Today, August 14, 2013 (in some time zones, it would have been the 15th), marks the 68th anniversary of the end of the most devastating war that humanity has ever known to date.
Given the level of destructiveness of humanity throughout history, that really is saying something.
There never had been before, nor has there been since, a single event that so dramatically, and so quickly, changed the maps, and the lives of those living inside the affected areas. Think of the way that the map of the world looked in the 1930's, and then think about how radically this was altered in the early 1940's, at the peak of Axis successes in Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Pacific.
And then, just a few short years later, the maps were changed, again rather dramatically, again, as one Axis power after the other fell. First came Italy, the weakest and least significant of the three Axis powers. Then came Germany, after a brutal campaign in the East that would become the deadliest single war in all of human history. After Germany was defeated and lay in ruins, the focus fell upon Japan, the last Axis power still standing. Two atomic bombs were dropped in early August of 1945, and the world changed forever. Japan officially surrendered days later.
World War II was indeed the most brutal war ever seen. Perhaps the shock level of World War I startled Europe, and indeed the world, and led to self-examination about just how "civilized" we were. Many thought that humanity was above such brutality, but the horrors of that war - of trench warfare, of poison gases, of pointless charges with thousands lost for very little to no territory or tactical advantage gained, and the killing and injuring of countless soldiers - had truly shaken faith in humanity.
Perhaps, then, it was not nearly as shocking, the brutality of the Second World War. But the levels that it reached were staggering, and this time, it was not restricted to the field of battle in Europe. This was spread across the map, particularly if we include the surprise attacks launched by Japan against the United States and Australia.
All in all, over sixty million people were killed. There were overnight massacres by firebombing or, right at the end, by the atomic bomb, that were unparalleled in history. There was documented brutality highly bureaucratized brutality. It existed to some degree in Japan, but it reached such a level in Nazi Germany, that we are still living under it's shadow, and coping with the questions that it demands of us - not just of Germany or Germans during the 1940's, but of all humanity.
These horrors were of such a level, that perhaps, I think, the victors of the war escaped self-examination of their own actions and their own responsibility in horrors and war crimes. We tend to still easily dismiss the questions about firebombing whole cities (Kurt Vonnegut made one particular such firebombing in Dresden very famous), and dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. After all, the Nazis were undeniably horrible, right? And the Japanese were responsible for Pearl Harbor, effectively dragging the United States into the war, right? So, just because they found themselves on the losing side of a war that they both started, does that justify an "everything goes" approach or mentality? When we examine a firebombing of what was considered an "open city" like Dresden, a city that had no real military value, and which had been largely left alone right up until the final months of the war, are we free from self-examination of ourselves, and asking tough questions, simply because Hitler started the war, or that the atrocities of the Nazi state seemed to justify such terrible actions?
Are there tougher questions to ask of ourselves in relation to such brutality? If so, have we gotten around to really examining these yet?
I, for one, am not convinced that the answer is yes. But, of course, the history is still all there, waiting for us to examine it.
All of the horrors of World War II officially came to an end on this day, nearly seventy years ago. Since then, it has been left to historians and individuals to try and piece these events together, and make some semblance of sense from it. But it is not easy. When you think about it, really, almost nothing about that war makes sense. Perhaps least of all, why it should have been fought in the first place.
World War II seems to me to have been fought in phases. It is generally recognized as having started on September 1, 1939, with Hitler's invasion of Poland.
But in Asia, the war started quite a bit earlier than that, with Japan taking over Manchuria and generally seeming to threaten the Far East. This occurred years and years before that date, although it is not generally recognized officially as part of "World War II", at least not by Westerners.
For that matter, the war did not magically start. There were steps to it. The first step may have been World War I itself, when the defeated powers began thirsting for revenge. There are some who felt that another huge war was made virtually inevitable by the undeniably harsh terms of the Versailles Treaty that the defeated powers were forced to agree to. These terms were especially harsh on Germany, and it was blamed as solely responsible for the war, although every nation involved had massive celebrations when the war actually broke out in the summer of 1914.
One big step towards World War II was the rise of Hitler and the Nazi Party. Once they took over in Germany, surely then, war was inevitable. Yet, Hitler's ascent also was by degrees. His party, the Nazis, began to gain more and more support, until it was quite considerable (although perhaps it should be noted that at no time before Hitler became chancellor, did it constitute a majority of voters in Germany, even a small minority).
When Hitler was appointed chancellor -yes, even then - his power was limited. There were only three Nazi cabinet ministers, and a chancellor only had so much power. Yet, he found himself in a position of power and influence, and he was obviously enough of an opportunist to make it count for all that it was worth. Shortly after his ascension to this position, there was the Reichstag fire, which was officially blamed on Communists, but which is still shrouded in mystery. Many, if not most people, feel, in retrospect, that the Nazis themselves burned the building down.
