American Perception As a Result of World War Ii Memorabilia Collecting
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COLLECTIVE MEMORY: AMERICAN PERCEPTION AS A RESULT OF WORLD WAR II MEMORABILIA COLLECTING Quintin Monnin A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS May 2020 Committee: Walter Grunden, Advisor Rebecca Mancuso ii ABSTRACT Walter Grunden, Advisor The material culture of World War II has left a profound impact on American memory of the war at both a societal and familial level. This work examines psychological causes which motivated soldiers to collect battlefield souvenirs, as well as how those underlying psychological causes have affected American memory of the war at a familial and societal level. Five families which inherited World War II artifacts from family veterans were interviewed to ascertain the motivations of their veteran’s souvenir gathering as well as how the souvenirs impacted their memory of both the veteran as well as the war. To ascertain war artifacts’ impact at a broader societal level, surveys were distributed amongst militaria collectors asking them what initiated their collecting hobby and how war artifacts affect their interpretations of the war. The results of these interviews and surveys revealed two major unconscious motivations for World War II veterans’ souvenir hunting motivations as well as how the souvenirs impact American memory of the war both at both familial and societal levels. Veterans took war souvenirs primarily as a manner to seek revenge upon the enemies and war implements that traumatized them in the course of the war, and as a way to perpetuate their memories by symbolically living on through their artifacts. This revenge motive collecting is examined through the lens of trauma theory and soldiers’ attempts at recovery through it. The motive to collect to perpetuate memory after death is examined through the lens of terror management theory. The impact of these motivations, especially terror management, has led to the artifacts in family memory becoming catalysts for the “Good War” narrative of World War II in American iii memory. The artifacts, as viewed by families and collectors, perpetuate this narrative of veterans fighting the “Good War” in American history. iv I dedicate this work to my late grandparents and great-grandparents; Eugene Fischbach, George Raterman, and Joseph McGreevy Jr. It is your sacrifices and stories that inspire me to study history. May you all rest in well-earned peace. I also dedicate this work to any families who had members serve in World War II, may their memories never be forgotten. v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This project absolutely could not have been done without the generous support and guidance given to me by the BGSU History Department. My Committee Chair, Dr. Walter Grunden, pushed me endlessly to become a better writer and encouraged me at every stage to undertake this thesis and the challenges that came with it for the betterment of the field and myself. There were plenty of those challenges in this process, including quite a few we could not have foreseen. Your help and encouragement have been invaluable, I hope this work lives up to the standards you set for me. I would also like to thank Dr. Rebecca Mancuso for her constant encouragement, insightful commentary, and provided resources for my writing and research. A special thanks goes out to BGSU Graduate Coordinator Dr. Benjamin Greene as I have finished up this amidst the COVID-19 crisis. His flexibility and advocacy for me with regard to extended deadlines has been a godsend, and he has listened to me on more than one occasion vent all my frustrations about how my timetables have been impacted this spring. I would also like to thank my entire family and friend network, especially my fiancée Lecksie, who have shown me unwavering support and given me encouragement throughout this process even as I spend long nights at my desk unable to attend events and spend extensive time with you. Without all of you and your support, this thesis would not have been possible. You all knew that I could succeed at this, here are the fruits of that belief. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................. 1 CHAPTER 1: COMPULSIONS TO COLLECT ................................................................... 20 Unconscious Reasons for Collecting ......................................................................... 21 Types of Collectors and Conscious Reasons for Civilian Collecting ........................ 26 The Collecting Process .............................................................................................. 34 Causes of Soldiers’ Conscious Collecting ................................................................. 40 CHAPTER 2: THE EFFECTS OF FAMILIAL INHERITANCE ON MEMORY FORMATION AND THE GOOD WAR NARRATIVE ...................................................... 50 Dichotomy of Primary Memory................................................................................. 53 Avoidance of Discussing the War .............................................................................. 59 Souvenir Hunting ....................................................................................................... 68 Importance of the Artifacts to Family Interests and Understandings of the War ...... 75 The “Good War” Narrative ........................................................................................ 81 CHAPTER 3: THE ARTIFACTS IN PUBLIC AND THE STIGMAS OF WORLD WAR II COLLECTING ............................................................................................................ 87 Postwar Fates of World War II Souvenirs ................................................................. 91 How Families Deal with Personal Effects and the Disposal of Human Remains ..... 97 The Controversies and Stigmas of Collecting WWII and Nazi Memorabilia ........... 105 The Culture War and the Future of WWII Memorabilia Collecting ......................... 112 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................ 122 BIBLIOGRAPHY .................................................................................................................. 131 vii APPENDIX A: INTERVIEW QUESTIONS ........................................................................ 137 APPENDIX B: INTERVIEW NOTES .................................................................................. 138 APPENDIX C: DEALER/COLLETOR SURVEY QUESTIONS ........................................ 164 1 INTRODUCTION This thesis seeks to understand the motivations for soldiers to collect combat trophies and war souvenirs during World War II as well as the effect they have had on American memory and perception of the war. These collections and the traumatic memories attached to them are an integral part of American culture and general collective memory of World War II. Yet the topic of World War II artifact collecting remains one that is widely underexplored in both the psychological and historical realms, and the subject of collecting as it relates to traumatic experiences intergenerationally has been widely ignored in scholarship. Given the prevalence of militaria collecting in the United States, it is hard to fathom that the hobby does not have any substantial studies regarding how their war trophies affect public and private family memories of World War II in American culture. Perhaps this is because World War II (WWII) collecting has a negative public perception and the relevant topics border on antiquarian history. Sixteen million Americans served in the United States Armed Forces in WWII. Several million of them went overseas and obtained war trophies and souvenirs for themselves in the process. Millions more would have had access to these artifacts through a booming souvenir trade that was occurring during the war due to the sheer scale of American souvenir taking. It would be hard to find an American family who was not touched by the war in some way, and many millions of families had a veteran who brought home a war souvenir that has been passed down through the generations. Surely, there had to have been some tangible reasoning for such massive artifact acquisition by American soldiers. These collections elicit fundamental questions. First, what motivated these soldiers to collect combat-related artifacts? What roles do these artifacts play within families who have inherited them, and how do these artifacts that have been 2 passed down or put into the collectors market affect American memory and perception of the war? The examination of the roles of both war trophy hunting and war memorabilia collecting in relationship to memory of WWII remains understudied in the United States (US). With such a vast market of artifacts available in the US, there must be some tangible connections between these artifacts and memory of the war in American society. To avoid the questions of why American soldiers took so many war trophies and how they affect understanding of the war is to leave a major gap in the field that could positively impact both academic and public history fields. Understanding the trophy collecting phenomenon and their (its) powerful effect on popular memory is a new subject of study in the history of American involvement in WWII and may open possible paths in the Public History field connecting to wider audiences in a more personal manner. Karen