On February 2nd, 1943, the 6th German Army, under the command of Field Marshall Von Paulus, and elements of the 4th Panzer Army, surrendered to the Red Army at Stalingrad. This stunning victory is considered the turning point in the war in Europe, heralding the defeat of fascist Germany.
That defeat came on May 2ndth 1945, when the German forces in Berlin, the capital of the Third Reich, surrendered to the forces of the Red Army that had captured the city. On May 9th the official act of surrender of the German government and military forces took place in Berlin when the Germans surrendered to the Soviet commander, Marshal Zhukov, a surrender witnessed by representatives of the American, British and French forces. This was the end of the war in Europe.
Surrenders of elements of the German armies in the Italy and Austria on May 2nd and German forces in northern Europe, on May 7th, at first claimed by the western allies to be the official surrender of Germany, were not recognised as such by the Soviet government, since they were in violation of the agreement of the European Advisory Committee of the three Big Powers, that was finalised in March, 1944. That agreement required that the surrender would be one event, would be of the German government itself, not just of army elements in impossible positions, and was to take place at the seat of government from which German aggression had been launched, Berlin.
The western allies had no choice but to agree, and to regard the May 9th ceremony as the official act of surrender of the German government. But it was clear even then that the western allies had tried to arrange a separate peace with the Germans while the Soviets were still fighting and it was made very clear that the Americans and British wanted to steal the show from the Russians. Now 70 years later, the propaganda machine in the west once again claims that the earlier date was the end of the war in Europe.
It is well to remember the significance of this attempt by the Americans and British to conclude a separate peace with the Nazis, while Soviet forces were still engaged in the fierce Battle of Berlin and what a betrayal it was of the promised solidarity between the nations fighting against fascist aggression to which the Soviet forces at Stalingrad had dealt the fatal blow.
During one of his fireside chats on American radio on July 28, 1943, American President Roosevelt said,
“The world has never seen greater devotion, determination and self-sacrifice than have been displayed by the Russian people…under the leadership of Marshal Joseph Stalin. With a nation, that in saving itself, is thereby helping to save all the world from the Nazi menace, this country of ours should always be glad to be a good neighbour and a sincere friend to the world of the future.”
Fine words, and true, but where is the good neighbour now?
Instead of international solidarity between the victors and recognition of the sacrifice of the Russian people that Roosevelt praised, the NATO countries now refuse to attend the Moscow Victory Parade commemorating the defeat of Nazi Germany. But why do they insult the one nation that suffered the most, sacrificed the most, fought the hardest and won the greatest victories against the fascists? Is it really about Ukraine? The answer is simply that they see the defeat of fascist Germany not as a victory over fascism but as a failure of the western attempt to crush Russia.
We must also remember that NATO includes the occupied German state whose forces attacked the Soviet Union on June 22nd 1941, a state that still has no sovereignty and is still occupied by American forces two decades after Russian forces left, and whose leaders, now revealed as permitting American intelligence to spy on German companies for economic advantage, are evidently in the pocket of the American government.
It includes Britain, whose war time leader, Winston Churchill, echoing public calls by American General Patton, proposed an attack on the Soviet forces in Europe to take place in July 1945, using combined American-British-Canadian forces as well as the remaining German armies. The plan even included the use of nuclear weapons. It was called Operation Unthinkable, but it was clearly very thinkable and was a plan to pick up where the Nazis had failed, to subjugate Russia, and was only shelved when analysis proved that Soviet forces were too strong to overcome.
It is clear that the fire bombings of Dresden and Tokyo and the nuclear attacks on Japan, in which hundreds of thousands of civilians were incinerated by the Americans and British, were meant as demonstrations to the Soviet Union of their power, as an attempt to intimidate and subdue their supposed ally before the war with Germany was even concluded. The threat of a continued world war against Russia was made with the attacks on those defenceless cities. But with Operation Unthinkable put on hold and the formation of the Warsaw Pact as a defense against the NATO threat, the war against Russia was continued using other means and came to be called the Cold War, a political euphemism, since Soviet forces fought against the NATO allies directly in Korea and Vietnam and by proxies in many countries seeking liberation from western colonialism in Asia, Africa and Afghanistan.
We must also remember that in 1939, when Hitler attacked Poland, both Britain and France reneged on their promise to Poland to defend it in the event of an attack by Germany because they wanted German forces to be able to move right up to the borders of the Soviet Union to make it easier for Germany to launch its invasion of Russia just two years later. The so-called phoney war after the fall of Poland until the May, 1940 German attack on France, gave crucial time to Germany to advance its plans to attack Russia.
