It must be admitted that the really terrible test for Europe was not the Second, but the First World War. The largest European countries have buried a whole generation of compatriots in it. More than a million soldiers took part in the famous prolonged and utterly bloody battle on the Marne. Churchill admitted that in this world massacre England had lost millions of teachers, doctors, workers and engineers. On this subject, European studios have shot a lot of films depicting all the horrors of those massive bloody battles.
The Second World War, with inhuman ferocity and tension of forces, was fought only on the Eastern Front. And only two states - the Soviet Union and the Third Reich - paid all the bills for it.
"Soft" occupation
Before invading the territory of the Soviet Union, Hitler brought dozens of continental European countries to their knees relatively painlessly and in the shortest possible time. All of them, for one reason or another, did not consider it necessary (or could not - which, however, happened much less often) to offer fierce resistance to the polished German military machine.
France was occupied relatively painlessly by the German army in less than a month. It was a very peculiar, "soft" occupation. After her, the life of the "city of lovers" did not change much. Not a single building was destroyed here (unlike Stalingrad, which was transformed by continuous bombing of Luftwaffe pilots into a Martian landscape of stone ruins, smoking ash and burnt bricks). Paris and under the Germans continued to live a rich cultural life. Bouquets of flowers flew to the feet of the cabaret beauties who were dashingly dancing the cancan in front of the Deutsche Zoldaten. In local restaurants and brothels, German officers practiced "fumes and fumes of revelry". In the city, in the evenings, they continued to receive thunderous applause in the crowded halls of the chansonniers. During these years, the famous Maurice Chevalier and Jean Cocteau presented their famous creations to humanity. The picture was a little darkened by the Jews whom the French, at the suggestion of the Germans, had to send to concentration camps, but war is war.
It was not for nothing that during the signing of the act of surrender, Field Marshal Keitel, seeing the French among the representatives of the anti-Hitler coalition, asked with caustic sarcasm: "Did the French also defeat us?"
But the record for the speed of surrender to fascism among European defeatist countries was set by Norway. This country was conquered by the Reich in one day. This result can be safely entered into the Guinness Book of Records to this day. Churchill commented on this event, which shocked him: "If, while watching an action movie, gangsters had left the screen right into the cinema, I would have been no more surprised."
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One war, different results
And today the attitude of Russia, the United States, the European powers, and many other countries of the planet to this war is different. The historical significance of the war for its participants is also different.
For us, this is the Apocalypse of the 20th century, the most terrible test in the entire history of the country. And the Great Victory in this war, when we hoisted the Victory Banner among the broken Teutonic gods, is truly the second coming of Christ. Stalingrad, the battle for Moscow, the Kursk Bulge, the blockade of Leningrad - these words have become a symbol of the sacrificial feat of millions of compatriots who gave their lives so that the name of Russia does not fade.
For England, this is the decline of a once great empire, over which the sun has never set before. After World War II, it went down. Britain will never again rule the seas the same way.
For Washington, it is a symbol of the final acquisition of the British geopolitical legacy. The "reins of history" passed from one hand to another. America, on the historical wave of this global war, not only soared to unprecedented heights of prosperity, but also got a unique chance to claim world hegemony, which it did not fail to take advantage of.
Paris, despite its humiliating occupation and surrender in the face of the German monster, nevertheless got a unique chance to return to the club of great powers that determine the future fate of continental Europe.
For Berlin, this war is the end of the Prussian period of history and the beginning of post-totalitarian history.
And all the countries of Eastern Europe after the Great War lost their sovereignty and became vassals of their patrons. Only some became vassals of the collective West, others - vassals of the Soviet Union. After the fall of the latter, they simply changed the owner, but did not acquire the coveted sovereignty. And to this day, almost all Eastern European states remain just objects, but not subjects of world politics.
Fracture
And then the "iron curtain" collapsed. The former allies found themselves on opposite sides of the ideological barricades. And their attitude has changed both towards each other and towards the earlier common war. And since the attitude towards the fateful historical fact has changed, a revision of history and a war of interpretations of certain historical events began.
The first prerequisites for a global revision of the results of World War II arose immediately after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Then the entire architecture of the world collapsed, the foundation of which was laid at the Yalta conference. The times of the "Big Three" have irreversibly sunk into oblivion. The time has come for a new world architecture of relationships. And immediately the significance of the victory of the Soviet Union in the Great War was questioned.
As a result, now in Europe all references to the international anti-Hitler coalition seem to be deeply archaic. The fact that the communists of the Soviet Union, together with the Anglo-Saxons who arrived from overseas, determined the fate of continental Europe without the participation of the Europeans, does not cause a stormy stream of positive emotions in them. And they also want to review the results of the Great War.
