World War II

Page 10

96. The armies of America and Britain in France became increasingly powerful. They conquered a large section of the coast and penetrated inland. And then the armies of the ruler of Germany were obliged to fight on all fronts at the same time. For while the Allied armies were gaining a foothold in Northern France and taking the towns of Caen and Cherbourg, the Russian army invaded Poland and cleared the towns of Vilna, Pinsk and Grodno of German soldiers.



97. When the Field Marshals of the man called Hitler saw that his luck was turning, they sought to assassinate him. They had groveled and fawned like dogs when his fortunes were high. They had control of the arms, but they had ducked like cowards and tolerated the way that he protected himself against their power. He had secured his safety by placing his personal guards and his spies in different sections of his army. When his fortunes were good, The Field Marshals had had not objections to the horrors he committed. When rumours of these horrors reached them and they were told to close their eyes, they had closed their eyes. They brought him their knowledge of the art of war and they acted in obedience to his darkened mind. They had followed him because his growth was due to their own lunacy. And when they realised that this monstrous growth was leading to their downfall, they tried to kill him. They believed that there was still time to escape the punishment, if they could kill him very fast. They set off a bomb in a tent in which he was holding a council of war with several of his generals and senior aides. The bomb killed some of these, but not the man called Hitler. It shattered his hearing and left his arm shaking from then on.



98. The ruler of Germany had yet other, fearful weapons, besides those with which his armies fought his enemies. His military technicians had invented an aircraft that could fly and reach a target without a human pilot and it was filled with powerful explosives. It was a self steering bomb and it could fly from the shores of France or Holland to England and target the city of London. It flew, hissing intermittently and, wherever it landed, it destroyed houses and killed life. Before it landed, the hissing would stop and people would anxiously wait to hear the thunderous explosion. No one could tell where they would fall. One week after the American and British armies stepped onto French soil, the flying bombs began to fall on London, day and night. And many thousands were killed by these new bombs. Here, too, husbands, wives and children paid with their lives for the indifference of their former rulers to the murders perpetrated against the Jews of Germany.



99. As the fifth year of the war was ending and the Americans, the British and their Allies already held almost the entire coast of Northern France, the great, decisive battle for France was engaged. The bloody battle raged for two weeks. The German divisions were caught between the American and the Canadian divisions; only a narrow pass was open for their retreat to the East. Near the towns of Falaise and Argentan, tens of thousands of German soldiers fell trying to escape through that pass. On the thirteenth day of the eleventh month in the fifth year of the war, the Americans and their Canadian ally destroyed the German strike force in France. And the shattered remnant of the German army and of the troops that had been in France for four years and had provided the defences for those who persecuted and murdered the Jews had to retreat, and the land was freed of their bloody fist. They had murdered every Frenchman who resisted, and for every German killed by those enslaved, a hundred French hostages had been assassinated. Hundred of thousands of Frenchmen had been carted to Germany for slave labour. The Jews, however, had been hunted by the Germans, not on account of resistance or wrongdoings, but simply in order to destroy them on account of the fact that they existed. In France, too, the ruler of Germany had found many willing in his hunting of Jews in that country. Untold numbers were delivered into the hands of the Germans, who then brought them to the death camps. However, there were many Jews who were able to evade the manhunters because courageous Frenchmen gave them refuge and sheltered them for four years. These Jews, their wives and their children now came out of hiding and were able to breathe freely again. The military and defence power of their murderers was shattered throughout France.



100. More and more Allied troops were reaching land on the continent of Europe and the ruler of Germany began to realise that the power of his enemies had grown hugely. From the South, too, American troops had penetrated into France. The German Field Marshals were once again obeying the German’s orders. Those who had plotted against him had been killed slowly by hanging. It was clear that there were not enough soldiers to occupy the whole of Europe and also defend the seat of power, Germany. So the Field Marshals began to recall their German forces from one country after another, from all the regions downtrodden ever since the Germans had subjected weaker and smaller nations.
     Once the Americans and British had conquered in France, the first country where the Germans had to release their stranglehold because they were obliged to retreat and defend their own country, was Belgium. In Belgium, too, a number of brave people had hidden Jews in their homes the whole time. And these Jews were now able to come out with their wives and children, to see the light of day and breathe free air. At the end of the fifth year of the war, Belgium was cleared of Germans.