The entire focus of the NATO alliance, formed immediately after the defeat of Germany, has been on war with Russia and, since the fall of the Soviet Union and the weakening of Russian power, the NATO alliance has steadily advanced its attack position with a series of wars from Yugoslavia to Georgia and Ukraine, from Chechnya to Iraq, Syria, Libya and Afghanistan, all designed to eliminate Russian allies and to put NATO forces right up against Russian territory on its southern and western flanks.
In a document known as the Atlantic Charter, drafted on a battleship off the coast of Newfoundland in the middle of 1941, the Americans and British promised that the goals of the world war were not to increase their territories, but to guarantee the self-government of peoples, free trade, global cooperation to secure better economic and social conditions for all, freedom from fear and want, freedom of the seas and abandonment of the use of force as an instrument of policy, and disarmament. The Soviet Union adhered to these principles in the January 1, 1942 Declaration of the United Nations.
But aside from the relentless forcing of “free trade” treaties down workers throats across the world, which really means the freedom to exploit workers everywhere for the profit of a few corporations, the western signatories have violated every one of the clauses in the Atlantic Charter document.
The world was assured that there would be peace but they have given us nothing but 70 years of war. They promised us freedom from want but have relentlessly tried to destroy any government that protects the rights of workers, and poverty has increased dramatically in every western country since the fall of the Soviet Union.
Nations that were promised liberation at the end of the world war, had to fight these same powers to attain that justice. Some like China and Vietnam, Cuba, and North Korea, succeeded after long and bitter fighting, while the struggles of many others were crushed or subverted.
In Ukraine now we are witnessing a national army and formations of outright fascist militias, the new SS, firing on, and shelling fellow citizens who protest the lack of legality of the government and the American agenda of using it as a base to attack Russia. The interests of the War Party in the west prevail over the basic demands of their peoples for social and economic justice, and freedom from fear and war.
The whole world owes the peoples of the Soviet Union, of the Russian Federation, a debt that can never be repaid for their defeat of fascism in Europe. They suffered the heaviest losses, the most destruction, the heaviest burden of fighting the Nazi war machine.
The refusal of NATO leaders to attend the Moscow ceremonies on May 9th is an insult to history, to the sacrifices of scores of millions of Russians, and is tantamount to a repudiation of the principles of the Atlantic Charter and the Charter of the United Nations. But it is more than that. It is proof, if ever it was needed, that the main objective of the world war in Europe was the crushing of Russia for the benefit of the three powers, the USA, Britain and Germany. While scrapping among themselves to see who would be top dog on the world street, they were united in their desire to subdue Russia to their will. This objective was long held in check by Soviet power. The fall of the Soviet Union and its replacement by a government initially composed of compradors for the west gave the Americans and their allies the impression that they had succeeded in bringing Russia under their complete domination. But the rise of new leaders in Russia, reinvigorating Russian sovereignty and reviving Russian power and prestige in the world has angered these wolves of war who now circle, and harass, waiting for the opportunity to strike.
Originally published on 2020-05-07
About the author: Christopher Black is an international criminal lawyer based in Toronto, he is a member of the Law Society of Upper Canada and he is known for a number of high-profile cases involving human rights and war crimes, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.
Origins of images: Facebook, Twitter, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Imageinjection, Public Domain & Pinterest.
Read our Disclaimer/LegalStatement!
DonatetoSupportUs
We would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics and international relations.
Adolf Heusinger was far from being the only Nazi war criminal who would later serve at a top position in NATO
If Pentagon chief James Mattis was seeking to reassure the world of American restraint in the North Korea crisis, he clumsily did the opposite. The US Defense Secretary was speaking after intense discussions with President Trump and other senior military officials in the White House Situation Room following the sixth nuclear test carried out by North Korea on Sunday.Mattis emerged from the meeting to say that any threat from North Korea to the United States and its allies would be met with an «overwhelming military response». He then added – with a weirdly presumed ethical tone – that the US «was not looking to ...
The problem is America’s global hegemony comes with insistence on maintaining military and economic dominance right in China’s backyard.
To avoid a violent militaristic clash with China, or another cold war rivalry, the United States should pursue a simple solution: give up its empire.
Americans fear that China’s rapid economic growth will slowly translate into a more expansive and assertive foreign policy that will inevitably result in a war with the US. Harvard Professor Graham Allison has found: “in 12 of 16 cases in the past 500 years when a rising power challenged a ruling power, the outcome was war.” Chicago University scholar John ...
So, here's how it is:
1) There is still no evidence - that has been presented to the public - that Assad ordered a chemical weapons (CW) attack.
2) Yes, that evidence should be made public, discussed and debated by Congress, and a vote taken before we use force. I acknowledge that the War Powers Resolution gives the President the authority to use force for 60 days - but the interests of peace and stability are better served through a debate and a democratic process as opposed to a unilateral decision made in secret, especially when the military action is punitive and ...