From the beginning of the 90s, a massive intellectual "war of interpretations" of the results of the Second World War began. As a result, today US citizens are absolutely confident that it was their victorious army that defeated both the Germans and the Japanese, with some participation from the British. The great "dream factory" - Hollywood - took an active part in the cultivation of this mythologeme.
The British, on the other hand, are reveling in "Battle for the Atlantic" (and British cinematography is releasing one masterpiece after another on this subject). The citizens of the Soviet Union, in turn, knew practically nothing about the famous attack on Pearl Harbor, which overnight destroyed the fleet of a great power, about the battles in Okinawa, Operation Enigma and the battle of British and German submarines in the Atlantic.
It turns out that the war in Europe and the war in the USSR are two different wars.
The courage of the "Norwegian paper clip"
In the information war against the falsification of the results of the Second World War, the time for curtsy has passed. The world is teetering on the brink of a global war, so the time of refined diplomacy has sunk into oblivion. It is also dangerous to live in the "reaction mode" to which many modern Russian ideologists are accustomed. It is necessary to radically change the entire concept of both ideological and information warfare. In our uncompromising time, it is necessary at every opportunity to poke our opponents with their noses in those moments of their past life and history that are extremely unpleasant for them. This has a sobering effect on them and makes them, if not change their point of view, then at least correct the rhetoric.
A living example. In the history of the Second World War, according to many modern historians, the role of the French Resistance was excessively inflated and romanticized. In fact, this partisan movement was in fact so indistinct and incomprehensible that the Germans simply did not pay attention to it.
No less "mysterious" and "mysterious" was the resistance movement in Austria. For the most part, it consisted in the fact that local partisans-underground fighters on the walls of houses inscribed with paint the mysterious abbreviation "05". Thus, it turns out, they hinted that their country is still an empire, and not one of the areas controlled by the Reich. But it looks like the soldiers of the German patrol, when urinating on these numbers, did not even know what they were encroaching on.
Only the Norwegians turned out to be tougher than the Austrian "resistance". Apparently, they decided to replenish the Guinness Book of Records not only by instantly surrendering their country to the mercy of the winner. The local intelligentsia, having decided to fight the invaders "to their last breath," began to take to the streets in protest, attaching paper clips to the lapels of their jackets. It was a very serious protest against the presence of the occupiers in their country. The risk was fatal. True, for some reason the Germans themselves did not notice this protest. Or they noticed, but did not pay attention to him.
And among the NKVD officers who worked in Norway, this gesture of unprecedented courage of the harsh northerners caused a flurry of obscene anecdotes and jokes on the verge (or beyond) decency. Expressions "exceptional Norwegian courage" and "courageous Norwegian paper clip" immediately went to the people, causing a lot of anecdotes and jokes. The sarcasm of jokes about “hot Estonian guys”, “generous Jews”, “modest Poles” and “hardworking, law-abiding blacks” still seems like childish babble compared to those exquisite examples of folk art.
Bridesmaids of Death
But some Europeans also had other relations with fascism. It is necessary to understand and remember that in 1941 practically the entire 450-millionth continental Europe fought against us. Then everyone stood under the German banners: Czechs, Slovaks, Hungarians, Poles, Spaniards, Italians, Danes, Dutch, Croats, Bulgarians, Finns, Romanians … Almost everyone except the British. More than 200 thousand people fought with the French alone as part of the Wehrmacht.
Little of. It is very interesting that the Europeans joined the ranks of the "suitors of death" - the Sonderkommando "Waffen SS" in incomparably larger numbers than the ranks of the members of the Resistance. And in the combat units of the SS there were much fewer ethnic Germans than volunteers from various European countries. Simple statistics: among the SS divisions were the French "Charlemagne", the Dutch "Netherlands", the Belgian "Wallonia" and "Langemark", the Scandinavian "Norland", "Viking" and "Nord".
The surviving fighters of the French "Charlemagne", even in the last days of the war, fought with Soviet troops to the last bullet, defending the symbol of fascist resistance - the flaming Reichstag.
And we need to remember this. Otherwise, it will turn out that instead of us, the descendants of "scrapers" and fighters of "Charlemagne" will deal with our history and teach us about life. The descendants of those who resignedly knelt before the German invaders, laying their banners at their feet. And also the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of those who not only energetically served the interests of Nazi Germany, but were also ready to lay down their heads for them.
This cannot be allowed. “Our dead will not leave us in trouble, our fallen ones are like sentries,” the poet said very accurately and figuratively. And we, if we do not want to betray the memory of our fallen and living, must also be sentries. Sentries to our shared memory.
Author of text and photos: Igor Moiseev