Whoever was responsible, there was no denying that Hitler used this to his advantage, to gain more powers under the emergency. This was done completely under legal means. By the next year, with the "Night of the Long Knives", and especially when the old and largely decrepit President Hindenburg died, Hitler essentially was in control of Germany. Before long, concentration camps went up - although these were strictly targeting political enemies, and were not the dreaded death camps that the Nazis would later build, targeting Jews, by then.
Hitler's rise to the top of Germany came, and he was a risk taker. A gambler. It was all or nothing, and he took this chance time and again. He took the chance with the reoccupation of the Rhineland, and the rival powers did nothing. Then came the Anschluss with Austria. Then came the crisis in the Sudetenland, and the Munich deal was struck. Hitler then gambled and occupied Prague and the rest of Czechoslovakia, and still the rival powers stood pat. Only when Hitler threatened the Poles, did the rival powers begin to promise action.
Perhaps the Pact between Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Soviet Union in August of 1939 made the war inevitable (although I think the war was pretty much inevitable well before then, since Hitler seemed intent on war from the first). At the very least, it made Hitler's invasion of Poland inevitable, because now he could safely invade it without worrying about a two front war. The Soviets would occupy the eastern portion of Poland, and leave the Germans alone.
When Hitler invaded, the French and then the British declared war. Yet, war in the West did not come. Not yet. They engaged in what was called "sitzkrieg" (literally, the sitting war). Forces were built up along the border of Germany and France, and the tow countries were officially at war. But there was no actual war. Not yet. Germany was granted a de facto immunity to occupy Poland and set things up as they pleased in he fall of 1939.
But in the spring of 1940, the war resumed with a western campaign by Germany. The Nazis took over Denmark, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. Then, they got their top prize - France. Germany then put pressure on Britain, which stood alone, basically, as the last remaining rival European power to Germany's might. Hitler tried to launch an attack against Britain, trying to get past the challenge of the English Channel, to get troops into Great Britain and take it over. But it was unsuccessful, and Britain held out.
A year later, Hitler set his sights on what had been his goal all along: the East. This is when the war really picked up, and when the atrocities in Europe during these years became unrivaled in human history. The Eastern campaign was slowed a bit, as Hitler got bogged down in some of the smaller states, and was unable to invade the Soviet Union at the time that he had wanted and expected. Frankly, it might not even matter, because Hitler essentially lost the war the day that he invaded the Soviet Union. They were never going to win that war.
Yet, it was not immediately obvious. At first, the Germans were winning, and gaining more and more territory, going deep inside of the Soviet Union. They reached the outskirts of Leningrad (present day St. Petersberg) and Moscow, and of course, Stalingrad, and the precious reserves of oil nearby that the Nazis desperately wanted.
Ultimately, the powerful German advance was slowed, and then stopped cold. Eventually, the Germans would be beaten back. They lost a bit of territory initially, but some leading Germans suggested that they were not losing the war, but merely defending their previous gains. If this argument held any sway, it was certainly not convincing at all by the time that the Germans had been beaten back to the borders of the Reich itself. By the time that the front reached the outskirts of Berlin, this argument, and any notion that the Germans might still miraculously win, were downright ridiculous.
Yet, the war continued on. The Germans fought almost to the last man, as promised. German atrocities were revealed to the world, but the war did not end. The battle raged in Berlin, a city in ruins. A city of rubble, laid waste. But street to street fighting continued. The Soviet Union reached Berlin, and the shelling was relentless. Hitler killed himself, and still the war dragged on for days and days afterwards, with fierce fighting. The Soviets raised the hammer and sickle over the capital of the Third Reich, and still there were pockets of resistance.
The war officially ended in Europe on May 8th (May 9th was the day recognized b the Soviet Union).
But it continued in Japan. Unlike Germany, Japan had not yet seen any outright invaders inside of it's borders, although it had been attacked. Yet, Japan was steadily losing many islands and previously conquered territory, and the fighting was getting too near. There were firebombings of Japanese cities and, in August of 1945, of course, the two atomic bombs. Japan surrendered, and the officially recognized date (for most of the world) is August 14th.
Today marks that anniversary.
There never had been a war to quite contend with World War II before, and there has not been one since. Tens of millions of people were killed, countless others injured, and it can be argued, with validity, that humanity, or at least our modern civilization, has never been the same since. It impacted everyone in the affected areas, and in the nations involved in the fighting. The events were huge, monumental.
All of it came to an end, at least, sixty eight years ago today, and I take this opportunity to reflect upon it.
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