Show larger version of image

Close

Eighty years ago, on 8 May 1945, Nazi Germany capitulated unconditionally to the Allied Forces. Soviet soldiers hoisted their flag over the destroyed building of the German parliament in Berlin. The Second World War in Europe was over. It was the most destructive war in the history of humankind. Over 50 million people had lost their lives. Wide stretches of Europe had become wastelands. German cities lay in ashes. The war had come back to the nation whose criminal leadership had started it.

Nazi German aggressors fought this war with unimaginable cruelty. In the course of it, they perpetrated a countless number of the most terrible atrocities and war crimes in the countries they attacked and occupied. They also committed the holocaust, the systematic mass murder of six million Jews in Europe.

I was born 24 years after the war ended. Most Germans today are born one, two or three generations after the war. Unfortunately, we cannot change history. But we must draw the right lessons. It is our duty not to forget. It is our duty to take responsibility. And it is our duty to do what we can so that the crimes of our ancestors will never be perpetrated again.

For the Allied Forces, the German capitulation on 8 May 1945 (9 May Moscow time which is why the Russians mark it a day later) was Victory Day. For Germans, it was a Day of Liberation. It was a liberation from one of the darkest chapters of our history. A liberation from the tyranny and dictatorship of Hitler and his henchmen. It also liberated the majority of Germans from twelve years of unspeakable blindless, during which they like dumb-folded followed the horrible madness of Nazi ideology.

It is not pleasant to speak to your kids about horrors of the past, committed by the generation of your own grandparents. But speak we must. Only when we talk and remember, we can stop forgetting what never must be forgotten. We must go and take our children to the former extermination camp at Auschwitz, to places of torture such as Buchenwald. We must tell them about massacres in Babyn Yar and Oradour-sur-Glane, about the horrendous siege of Leningrad, the destruction of Warsaw, about the bomb terror against Rotterdam and Coventry. We must tell our children, so that they and future generations will not forget.

For Germans, it is a gift of history that we have learnt to live in peace, even friendship, with our neighbours. We have a joint army battalion with the Netherlands. We jointly build Airbus, the world’s top-selling airplane, with France. We have more than 500 partnerships between German and Polish cities. In the European Union, we found a way to cooperate as partners, and to transform former enmity into common interests and joint action.

It was also a gift of history, significantly helped by the victorious powers of the War, that we have enjoyed over 75 years of democracy in Germany. At first only in the Western part, but for more than three decades in the East as well. Yet, democracy is not a given. Never. Sometimes it even needs to be fought for in years of struggle, as everybody in South Africa will know. And once you have it, it can turn out to be very brittle.

Democracy and freedom need to be defended every day. Against the hollow promises of populists, against false news, lies, and disinformation. But also, by delivering economic development and rising levels of prosperity to the people. How fragile a democracy can be, was shown by the first German attempt to build one. At the end of the Weimar republic, madman Hitler ascended to power not by force, at least not initially, but by democratic vote.

The most important lesson from World War Two is our responsibility to strive for peace. “Niemals wieder Krieg”, never again war, was the strict order which the generations of our grandparents and parents passed on to us. It turned out to be not so easy. Wars as in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Somalia and former Yugoslavia shattered the world. During the Cold War, countries spent heavily on their military. Today, Sudan is torn by a dire civil war. We are confronted with a number of serious security threats around the world. Russia, whose territory was devastated by Nazi hordes, started a military aggression against its neighbour Ukraine. In the face of these threats, we have to invest in our security. For a country with such a terrible past like Germany, the necessity to re-arm is no easy thing at all. It must be coupled with a strong drive in the quest for peace.

80 years ago, the Second World War, one of the worst man-made catastrophes in history, was over. Let us commemorate and mourn the victims of Nazi German aggression. Let us honour the courage of those who defeated evil. Let us not forget the guilt of the perpetrators. And, most of all, let us assume our responsibility and invest in freedom.

© Daily Maverick