Who won World War II?
by Ethan S. Burger[1]
The British Archives recently released documents indicating that in 1989 both French President François Mitterrand and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher were apprehensive over the reunification of Germany. To those without a sense of history, such concerns might appear to have been unjustified. Yet for others, such thinking remains ingrained in their consciousness.
According to these documents, even after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Mitterrand cautioned Thatcher that reunification of Germany might “make even more ground than Hitler had.” Then-German Chancellor Helmut Kohl understood such sentiments, and he did his best to allay them, but he could never be completely successful in this regard.
For persons who suffered both emotional and intellectual hardship as a result of the Nazi’s and their accomplices’ action the payment of reparations will never suffice. These individuals’ hardships could not easily be forgotten, and they usually shared their memories of their suffering and loss of friends and family with their children. Yes, the Nazi regime had perished, but many of its supporters and supporters as well as their progeny remained, even today many of whom continue to benefit from the former German government’s crimes. This fact is impossible to forget.
Today, Germany is Europe’s largest economy. German goods enter the other European Union countries duty-free. Germans can buy real estate and factories located in neighboring countries. German foreign investment and citizens can freely move into EU countries, many of which Germany invaded in the mid-20th Century.
To their credit, Germans have proven themselves to be good “Europeans.” Germany is a country where the rule of law exists. German leaders (unlike many Austrian) acknowledge the country’s shameful Nazi past. They have enacted hate crime legislation and require that their schools educate their children about the country’s history and seek to instill tolerance of other peoples and national minorities.
Germany restored the citizenship of Jews and others who had been stripped of their German citizenship and has been a haven for many people seeking to leave repressive countries (although it could improve the legal treatment of its guest workers). In a nutshell, it is a successful democracy, imperfect like all states, but deserving of admiration.
While Germany did not achieve its World II aims of “lebraunraum,” and the elimination of Untermensch (sub-human people such as Slavs whose only purpose was to serve the Aryan nation), its earlier goals have largely been achieved through peaceful policies what could not be gained by arms – access to foreign markets, the ability to obtain labor from “guest” workers who lack full political rights, and the elimination of any military threat to its borders. If German Chancellor Otto von Bismark or Kaiser Wilhelm II were alive today, they would no doubt judge contemporary Germany with pride.
Fifty years can be a long time, though the consequences of the events that occur during such a period of time often extend for millennia – not merely in human and material, but also its impact on subsequent generations born as well and those who will never walked this earth.
One should not ignore the hardships suffered by a large share of the German people during the war. The country lost in excess of 6.5 million lives (both civilian and military) and experienced considerable material destruction. Germany (and Berlin) was divided for more than 40 years – dividing families. Germany’s loss of territory to Poland to compensate the Poles for land gained by the Soviet Union (and still held by its successor states. The conflict created large numbers of German refugees as well as food and other shortages.
Today, many joke that Germans are the only true Europeans. Most European youth, however, seem to regard this era as ancient history. Many European youth are multilingual, work in other countries, and don’t consider an individual’s nationality to be a significant factor in their interactions. Yet still for a large share of the continent’s population, nationalism remains a truly powerful force and this is unlikely to change for the foreseeable future.
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[1] Mr. Burger is Senior Counsel to the Law Firm of Maxwell & Barke PC and an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University Law Center.
