Today we celebrate the end of WW2

Discussion in 'Western Europe' started by LafayetteBis, May 8, 2020.

  1. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    From the Guardian, here: Leaders mark heroics of war generation ...

    Excerpt:
    Each country that participated in the war were given a bit of comfort: Starting with Germany that has perhaps come the furthest the quickest from the pre-war Nazi times:
    We Yanks are not taught much about the political intricacies that caused WW2. I had to live in France in order to get a better appreciation of what actually happened. Where I learned that France (under DeGaulle) participated integrally in the war. He built an army quickly that concentrated on the southern par of the France right into Germany, whilst the Brits and Yanks fought the bulk of the German army in the north.

    In the US the war was "ours to win". True enough - the UK was about to go under as Hitler thought of ways to invade the country. He desisted from invading only because his interest took him eastward instead of westward. Having literally waltzed into Poland, he then made the mistake that would undo him and the entire Nazi regime. He attacked Russia.

    The landing in Normandy was no easy matter. Eisenhower actually thought at one moment that the entire landing force might get annihilated. Fortunately, the opposite happened and the Germans suffered even more losses.

    The reason Russia incurred so many dead was because Stalin had no concept whatsoever of the value of life. Many, many times more Russian soldiers were killed defeating Germany than the combined forces of the US and UK and Canadians suffered. The US, UK and French total causalities (including civilians) amounted to 1.42 million people.

    Russia's losses totaled 26 million, which was literally a manslaughter ...
     
  2. gnoib

    gnoib Well-Known Member

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    My father was wounded for the ! 12th times ! on April 21. 1945.
    He had spend the entire war at the East front, starting with Poland. His troop made it so far that they could see the Kremlin.
    In the end his Division had to be pulled out of the Eastern front, it was so depleted. My father commanded a cav battalion.
    The Division got fresh meat from depleted Division from the West and was used as a stop gap at the Western front.
    My fathers battalion had a total of 2900 man when they returned to the fighting. They mauled/ destroyed a British cav battalion, with serious losses.The Brits were pulled out and US forces took over. On April 18 they got into a serious fight with the Americans, in the Harz Mountains.
    They ambushed the Americans in the very hilly and forested terrain. Mind every body those guys had spent the entire war at the East Front as long range patrole and firebrigade of the Divisions they served with.
    They had just mauled the Brits and than stood of the Americans for 3 days. The fight ended in the US ditches. Last atempt.
    My father got nailed by a machine gun, rather bad. With their leader lost they surrendered
    They were rather lucky, because the Americans treated them properly. My father survived, because of the excellent US medical treatment.
    May 8th he spent in a US field hospital, clean sheets, washed and fighting of the infections of his wound, but the Americans had a miracle drug, penicillin. 482 of his men had survived the last 3 weeks of fighting, out of 2900.

    May 8th a rather solemn day, to many had died.
    My fathers side, 4 males and 2 females, brothers and sisters.
    4 males with more than 5 injuries, survived.
    Mothers side, only brother and 1 sister.
    Mother was at the East front for 2 years, got wounded twice.
    Extended family cousins and so on 120 out of 300 got killed.

    I am the last one in my family who became a soldier. I hope nobody will/has follow me and the military tradition of over 400 years, of my family will end with me
     
    Ronald Hillman likes this.
  3. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    A SERIOUS LESSON FOR US ALL

    Very interesting recitation! From the "other side" and thus very much worth knowing.

    All we get from Hollywood is how the Krauts lost the war to the Yanks. It was not that simple on either side. As your recitation shows "from the other side". If the French honor their dead (both French, English and American buried in France's soil) it is out of a deep-felt acknowledgement for having been "freed" from Nazi-rule, which they despised. (Aside from a small political grouping that was pro-Hitler and generated some very bitter hatred that was well deserved. When a people hang other people by their necks for their political beliefs it can madden anybody.)

    The reason why Europe has amalgamated into the European Union is largely out of historical respect. This evolution took a long, long time for the French and British to forget the horrors of war (both WW1 and WW2). In time, that has come about. This much younger generation of today is wedded emphatically to the notion that Europe should become a United States of European Nations. All together in mutual-harmony and above all peace.

    Even if we call it by another name, the essence is democratic-freedom for its peoples to chose the governance that helps manage their lives beneficially. And without the wild extremes of Fascism on the Right and Communism on the left.

    Europe is coming along just fine. Just fine. It will take time, and a younger generation must take charge with a remembrance of WW2 that is obtained only from books and images*. What Nazi Germany did to the Jews was particularly unforgivable and unforgettable - and a serious lesson in human barbarity for us all ...

    *Funny enough, here in France, during the "Covid-19 shutdown", a French TV station decided to replay older post-war TV-series that explained Hitler and the war in images - the why, the how, the brutality. If nothing else, this lockdown in France gave the younger generation an idea of the how and why of WW2 in Europe. Let's hope it helps in their remaking of a Europe according to their ideals.
     
    Last edited: May 25, 2020
  4. gnoib

    gnoib Well-Known Member

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    WWII being over was a good day.
    But the French always forget, what they have done for centuries. Wage war in central Europe, causing hundreds of thousand of death and millions of death through famine. The last one of their heroes was the little guy, Napoleon. Millions of people died in Europe, because of the French. Hundreds of thousand were lost in the battles. But the French Armies were like locust, they fed themselves of the land they marched ,through, spread diseases, raped, murdered and left a trail of blood and tears.
    For hundreds of years.
    WWII was hopefully the final lesson Europe needed, to unite, to brake the circle of war. Let me remind you, it was the French who reached out to the Germans, who gladly excepted. As long as France and Germany stick together, their will be peace in Europe.
    I think it is more important to celebrate the day, when French and German sat together on a table and signed a treaty of cooperation, out of which the EU developed. That's the date when the wars really ended.
    How far have we come shows the Aachen treaty.
    Aachen.
    The Capital when Germany and France were one country, Karl der Grosse, Emperor of the France and Germany.
    Now we signed a new friendship treaty in the old mutual Capital. A very important symbol for our future as friends
    Never forget the horrors of the NAZI, ever.
    As I said, I hope to be the last, of a line of soldiers going back to the 30 year war and that no one of my family has to put on that uniform again.
     
  5. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    NO WARS!

    Well put! And what does it mean, really?

    It means that the Europeans have finally understood that economies that stick-together also grow-together. Togetherness is not an historically brilliant attribute of Europe. The countries have been at one another's necks since the dawn of time.

    But, let's hope for the best. This time around they all understand that - as in the US - we're all in "it" together. Ours is ONE COMMON MARKET - and so what if the Brits are presently too stoopid to see the key factor of economic-solidarity that typically benefits all. (Apparently they must learn the hard-way.)

    The French and the the Germans need to understand the cornerstones of their respective economies. The Germans have a powerhouse-production capacity that is rooted in the Industrial Age. That is going to be one helluva challenge to keep running in face of increasing competition from the Far East (and I don't mean just China).

    And France has an economy that is solidly based upon Tourism. It's a beautiful country with a marvelous history. (Even Leonardo Da Vinci went there to end his days, and which is where he is buried.)

    One cannot imagine two countries so different, given their historic "togetherness" with all its ups-&-downs. But let's stay positive. Germany is once again A Whole Country. That's goodness!

    The EU's commonality of economic fate bears heavily on its common good fortune - and most heavily when there is significant economic downturn that has happened these past ten years since the Great Recession.. It is now almost three-quarters of a century beyond the end of WW2. And Europe has evolved magnificently. No War for almost a century? No devastating wars!

    Wow, what a feat worth celebrating ... !
     

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