How Our Enemy Made Us Better. Uses of Memories of World War II during the Malvinas / Falklands War and Postwar

LORENZ, FEDERICO

Londres

Conferencia; · Oral History Society (Gran Bretaña) y King´s College, ?Using the War: Changing Memories of World War II.Annual Conference of the Oral History Society, Gran Bretaña; 2005

Oral History Society (Gran Bretaña) y King´s College

This paper explores the diverse memories about previous wars that circulated during and after the Malvinas ? Falklands War in Argentina (1982). Until that year, the Argentine military nurtured a tradition, based in the XIXth. Century, in which it regarded itself as undefeated. To this scheme added, during Malvinas ? Falklands War, the appeal of Argentine propaganda of images of the Second World War with two main objectives: To provide arguments to justify the vision of the enemy as a decadent power, both militarily and politically; To receive support from different immigrant communities in Argentina by means of appealing to them in their condition as former UK enemies during the Second World War. In terms of internal policy, the Argentine armed forces considered themselves victorious in the ?war against subversion? ?carried out by means of systematic violations of human rights. Illegal repression was conceived of a successful stage of the ?Third World War? between Communism and Western capitalism. It was this spirit of undefeated warriors that they devoted to the war in the South Atlantic.