80 years of victory: an intolerable denial

Why destroy the memory of a joint victory? - A post by @pierrelorrain

Translated from Pierre Lorrain’s Substack

In a proclamation posted on the White House website on May 7, President Donald Trump proudly designated May 8 as VE Day (Victory and Victory Day), thus fulfilling several statements made in previous days.

He explained: "After nearly four years of the darkest and bloodiest chapter in human history, more than 250,000 Americans lost their lives in the fight against the Nazi regime. (…) Without the sacrifice of our American soldiers, the war could not have been won, and our world today would be radically different."

That last sentence contains a tiny grain of truth in a monumental and dishonorable error. Yes, the world would be "radically different." No, the war would nevertheless have been won. It would only have taken the Soviet Union and its other allies longer to liberate Europe. More time and even more suffering.

Therein lies the disgrace of his proclamation. During the four years of war, out of a population of 194 million in 1941, the Red Army officially mourned some 8.6 million soldiers killed. Added to this were between 15.9 and 17.4 million civilians massacred on Soviet territory, where most of the fighting and Nazi atrocities took place. These figures—which the human mind struggles to grasp in all their horror—mean that every Soviet family lost one or more loved ones. But they also mean that, after such sacrifices, nothing could have prevented the Red Army from going all the way and winning the war, even without the United States.

Let us be clear: this is not to denigrate the efforts and contributions of the GIs who came, first to Italy, then to France, to liberate Western Europe. Each of these 250,000 United States soldiers fell in the line of duty and must be rightly honored. Moreover, a visit to the American Cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer, above Omaha Beach, is always a moving experience. In Europe, these boys were not fighting for their land, but rather gave their lives to contribute greatly to the final victory. But one thing must be taken into account: on April 25, 1945, at the time of the encounter on the Elbe between the Soviet forces of the 1st Army of the Belorussian Front and those of the 1st United States Army, Hitler, buried alive in his bunker, was on the verge of committing suicide (April 30), and Berlin was about to fall to the Red Army (May 2). It is generally accepted that 75 to 80% of the Wehrmacht's military power was destroyed on the Eastern Front.

According to the same sources, at the height of the fighting (1941-1943), the Soviets faced between 150 and 200 divisions of the Wehrmacht and its Axis allies. This figure fell to 120 to 150 German divisions in 1944. In contrast, during the summer of 1944, after the landings, the Western Allies fought between 15 and 20 German divisions in Normandy. This figure rose to 20 to 30 divisions for the whole of Western Europe. This disproportion illustrates a balance of power in favor of the Soviets, making the outcome of the conflict inevitable.

It is generally stated that without the Lend-Lease program, the Soviet Union could not have won the war. Soviet, and later Russian, leaders have always recognized the importance of Western supplies, which enabled the USSR to better hold out in the early months of the conflict and facilitated subsequent operations. But here again, this should be qualified. At the beginning of the war, before the Soviet military industry had reached cruising speed, Western deliveries of various weapons were significant: Lend-Lease tanks accounted for 30 to 40 percent of Soviet medium and heavy tanks before the Battle of Moscow (December 1941), a critical period when Soviet production was limited. However, over the entire war, Western supplies accounted for approximately 12 percent of the armored vehicles used by the Red Army. And only 2 percent of the guns. On the other hand, Lend-Lease was decisive for logistics: trucks, locomotives and wagons contributed to the mobility of the Soviet armies and to the permanent supply of troops at the front with weapons manufactured in the rear.

Yet let's not lose sight of the essential point! Without the supreme sacrifice of these millions of Soviets, the war could not have been won, regardless of the quantity of materiel poured out. A president should have said this, or at least not omitted it, seeking to cheaply claim the glory.

The contrast is striking with what is happening in Moscow on this same occasion. Year after year, President Vladimir Putin, during the May 9 ceremonies, never fails to mention the decisive contribution of the allied countries by recalling the shared sacrifices.

In 2024, from the parade stand: "I would like to emphasize that Russia has never minimized the importance of the second front and the assistance of its allies. We honor the courage of all the soldiers of the anti-Hitler coalition (...). And we will always remember." We will never, never forget our common struggle and the inspiring traditions of the alliance."

In 2023, at the same location: "For us in Russia, the memory of the defenders of the Fatherland is sacred; we keep it in our hearts. We pay tribute to the members of the Resistance who courageously fought against Nazism, as well as to the soldiers of the Allied armies of the United States, Great Britain, and other countries."

Year after year... And 2025 was no exception.

But these evocations are never picked up by the Western media. On the contrary, in Europe, the press and the political class, orphaned by Joe Biden's neoconservative policies, are developing an anxiety-inducing narrative—one disconnected from the real world—depicting the extent to which Russia poses a threat to Europe. This baseless rhetoric seems less to reflect a real danger than a desire to justify military escalation, to obstruct a solution to the conflict in Ukraine that takes into account the reality on the ground, and to divert attention from commemorations of the Second World War. These celebrations are all the more unwelcome for European leaders because they could revive memories of a brotherhood in arms between the Allies—like the handshake between Soviet and American soldiers on the Elbe in April 1945—at the expense of current antagonisms.

(Links and refs in the original article)