After the Donald Trump administration’s decision to recognize the disputed city of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and move the US embassy there from Tel Aviv, the national aspirations of the Palestinian people to live in their own state have been severely dashed by Washington’s move. Ever since the formation of the United States, it has been American policy to destroy aspirant nations like the internationally-recognized State of Palestine.The first nation destroyed by the United States was the Cherokee Nation, or Tsalagihi Ayeli, which, beginning in 1794, was slowly decimated by forced removals from territory in Georgia, the Carolinas, Tennessee, Alabama, ...
With rare exception, the question of whether the atomic bombs were necessary to end World War Two is debated only deep within the safety of academic circles.
Could a land invasion have been otherwise avoided? Would more diplomacy have achieved the same ends without the destruction of two cities? Could an atomic test on a deserted island have convinced the Japanese? Was the surrender instead driven primarily by the entry of the Soviets into the Pacific War, which, by historical accident, took place two days after Hiroshima—and the day before Nagasaki was immolated?
But it is not only the history of the ...
Interview with Čedomir Prlinčević
Formerly the Chief Archivist of Kosovo and President of the Jewish Community of Priština; driven from Kosovo by KLA terrorists in 1999
Interviewer: Jared Israel
Translator: Petar Makara
[Posted 3, December 2000 * New introduction, 4 April 2006]
========================================
Introduction
This is the second Emperor’s Clothes interview with Čedomir Prlinčević (pronounced Ched-o-meer Pra-linch-eh-vich).
Mr. Prlinčević, an historian, was chief archivist in Priština, capital of Kosovo, and head of the Jewish community there until, as he explained in his first Emperor’s Clothes interview, the terrorist KLA drove him and his family and thousands of others from their homes. Heavily armed British NATO forces stood by, ...
A historical overview and Estonia's minorities
Estonia (Eesti, Estland) is a Baltic state that was colonized by the German Teutonic Order of Knights from 1346 being, therefore, dominated politically and economically by a German-speaking landowning aristocracy, which succeeded to maintain its social and economic position even during the Swidish occupation of the territory of present-day Estonia from 1561 to 1721 and for most period of subsequent Russia's administration since 1721 to 1915. From 1855 the ethnic Estonians received the right to possess the land. Migration increased the Estonian population in the cities during the time of the Russian administration. It is ...
Save SaveOrigins of images: Facebook, Twitter, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Imageinjection, Public Domain & Pinterest.Read our Disclaimer/Legal Statement!Donate to Support UsWe would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics and international relations.
Government propaganda and NGO misinformation have coloured the story of the war on Syria from its inception. Stepping in to set the record straight, Dr. Tim Anderson explores the real beginnings of the conflict, the players behind it, and their agenda in his new book, “The Dirty War on Syria: Washington, Regime Change and Resistance.”The Dirty War on Syria has relied on a level of mass disinformation not seen in living memory. In seeking ‘regime change’ the big powers sought to hide their hand, using proxy armies of ‘Islamists’, demonising the Syrian Government and constantly accusing it of atrocities. In ...
IntroductionThe goals of this article are: 1) to investigate the role of the revived Patriarchate of Peć in Serbian and Balkan history?; and 2) to explore and present the results of investigation of the problems with respect to: a) the role of the Serbian Church during the first decades of the Ottoman occupation of Serbian lands in the process of the creation of a Serbian national identity; b) Serbian-Turkish relations in the second half of the 16th century; and c) the reasons for Serbian disloyalty towards the Ottoman government at the turn of the 17th century.The article addresses the reasons ...
The former Yugoslavia was engulfed by many conflicts and ethnic and religious differences tore away at the very fabric of this nation. Like all wars, atrocities took place on all sides but the mass media in general focused on Serbian atrocities, while neglecting brutal crimes committed against the Serbian community. This certainly applies to the glossing over of war crimes done by the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).
However, more and more evidence is coming to light about brutal KLA death camps and killing people for organs. Therefore, will former KLA members be charged with war crimes and will the “real truth” ...
“Russia Wants to Undermine Faith in the U.S. Election. Don’t Fall For It.” Thus reads the cover ofTime magazine with a photo of Vladimir Putin on the cover staring at me from shelves as I sit in an airport. Genuinely curious, I check out Massimo Calabresi’s article online.
Of course, U.S. elections are almost completely unverifiable and do not even pretend to meet international standards. Jimmy Carter doesn’t even try to monitor them because there’s no way to do it. Much voting is done on machines that simply must be trusted on faith. Whether they accurately count the votes entered is ...
