Mamayev Kurgan is a war memorial like no other on earth ~ for it is
dominated by an angry goddess. The most gigantic, impressive and eerie statue
in the world, Rodina-Mat, the Mother Goddess of Russia, touts up 160 feet without
any pedestal, 20 feet higher than the Statue of Liberty ~ it is the
resting place for 35,000 Soviet soldiers who died defending their city, their
country and eventually the world.
Saturday, Feb. 2
marked a very obscure date for Americans, but one that saved the lives of hundreds
of thousands of young American boys in World War II ~ it is the 70th anniversary of the final surrender of German
forces at Stalingrad ~
The decisive battle of World War II
I
was only nine years old when the invincible German sixth army was decisively
beaten in the battle of Stalingrad and the tide of World War II permanently
changed.
I
vividly remember the shock and elation of that event even as a young child in
Nahant, Massachusetts ~ for quite suddenly a glimmer of world wide hope
replaced the growing despair of watching an apparently
invincible German
Wehrmacht, that had conquered the
entire European continent in less than three years, brought to its
knees by the courageous Russian defenders of
Stalingrad.
Americans
have never had to defend their country from a fierce fighting force intent on
occupying them such as Russia endured in World War 2 ~ so to truly
understand the depth of Russian patriotism, as well as other occupied countries and states, we must understand the battle and
triumph of Stalingrad against insurmountable odds.
The human cost was truly horrific, as
Martin Sieff explains in his commemorative article entitled ~ The Greatest Battle of All Time ~ and Why It Still Matters Today.
Excerpt: "The colossal scale of the fighting between Nazi Germany and the Soviet
Union in what Russians call the Great Patriotic War was well recognized by
Americans and Britons at the time but it has been virtually forgotten since. But it dwarfed every other battlefront of the war combined. Eight out of 10
German soldiers killed in World War II died fighting the Red Army. The
colossal total of nearly 27 million Soviet military and civilian dead was more
than twice the death toll of all Americans, Britons, Commonwealth, French and
even Germans killed in the war combined.... According to British
military historian Anthony Bevoir, 1.1 million Soviet soldiers died in the
Battle of Stalingrad and that does not include the at least 100,000 and
possibly three times as many civilian inhabitants of the city massacred by the
repeated waves of indiscriminate Luftwaffe air attacks….Nazi losses were colossal, too. According to Russian estimates, 1.5 million
German and Axis soldiers lost their lives in the entire campaign, more than
five times the entire U.S. combat dead for all of the war and more than twice
the combined Union and Confederate dead of the entire U.S. Civil War."
The
Russian triumph at Stalingrad rapidly led to a German retreat and the
inevitable encirclement of Berlin by allied
forces. Here's the scene in the German film Downfall, where Hitler finally realises he is defeated in Berlin, and lets out
his anger on his Generals. This is the original video, parodied so many
times on Youtube ~ the film is excellent and
English Soft Subs/Closed Captions are
available, look at the bottom right. 4 minute video ~
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7PmzdINGZk
My
point here is that patriotism that is grounded in overcoming a foreign invader
~ such as Russia's victory at Stalingrad ~
is far more formidable than just waving flags and singing anthems. America
should be conscious that our illegal occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan have
resulted in millions of civilian deaths and displacements. More importantly they have also become the
breeding ground of patriotic freedom fighters who can no longer be labeled
insurgents or terrorists ~ who we use to justify even more military spending.
And
who is paying the cost of roughly 3 trillion dollars for these illegal wars and
occupations?
American
families are now paying at least $20,000 each for these occupations (including
the hidden social costs) with no end in sight.
It's
the biggest bubble of all ~ The so-called US government takes our money;
Then gives it to corporate thieves and uses it to create mayhem around the
world.
We are poorer for it.
Our children are poorer for it.
The nation is poorer for it.
It's really no more complicated than that.
Now, 70
years later, the apparently invincible American Wehrmacht,
as recently represented by Vice President
Joe Biden, set the record straight at the annual Munich Security Conference ~ as reported by WSWS ".. not only is this decade-long exercise in US militarism
not ended, it is about to erupt in a whole number of new areas across the
globe, threatening the lives of countless millions of people." See article ~ http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/02/05/pers-f05.html
"The
greatest threat to our world and its peace comes from those who want war, who
prepare for it, and who, by holding out vague promises of future peace or by
instilling fear of foreign aggression, try to make us accomplices to their
plans." ~ Hermann Hesse
Allen
L Roland
Freelance Alternative
Press Online columnist and psychotherapist Allen L
Roland is available for comments, interviews, speaking engagements and private
consultations ( allen@allenroland.com )
Allen
L Roland is a practicing psychotherapist, author and
lecturer who also shares a daily political and social commentary on his web log and website allenroland.com
He also guest hosts a monthly national radio show TRUTHTALK on www.conscioustalk.net
