Japan, an axis power, in hopes to end the war.