Remembering the wars
Sixty years ago, a group of French veterans from the First World War gathered to plan a memorial, a “veterans’ bureau”, at Verdun. But the planning was cut short by the outbreak of the Second World War.
On Friday September 1, 1939, the German army crossed the Polish border and started its advance towards the east. Nine months later the Nazi war-machine had crushed resistance all over Europe, with very few exceptions. It took three long years, until the Soviet Red Army defeated Hitler's troops at Stalingrad, before the tide turned, and three more years before the Second World War finally ended. By that time, more that 14 million Soviet soldiers and 7 700 000 civilians had been killed. The US military lost 291 557 men, the US Coast Guard 574 and less than 10 US civilians were killed.
If Stalingrad became the battle that stands out in the 1939–1945 war, the same can be said of the battle of Verdun in the First World War, a battle where 270 000 soldiers died. But the memorial at Verdun that the veterans planned in 1939 was not inaugurated until 1967, over fifty years after the battle in 1916.
After the fall of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe in 1989, the German Deutsche Bank looked east. It opened branch offices in several countries. Before opening up in Warsaw they put big ads in the business magazines with the headline: THE GERMANS ARE BACK! The Polish business community did not think it was funny. I guess it is a matter of what you remember.
The books published, the memoirs written, the movies recounting the events of the Second World War are innumerable. But our modern day conflicts, televised for greater impact, gradually oust WW2 from our collective memory, as happened with WW1. This process is probably irreversible, and is hastened by the passing of the war generation. Personal memories are replaced by official, textbook memories. In the French region of Lot et Garonne, there are today only seven men alive who served in the First World War.
How we remember history determines what we learn from it. In Germany, the memory of the First World War could be used by the Nazis as one of the pretexts to start the Second World War. In France, the memory of 1914–1918 was the memory of suffering and loss – but not the kind of memory that breeds revanchism.
In France as elsewhere, the ceremony of remembering the First World War is held on Armistice Day, November 11. In the village of Clermont Soubiran in the southwest of France, the names of the dead are read out each year. There are 14 names from each year of World War One, from the battlefields at the Marne (1914), Artois (1915), the Somme (1916), Longueval (1917) and Flanders (1918). During the Second World War two more names were added, but the simple pillar outside the village school was erected after the first war. “Let us not forget them!!!” says the inscription under the names. The three exclamation marks tell about loss, desperation and grief.
The 14 names are read out aloud by a war veteran, and the children in the school’s only class (by coincidence there are 14 pupils this year) say in chorus “Mort pour la France”.
1 450 000 French soldiers died in the Great War. Eight million men served. 38 000 monuments were built, in villages like Clermont Soubiran, in great cities like Bordeaux or Lyon. The war veterans will soon be dead, all of them, but memories will be kept, lives and deaths honoured.
Published in Euro Metro, 3 november 1999
On Friday September 1, 1939, the German army crossed the Polish border and started its advance towards the east. Nine months later the Nazi war-machine had crushed resistance all over Europe, with very few exceptions. It took three long years, until the Soviet Red Army defeated Hitler's troops at Stalingrad, before the tide turned, and three more years before the Second World War finally ended. By that time, more that 14 million Soviet soldiers and 7 700 000 civilians had been killed. The US military lost 291 557 men, the US Coast Guard 574 and less than 10 US civilians were killed.
If Stalingrad became the battle that stands out in the 1939–1945 war, the same can be said of the battle of Verdun in the First World War, a battle where 270 000 soldiers died. But the memorial at Verdun that the veterans planned in 1939 was not inaugurated until 1967, over fifty years after the battle in 1916.
After the fall of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe in 1989, the German Deutsche Bank looked east. It opened branch offices in several countries. Before opening up in Warsaw they put big ads in the business magazines with the headline: THE GERMANS ARE BACK! The Polish business community did not think it was funny. I guess it is a matter of what you remember.
The books published, the memoirs written, the movies recounting the events of the Second World War are innumerable. But our modern day conflicts, televised for greater impact, gradually oust WW2 from our collective memory, as happened with WW1. This process is probably irreversible, and is hastened by the passing of the war generation. Personal memories are replaced by official, textbook memories. In the French region of Lot et Garonne, there are today only seven men alive who served in the First World War.
How we remember history determines what we learn from it. In Germany, the memory of the First World War could be used by the Nazis as one of the pretexts to start the Second World War. In France, the memory of 1914–1918 was the memory of suffering and loss – but not the kind of memory that breeds revanchism.
In France as elsewhere, the ceremony of remembering the First World War is held on Armistice Day, November 11. In the village of Clermont Soubiran in the southwest of France, the names of the dead are read out each year. There are 14 names from each year of World War One, from the battlefields at the Marne (1914), Artois (1915), the Somme (1916), Longueval (1917) and Flanders (1918). During the Second World War two more names were added, but the simple pillar outside the village school was erected after the first war. “Let us not forget them!!!” says the inscription under the names. The three exclamation marks tell about loss, desperation and grief.
The 14 names are read out aloud by a war veteran, and the children in the school’s only class (by coincidence there are 14 pupils this year) say in chorus “Mort pour la France”.
1 450 000 French soldiers died in the Great War. Eight million men served. 38 000 monuments were built, in villages like Clermont Soubiran, in great cities like Bordeaux or Lyon. The war veterans will soon be dead, all of them, but memories will be kept, lives and deaths honoured.
Published in Euro Metro, 3 november 1999
posted by Pelle at Wednesday, November 03, 1999
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