THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, May 8, 1995 TAG: 9505060016
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A6 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 77 lines
On Sept. 1, 1939, as W.H. Auden put it, the clever hopes of ``a low, dishonest decade'' expired. Hitler invaded Poland. World War II began in Europe. The continent was not again at peace until nearly six long years had passed. The German surrender came on May 8, 1945 - 50 years ago today.
The ranks of those who remember the war are thinning, but the greatest clash of arms in history will never be forgotten. Indeed, the memory of World War II has dominated the past 50 years. It has become the stuff of popular culture.
Many born after the war feel they experienced it because of Victory at Sea on TV, Rick resisting the Nazis in Casablanca, George C. Scott winning the Battle of the Bulge. The confident strut of Glenn Miller marches echoes down the years as does the yearning and fear of millions of couples separated - perhaps for years, perhaps forever - in wartime ballads such as ``I'll Be Seeing You.''
Hitler remains the quintessence of evil. Churchill and Roosevelt remain the ideals of leadership. The horror of the Holocaust is an ineradicable reminder of how thin the veneer of civilization is. And triumphs like D-Day still symbolize valor and pride in an era when there was no doubt about right and wrong.
Eisenhower called his part of World War II a Crusade in Europe - of freedom, democracy and decency against conquest, subjugation and barbarism. But World War II also taught that though the ends be just, the means of modern war are horrific. As many as 50 million lives were lost around the world.
Many of the dead were soldiers, of course. The U.S. and Britain each lost more than 400,000 men. But a far higher toll was taken in countries actually swept by war. For this was total war producing megadeaths, waged against civilians as well as soldiers by all sides. As Randall Jarrell said, ``In bombers named for girls, we burned/ The cities we had learned about in school.''
Millions of innocents died as a result of bombing, shelling, starvation, illness, executions and in the camps - displaced person camps, POW camps and concentration camps. Hitler made genocide an instrument of war. Of an inconceivable 20 million Russian dead, 10 million were civilians. Nearly 2 million Yugoslavs died, 6 million Poles.
And when it was all over, even more efficient methods of megadeath had been devised. Though the past 50 years have been filled with conflict, the catastrophe of World War II has helped keep the world from descending into another general conflagration that might well be the last bloody indulgence of humankind.
The world following World War II was very different from the world that existed before it. The United States was isolationist and unassuming before the war; it emerged in a position to dominate the world stage. We were virtually defenseless in the '30s, but were turned into the great arsenal of democracy by the war and have remained a superpower.
A harsh peace after World War I paved the way for Hitler. We were anxious not to make the same mistake twice. We created the Marshall Plan to help rebuild the continent of Europe. Since appeasement helped lead to war, we were aggressive in resisting aggression throughout the long Cold War now mercifully at an end.
The Great Powers of Europe are no more, but the most unified Europe since the Romans is a definite improvement over the antagonisms and scorched earth of 50 years ago. It seems improbable that such a conflict can ever recur. But the Victorians, too, thought peace might have arrived to stay.
We have avoided another world war through strength and vigilance, but this remains a troubled planet where imperial dreams are still possible. Madmen still nurse the delusion that they belong to a master race meant to exploit or exterminate inferior peoples. Greed survives and have-nots still look with hungry eyes on scarce resources and prosperous lands and yearn for Lebensraum.
The 50th anniversary of the end of World War in Europe will be celebrated because of the great, good deeds of courage and liberation it represents. But it should also be remembered as a warning. Unless the forces of light remain alert, prepared and unified, the darkness can descend again. by CNB