Is Vladimir Putin the most popular Russian leader of all time?
It certainly looks like it. In a recent survey conducted by the All-Russia Public Opinion Research Center, Putin’s public approval rating soared to an eye-popping 86 percent, which is twice that of Obama’s when he left office in 2016. And what’s more surprising is that Putin’s popularity has held up through a severe economic slump and nearly two decades in office. Unlike most politicians, whose shelf-life is somewhere between 4 to 8 years, the public’s admiration for Putin has only grown stronger over time.
And the phenom is not limited to Russia either. According to a recent survey by the pollster YouGov, “Putin is the third most admired man in Egypt, the fourth in China, ...
Tens of thousands have been killed over 40 years of bloodletting between Turkish forces and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), and tragically there seems to be no end in sight. In May 2016, President Erdogan stated that military operations against the PKK will continue until “the very last rebel is killed.” What is alarming about Erdogan’s statement is that he still believes he can solve the conflict through brutal force. Erdogan does not understand that he cannot wish the Kurdish problem away—a problem that will continue to haunt him and the country for countless more decades unless a solution is ...
In early June of 1967, at the onset of the Six Day War, the Pentagon sent the USS Liberty from Spain into international waters off the coast of Gaza to monitor the progress of Israel’s attack on the Arab states. The Liberty was a lightly armed surveillance ship.
Only hours after the Liberty arrived it was spotted by the Israeli military. The IDF sent out reconnaissance planes to identify the ship. They made eight trips over a period of three hours. The Liberty was flying a large US flag and was easily recognizable as an American vessel.
Soon more planes came. These ...
Origins of images: Facebook, Twitter, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Imageinjection, Public Domain & Pinterest.Read our Disclaimer/Legal Statement!Donate to Support UsWe would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics and international relations.SaveSave
Introduction
The propaganda by the Christian churches in regard to their role during WWII in Fascist Italy, Yugoslavia, and Nazi Germany has so conditioned their believers that most of them believe that Christianity played an honorable role at best, and only a silent role at worst. Yet there seems little recognition that the very framework of the beliefs owned by the Fascists and Nazis came from their Christian upbringing from church, school, and Christian traditions. The entire anti-Jewish and racial sentiments came not from some new philosophy or unique ideology, but rather from centuries of Christian preaching against the Jews, gypsies, ...
How can it be that in virtually all of the Presidential-candidate head-to-head Democratic versus Republican polling that was done of both Democratic and Republican candidates during the primaries, the preferred Democratic candidate against any one of the Republican candidates was Bernie Sanders, but he almost certainly won’t be that Party’s nominee (and there’s more on that here); and the preferred Republican candidate against either one of the Democratic candidates was John Kasich, but he certainly won’t be the Republican nominee?
Sanders and Kasich also scored the highest in his respective Party for net favorability rating, but almost certainly neither candidate will ...
A Yugoslav Communist Major Franjo Tuđman (left) with his Croatian compatriot Communist Captain Joža Horvat (right) as the occupants of Serbia's capital Belgrade in February 1945. The Yugoslav Communist Partisans came from the territory of a Nazi-fascist Independent State of Croatia to occupy Serbia in October 1944. They were sponsored and supported by the Croatian Nazi-fascist regime in Zagreb. Top Partisan's leadership was not Serb but rather Croat. The Partisans were accompanied at that time by many redressed Croatian Nazi-fascist soldiers (Ustashi and Domobrans) who committed a terrible genocide on Serbian civilians in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina in WWII. Those Partisans ...
The prophet Cassandra’s curse was that when she told the future, no one listened; history’s curse is that when it tells the past, no one does.The West has no shortage of charges it hurls against Russia, but most of them can be grouped into one of three categories: that Russia intervened in the American elections, that Russia is dragging the world into a new cold war, and that Russia is becoming increasingly aggressive and expansionist. Sometimes when charges are brought against you, the best witness you can call to your defense is history.Election InterventionThis history of Russia, America and political ...
SHORT LEGAL DISCLAIMER: The website’s owner & editor-in-chief has no official position on any issue published at this website. The views of the authors presented at this website do not necessarily coincide with the opinion of the owner & editor-in-chief of the website. The contents of all material (articles, books, photos, videos…) are of sole responsibility of the authors. The owner & editor-in-chief of this website is not morally, scientifically or legally responsible for any inaccurate or incorrect statement in the contents of all material found on this website. The owner & editor-in-chief of this website is not responsible for the content of external internet sites. No advertising, government or corporate funding for the functioning of this website. The owner & editor-in-chief and authors are not morally, scientifically or legally responsible for any inaccurate or incorrect statement in the text and material found on the website www.global-politics.eu
