What Russia Rightfully Remembers, America Forgets
Scott Ritter
What Russia Rightfully Remembers, America Forgets
From left, first lady Melania Trump, President Trump, French President
Emmanuel Macron and first lady Brigitte Macron during a ceremony to
commemorate the 75th anniversary of D-Day. (Alex Brandon / AP)
On June 6, President Trump commemorated the 75th Anniversary of Operation
Overlord, popularly known as D-Day, when approximately 160,000 U.S.,
British, Canadian and Free French soldiers landed in and around the beaches
of Normandy, France. Speaking at the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial
in Colleville-sur-Mer, where the remains of 9,388 American fighting men,
most of whom perished on D-Day, are interned, Trump promoted the mythology
of American omniscience that was born on the beaches of Normandy. "These men
ran through the fires of hell, moved by a force no weapon could destroy,"
Trump declared. "The fierce patriotism of a free, proud and sovereign
people. They battled not for control and domination, but for liberty,
democracy and self-rule. Those who fought here won a future for our nation.
They won the survival of our civilization."
For Americans, D-Day stands out among all others when it comes to
celebrating the Second World War. Immortalized in books, a movie starring
John Wayne, and in the HBO series titled "Band of Brothers," the landings at
Normandy represent to most Americans the turning point in the war against
Hitler's Germany, the moment when the American Army (together with the
British, Canadian and Free French) established a foothold in occupied France
that eventually led to the defeat of Germany's army.
What Trump overlooked in his presentation was the reality that the
liberation of Europe began long before the D-Day landings. And the burden
had almost exclusively been born by the Soviets.
In his defense, Trump is not alone in promoting an America-centric version
of history; his speech was simply the latest in a series of historically
flawed remarks delivered by a succession of American presidents ever since
they began giving speeches at Normandy in commemoration of D-Day. President
George W. Bush's address on the 60th anniversary of the D-Day landings was
typical of the genre, maximizing American glory while ignoring that of the
Soviets. "Americans wanted to fight and win and go home," Bush said. "And
our GIs had a saying: 'The only way home is through Berlin.' That road to
VE-Day was hard and long and traveled by weary and valiant men. And history
will always record where that road began. It began here, with the first
footprints on the beaches of Normandy."
But Bush was wrong; the road to Berlin had its origins at the approaches to
Moscow, where the Soviet army turned back German invaders in December 1941.
It was paved at Stalingrad in 1942 with the blood and flesh of 500,000 dead
Soviet soldiers, who had killed more than 850,000 Nazi soldiers and their
allies; and it was furthered in the bloody fields of Kursk, in 1943, where
at the cost of more than 250,000 dead and 6,000 tanks destroyed, the Soviet
army defeated the last major German offensive on the Eastern front, killing
110,000 Germans and destroying more than 1,200 irreplaceable tanks (the
total number of U.S. and British tanks lost in Europe from D-Day until
VE-Day numbered around 11,500; the total number of tanks lost by the Soviet
Union while fighting Germany was more than 85,000, while the Russians
destroyed more than 40,000 German tanks from June 1941 to November 1944). By
the time the U.S., British, Canadian and Free French forces came ashore at
Normandy, the Germans had already lost the war.
That didn't mean there wasn't some serious fighting left to do. "The Nazis
still had about 50 divisions," Bush noted, "and more than 800,000 soldiers
in France alone. D-Day plus one, and D-Day plus two and many months of
fierce fighting lay ahead, from Arnhem to Hurtgen Forest to the Bulge."
The road to Berlin described by Bush was one where the Soviets simply did
not factor into the equation. "The nations that liberated a conquered Europe
would stand together for the freedom of all of Europe," Bush said. "The
nations that battled across the continent would become trusted partners in
the cause of peace. And our great alliance of freedom is strong, and it is
still needed today." The "trusted partners" Bush referred to was NATO, and
the "cause of peace" contained first the Soviet Union, and later Russia.
