Dear Editor
ON May 9, this year, the world is celebrating the seventy-fourth anniversary of the end of World War II. It was on this date in 1945 that the German High Command surrendered after a bloody battle with the Red Army to take Berlin.

At the end of that war, the most destructive in human history, some sixty million persons were killed. The figures are not exact and vary pretty widely. Millions of others, probably just as much as the dead, suffered serious injuries, loss of limbs etc. The cost of the war in property destroyed runs into hundreds of billions, if not in the trillions of dollars. The war began in 1939. It was started by Germany, in September of that year.

The reasons were many. In the first place, Germany had suffered a great defeat in the First World War. Some historians today argue that the terms of surrender imposed on Germany by the victorious allies, UK, France and US, were too onerous and humiliating That, they argue, contributed to the high feelings of resentment by the people of Germany. It developed an irrational nationalism in the population.

Germany was stripped of its colonies. They were shared between the UK and France; it lost some of its own territory, given over to others as compensation for their loss during that war. It had to pay compensation as well to other states.

In the period between the two wars, Germany recovered quickly. Its nationalism began to grow. Moreover, the world was going through a serious economic crisis which also affected Germany. It was in these circumstances that a demagogue, Adolph Hitler, came on the scene. His nationalistic rhetoric found resonance in the hurt of the German people. Using strong nationalistic ideology, the Fascist party raised the emotions of the people to a fever pitch.

In order to exploit that nationalism to the hilt, Hitler found a scapegoat for every problem that ordinary people faced then and in its previous history– that was the Jews. That people were made responsible for everything wrong that ever happened to the German people.
That was only the beginning, the racism of the fascists was later expanded to include the Gypsies and then the Slavs. Added to this, Hitler had the support of the nation’s big Industrialists and bankers. They saw they would make millions in Germany’s rearmament and in the war itself. With all that going for him, he plunged into his scheme of world domination. By then, he had convinced the ordinary German people that they were the master race and they could rule the world.

The powerful German Army began taking over all of Europe. It invaded many countries, including France, Czechoslovakia, Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium among others. He did not have to invade Italy and Spain, they had fascist parties in power, those were his natural, ideological allies.

For six years, they brought death and destruction to Europe and North Africa, conquering country after country. They had an appearance of indestructibility. When in June 1941, Hitler began his invasion of Russia, he had not only the power of Germany’s Industries and Banks, but the industries and other resources from almost the whole of Europe. Many of the conquered countries had to also supply the German army with men.

On the other hand, the Soviet Union was in the early stages of constructing the country. It emerged weak from the First World War, the country was in ruins. That was not all the problems they faced. In that weakened state, it had to fight a brutal civil war and repulse an invasion by more than a dozen countries that invaded Russia just after its revolution of 1917.

Germany’s surprise attack cost the Russians dearly. More than twenty-six million Soviet citizens perished in the war. However, the heroism of Russian and Soviet peoples painted one of the most glorious pages in mankind history. The battles have been epic Kursk, Moscow, Belarussia, Leningrad and Stalingrad; all were brutal and heroic.

The battle of Stalingrad was at its height, the life span of a soldier was twenty-four hours [which] tells its own story of the intensity of the fight. The heroism was not confined to the soldiers of the Red Army, but included the Russian and Soviet peoples as a whole. It was the civilians that dug the trenches to defend Moscow; they faced inhuman punishment when Leningrad was blockaded for more than nine hundred days. People just died from starvation, but refused to surrender.

The Russian people also removed factories from the big cities and transported them to the rear of the country to manufacture weapons for the front. That was a marvel in organisation, determination, courage and sacrifice, unprecedented in history. The only story that approximates this was the deeds of the Vietnamese people during their war for Independence.

Thousands of ordinary people displayed mass courage. Many threw themselves in front of tanks to slow the German advance on Moscow; [this] allowed the Red Army time to prepare for the struggle.

The Germans threw more than three-quarters of their military might on the Russian front. In bogging down the German might, the people’s deeds inspired many ordinary people in Western Europe to fight for their liberation. Many partisan movements arose in France, the Netherlands and elsewhere to resist the German occupation. The German high command could not move one man to go to the Western Front. That allowed for a relatively easy landing of allied forces in 1944 at Dunkirk.

What the Red Army did even before the defeat of the German army was to psychologically destroy the aura of invincibility form the German soldiers. Many historians, who write about the war, attribute the German’s defeat to the harsh [winter] of 1941. That is just not true. The German army spent four winters in Russia, how then can it be said that the [winter] of 1941 defeated Germany; it makes no sense.

What is hardly ever said is that Russia faced and defeated, not just the German might, but all the industrial power of Europe that was at the service of Hitler. The narrative of the war is that the allies won the war. That is very true. But in that general comment, the decisive role played by the Soviet people in general and the Russian people, in particular, gets lost.
It is true that the US, in particular, provided valuable assistance to the Red Army. However, it was mainly Russia’s resources that won the war. At this time we must salute the magnificent efforts of the Russian High Command. Marshall G. Zhukov, Rokossovsky, Chuikov and many others, they outfought the German Generals and inspired their soldiers to great feats of valour.

The defeat of fascism was a victory for all the peoples throughout the world. A large contingent of Caribbean men and women joined the efforts of the British and helped in that victory. Many Guyanese were among them. I remember David Westmaas as one who volunteered with the British Army. He was a stalwart of the PPP.

The end of the war saw the emergence of International Institutions. The most important of these is the United Nations. It was set up to see that that never happens again. It took the lesson of the two wars and promoted freedom, respect and equality of all persons.

One of the dangers we face today as we move further away from those events is that the memory of this pain, grief and untold sufferings are being forgotten. The main leaders of our world today have no direct memories of these horrors, many seem unconcerned with history and instead of mutual respect, the mentality of ‘might is right’ is once more predominating. The plight of Palestine is an example of this.

That is why more and more we see some states continuing to waste huge resources on terrible destructive weapons. Many powers in the world today seem to be depending on their military might to dictate world events. Diplomacy is being relegated to a distant backseat and force is taking its place. In our times, with the great advances in science and technology, another such war would mean the end of life on earth. That simple fact seems lost in the haze of international events. On this occasion of the anniversary of the Great Patriotic War, let us re-learn the lessons and return to cooperation and see our world as our common and only home. Let us honour the memories of the fallen by doing whatever little we can, individually and collectively, to promote World Peace and Justice for all!
Regards
Former President
Donald Ramotar