101. With the beginning of the sixth year of the war, the yoke of enslavement was lifted from the Balkan countries. In the second month, the British stepped on the coast of Greece and Russian troops crossed through Yugoslavia and entered Hungary. The plague that had descended on the whole of Europe was wiped out in these lands. A number of Jews who had miraculously stayed alive watched the departure of the troops that had served to protect the murderers. In the fourth month, the Russians began the siege of Budapest.



102. Yet the man called Hitler still held terrible means of destruction. He and his Field Marshals now relied on three measures. They had constructed huge ramparts along the entire Western frontier of Germany. They possessed a secret weapon even more deadly than the flying bombs, against which there was no defence. They also had reason to hope that the enemies of Germany hated one another, so that their alliance would break up if the Germans could ensure that the war lasted long enough. The ramparts and the secret weapon were to serve that end.



103. It was true that the enemies of Germany hated one another. Although concealed, the age-old enmity between the English-speaking nations and Russia persisted. The enmity affected the life of all these nations. Each had hatred in the heart of its people for every other people. Nations cannot love one another as individuals can. Each nation felt greed for a share of power. Each wanted power. None sought the just, the highest power. Only for a time did these nations link with one another, so that they might be stronger than another nation or several other nations. There were pacts and the rulers called them pacts of friendship between nations. But it was no friendship. The deepest hostility prevailed between the Americans and the British here and the Russians there. The friendship was false, since its sole aim was war against Germany. And the war against Germany did not serve America’s quest for power; it served Britain’s quest for power even less. It did serve Russia’s quest for power. The ruler of Germany thought that the Americans and the British would realise that victory would not serve their quest for power. Everyone could see that victory would be far more beneficial to Russia than to America and Britain. The ruler of Germany thought it unnatural for a country to go against its own power advantage. And millions of people in every country thought likewise. And yet, it was not so.



104. The nations were all vain in the extreme and each revered itself as the greatest. As a result of this self-adulation, their spirit was at times clouded and they would embark on wars without intending to and make pacts that they had not planned. But war, once unleashed, follows its own path. The war made them greedy for victory and they had to pursue it. And they forgot the earlier plan, to serve their country in the best way. They saw victory and the aggrandisement of power as one and the same. But it is not always so. Victory is either valuable or worthless, depending on the pact made in order to attain it. There are desirable and undesirable pacts, pacts that increase the power of a people and pacts that diminish it. America and Britain were fighting together with Russia in an undesirable pact. The rulers of the English-speaking nations knew that if they won the war against Germany, Russian power in Europe would grow far more than theirs. But, although they wished Russia ill in the matter of power, they sought unity with Russia in order to gain victory. Their thirst for victory at this point was stronger than their thirst for power. The Americans and the British acted against their own interests in that they helped to strengthen the power of Russia.
     Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin, the leaders of America, Britain and Russia met, first in Teheran in Persia and again, in Yalta in Russia and reaffirmed the bond between these hostile Allies, in the third month of the fifth year of the war. And the nations that had embarked on the whole enterprise in order to destroy Russia, now helped it to the best of their ability, against their will. And this, too, happened because they had not been able to recognise the darkened mind of the man called Hitler. They called one another friends. And many people wondered whether the pact could last, should the war continue for a long time.



105. In order to draw out the war, the ruler of Germany now tried his dreadful new weapon, invented and built by his war technicians. At the beginning of the sixth year of the war a bomb fell on the capital of England from a height greater than any attained previously by any weapon. It hurled down on London from a height of sixty miles, blasting everything in its path. There was no warning, no escape and no defence. The speed of its fall was such that people heard its whine only after it had smashed down. Hurled from a great distance, it was a powerful missile that stormed across the skies and exploded on earth. Because it was so high, it could be launched from a great distance and no one knew the location of the launch. It fell on England from further away than the flying bombs. Thousands were killed by these missile bombs. Thousands again paid with their lives for the blindness of their former rulers concerning the German when he first began to trample on justice. It was much harder to cope with the missile than it had been to take the flying bombs. The murderer of Europe had been building the missiles for some time and his intention was to hurl so many of them at his enemies that his victory would be unquestioned. However, for two years now, the American and British planes had bombed his arms factories, day and night. And, as a result, the German arsenal was no longer good enough to ensure victory. The people of London stood the test. And the first of the German’s measures proved a failure.
     (Unfinished)