Friends, 75 years ago today the United States, Britain, France, and Russia won a mighty victory over Nazi Germany. Thus, today we celebrate V-E Day! Check out this article about the significance of that achievement:
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/75-years-ago-today-humanitys-greatest-ever-victory
It's hard to take issue with anything in the article, but I do get a bit wary when people get all pious about fascism and fail to mention the fact that Uncle Joe Stalin was our ally in WW2, and we tacitly assisted the Soviet Union in its drive to conquer half of Europe (admittedly, not the good half). The truth is, therefore, that our victory in 1945 was only partial, because the real enemy wasn't Nazism, but totalitarianism, and that fight wasn't anywhere close to being finished. In 1991, arguably, we could declare "total" victory over the totalitarians, but even now, as all of you are well aware, the threat of utopian extremism lingers, and in countless ways tyranny is proliferating, not evaporating. So then, let's celebrate the 75th anniversary of V-E Day and all it means for human freedom and dignity, but let's not forget that we still have work to do!
In other news, data is emerging that indicates that even those who cower in their homes and follow official guidelines about social distancing are not immune from COVID-19. This only makes sense: even the most fanatical adherence to distancing recommendations merely REDUCES our exposure to contagions. It can't eliminate it. Thus, our herculean efforts to stem the spread of COVID-19 will only achieve marginal success. Arguably, therefore, we will slow down the death toll, yes, but we may not lower it, in the final analysis. Nature will out, right?
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/06/ny-gov-cuomo-says-its-shocking-most-new-coronavirus-hospitalizations-are-people-staying-home.html
And here's an interesting study attempting to measure a small part of the cost our society will pay for the pandemic-related lockdowns -- in this case, the cost in lives lost to "despair":
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/05/08/coronavirus-pandemic-boosts-suicide-alcohol-drug-death-predictions/3081706001/
Yes, and this Summer is the 80th Anniversary of The Battle of Britain, which made that V-E Day possible. This includes Royal Air Force pilots who represented governments in exile in Great Britain, such as Poland. And after the war, many of them could not go home, because their country had been taken over by The Soviet Union, because of those bad deals FDR made with Stalin at Yalta. And now today, we have to deal with one of the most ruthless Communist Governments in the world, The People's Republic of China.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy et al: The first thing I think of on the subject of VE Day is the joy our combat troops in Europe must have felt;their ordeal is graphically described in Stephen Ambrose's Citizen Soldiers. Possible service in the Pacific loomed but at least they were getting a break.
ReplyDeleteChurchill and FDR thought it vital to keep the Soviets in the war.By the time of Yalta, Churchill was a somewhat junior member of the trio. I've read detailed descriptions of how the subhuman Stalin toyed with the human FDR. A fully powerful Churchill might have prevented some of the concessions which enslaved Eastern Europe and cast an ominous shadow on the West postwar. Its unlikely Stalin and a Russia determined to work vindication on a massive scale would have made a separate peace early in 1945. So we would likely still have benefitted, in defeating Germany, from the titanic effort of the Red Army, sans some of the Yalta concessions.
You've made a well supported point that ours was a partial though considerable victory. Since totalitarianism even exceeding that of the Nazis still obtained I agree. But:
Maybe the view at that time was that it was an existential necessity that the Nazis be crushed. Germany is an almost unimaginably puissant country when motivated and mobilized. Its rise in the '30's was beyond astonishing and terrifying. Their technological brilliance raised grave doubt about our ability to endure whatever they might come up with next. The V-1 and V-2 onslaught on London was profoundly disheartening to the Brits.
Dr. Waddy: It could be argued that US and British strategy had been all along concentrated on the perceived overriding aim of the defeat of Germany and that for much of the war, that was considered more than enough to strive for. Besides, naive gentleman FDR and Commie Wallace were probably relatively well disposed toward the Bear and thought that a fruitful postwar relationship was possible. Churchill knew what was in store; he was a killer too and he could see through murderous Stalin. His conferential cordiality toward the monster was done for the good of his country. He hated and feared Bolshevism. Gads, how interesting it is to imagine how it might have gone had Japan not challenged the US and brought Germany into war with us at a time insanely disadvantageous for the Boche.
ReplyDeleteMaybe in the future, Americans will be able to remember V F - Day. This stands for Victory over Fools, meaning the left in The United States.
ReplyDeleteYes, Ray. The West entered WWII to protect the liberty of the Poles...and we ended WWII by handing Poland over to Stalin. Not our finest hour.
ReplyDeleteJack: I'm sure you're right that almost everyone considered Germany a greater threat than Russia in 1941-45. Almost everyone was wrong, though, especially in retrospect. Likewise, Ray would point out that no one feared China a few decades ago. That's because they lacked imagination.
Dr. Waddy and Ray: I would respectfully disagree in that I think the intention of Britain and France was to restrain a Germany plainly bent on conquest at will, limited only by its own interests. The welfare of Poland was probably not a determining factor in the fearful decision to risk the terribly dreaded prospect, the virtually unthinkable concept, of yet another hellish struggle with Germany.
