If you want peace, you always have to be the one who shakes hands first. (Yitzhak Rabin)

 

Battle of the Seelow Heights between the Red Army and the German Wehrmacht, April 1945

May 8, 2023 once again marked the anniversary of the victory over German fascism and the capitulation of the entire Nazi rabble, but even 78 years after the end of World War II, this is still not a public holiday in Germany, although it is truly a day of joy of recent European history. Conversely, this means that Germany is still not a normal country, because an official commemorative and public holiday would certainly advance further reflection and an even more in-depth reappraisal of the disastrous history of the 3rd Reich under Adolf Hitler.  And without such proceedings there will be no real reconciliation and peace (even with oneself).

My father in the middle of the non-commissioned officer corps of the “Nachrichten Ersatz Kompanie No. 6” of the German Wehrmacht, Antwerp, December 1942

What is war doing to people? My personal experience is that war, as a taboo subject, generates a great deal of silence about it. My father was never able or willing to talk about his time in the Wehrmacht during World War II. Only my mother gave me a few fragmentary hints about it. So I only know that my father was administratively active behind the front in a supply and logistics unit. In 1942 he already held the rank of corporal, whether he was promoted afterwards is unclear. In any case, he was in Antwerp in 1942 (according to the caption on the back of the photo), and also at some point in Danzig (nowadays: Gdansk) and Riga.

In the photo above he looks quite young and relaxed, you wouldn’t believe this was taken in the middle of WW II. 9 years later he met my mother and by then his hair was already completely gray (and that at the age of 37). Typically, something like this only happens after terrible experiences, but which ones!? I still have so many questions about this, which unfortunately will never be answered because my parents are no longer alive. That’s sad, and at the same time it makes me angry today, because that’s how unresolved war traumata are simply passed on to the next generation.

In West Germany in the 1950s and 1960s everything revolved around consumption and materialism as mechanisms of displacement. Incidentally, the war narrative of the Western Allies (England, USA and France) dominated in West-German public, and even today one prefers not to hear anything about the many millions of dead people and the gigantic damage in the former Soviet Union. However, the Second World War was essentially decided in the East, where the German Wehrmacht was so drastically weakened with the Battle of Stalingrad and then on the retreat that it never recovered from it. And only then, after much bloodshed in the eastern regions of Russia and Ukraine, did the western invasion of Normandy begin in 1944 (Stalin had desperately asked for it much earlier, in vain).

Hence, the British and US Air Forces waged a war of ruthless carpet bombardments against the civilian German population, terror and fear in the style of the German Wehrmacht were now directed against Germany itself. In particular, the carpet bombing of Hamburg and Dresden with tens of thousands of dead civilians are clear war crimes from today’s perspective and no heroic deeds to be proud of. The logic of the victors, however, forbids saying something like that clearly, today that is called collateral damage in a very cynical and nonchalant manner in other conflicts, and all of that is just plain false.

The completely destroyed small town of Lebus (Brandenburg), April 1945

 After all that, Germany is still war-weary until today, there are no magnificent military parades here, because nobody wants to see anything like that here. And the hesitant German policy regarding the current arms deliveries to the Ukraine is precisely the result of this historically conditioned lack of enthusiasm in relation to military matters, and this attitude still drives the former ambassador of the Ukraine Melnyk (now in Kiev) today to irrepressible and raging incandescence, which unfortunately is not very helpful and rather destructive for everyone involved.

The wounds of the 2nd World War have not finally healed, neither here nor in other countries, the 2nd World War with all its heinous terror, monstrosity and all the ruthless crimes committed was just too vampirically evil. The associated moral neglect and eradicated humanity, initiated by the German Nazis, have left their mark on the collective subconscious of Europe, and this sometimes unspoken trauma has not really been processed to this day and continues to prevail, especially in Germany, Poland, Russia and/or Ukraine, because it is well known that these countries also had the most deaths.

A war always has two sides, not just winners and losers, there is always the difference between civilians and the military, and in almost all wars the civilian population has been a preferred, defenseless and raped victim all over the world. Fighting wars is relatively easy, but creating and maintaining peace is the real challenge here and now in the heart of Europe, where Russia’s current barbaric war in Ukraine is raging mercilessly just 1100 km away. If you now think back to the fact that 8 to 10 million people died in Ukraine in World War II, the Ukrainians really need all possible help and solidarity, especially from the German side, so that hopefully there will soon be peace again in their country.

Peaceful land in spring – view on the German-Polish border and the Oder valley near Lebus (Brandenburg), April 2023