Documentos de Académico
Documentos de Profesional
Documentos de Cultura
of the Nazis
By Ezequiel Adamovsky
May 07, 2015
The Soviet Union resisted, fought back and eventually won the war, at a
gigantic human and material cost with up to 27 million deaths.
As a child growing up in the periphery of the Free world, I learned to
imagine World War II as a clash between the evil forces of Nazi Germany and
the Americans, the liberators of old Europe.
Like many young folks, I grew up watching Combat!, the American TV series.
I can still hear in my head the German soldiers crying Amerikaner! in
desperation every time they bumped into the heroic troops of Sergeant
"Chip" Saunders, who would invariably annihilate them.
Later on I suffered together with Private Ryan while he was being rescued in
Steven Spielbergs extraordinary film. As I learned by watching American
TV, Americans also tend to imagine that they saved the world from the Nazi
menace. As Moe proudly tells a Briton in a 1995 episode of The Simpsons,
You know, we saved your ass in World War II!.
As far as I know, that is not an uncommon phrase in the US. According to this
imagination, in World War II the Americans rescued not only poor Ryan, but
also European (and probably world) freedom.
The missing part in all these recollections is of course the Russians. I have no
childhood images of their role in WWII, but I later learned that they also
played a part and that they actually claim that it was them who saved
Europe from the Nazis.
When I visited Berlin two years ago I went to the magnificent Soviet War
Memorial on Treptower Park. A gigantic statue there shows a Soviet soldier
rescuing a child while destroying a swastika. Smaller monuments also
celebrate the role of communist partisans who resisted the German invasion
in other countries. While I was observing the statue, a group of American
tourists was being briefed by a local guide, who emphasized the propaganda
function of the memorial, aimed at exalting communism and the historical
role of Stalin and the Soviet Union.
mobilized. The number of Soviet deaths in WWII has been much debated,
but current academic consensus suggests that it was between 25 and 27
million (half of which were military deaths).
By comparison, the US contribution to the defeat of Germany was small.
Although Americans engaged in combats with the Germans in Africa and in
the periphery of Europe before, the most relevant battles only came in the
second phase of the Western front, after the invasion of Normandy in June
1944.
In that famous episode, the combined Allied forces deployed 175,000 men,
half of which were American. In the whole of World War II the American
forces accumulated 407,316 servicemen dead, including those who died
fighting in the Pacific War and with all non-German combatants (including
civilian deaths, the total number would be around 420,000). Great Britain
lost a similar number, while German wartime deaths are estimated in five to
seven million.
As British historian Roger Bartlett concluded, with all credit to British and
American achievements, it is clear that Nazism was defeated in the Soviet
Union.
There is little chance that the 70th anniversary of the Nazi defeat will offer
the opportunity for a non-ideological revisiting of the past. In recent
commemorations in Europe, Russia has been deliberately excluded, like
never before. Earlier this year Poland celebrated the anniversary of the
liberation of Auschwitz by the Red Army. Russias President, Vladimir Putin,
was not invited, under the absurd claim that it was Ukrainian soldiers (and
not Russians) who actually liberated the Jews of that concentration camp.
Likewise, Obama and several European heads of State have organized a
boycott against Russias official parade of Victory Day, which will be held
this May 9 in Moscow. The boycott, they say, comes because of Russias
annexation of Crimea. This would perhaps be a valid reason, if it was not for
the fact that no boycotts are in order when the US bombs other countries or
force changes of their governments, or when US allies like Israel occupy
other nations lands by military force.
So let us profit from this opportunity to remember history beyond
propaganda. If there was such a thing as a Free world in 1945, it was to a
great extent thanks to the armies of a communist country and to the
irregular forces of anti-fascist partisans in France, Italy and other nations, a
good deal of which were also communists. Our grateful memory of those
who died fighting fascism should include all of them.
La nueva Televisin del Sur C.A. (TVSUR) RIF: G-20004500-0