ReplyDeleteThough it did little good for Poles between 1939 and 1989, the West eventually did them much good by standing up to the Soviets and wearing them down to the point of implosion.
Dr. Waddy and Ray: It could be plausibly argued that the Poles defended themselves thinking the Brits and the French could and would come to their immediate aid. But: I think no one who has not faced the immediate prospect of an onslaught by barbarians, as did Britain in 1940, could credibly assert the following but perhaps Churchill was right in saying that its just as well to go down fighting as to submit to certain annihilation. The moment the monsters made their sociopathic decision to invade, Poland was finished. The Allied bluff failed, at least in the short run. Eventually Hitler's insane antipathies worked his deserved destruction at the hands of those Allies.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy...truly you need to think about putting the thumbs up emoji link on here, grin.
ReplyDeleteJack: you're right of course that Poland was never anything but a pawn to the British and the French. The irony, I think, is that Poland, if it had adopted a more accommodating attitude towards the Germans, might have become a German ally in a war against the Soviet Union. What a different world that would have been!
ReplyDeleteLinda, believe me, Blogger is a harsh mistress! I only wish I had more control over it...
Dr. Waddy: wow, that is an intruing thought. Sans the guarantee to Poland, perhaps no Nazi-Commie pact, perhaps a direct German assault on the USSR, perhaps no British or French involvement. It can be questioned; what were Hitler's intentions? He might have paused after reducing Russia, giving his armed might and advanced technology time to flourish, unvexed by Allied bombing. Churchill might never have taken office, Chamberlain and Halifax might well have ruled and the Brits might simply have accepted German superiority on the Continent ("1914-18 again? No never!") Did Hitler imagine world domination? Apparently he admired the British Empire and wanted to work with it. Its a terrible thought but decent countries did think it necessary to work with Stalin . . .
ReplyDeleteI know -- wild, huh? There really was a German-Polish Non-Aggression Pact in 1934. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German%E2%80%93Polish_Non-Aggression_Pact Could it have blossomed into an alliance, a la Germany and Hungary, Germany and Romania, Germany and Croatia, etc.? Sure, why not. But it didn't, perhaps luckily for the West, as you point out.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy: Well, in saying so I did not envision any great strengthening of the Germans from alliances with such countries other than a clearing of the path for the puissant Wehrmacht. I didn't know that Hitler made a nonaggression pact with Poland in 1934 but given relative German weakness at that time it makes sense. This was previous to the German reoccupation of the Rhineland in 1935 (a move which prompted many French to rise in public places to the playing of the Marseillais did at its announcement; Hitler was a gambler - had the French have invaded hence he would have had his hands full and perhaps he had acted in 1934 to protect his back door (?).
ReplyDeleteMaybe he thought that such a pact would protect him against a Russian attack long before he was able to deal with the Bolshevik?
Jack, Hitler 1.0 was very savvy about protecting Germany from a two-front war. Hitler 2.0 was a reckless fool. Hubris did him in. It does the same to many of us.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy: Who can account for Hitler's lack of foresight? An easy comparison is to Napoleon ( Private first Class vs Artillery Commander).. Hubris, for sure it did do Hitler to destruction. The conquest of France was his apogee and the glory of that to him, a WWI German veteran, with all that meant, was generative of misleadingly optimistic visions of future triumph. Thank God he overreached because if he had paused, reflected and struck against Russia without a British opponent capable of causing him much damage and, sans Churchill,as it might have been without direct Nazi threat,bereft of determination to thwart him, commitment against him, unwilling under Halifax to block him, he would probably have reduced the Soviet Union and destroyed Bolshevism, with a vengeance.. We cannot but think that the rest of the world would have looked on this with favor.
ReplyDeleteWhat then? What then? How did we respond to post war accounts of Soviet murderousness? How would we have corresponded with an equally sociopathic Hitler? How DID we respond to the murderous and tortuous repression by the Russians of Hungarian outrage at their totalitarian rule? Hitler and his successors might have enjoyed similar indulgence,motivated by similar views.
Quite right, Jack. Had Hitler subdued Russia, in all likelihood Nazis would rule Europe today. Of course, Nazis were capable of evolution, just like everyone else. The commies of Gorby's day were a completely different animal than the, well, animals who served under Stalin. One thing's for sure: Hitler came amazingly close to dominating Eurasia. The Nazi clown show very nearly won the big prize. There's never been surer proof that God has a rich sense of humor.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy: And what would have been the consequences? Given his medical disadvantages, lets say Hitler lives to 1955. Who would have inherited his power? What would his purpose have been?
ReplyDeleteA few novels, tv series, and movies have made educated guesses in answer to those questions, as you know, Jack, but personally I have no idea. The Nazis were nothing if not full of surprises, so almost anyone could have emerged as the new Fuhrer. Who would have predicted Donitz, after all?
ReplyDelete