The “Day of Victory” developed into the “Day of War”.
(Photo: dpa)
Dusseldorf If this Monday marks the anniversary of the end of the Second World War, then this is reason enough in East and West to commemorate the war crimes of the Nazi regime. But while in Germany and now also in the countries of the former Warsaw Pact all the dead of this greatest crime against humanity in history are commemorated, Russia points this historical date in a different, more specific direction.
It reverently focuses on the “Great Patriotic War,” a war that began with Hitler’s invasion of the USSR on June 22, 1941 and ended with Soviet victory. The Hitler-Stalin Pact, the division of Poland and the Baltic States by these two dictators, is suppressed. The same applies to the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939.
And while Russia claims the Soviet victory for itself, it does not say that it was the United States that supported the Soviet Union in its fight against Hitler – with heavy weapons, as we would say today. And it doesn’t mention that it wasn’t just the Russians who paid the terrible price in blood: millions of people from Ukraine and Belarus, from Moldova and Uzbekistan fell victim to the German Wehrmacht. In fact, the West was misled by this narrative, resulting in long-running sentimentality towards Russia.
Ever since Vladimir Putin ruled the Kremlin, May 9th has been celebrated with increasingly pompous parades on Red Square. The “Day of Victory” developed into the “Day of War”, the thundering arms show. How humble were the beginnings of this day of remembrance.
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Between 1947 and 1965, May 9 was not even a day off. Given the misery the war had brought to Russia’s people, no one felt like cheering and holiday hoopla.
The commemoration day has never been so far from its historical roots as it is this year. In his propaganda, Putin completely distorts the war against Ukraine into the irrational, claiming that it is the continuation of the fight against fascism, which allegedly did not end in 1945.
Wrong conclusions are drawn
While in Moscow the tracks of tanks jingled, low-flying fighter jets droned over Red Square, the Ukraine and other former vassal states of Moscow were quiet: there it is about commemorating the dead, about the lessons of World War II, it is about the shocks of the new war. And it’s about looking ahead.
West of Russia, the tenor is not bristling with weapons, but thoughtful, animated by the slogan “Never again”, by the lesson of war, which says: only a united Europe can prevent the return of madness.
It is now clear to many why in Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, the Czech Republic, eastern Germany and elsewhere, May 8 or 9 has not been celebrated as “Liberation Day” as decreed by the Kremlin in recent decades. Historically, there was no reason to celebrate – the Hitler mania was followed there by the Stalin dictatorship.
It’s time to understand history as its long shadow falls once more over Europe.
More: Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister – “A long war plays into Putin’s hands.”