On the 70th Anniversary of VE Day - The Good War and the War We're In
By Don Feder
GrassTopUSA.com
It was the good war, fought by the Greatest
Generation. It was a war for the survival of
civilization. It was the deadliest conflict in
history. It was America's finest hour.
May 8 marks the 70th anniversary of VE Day
– the end of World War II in Europe.
Images flash before us – Neville
Chamberlain waving a piece of paper said to
guarantee "peace for our time," Hitler giving a
stiff-arm salute at a Nuremberg rally, a Czech woman
weeping as panzers rolled into Prague, a smiling FDR
wearing his naval cape, his cigarette holder at a
jaunty angle, Churchill flashing a victory sign, GIs
wading ashore on Omaha Beach, skeletal survivors in
a liberated death camp, and a Russian soldier
raising the Soviet flag on the Reichstag building
above the ruins of Berlin.
The war that ended on May 8, 1945 began
with the Treaty of Versailles (June 28, 1919),
which, despite its reputed harshness, did little to
stop a resurgence of German militarism. When he saw
the treaty, Marshal Ferdinand Foch, France's last
World War I commander, famously remarked: "This is
not peace. It is an armistice for 20 years." Germany
invaded Poland on September 1, 1939 – 20 years and
65 days later.
Over 60 million died in the Second World
War – 3% of the world's population in 1939. The
death toll included 291,557 U.S. servicemen. More
than 800,000 were wounded. There were 464 Medals of
Honor awarded, many posthumously.
In the three months leading up to Germany's
unconditional surrender – Soviet troops liberated
Auschwitz, where an estimated 1.1 million were
murdered, on January 30th. On the Western Front, 1.5
million Germans were taken prisoner. FDR died on
April 12th. Mussolini was executed on April 28th.
The U.S. Seventh Army's 45th Infantry Division
entered Dachau, on the outskirts of Munich, on April
29th. GIs who were no strangers to carnage were so
appalled by the condition of survivors that some of
them machine-gunned German guards. Hitler committed
suicide on April 30th.
May 8 was the end of the war in Europe. In
the Pacific, fighting raged for another three
months. On June 22, the Marines captured Okinawa
after 82 days of brutal fighting and more than
14,000 Americans dead. On August 6, a mushroom cloud
sprouted over Hiroshima. On August 14, 1945 crowds
in Times Square celebrated VJ Day.
On November 20, 1945, the Nuremberg Trials
began, offering a small degree of justice to
Nazism's victims. And on May 14, 1948 – almost three
years to the day after Germany's surrender – the
State of Israel was proclaimed. The people Hitler
tried to annihilate rose from the ashes to
reestablish a Jewish state after 2,000 years of
exile.
World War II isn't ancient history. In the
United States, more than a million veterans of the
war are still alive, though their median age is 92
and we are, on average, losing 423 every day.
Who will remember them when they and their
children are gone?
In a 1998 National Assessment of Education
survey, more than half of 12th graders couldn't pick
out one of our WWII allies from a short list. Some
thought Germany and Italy fought on our side. A 2008
survey found that about a quarter of teens were
unable to identify Adolf Hitler as the leader of
Germany during World War II.
In a poll by London's Daily Telegraph,
61% of British youth didn't know the war was sparked
by the invasion of Poland. One in 10 thought Germany
was invaded. For Millennials, Eisenhower, Patton,
MacArthur and Montgomery might as well be the
starting lineup of the Patriots' Super Bowl team.
Ignorance will not save us. The Europe of
2015 looks increasingly like the Europe of 1935.
In the last year, Jews have been murdered
by religion of peaceniks in Paris, Brussels and
Copenhagen. (Heil jihad?) From Malmo to Marseille,
assaults on men wearing skull caps and women wearing
the Star of David are common.
Shouts of "Hitler was Right!," and "Death
to the Jews!:" are SOP at anti-Israel rallies on the
continent. Writing in Mosaic Magazine, French Jewish
author Michel Gurfinkiel notes, "Polls show as many
as 40% of Europeans holding the opinion that Israel
is conducting a war of extermination against the
Palestinians." This is doubtless why the Arab
population of the West Bank has grown by 29% since
the year 2000.
Iran is the Third Reich reborn.
Before the Wehrmacht began goose-stepping
across Europe, who took Hitler seriously? The funny
little man with a Charlie Chaplin mustache can't
actually mean what he says, Europeans told each
other. Today, apologists for Iran tell us
Ahmadinejad never vowed to wipe Israel off the map.
It was a mistranslation. Besides, he didn't mean it.
Britain and France gave Hitler the
Sudetenland, making the rest of Czechoslovakia
indefensible. The dismemberment of Israel to create
a terrorist enclave would give the Jewish state
what's been called Auschwitz borders.
In 2012, President Obama told a Jewish
audience "I have Israel's back." By the end of June,
the administration and its partners in appeasement
are set to enter an agreement with Iran's
psycho-killer regime that will result in lifting
sanctions, which in turn will facilitate Tehran's
nuclear weapons program.
Speaking in the Rose Garden on April 2, the
president said the pact would be an "historic
understanding with Iran, which if fully implemented
will prevent it from ever obtaining a nuclear
weapon." All that was missing was the umbrella.
But the analogy is imperfect. Hitler never
led his people in chants of "Death to England" or
promised to wipe France off the face of map.
Roosevelt prayed publically, including in his D-Day
prayer. Obama says Christians have to get off their
high horse. Naïve though he was, Neville Chamberlain
loved his country.
On VE Day plus 70, "never again" has a
hollow ring – the rising tide of anti-Semitism in
Europe, an ideology set on world conquest, and
appeasement by leaders so detached from reality that
they may as well inhabit an alternate dimension.
If you meet a World War II vet, thank him,
gratefully shake his hand, and make a silent vow
that the sacrifices his generation made shall not
have been in vain.
Don Feder is a
former Boston Herald writer who is now a
political/communications consultant. He also
maintains his own website, DonFeder.com.